I Need Some Help With X-Window System
Tom N
from you at Google Groups and read the FAQ. Thanks. Here's my
background.
Over 20 years ago, while working for the Government, I learned a
lot about UNIX computers. All command line stuff. Then I lost
interest until a friend started raving about Linux. I looked into
it and decided that Slackware was the choice for me, and used a
neighbor's Mac computer to download the iso images for 12.0. But
we couldn't make a bootable CD! So I took the CDs to the old
Gateway I picked up at a garage sale, and over a period of two
weeks managed to build a base system from the files there. With
many, many trips to my friend's place to find and download new
documentation.
So I did it! Slackware 12.0 is what I am using right here.
444MB. But I'm stumped about the X-Window System and really
need some help getting started setting it up. I have 128M of
RAM and a 200M Swap partition and a 20G hard drive. My video
card is, according to lspci.
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 (GMCH)
Graphics Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82810E
DC-133 (CGC) Chipset Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Unknown device 0012
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
Memory at ffe80000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1
So where do I start, please?
Tom
Michael Black
That should get something going, it won't be the best but it seems
that Slackware now has a default config and you can get something.
There was a step in the installer that asked you what kind of
windows manager you wanted to use. Presumably you specified something
at that point, I don't know what happens if you ignore that step.
Any customization of /etc/X11/xorg.conf will be about taking advantage
of whatever fancier video card you have (if any).
xorgconfig is a program to set up xorg.conf if you don't want to
be editing it by hand.
Michael
Olive
As root and without running X, type Xorg -configure. This should
generate a working xorg.conf file for your card; if you have a
relatively recent hardware all should be magically detected. Copy the
generated file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf and enjoy!
You can also remove/rename /etc/X11/xorg.conf and starting X without
configuration file at all, all should be detected automatically (the
interest of the first approach is if you want to customize the generated
file).
After that simply type startx as your normal user (or change the default
init level to 4 in /etc/inittab).
Olive
Thomas Overgaard
Michael Black wrote :
> I don't know what happens if you ignore that step.
>
Then Slackware defaults to KDE, but users can change that running
'xwmconfig'.
>
> xorgconfig is a program to set up xorg.conf
Another and IMHO better option is 'xorgsetup'.
--
Thomas O.
This area is designed to become quite warm during normal operation.
Tom N
Hello Olive and Michael and Thomas. Thanks to you all. I flipped a coin and
tried Olive's approach and it went pretty well. I ran Xorg -configure and
moved the resulting file to /etc/X11 and renamed it, as instructed.
Here's from /var/log/Xorg.0.log:
(II) Setting vga for screen 0.
(II) Loading sub module "vgahw"
(II) LoadModule: "vgahw"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libvgahw.so
(II) Module vgahw: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.3.0, module version = 0.1.0
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 1.2
(==) intel(0): Depth 24, (==) framebuffer bpp 32
(EE) intel(0): Given bpp (32) is not supported by i810 driver
(II) UnloadModule: "intel"
(II) UnloadModule: "vgahw"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libvgahw.so
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
Fatal server error:
no screens found
----------------------
Neither bpp or 32 appear in the xorg.conf file and I don't
know what they mean.
Anyone know where I can go from here?
Tom
P.S. I'm really new to this usenet and news reader stuff,
so please cut me some slack (!) about it. I tried tin and
couldn't make any sense of the documents so now I have slrn
and at least got this far.
Tom N
Xorg -configure. So I cleaned everything up and ran xorgconfig, which
is a lot more complicated. The results are promising and strange. Everything
looked okay to me up to the end here:
.....
(--) intel(0): Chipset: "i810e"
(--) intel(0): Linear framebuffer at 0xF8000000
(--) intel(0): IO registers at addr 0xFFE80000
(EE) GARTInit: Unable to open /dev/agpgart (No such device)
(EE) intel(0): AGP GART support is not available. Make sure your kernel has
agpgart support or that the agpgart kernel module is loaded.
(II) UnloadModule: "i810"
(II) UnloadModule: "int10"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libint10.so
(II) UnloadModule: "vbe"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libvbe.so
(II) UnloadModule: "xaa"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libxaa.so
(II) UnloadModule: "vgahw"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libvgahw.so
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
Fatal server error:
no screens found
------------------------------------
But the agpgart module _was_ loaded, and /dev/agpgart _does_
exist!
Anyone know what's up with this?
Thanks again,
Tom
Thomas Overgaard
Tom N. wrote :
> Anyone know where I can go from here?
You could try add this line to the Screen section of your
/etc/X11/xorg.conf:
DefaultDepth 24
Tom N
>
> Tom N. wrote :
>
>> Anyone know where I can go from here?
>
> You could try add this line to the Screen section of your
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
> DefaultDepth 24
Hi Thomas. Tried that and got the same result. Thanks.
Been doing a lot of searching with google using specific
error messages in quotes, and am swamped with material.
The last effort with xorgconfig, which you suggested, is
the most promising because it lingers the longest with
a blank screen and doesn't seem to have problems to the
very end.
Still can't figure out why X can't see that device file
and kernel module....
It looks like everyone with an i810 chip has problems
setting up X, so at least I'm not alone.
Cheers,
Tom
Mutant
The answers to your problem are in the FreeBSD Handbook (for one)
under Setting up or Configuring X.
Basicly after running xorg -configure you have to edit the resulting
file and place it in (for one) /etc/X11/ .
What you need to edit are the screen refresh rates. VertRefresh
"check manual" and HorizRefresh "see same manual"
You need a Modes line for the DefaultDepth. That will do it.
