Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #899
From: Digestifier <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 94 01:13:20 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #899, Volume #2                 Sat, 8 Oct 94 01:13:20 EDT

Contents:
  Re: Where is infomagic? (Ian Nandhra)
  Re: where to get wordperfect demo? (Hannes Reinecke)
  Re: How to let normal users run SVGALIB programs (SOLN) (Andrew R. Tefft)
  Word (Text) processors for Linux? (Nick Kralevich)
  Re: LINUX on an Mac Centris 610 DOS machine (Damir Smitlener)
  DOOM! -- Broken Pipe Error (Nancy Robison)
  Re: Yggdrasil Linux Plug and Play CD ver1.1 ? (Paul Bash)
  Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux? (Boudewijn)
  [Q] Slackware 2.0.1, telnet, vi (James H. Haynes)
  Re: Nailed down to 386bsd or linux, now which one? (Brian T. Brunner)
  Re: A good motherboard? (Roland Baker III)
  Re: Nailed down to 386bsd or linux, now which one? (Geoff Rehmet)
  gas and header files (John Richardson)
  Re: Security hole in smail - be careful! (Robert Stockmann)
  Re: Datebook Recommendations (John Rodkey)
  Re: How to let normal users run SVGALIB programs (SOLN) (Tom Cross)
  Re: X News-reader for LinuX (dave delaune)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Ian Nandhra)
Subject: Re: Where is infomagic?
Date: Sat, 08 Oct 94 02:03:03 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>
>[email-masked] (FORSEILLES STEPHAN) writes:
>
>>       I tried to mail infomagic.com but it bounced...
>
>>       Did they change their IP or did they just shut down theeir business?
>
>The 800# worked last time I tried it (a couple of weeks ago).  Maybe 
>there is still a problem from the move.  (?)

Here are the numbers :

        +1-800-800-6613         USA and CANADA
        +1-602-526-9565         Voice
        +1-602-526-9573         Fax

They are still having email problems though......

--
[email-masked]
Lasermoon Ltd, 2a Beaconsfield Road, Fareham, Hants, England. PO16 0QB
Voice +44 (0) 329 826444  Fax: +44 (0) 329 825936
             +++ The UNIX & Linux Freeware Specialists! +++

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Hannes Reinecke)
Subject: Re: where to get wordperfect demo?
Date: 07 Oct 1994 14:37:52 GMT

[email-masked] (Michael Babcock) schrieb:

   Anybody know where I can get a copy of the wordperfect demo that runs
   under linux?
   ftp.wordperfect.com is apparently dead.

try zarquon.mathi.uni-heidelberg.de:/pub/Linux/Apps/WPdemo

   Thanks

My pleasure

Hannes
=======
Hannes Reinecke                      |
<[email-masked]> |  XVII.: WHAT ?
                                     |  
PGP fingerprint available            |          T.Pratchett: Small Gods
see  'finger' for details            |          

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Andrew R. Tefft)
Subject: Re: How to let normal users run SVGALIB programs (SOLN)
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:49:00 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Nick Hilliard) writes:
>Andrew Berkley ([email-masked]) wrote:
  The real solution, which
>: most SVGALIB install programs do (witness zgv) is to install the program
>: with owner _root_, and set the 'Run this program as owner' bit on the
>: program.
>: chmod a+s FileName
>
>This is *NOT* a solution.  This is *DANGEROUS* and *STUPID*.

Uh, think again. Unless svgalib has changed since the newest version
I have, programs using it MUST be setuid root, or run by root. If it
has changed since 1.11, then ignore the rest of this message.

Just for fun I just ftp'ed the newest version I could find, 1.11,
and the README says:

        Programs that use svgalib must be setuid root. I don't know how
        desirable it is to have this changed; direct port access can hardly
        be done without. Root priviledges can now be given up right after
        initialization.

>Please a) read some books about system administration and security, and b)
>think twice about the logical outcome of this sort of 'advice' before
>posting to the net.

No, setuid is not inherently evil. Dangerous if you don't know
what you're doing, yes. Necessary, sometimes. Please a) read the
documentation of the package you are speaking of, and b) know what
you're talking about before posting kneejerk responses.

