Meeting Date and Subj

[Robert Meyer]

Comments/answers weaved in through text...

--- "S. Lawton " <green_man at bluefrognet.net> wrote:
> My vote goes for the 10th. 
> St. Pat's is right out due to the parking and builing access issue, 
> and Palm Sunday would seem to be a big family commitment day 
> for many. 
> My current research project, and a topic I would like to hear about, 
> that probably ties in well with the NIS/NFS lecture I'm EXTREMELY 
>  sorry I missed, but life is what happens while you're making other 
> plans: 
> 
> How are UIDs and GIDs generated and changed, and what are they 
> used for ?
> Exactly what the permissions actually mean ?
> How are directory and file permissions changed ?
> Can a file or directory's ownership be changed ?

If there is interest, I could do a whole lecture on these topics.  They are
really key to understanding how Unix/Linux deals with files and how to track
down permissions problems.  This will take at least two hours to get through
with sufficient coverage to make the rest easier.  It would be nice to be able
to hook a machine up to a projector to make this stuff visible for the whole
group.

> 
> For example, in linux: 
> 	you have a file in an MSDOS partition called whatever.doc
> To view the document, is that a Read priv or Xcute priv ?
> To actually edit it and change its contents, Write priv or Xcute priv ?

Read to look at it and write to be able to save changes...
> 
> [Word is to Kword as wheelbarrow is to pickup truck :-)]
> 
> To do the above, would it require mtools or wine ?

How about Star Office.  Mtools is for manipulating MS floppies and hard drives
but only basic stuff like copy, delete, make dir, remove dir, cat/type are
supported.  Wine lets you run some M$ applications in Linux.

> Is wine invoked as an application, like Kword ?
Wine comes up in two ways.  You can provoke it like any other application or,
if it's installed correctly, the O/S will recognize the MS executable format
and automagically start Wine with the program as it's argument.

> As a shell ?
> Or is wine run like a daemon, lurking in the background, just 
> showing up when needed ?
> 
> Boot Loaders would seem to be a possible topic also. 
> I didn't realize that LiLo was a legacy "has been".
> It was the default on my MAN 8.1 install, so that's what I've got in. 
> LiLo, MiLo and Grub - but how does J Lo fit in ???  :-)

If you can't think of at least three ways to do something in Linux, you're not
thinking hard enough :-).  LILO and Grub, just like KDE and Gnome are just two
different boot loaders.  They accomplish the same thing (getting the O/S
running) but do so somewhat differently.  MILO is the LILO for DEC Alpha based
machines.  J Lo needs to be booted to get rid of the attitude :-)

> 
> I have put the sound problem on the back burner for a little while 
> because I'm so frustrated I can't stand it. I need to take a second 
> look at it, and maybe attack it from a different angle. 

Sound is probably the single most difficult thing to figure out in Linux. 
Mandrake has done a phenomenal job with their hardware detection software but
there are still some things that don't get recognized correctly due to the
things that a lot of the boards do trying to be SB compatible but not quite
making it.

> 
> Here's some general questions - 
> Is there a linux utility program like Disk Defragmenter to compact 
> files and collect free space at the end of a logical drive ?
> 
> Is there a linux utility program like ScanDisk to pefrorm R/W 
> testing and physically check for bad clusters on a drive ?

This is not necessary because the Linux file system automatically defrags as
it's going along.  When the system comes up, notice the messages that talk
about blocks and frags on the way up.  The frag percentage is typically less
than a few percent.  That means that most files are stored in contiguous chunks
of file system.  I was going to get one from my logs but I am using EXT3 and it
doesn't do e2fsck on the way up.  A treatise on fast file systems descending
from the BSD file system would take a few days to get through but suffice it to
say that defraggers are not necessary on most Unix systems.


> 
> Is there a program that allows linux to read MaxiDisk formatted 
> 1.72 MB floppies ?

If the floppy is in MSDOS format, Linux should be able to read it with no
further effort on your part.  A quick check of /dev/floppy reveals:
0       0u1120  0u1600  0u1722  0u1760  0u1920  0u720  0u820
0u1040  0u1440  0u1680  0u1743  0u1840  0u360   0u800  0u830

The zero means drive zero.  The 'u' refers to high density 3-1/2 drive and the
remaining number refers to the formatted capacity of the disk.  Using the
generic device name (/dev/floppy/0 or /dev/fd0) on a preformatted disk will
automatically figure out the capacity before reading/writing.  Formatting disks
is where it gets a bit dicey and would require reading the 'fd' and 'fdformat'
man pages to get a good understanding of what you're doing.

Any more questions? :-)

Could someone please bring a quake II CD with them to the meeting?  I can't
find mine and have been trying to get QII running on my machine at home.

Cheers!

Bob


=====
Bob Meyer
Knightwing Communications, Inc.
36 Cayuga Blvd
Depew, NY 14043
Phone: 716-308-8931 or 716-681-0076
Meyer_RM at Yahoo.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games
http://sports.yahoo.com