Have fun,
Mutant
Tom N
X-Window section. Looks like a good document to have. I will
report back after the reading is done and I've tried once again
to configure X-Windows here. Thanks a lot.
(I do have my monitor's manual.)
Tom
Tom N
>> On 2007-11-11, Thomas Overgaard <tho...@post2.tele.dk> wrote:
HA!!!!
I am posting this from an XTERM using TWM Window Manager!!
The font is ridiculously small. I did like Mutant said here
and found out that DRI needed a Depth of 16, then the server
kept quitting because it couldn't find the default font 'fixed'.
Searched with google and it turns out the misc cursor font package
was missing from the CD and I downloaded it from slackware.com and
installed it and I'm here!!!!!
Blessings to Michael and Thomas and Olive and Mutant.
I read everything that's posted here, even if a lot of it may as well be in
Martian.
So Mutant. What's mutated about you? Got two heads?
Tom
Mutant
I got mutant powers. So ....
Mutant
Thomas Overgaard
Tom N. wrote :
> Searched with google and it turns out the misc cursor font package
> was missing from the CD
Then something must be wrong with this CD. Keep in mind that if other
strange problems show up then it might be because of a missing package.
Tom N
>
> Tom N. wrote :
>
>> Searched with google and it turns out the misc cursor font package
>> was missing from the CD
>
> Then something must be wrong with this CD. Keep in mind that if other
> strange problems show up then it might be because of a missing package.
You hit the nail right on the head, Thomas. I've had to retrieve 6 missing
packages from the Slackware packages site already. The .txt and .asc files
were on the CD, but not the .tgz.
Installed Firefox last night, and it looks great and works fine on local
files, but when I try to connect to a website it just says "loading" forever.
This is what I found in /var/log/syslog then:
Nov 11 22:45:39 darkstar kernel: mtrr: base(0xf8000000) is not aligned on a
size(0x180000) boundary
Nov 11 22:45:46 darkstar kernel: [drm:i810_wait_ring] *ERROR* space: 65520
wanted 65528
Nov 11 22:45:46 darkstar kernel: [drm:i810_wait_ring] *ERROR* lockup
Using the locate utility I found this:
/lib/modules/2.6.21.5/kernel/drivers/char/drm/i810.ko
and
/var/log/packages/libdrm-230-i486-1
and
/usr/include/asm-i386/mtrr.h
I am using the huge kernel.
If you have any idea what I need to do here, please let me know.
Yours,
Tom
Tom N
Thomas,
I fixed the problem by disabling DRI by taking your original advice
and setting the DefaultDepth to 24. Firefox is now working fine, apparently.
Of course, I don't know what DRI/DRM is and what I am missing, but it's
okay for the nonce.
Many thanks, Thomas.
Tom
+Alan Hicks+
Hash: SHA1
Please trim the quotes of any posts you are replying to, thanks.
On 2007-11-12, Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
> Of course, I don't know what DRI/DRM is and what I am missing, but it's
> okay for the nonce.
DRI/DRM is a component of Xorg that's used for the Direct Rendring of
3D objects.
I've got to say, I'm most impressed with you, Tom. Most rookies give
up and quickly go over to Ubuntu or another of the newbie-friendly
distributions. You however, not only stuck it out but came into the
group after lurking for awhile, and posted a strong question in which
you cited the work you'd done and provided information on the hardware
involved. We need more rookies like you.
Give yourself a BOZO point.
- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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Joe Umstead
> On 2007-11-12, Thomas Overgaard <tho...@post2.tele.dk> wrote:
>
> You hit the nail right on the head, Thomas. I've had to retrieve 6 missing
> packages from the Slackware packages site already. The .txt and .asc files
> were on the CD, but not the .tgz.
>
> Installed Firefox last night, and it looks great and works fine on local
> files, but when I try to connect to a website it just says "loading"
> forever.
>
> Yours,
>
> Tom
Hello World,
I am new to Slackware and am having a hard time also, I see Firefox takes
forever to load a web_page. I also notice this. I have SuSE_9.2 on another
hard_drive and runs much faster. Also having trouble with printer, screen
size, and wheel mouse.
Joe Umstead
Ron Gibson
> Still can't figure out why X can't see that device file and kernel
> module....
> It looks like everyone with an i810 chip has problems setting up X, so at
> least I'm not alone.
I'd run as root...
xorgconfig
There will be a few easy questions asked at first. For naming if it
asks you if you want to accept the default name just hit enter. First
big question will be...
"Now we want to set the specifications of the monitor. The two critical
parameters are the vertical refresh rate, which is the rate at which the
the whole screen is refreshed, and most importantly the horizontal sync
rate, which is the rate at which scanlines are displayed.
The valid range for horizontal sync and vertical sync should be
documented in the manual of your monitor."
Get that information by looking in your monitor manual or going to the
website and looking up that model's specs - usually they will archive a
manual for the monitor a very long time.
The next big question will be...
"Do you want to look at the card database?"
Answer yes. You need...
15 ** Intel i810 (generic) [i810]
or...
291 Intel 810 -
One or the other should work.
If all else fails these may work...
0 * Generic VESA compatible -
1 * Generic VGA compatible -
Don't worry as the very last question is...
"Shall I write it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf?"
You can bail out here by answering No (N). If it still wants to write
it somewhere write it as /test.conf if you are unsure if thats the right
settings. The file...
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
Is the default X settings file for the system. You can always regenerate
the file and you will probably need to tweak it a bit more later. Once
you get it all set up like you like it save a copy of the file to a safe
place. In fact I archive all of /etc on another partition.