The README in the package also states:

        4.  How to use svgalib (and vgagl)
 
        Do use vga_init as a first line. This will give up root priviledges right
        after initialization, making setuid-root binaries relatively safe.

-- 

Andy Tefft               - new, expanded .sig -     [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Nick Kralevich)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Word (Text) processors for Linux?
Date: 4 Oct 1994 04:26:04 GMT

Greetings.

I'm attempting to find a word processor for Linux.  One that will
allow me to create reports, and type up documents.  

So far I've been using Jove, which is useful as a text editor, but
not as a word processor.  I'm looking for somthing that will allow
for different fonts, along with text formatting.

I don't think emacs is what I'm looking for.

I've heard of TeX, but I'm not really sure what it is, and I'm 
hesitating to install the 14 disks it takes for the binary
distribution.

So, what is a good word processor for Linux or Unix in general?
Preferably somthing that is freeware or shareware.

What do you use?

Thanks,
-- Nick Kralevich
   [email-masked]

-- 
Nick Kralevich                        [email-masked]
"A man sits with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems shorter than 
a minute.  But tell that same man to sit on a hot stove for a minute, 
it is longer than any hour.  That's relativity."  -- Einstein

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Damir Smitlener)
Subject: Re: LINUX on an Mac Centris 610 DOS machine
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 1994 19:20:04 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
(Michelle Murrain) wrote:

> I'm strongly considering buying a used Macintosh Centris 610 DOS
> machine, which has a PC motherboard (486 SX/25) inside. Has anyone out
> there tried to install linux in this kind of machine? If so, were there
> any special hurdles you had to jump? I've been working with linux for a
> couple of months on a standard PC, but haven't ever installed it
> myself, so I guess that makes me a relative newbie. Thanks for any
> info.
> 
>                        Michelle
> 
> Michelle Murrain, Ph.D.
> School of Natural Science             [email-masked]
> Hampshire College                    [email-masked]
> Amherst, MA 01002
> URL: http://www.hampshire.edu/Hampshire/ns/html/Murrain.html

Having asked this myself, the replies I received all said...Nope, won't
work. Apparently Linux needs to see an IDE floppy (? Why ?) or it has to
boot from an IDE hard drive. They don't sound like particularly good
reasons to me, but that is what I've been told.

Maybe someone here can enlighten us? The new Houdini card for PowerMacs is
due in a few weeks, and Linux would solve oh! so many of my problems.

-- 
damir smitlener
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Nancy Robison)
Subject: DOOM! -- Broken Pipe Error
Date: 7 Oct 1994 17:38:54 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

Hey,
  I just downloaded DOOM for linux, and when I try to crank it up
I get a broken pipe error.  Any Suggestions?
  Also, the Xwindow pops up ok, but All the graphics are kinda 
hosed.  I'm running on a 486DX33, IDE, SVGA-Orchid Celsius, 8meg
RAM w/4meg swapfile.  Linux 1.1.45/XFree86-3.1/Fvwm.  Any help
would be greatly appreciated.  I've played this game under MSDOG
and would like to see it under Linux.

Thanks,

-- 
N. Robison
[email-masked]

=================================================================
Standard Disclaimers Apply!
=================================================================

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Paul Bash)
Subject: Re: Yggdrasil Linux Plug and Play CD ver1.1 ?
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 15:25:06 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Paul Bash <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>  4) When attempting to auto-detect my modem and mouse, the install process
>     detected the mouse on the port where my modem is attached and detected no
>     modem _at all_. Even though Linux has been happily using this modem and
>     mouse for the last year. The result was that I'm thrown onto the X desktop
>     with no mouse but fvwm waiting for me to click the mouse button to indicate
>     where I want it to place the Control Panel window. I'm given absolutely
>     no chance to override what the install process detected. I have to 
>     reboot the system, manually edit the Xconfig file, and start again. Good
>     thing I know where to find the Xconfig file. Many newcomers wouldn't. Nice.
>    

This is wrong. I went back and checked things and you _are_ given the option of 
specifying your mouse port the first time you try to run X. The install process
still didn't locate my modem and still didn't give me an option to specify where
it was, but my X problems were probably just a product of my having a bad day. 

-- 
Paul Bash   
[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Boudewijn)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?
Date: Fri, 07 Oct 94 23:50:00 CET
Reply-To: [email-masked]

In article <[email-masked]>  
([email-masked]) wrote on Re: Word (Text) processors for Linux?

> 
> This is not to say that LaTeX is a bad system.  It probably serves many
> people's needs quite well.  I just don't think it's the system of the fu-
> ture.
> 

Couldn't agree more. I tried Linux and all editors it came with, but 
even for Dutch they weren't adequate; now I use Windows with a 
US-International keyboard definition and some Tibetan and IPA fonts I made in 
CorelDraw!. 
(For some other poster, who's name got lost on my hard disk: I have tried 
to program both Windows and X-Windows and found them equally impossible. 
But at least, there is Visual Basic for wimps like me...)
-- 
Boudewijn Rempt
Kloosterstraat 34 1.2, 2021 VN Haarlem.
't Gezichtje eerst, dan de handen,
dan de bibben, en 't laatst de tanden.
                                  Mijnheer Dil, De tuinen van Dorr, Paul 
Biegel.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (James H. Haynes)
Subject: [Q] Slackware 2.0.1, telnet, vi
Date: 4 Oct 1994 04:54:15 GMT

I just installed Slackware 2.0.1 after wiping the disk.  I did not select
VIM to be installed, so I have whatever vi it is you get when you don't
select VIM.

I telnet from a Sun workstation (SunOS 4.1.3) to the Linux machine.  stty
shows the terminal (xterm) has 0 rows and 0 columns.  If I run vi and do
:set it tells me there are 65 lines.  If I use stty and set rows 24 and
restart vi it still things there are 65 lines.

If I rlogin from the same Sun workstation to the Linux machine stty
correctly shows 24 rows and vi correctly gets 24 lines.

How are we losing the terminal geometry with telnet, and why isn't vi
getting it right after I have set it with stty?

------------------------------

Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc
From: [email-masked] (Brian T. Brunner)
Subject: Re: Nailed down to 386bsd or linux, now which one?
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 19:25:23 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Woody Jin)
writes:
!!  Xref: enterprise comp.os.linux.misc:26480 comp.os.386bsd.misc:2887
!!  Path:
!! 
enterprise!wdl1!enews.sgi.com!sgigate.sgi.com!sgiblab!cs.uoregon.edu!usenet.ee.p
pdx.edu!fastrac.llnl.gov!lll-winken.llnl.gov!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!howland.reston
n.ans.net!swrinde!news.uh.edu!moocow.cs.uh.edu!wjin
!!  From: [email-masked] (Woody Jin)
!!  Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.386bsd.misc
!!  Subject: Re: Nailed down to 386bsd or linux, now which one?
!!  Date: 6 Oct 1994 20:03:40 GMT
!!  Organization: University of Houston
!!  Lines: 17
!!  Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
!!  References: <[email-masked]> <[email-masked]>
!!  NNTP-Posting-Host: moocow.cs.uh.edu
!!  Keywords: mosaic term telnet
!!  
!!  In article <[email-masked]>,
!!  Nate Williams <[email-masked]> wrote:
!!  >In article <[email-masked]>, Po-Han Lin <[email-masked]>
!!  wrote:
!!  >>386bsd is monolithic (controlled I guess), while linux is non-monolithic.
!!  >
!!  >You were misinformed.  Both Linux and the BSD's use monolithic kernels. 
!!  >For a fun discussion of this, there is a series of articles were Linus
!!  >and Andy Tanenbaum 'discussed' the merits of both of these when Linux
!!  >was in it's infancy.
!!  
!!  BTW, I have a question.   Compiling  FreeBSD kernel  in 386 is much faster
!!  than compiling Linux kernel in 486 with twice memory.
!!  I found that Linux compiles everything whatever options I choose.
!!  Am I doing something wrong, or is it the feature of Linux ?
!!  
!!  --
!!  Woody Jin

-- 
.sig under construction, please hold.