--
Linux Help: http://rsgibson.com/linux.htm
Email - rsgi...@verizon.borg
Replace borg with net
Ron Gibson
> Installed Firefox last night, and it looks great and works fine on
> local files, but when I try to connect to a website it just says
> "loading" forever.
You don't have IPV6 module loading do you? If so disable that.
do...
lsmod | grep -i ipv6
To see.
Tom N
>
> Please trim the quotes of any posts you are replying to, thanks.
>
> On 2007-11-12, Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>> Of course, I don't know what DRI/DRM is and what I am missing, but it's
>> okay for the nonce.
>
> DRI/DRM is a component of Xorg that's used for the Direct Rendring of
> 3D objects.
>
> I've got to say, I'm most impressed with you, Tom. Most rookies give
> up and quickly go over to Ubuntu or another of the newbie-friendly
> distributions. You however, not only stuck it out but came into the
> group after lurking for awhile, and posted a strong question in which
> you cited the work you'd done and provided information on the hardware
> involved. We need more rookies like you.
>
> Give yourself a BOZO point.
>
> - --
> It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
> Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
> Ecclesiastes 7:5
Thanks very much, Alan. (I hope it is okay to leave off those "+'s").
I read a lot about Unix and Linux distrbutions, and the Unix ones
like FreeBSD and OpenBSD seeme to be too limited and the Linux ones
like Mandrake and Redhat and Suse and Debian seem to be catering
to Windows users who don't want to learn about computers.
Slackware is as simple and clean as a modern Operating System can
be, as far as I can tell.
I hope you don't mind if I take care of a little unfinished business
here, but it seems like I should follow through for the record.
Even after I raised the DefaultDepth to 24, web pages with Firefox
were still loading too slow, and I was still getting those mtrr error
messages from the kernel, so I read the
mtrr document in the kernel sources and decided to cut the video ram
that Xorg came up with (according to /var/log/Xorg.0.log) in half,
and it worked.
I put this in the Devices Section of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
VideoRam 4096
Now everything seems to be okay and the kernel error messages are gone.
Take it easy, and thanks again,
Tom
Tom N
Thanks, Ron. That's basically what I ended up doing, after about 12 tries
with the various setup programs and all of the great input I received
here and a lot of searching with google.
Good that you've put it all in a single post.
X seems to be running okay here now.
I have decided not to use Gnome or KDE. After researching window managers
on the web I've downloaded the source code for Ratpoison, which looks
perfect for someone who runs from the command line.
Many thanks again,
Tom
~kurt
> I have decided not to use Gnome or KDE. After researching window managers
> on the web I've downloaded the source code for Ratpoison, which looks
> perfect for someone who runs from the command line.
If you decide you want overlapping windows, you might want to check out
blackbox, which already comes with Slackware (the command "xwmconfig"
allows you to select from available window managers already on the system).
- Kurt
Realto Margarino
>On 2007-11-13, +Alan Hicks+ <al...@lizella.netWORK> wrote:
>> Give yourself a BOZO point.
The term is bozo. No capitals. And it is an insult and nothing
but.
>Thanks very much, Alan. (I hope it is okay to leave off those
>"+'s"). I read a lot about Unix and Linux distrbutions, and the
>Unix ones like FreeBSD and OpenBSD seeme to be too limited and the
>Linux ones like Mandrake and Redhat and Suse and Debian seem to be
>catering to Windows users who don't want to learn about computers.
Using slackware does not teach you more about computers than any
other OS and that includes windoze.
>Slackware is as simple and clean as a modern Operating System can
>be, as far as I can tell.
No, slackware is neither simple nor clean. Slackware uses an
old-fashioned, text-based method of administration. This method of
administration takes much longer to learn, and much longer to use.
It is anything but simple and clean. And this is why other distros,
including windoze, have abandoned it. The only people who like
slackware's method of administration are either old folks who are
used to it or idiots like The Coward Hicks.
>I hope you don't mind if I take care of a little unfinished
>business here, but it seems like I should follow through for the
>record.
Who cares what The Coward Hicks cares about? Nobody here, that's
for sure. You won't win any awards by kissing his ass, that's for
sure.
>Even after I raised the DefaultDepth to 24, web pages with Firefox
>were still loading too slow, and I was still getting those mtrr
>error messages from the kernel, so I read the mtrr document in the
>kernel sources and decided to cut the video ram that Xorg came up
>with (according to /var/log/Xorg.0.log) in half, and it worked.
Good for you.
>I put this in the Devices Section of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
>VideoRam 4096
>Now everything seems to be okay and the kernel error messages are
>gone.
Great.
>Take it easy, and thanks again,
Don't tell The Coward to take it easy. And never, ever, thank
hillbilly trash like The Coward Hicks. All you do is make yourself
a laughing-stock.
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
>I have decided not to use Gnome or KDE. After researching window
>managers on the web I've downloaded the source code for Ratpoison,
>which looks perfect for someone who runs from the command line.
Runs from the command line? WTF is that supposed to mean? If you
want to run a CLI program, run it from the CLI. If you want to run
a windowed program, run it from a windowed system.
You never, ever, choose your application to fit your desired
operating system, unless you're an imbecile. You always use the
best application for the job, and you always use the OS and hardware
that supports that application. If you do otherwise, you don't know
what you are doing.
And how about running "netconfig" from root (yes, from your beloved
CLI) and changing your domain name from darkstar.example.net?
cordially, as always,
rm
Tom N
Kurt,
I checked out blackbox on the web. Looks really good. It's probably what I would
use if I didn't prefer the keyboard to the mouse. Got ratpoison built and
installed and it's really nice. Using rxvt for the xterms.
I'm using less than a GB of hdd and have a RAM footprint of 29MB right now.
As an aside, I built ratpoison and par (a paragraph formatter) and msmtp
(simple sendmail) from code and notice that I have a makepkg utility.
Do you know where I can FTP them for others to use?
I appreciate the suggestion and the opportunity to learn about blackbox.
Tom
Tom N
Thanks for clearing that up.
Tom
Realto Margarino
>> If you decide you want overlapping windows, you might want to
>> check out blackbox, which already comes with Slackware (the
>> command "xwmconfig" allows you to select from available window
>> managers already on the system).
>I checked out blackbox on the web. Looks really good. It's probably
>what I would use if I didn't prefer the keyboard to the mouse.
In other words, you've never learned how to use a mouse?
>Got ratpoison built and installed and it's really nice. Using rxvt
>for the xterms.
rxvt? ratpoison? Are you nuts? Why don't you just install
slackware 3.0 or something?
>I'm using less than a GB of hdd and have a RAM footprint of 29MB
>right now.
And you are bragging about this? What on earth are you going to
run? Are you just going to sit there, smack your lips, and watch
the cursor blink? Is that what this is all about?
>As an aside, I built ratpoison and par (a paragraph formatter) and
>msmtp (simple sendmail) from code and notice that I have a makepkg
>utility.
>Do you know where I can FTP them for others to use?
Why? Who would want them, who couldn't, and wouldn't, compile them
for themselves?
>I appreciate the suggestion and the opportunity to learn about
>blackbox.
If you are going to spend time learning, there are better things to
learn than ratpoison, blackbox, and CLI.
Please stop posting to this ng. We are trying to clean things up
for real computer users and admins. You are an idiot and you don't
belong here.
cordially, as always,
rm
Two Ravens
> Who cares what The Coward Hicks cares about? Nobody here, that's
> for sure...
Do you have any evidence to back up the assertion you make in the second
sentence above? Can you quantify the number of those reading this
newsgroup, and separate them into those who do care what any given person
subscribed to this newsgroup posts to it, and those who don't? As you so
often make similar remarks concerning Alan Hicks it is self evident that
you must be included in the former group, those who do care.
--
Two Ravens
"...hit the squirrel..."
Mike
[...]
>
> I have decided not to use Gnome or KDE. After researching window managers
> on the web I've downloaded the source code for Ratpoison, which looks
> perfect for someone who runs from the command line.
>
Missed most of the rest of the thread, but have you looked at IceWM?
I found it rather well designed with regard to not needing to use a
mouse. YMMV of course.
--
________________.0.________________
The Way of the Chao-Pao! is strong.
http://tinyurl.com/382gmp
-----------.|.-----------
Dan C
> Please stop posting to this ng. We are trying to clean things up
> for real computer users and admins. You are an idiot and you don't
> belong here.
Perfect advice for you to follow yourself, dimwit.
> cordially, as always,
Smeg off, troll.
--
"Ubuntu" - an African word meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
Tom N
> Responding to Tom N...
>
> [...]
>>
>> I have decided not to use Gnome or KDE. After researching window managers
>> on the web I've downloaded the source code for Ratpoison, which looks
>> perfect for someone who runs from the command line.
>>
> Missed most of the rest of the thread, but have you looked at IceWM?
> I found it rather well designed with regard to not needing to use a
> mouse. YMMV of course.
>
I'll look into it, Mike. My aversion to the mouse is probably kind of
silly. But almost all of my experience with computers comes from a
time when there was no such thing as mice or personal computers or
X-windows. It feels really strange to me to take one of my hands
off the keyboard when I am at a computer.
I guess that guy was trying to insult me with the "Boze" thing.
Weird. I have vague memories of watching Bozo the Clown on the
television when I was a very small child, and loved him.
Guess I've met my first troll. I thought they were supposed to
be scary instead of silly and pathetic.
Tom
~kurt
>
> As an aside, I built ratpoison and par (a paragraph formatter) and msmtp
> (simple sendmail) from code and notice that I have a makepkg utility.
>
> Do you know where I can FTP them for others to use?
>
Not sure, I generally start looking for software at:
They sometimes list ftp addresses.
- Kurt
~kurt
>
> I'll look into it, Mike. My aversion to the mouse is probably kind of
> silly. But almost all of my experience with computers comes from a
> time when there was no such thing as mice or personal computers or
> X-windows. It feels really strange to me to take one of my hands
> off the keyboard when I am at a computer.
There are some simple window managers out there that allow you to tab
between windows very easily -
> I guess that guy was trying to insult me with the "Boze" thing.
> Weird. I have vague memories of watching Bozo the Clown on the
> television when I was a very small child, and loved him.
If you were talking about Alan, then no, he was actually complementing
you although I'm not a big fan of where the entire BOZO points thing
came from.
A decade ago, this newsgroup was fairly mature in terms of peoples'
dispositions. Simple repetitive easily searched questions were not
shot down with an elitist attitude, but suggestions to seach the
web (pre-google) were not taken as an insult either. I guess it was about
6 years ago someone named +Chiron+ had some anger management issues, and
took a great deal of pleasure degrading and insulting people. At the same
time the Slackware.com forums were being shut down, and a number of
really clueless people, along with BSD trolls, came to this group. Everything
combined led to what I would call the dark ages for this newsgroup. rm, the
Resident Moron, is the afterbirth of this period as he is a well known
troll who had his feelings hurt at some point in time (probably by
+Chiron+), and has kind of become the group's herpes infection - he just
hangs around like baggage. While +Chiron+ was a dick, he was also very
helpful, and was often right about many things. The concept of looking
for an answer before blurting out a question was emphasized by him, as was
understanding what was going on under the hood. Many of the regulars at the
time who were somewhat sympathetic to +Chiron+ on some level (like I said, he
did bring some good things to the group) were labeled BOZOs, and such people
generally embrace the philosophy behind Slackware - simple, stable, Unix-like.