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Roland Baker III)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: A good motherboard?
Date: 4 Oct 1994 05:04:15 GMT

I've been building systems with the Pentium 90 INTEL Plato
Mother Board and the NCR SCSI and ATI WIN TURBO. I've
had great sucecess. I've seen the highest performance yet
under Linux.

Best,
Roland
Net Express

-- 
Roland H. Baker, III
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California at Berkeley
[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Geoff Rehmet)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Nailed down to 386bsd or linux, now which one?
Date: 4 Oct 1994 19:22:26 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

=====BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE=====

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jeff Kesselman) writes:

>Actually, as I understand it, this was not what the poster was talkign 
>about.  From his parenthetical statement, I think he's referring to the 
>fact that Linux is being developed openly by a large group, while FreeBSD 
>is controlled and dvevloped by one fairly closed group.  (I don't know if 
>thsi is true, BTW., I've just heard thsi claim before.)

This has been a topic of debate previously as well.  FreeBSD's
development is open to anyone who wants to take part.  The official
distributions happen to be coordinated by a group of people.  This
group is a dynamic entity.  People come and go with time (I think it is
fair to say that there are more coming than going).  Anybody can
contribute code for inclusion into the releases -- if enough people
like it, it is really good, or you bug someone with commit priveledges
long enough, then it will get in.  (A warning here: if you contribute
enough code, you will probably be given commit priveleges, you will cease
to have a social life, and get very little sleep. :-))
The Linux kernel is coordinated by one person (Linus).  Anybody can
contribute code to it.  Thus there is not much difference here, except
that a group of people maintain the FreeBSD sources, whereas one person
maintains the Linux kernel.  Other parts of Linux are maintained by
individuals or groups, and distributions are done by yet other groups.
(With FreeBSD there just happens to be one team, who work together on
shipping the kernel, the userland, packages, and the whole damn thang.)

I don't think it is fair to say that either is more or less open, or
that the latest sources of one are more quickly available than the
other.  (You can get the latest source changes to FreeBSD within hours
of the commits going through.)  Anyone can subscribe to the mailing
list which carries the commit log entries for source changes made, and
can make their comments about the changes.  I don't know if there is
any such way of getting to-the-minute updates of source changes made to
Linux.
(I wouldn't hazard a guess on how soon after a source change is made
in Linux, it becomes available to the general hacking public.)

I think the comment that Linux is developed by a large open group as
against FreeBSD being controlled by a small number of people is
incorrect.  This is just failing to see the difference between the
group of people who develop the system, and the group of people who
take the responsibility of making sure that code repositories get
maintained properly, that releases get rolled etc. etc.

It is probably fair enough to say that both are developed by large
groups of developers/hackers, while the way in which maintenance of
source code (CVS etc), and the rolling of releases is done is very
different.  I don't think that anyone should go attacking either way as
being bad, but should just stick with the system they think is good, and
do some decent hacking, and contribute some nice code to it.

This question is again open to debate.  Some people are going to assert
that the approach taken by FreeBSD and NetBSD is more open, whereas,
others will advocate the Linux approach.

Geoff.

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--
 Geoff Rehmet, Computer Science Department, Rhodes University, South Africa
  FreeBSD core team: [email-masked]          | ____   _ o         /\
  [email-masked], [email-masked]     |___  _-\_<,        / /\/\
  finger [email-masked] for PGP public key |    (*)/'(*)    /\/ /  \ \

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (John Richardson)
Subject: gas and header files
Date: 4 Oct 1994 19:24:48 GMT

Is there any info about the seemingly "advanced" gas/gcc assembly
in the linux header files?  As I was searching though the code
I came across

#define restore_flags(x) \
__asm__ __volatile__("pushl %0 ; popfl": /* no output */ :"r" (x):"memory")

I can figure out what the first two ops are and what the macro does
by the name and looking at the operations, but what are the ':'s and
the "r" and the "memory"?  Where would I look to get this info?

--
John Richardson
[email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Robert Stockmann)
Subject: Re: Security hole in smail - be careful!
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 1994 00:31:46 GMT

In <[email-masked]>, Martin Bartosch ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Hi,

: last night I discovered a potential danger to all sites that run smail.
: A quick check on some other sites (thanks to the folks on #linux)
: revealed that most systems are affected by this.