That is kind of the quick history, anyway, the way I remember it....
- Kurt
Tom N
> Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'll look into it, Mike. My aversion to the mouse is probably kind of
>> silly. But almost all of my experience with computers comes from a
>> time when there was no such thing as mice or personal computers or
>> X-windows. It feels really strange to me to take one of my hands
>> off the keyboard when I am at a computer.
>
> There are some simple window managers out there that allow you to tab
> between windows very easily -
>
>> I guess that guy was trying to insult me with the "Boze" thing.
>> Weird. I have vague memories of watching Bozo the Clown on the
>> television when I was a very small child, and loved him.
>
> If you were talking about Alan, then no, he was actually complementing
> you although I'm not a big fan of where the entire BOZO points thing
> came from.
>
Kurt,
Good! Thanks for setting me straight. He did seem to be sincere.
Sorry to +Alan+ for letting the real troll lead me astray.
> A decade ago, this newsgroup was fairly mature in terms of peoples'
> dispositions. Simple repetitive easily searched questions were not
> shot down with an elitist attitude, but suggestions to seach the
> web (pre-google) were not taken as an insult either. I guess it was about
> 6 years ago someone named +Chiron+ had some anger management issues, and
> took a great deal of pleasure degrading and insulting people. At the same
> time the Slackware.com forums were being shut down, and a number of
> really clueless people, along with BSD trolls, came to this group. Everything
> combined led to what I would call the dark ages for this newsgroup. rm, the
> Resident Moron, is the afterbirth of this period as he is a well known
> troll who had his feelings hurt at some point in time (probably by
> +Chiron+), and has kind of become the group's herpes infection - he just
> hangs around like baggage. While +Chiron+ was a dick, he was also very
> helpful, and was often right about many things. The concept of looking
> for an answer before blurting out a question was emphasized by him, as was
> understanding what was going on under the hood. Many of the regulars at the
> time who were somewhat sympathetic to +Chiron+ on some level (like I said, he
> did bring some good things to the group) were labeled BOZOs, and such people
> generally embrace the philosophy behind Slackware - simple, stable, Unix-like.
> That is kind of the quick history, anyway, the way I remember it....
>
> - Kurt
VERY interesting. Condensed history. I'll have to read that a few times and think
about it. Once again, I apologize to +Alan+.
Got the freshmeat link. Thanks for that, too. Will check it out right now.
Tom
Tom N
> Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>
>> VERY interesting. Condensed history. I'll have to read that a few times and
>
> Pat V. had to listen to his ideas or Slackware would fail (people have
> been saying that for a while). He considers me the group sociopath, and
> Alan the group bully. GP was also very full of himself, not being able to
> understand how Slackware could survive without his input. Then, there was
> Allan (sp?) Connor (one of many aliases) who was a bit schizo. Connor had this
> belief that he was some super hacker for using Slackware. It was funny because
> he would keep coming back under a different name, but would essentially out
> himself when he went into one of his little rants. I haven't quite figured
> out what Dan C is. I know he likes guns, so he can't be all bad. But, other
> than that....
>
> - Kurt
Wow! a regular sap-opera. (Joke) I'm almost sorry I missed it.
Everyone here seems great to me. Except that one fellow, who is probably posting
from Ward 16 at the state mental hospital.
Tom
Realto Margarino
>Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>
>> As an aside, I built ratpoison and par (a paragraph formatter) and msmtp
>> (simple sendmail) from code and notice that I have a makepkg utility.
>>
>> Do you know where I can FTP them for others to use?
>>
>Not sure, I generally start looking for software at:
And do you look for paragraph reformatters at freshmeat? We usually
look for paragraph reformatters in our text editor...
Of course this clown probably uses ex or even ed. He gives us all a
bad name. Killfile him. Slackware needs to get away from the image
of one having one's head jammed way, way, up one's ass, an image
that this guy promotes by his very existence.
>They sometimes list ftp addresses.
Of paragraph reformatter packages?
Hilarious.
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
>> I'll look into it, Mike. My aversion to the mouse is probably
>> kind of silly. But almost all of my experience with computers
>> comes from a time when there was no such thing as mice or
>> personal computers or X-windows. It feels really strange to me to
>> take one of my hands off the keyboard when I am at a computer.
Yep, durn it. That's why we still use horses instead of those
new-fangled horseless carriage things...if gawd had wanted horseless
carriages, he wouldn't have given us horses!
>There are some simple window managers out there that allow you to
>tab between windows very easily -
>> I guess that guy was trying to insult me with the "Boze" thing.
>> Weird. I have vague memories of watching Bozo the Clown on the
>> television when I was a very small child, and loved him.
>If you were talking about Alan, then no, he was actually
>complementing you although I'm not a big fan of where the entire
>BOZO points thing came from.
The word is compliment, although The Coward Hicks and this clown do
complement each other, as well.
>A decade ago, this newsgroup was fairly mature in terms of peoples'
>dispositions. Simple repetitive easily searched questions were not
>shot down with an elitist attitude, but suggestions to seach the
>web (pre-google) were not taken as an insult either. I guess it
>was about 6 years ago someone named +Chiron+ had some anger
>management issues, and took a great deal of pleasure degrading and
>insulting people. At the same time the Slackware.com forums were
>being shut down, and a number of really clueless people, along with
>BSD trolls, came to this group. Everything combined led to what I
>would call the dark ages for this newsgroup. rm, the Resident
>Moron, is the afterbirth of this period as he is a well known troll
>who had his feelings hurt at some point in time (probably by
>+Chiron+), and has kind of become the group's herpes infection - he
We had our feelings hurt? By -cibahole-, no less? We were using
unix, and then slackware (and even SLS) long before you were old
enough dress yourself.
>just hangs around like baggage. While +Chiron+ was a dick, he was
>also very helpful, and was often right about many things.
We chased him out of here. He had to go and most of the trash went
with him. The clown you are talking to is a throwback to that time
in that he is building a system to do absolutely no work. At least
it better not be doing any work, because the work his system will do
will be primitive and shoddy at best. A paragraph reformatting
program? Wow. Why are you humoring this moron?
>The concept of looking for an answer before blurting out a question
>was emphasized by him, as was understanding what was going on under
>the hood. Many of the regulars at the time who were somewhat
>sympathetic to +Chiron+ on some level (like I said, he did bring
>some good things to the group) were labeled BOZOs, and such people
>generally embrace the philosophy behind Slackware - simple, stable,
>Unix-like. That is kind of the quick history, anyway, the way I
>remember it....
Simple, stable, unix-like, is the philosophy behind linux, not
slackware. Slackware is pretty much identical to any other system,
with the big difference being installation. Slackware still uses
1980 technology in its installation routines and this is not
something to crow about.
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
>Good! Thanks for setting me straight. He did seem to be sincere.
>Sorry to +Alan+ for letting the real troll lead me astray.
The + signs beside The Coward's name are supposed to light it up in
some newsreaders. He copied this from -Cibahole- who was chased out
of here.
That should let you know who the real troll is. The fact that we
have pointed out that you are a moron does not mean that we are a
troll. If it was true that you were not a moron, you might have an
argument, but since you are truly too stupid for words, we are
right, you are wrong, and your continued participation in this ng
can only be described as trolling.
_Nobody_ wants a paragraph reformatter, you stupid fuck. Nobody!
>VERY interesting. Condensed history. I'll have to read that a few
>times and think about it. Once again, I apologize to +Alan+.
Anything written by Kurt is not interesting, by definition. And his
history is certainly lacking. We are hardly an afterbirth of the
-Cibahole- era. We were the one who drove him off, and made the
group much better for it.
If you want to study history, take a look in the past when
Volkerding was seriously ill, and The Coward Hicks tried to seize
official status, whereby he would try to take over the distro if
Volkerding croaked. It's all there, he was exposed, and he was
humiliated and that is one of the reasons he seldom posts here
anymore.
>Got the freshmeat link. Thanks for that, too. Will check it out
>right now.
Yep, you post that paragraph reformatter package. Everyone will be
real glad to see that. We have all been running around with
unreformatted paragraphs for years now. What a relief that you have
arrived!
If you ever get brave enough to startx make sure that you have it
setup for 16 colours in vga mode! Ask The Coward Hicks how it is
done. Or you might ask the Bash Programmer, aka, Faux_Pseudo. He
eschews X altogether!
cordially, as always,
rm
Mike
> On 2007-11-13, Mike <N...@Arizona.Bay> wrote:
>> Responding to Tom N...
>>
>> [...]
>>>
>>> I have decided not to use Gnome or KDE. After researching window managers
>>> on the web I've downloaded the source code for Ratpoison, which looks
>>> perfect for someone who runs from the command line.
>>>
>> Missed most of the rest of the thread, but have you looked at IceWM?
>> I found it rather well designed with regard to not needing to use a
>> mouse. YMMV of course.
>>
>
> I'll look into it, Mike. My aversion to the mouse is probably kind of
> silly. But almost all of my experience with computers comes from a
> time when there was no such thing as mice or personal computers or
> X-windows. It feels really strange to me to take one of my hands
> off the keyboard when I am at a computer.
Nothing silly about this idea at all IMO. The whole point of a user
interface is that it should make things as streamlined as possible,
therefore not acting as a set of hoops the user will have to jump
through just to perform normal everyday tasks. If a user has to stop
doing what they are doing, and do something else because of how a
user interface is designed, then that user interface is faulty in my
book.
I do sometimes use the rodent, but only really for things the rodent
is good for. Most tasks I use the IceWM (configurable) fastkeys to
do, which leave my hands free to get on with doing what they should
be doing without me having to play "peck here" with the "pecker
thingie". ;)
> I guess that guy was trying to insult me with the "Boze" thing.
> Weird. I have vague memories of watching Bozo the Clown on the
> television when I was a very small child, and loved him.
Nope. It was a complement, but you've doubtless already read the
other replies by now.
Well done scoring such a complement in such a short time BTW.
Whatever interface does the trick for you, have fun. :)
notbob
> Everyone here seems great to me. Except that one fellow, who is probably posting
> from Ward 16 at the state mental hospital.