: Essentially, the smail bug will allow ordinary users to create files
: anywhere they want to:

: Assume /usr/lib/sendmail is a softlink to /usr/bin/smail.

: $ /usr/lib/sendmail -d -D/etc/i_am_broken noone@universe
: $ ls -l /etc/i_am*

: Be aware of this. Some sites even come up with permissions rw-rw-rw-!
: This behaviour is not affected by -smtp-debug.

:                               Just my $0.02.

:                                       Martin.
You can figure out these two of course:

 $ /usr/lib/sendmail -d -D/etc/shadow noone@universe
 $ /usr/lib/sendmail -d -D/etc/passwd noone@universe

But it looks worse than it is. If an existing debug file like /etc/passwd
is choosen, then the permissions of /etc/passwd are not changed to 666.
At least not on my site. Furthermore are the debug lines appended 
to the already existing lines.
However its of course serious trouble that Joe user at any Linux BBS
can write in any file he wants. Luckily its only debug lines that 
are written, not passwd entrys for new or existing users:)

Robert

PS is there a quick fix for this security hole?

--
++-------------------------++------------------------------------------++
|| R.M. Stockmann          ||   Delft University of Technology         ||
|| [email-masked] ||   Department of Chemical Engineering     ||
|| phone: +31 15  784395   ||   Section Industrial Catalysis           ||
|| home:  +31 1620 36177   ||   Julianalaan 136                        ||
|| fax:   +31 17  784452   ||   2628 BL Delft  The Netherlands         ||
++-------------------------++------------------------------------------++

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (John Rodkey)
Subject: Re: Datebook Recommendations
Date: 7 Oct 1994 18:06:42 -0700

[email-masked] (Raymond Kraft) writes:

>Hello,

>Does anyone have any recommendations on a datebook that will run on a system 
>that does not have Motif?  I've tried "plan", but it needs Motif, and
>the precompiled version seems to exhibit a few quirks on my system.  Thanks
>in advance for any suggestions.

You might consider 'ical'.  it's a tcl script, and is pretty snazzy.

John
-- 
============[[[[[[]]]]]]============
John Rodkey  [email-masked]
Director of Academic Computing,
Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Tom Cross)
Subject: Re: How to let normal users run SVGALIB programs (SOLN)
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 13:35:05 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mr D R Barlow) writes:
>In article <[email-masked]>,
>       [email-masked] (Nick Hilliard) writes:
>>Andrew Berkley ([email-masked]) wrote:
>>: (try running sasteroids from a telnet :).  But, since SVGALIB needs access
>>: to /dev/console (new versions) which is a link to a tty0-6, you need
>>: someway of letting it access them.  One solution is to make tty? world
>>: readable/writeable/etc, but that's just wrong...  The real solution, which
>>: most SVGALIB install programs do (witness zgv) is to install the program
>>: with owner _root_, and set the 'Run this program as owner' bit on the
>>: program.
>>: chmod a+s FileName
>>
>>This is *NOT* a solution.  This is *DANGEROUS* and *STUPID*.
>
>Arguably.  It is however the only way to run svgalib programs as
>non-root.  The problem isn't the tty permission, it's the fact that
>svgalib does direct port access.  
>

Couldn't you use sudo?  sudo allows you to setup certain users to use
certain programs with root permissions.

-- 
Tom Cross    System Administrator     Kendeco Industrial Supply
[email-masked]        My opinions are mine, not my employer's
Voice: 612-253-1020  FAX: 612-253-6956  Info: [email-masked]

------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (dave delaune)
Subject: Re: X News-reader for LinuX
Date: 2 Oct 1994 07:10:44 GMT
Reply-To: [email-masked]

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Wrath Child) writes:
|> I'm looking for an Xnews reader for LinuX.  If anyone has 
|> any info about something like this...I would be a very 
|> happy camper.
|> 
|> Thanx,
|> wrathchild

try sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/X11/xapps/networked/xrn-6.17.tar.gz

Dave DeLaune

------------------------------

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End of Linux-Misc Digest
******************************