That's rm, our windoze/mouse fanatic. If it can't be done by using a
mouse, its outdated, stupid and evil. No doubt he's partial to this
particular input device due to his superior skill at fondling small things.
nb
loki harfagr
> On 2007-11-14, ~kurt <actino...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> VERY interesting. Condensed history. I'll have to read that a few
>>> times and
>>
>> We have our share of crazies. The group Mr_full_of_himself believed
>> that Pat V. had to listen to his ideas or Slackware would fail (people
>> have been saying that for a while). He considers me the group
>> sociopath, and Alan the group bully. GP was also very full of himself,
>> not being able to understand how Slackware could survive without his
>> input. Then, there was Allan (sp?) Connor (one of many aliases) who
>> was a bit schizo. Connor had this belief that he was some super hacker
>> for using Slackware. It was funny because he would keep coming back
>> under a different name, but would essentially out himself when he went
>> into one of his little rants. I haven't quite figured out what Dan C
>> is. I know he likes guns, so he can't be all bad.
<OT>
This questioning should be a good track to have a clue on the topic
of 'liking guns'...
Well, besides, I like knives ;D)
</OT>
>> But, other than
>> that....
>>
>> - Kurt
>
> Wow! a regular sap-opera. (Joke) I'm almost sorry I missed it.
>
> Everyone here seems great to me. Except that one fellow, who is probably
> posting from Ward 16 at the state mental hospital.
You may like to read the report Alice Cooper wrote
about this place a few years before it existed ;-)
---
Vicious Rumours
You feel the knife stuck in your back
You feel it twist and you hear it crack
Can't make a sound for the sudden pain
You wish your blood were novocaine
You see the smoke and you feel the flak
You're burning up and you're turning black
They say you fell and you hit your head
Your other bun is Whitenbread
Vicious rumours, paranoic fears
Sonic boomers ringing in your ears
All of this is getting normal now
You'll never go back to your farming plough
Vicious rumours
You're right at home back at William's flat
You heard a sound you turned and shot your cat
Your hands are shaking, everybody sees
And there's a rhythm drumming in your knees
You return into a foreign night
Inside you know something is just not right
Sometimes you duck when you see your pet
Canary turned into a Saber jet
Shocked consumer - you're just an average guy
Swelling tumor pushing on your eye
And now you know why all the headaches come
And why you're getting progressively numb
Vicious rumours
I've been denied, debriefed, detuned
Sometimes I howl right at the moon
My family treats me gradually
They know my volatility
Vicious rumours, paranoic fears
Sonic boomers ringing in your ears
And now I know why all the headaches come
And why you're getting progressively numb
Vicious rumours
(Vicious rumours) [ x8 ]
Who do you think we are [ x5 ]
We don't care
We don't care
---
quite catalyst and sightful isn't it?
Mark South
>> Everyone here seems great to me. Except that one fellow, who is probably
>> posting from Ward 16 at the state mental hospital.
>
>
> You may like to read the report Alice Cooper wrote
> about this place a few years before it existed ;-)
(snipppppppp...)
These days, a.o.l.s is pretty tame, and the real keyboard nutjobs,
spammers, wintrolls, headcases, multiple personalities, &c., are to be
found in far greater profusion in alt.os.linux.ubuntu.
All that lacks so far from a.o.l.ubuntu is someone promoting
challenge-response mail systems - once one of those arrives, happiness
will be complete.
Mark
--
Signature requires you to respond to a challenge before it can be read.
loki harfagr
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:44:58 +0000, loki harfagr wrote:
>
>>> Everyone here seems great to me. Except that one fellow, who is
>>> probably posting from Ward 16 at the state mental hospital.
>>
>>
>> You may like to read the report Alice Cooper wrote about this place a
>> few years before it existed ;-)
>
> (snipppppppp...)
>
> These days, a.o.l.s is pretty tame,
that's a fact.
> and the real keyboard nutjobs,
> spammers, wintrolls, headcases, multiple personalities, &c., are to be
> found in far greater profusion in alt.os.linux.ubuntu.
probably, though it's a shared honour with many groups like col.misc
> All that lacks so far from a.o.l.ubuntu is someone promoting
> challenge-response mail systems
So they decided to shot them in the foot by proxy but
with instant effect !?
Quite very good bad bad news indeed ;D)
> - once one of those arrives, happiness
> will be complete.
...
Gal Surgeon advice(replace with your localized usual fool sticker)
*not to be played at home.*
Ron Gibson
> A decade ago, this newsgroup was fairly mature in terms of peoples'
> dispositions. Simple repetitive easily searched questions were not shot
> down with an elitist attitude, but suggestions to seach the web
> (pre-google) were not taken as an insult either. I guess it was about 6
> years ago someone named +Chiron+ had some anger management issues, and
> took a great deal of pleasure degrading and insulting people. At the same
> time the Slackware.com forums were being shut down, and a number of really
> clueless people, along with BSD trolls, came to this group. Everything
> combined led to what I would call the dark ages for this newsgroup. rm,
> the Resident Moron, is the afterbirth of this period as he is a well known
> troll who had his feelings hurt at some point in time (probably by
> +Chiron+), and has kind of become the group's herpes infection - he just
> hangs around like baggage. While +Chiron+ was a dick, he was also very
> helpful, and was often right about many things. The concept of looking
> for an answer before blurting out a question was emphasized by him, as was
> understanding what was going on under the hood. Many of the regulars at
> the time who were somewhat sympathetic to +Chiron+ on some level (like I
> said, he did bring some good things to the group) were labeled BOZOs, and
> such people generally embrace the philosophy behind Slackware - simple,
> stable, Unix-like. That is kind of the quick history, anyway, the way I
> remember it....
anything else.
Slackware newsgroups also have another early history. Before the
internet was widely available something called a BBS was very popular
for us in the 9600 dial up modem clan. Some of them, not many early on,
also carried USENET but more than likely it was FIDO, another type of
newsgroup thing. That's where I got the idea to try Slackware. My first
kernel was version 0.9 :-) I can't remember what Pat was using for a
version number for Slackware. It (installation media) fit onto what guys,
about 7-8 floppies?
I see a few people I've seen posting all the way back to then on FIDO.
--
Linux Help: http://rsgibson.com/linux.htm
Email - rsgi...@verizon.borg
Replace borg with net
Ron Gibson
> Even after I raised the DefaultDepth to 24, web pages with Firefox were
> still loading too slow, and I was still getting those mtrr error messages
> from the kernel, so I read the mtrr document in the kernel sources and
> decided to cut the video ram that Xorg came up with (according to
> /var/log/Xorg.0.log) in half, and it worked.
> VideoRam 4096
> Now everything seems to be okay and the kernel error messages are gone.
now. As time goes in you'll find a few new tweaks. Update your backup
copy as needed.
Realto Margarino
>Responding to Tom N...
>> I'll look into it, Mike. My aversion to the mouse is probably
>> kind of silly. But almost all of my experience with computers
>> comes from a time when there was no such thing as mice or
>> personal computers or X-windows. It feels really strange to me to
>> take one of my hands off the keyboard when I am at a computer.
>Nothing silly about this idea at all IMO. The whole point of a user
>interface is that it should make things as streamlined as possible,
>therefore not acting as a set of hoops the user will have to jump
>through just to perform normal everyday tasks. If a user has to stop
>doing what they are doing, and do something else because of how a
>user interface is designed, then that user interface is faulty in my
>book.
Sorry, doofus, but mice remove hoops. Using a mouse in a windowed
system is far, far, far faster than even the fastest typist with a
photographic memory.
By insisting on no mouse and using CLI as much as possible with
modern hardware this clown is intent on installing a Yugo engine in
a Hummer. We don't need any of this fancy electronic crap! Give us
a carburetor and a good set of points anyday!
You guys are hilarious. Maybe you're all Amish...
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
>Nope. It was a complement, but you've doubtless already read the
>other replies by now.
The word is compliment, you ignoramous.
>Well done scoring such a complement in such a short time BTW.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scoring such a "complement" from The Coward Hicks is about as
insulting as it gets. And who are _you_ to be telling this guy "how
it is?"
>Whatever interface does the trick for you, have fun. :)
Great. But don't do it here. We don't want to be known as the
place where people install Yugo engines in Hummers.
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
>Tom N wrote:
>> Everyone here seems great to me. Except that one fellow, who is
>> probably posting from Ward 16 at the state mental hospital.
>That's rm, our windoze/mouse fanatic.
There is no "our" where you're concerned, sweetie. You're quite
alone. And if we are a fanatic for using a mouse, then virtually
the whole world is fanatical.
>If it can't be done by using a mouse, its outdated, stupid and
>evil.
No. But if it can be done using a mouse, doing it with a keyboard
from CLI is outdated and silly.
>No doubt he's partial to this particular input device due to
>his superior skill at fondling small things.
Sorry. But we're not your brain surgeon.
cordially, as always,
rm
Tom N
> On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:17:44 +0100, Tom N wrote:
>
>> Even after I raised the DefaultDepth to 24, web pages with Firefox were
>> still loading too slow, and I was still getting those mtrr error messages
>> from the kernel, so I read the mtrr document in the kernel sources and
>> decided to cut the video ram that Xorg came up with (according to
>> /var/log/Xorg.0.log) in half, and it worked.
>
>> I put this in the Devices Section of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
>
>> VideoRam 4096
>
>> Now everything seems to be okay and the kernel error messages are gone.
>
> Good work. Be sure to copy that (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) to somewhere safe
> now. As time goes in you'll find a few new tweaks. Update your backup
> copy as needed.
>
Hi Ron. Thanks. I made the backup copy and am looking forward to the 'tweaks'.
Went through /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the only WW/EE flags have to do with
DRI and this, which is related to DRI being disabled:
intel(0): xf86AllocateGARTMemory: allocation of 1024 pages failed
(Cannot allocate memory).
Aand ACPI "Open ACPI failed...." (I didn't install that package.)
I'll be studying up on those subjects.
Tom
Tom N
Tom N
> Responding to Tom N...
>> On 2007-11-13, Mike <N...@Arizona.Bay> wrote:
>>> Responding to Tom N...
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> I have decided not to use Gnome or KDE. After researching window managers
>>>> on the web I've downloaded the source code for Ratpoison, which looks
>>>> perfect for someone who runs from the command line.
>>>>
>>> Missed most of the rest of the thread, but have you looked at IceWM?
>>> I found it rather well designed with regard to not needing to use a
>>> mouse. YMMV of course.
>>>
>>
>> I'll look into it, Mike. My aversion to the mouse is probably kind of
>> silly. But almost all of my experience with computers comes from a
>> time when there was no such thing as mice or personal computers or
>> X-windows. It feels really strange to me to take one of my hands
>> off the keyboard when I am at a computer.
>
> Nothing silly about this idea at all IMO. The whole point of a user
> interface is that it should make things as streamlined as possible,
> therefore not acting as a set of hoops the user will have to jump
> through just to perform normal everyday tasks. If a user has to stop
> doing what they are doing, and do something else because of how a
> user interface is designed, then that user interface is faulty in my
> book.
I am redeemed. Thank you, Mike.
>
> I do sometimes use the rodent, but only really for things the rodent
> is good for. Most tasks I use the IceWM (configurable) fastkeys to
> do, which leave my hands free to get on with doing what they should
> be doing without me having to play "peck here" with the "pecker
> thingie". ;)
So far, I have to use it with Firefox. Be nice if the links were
numbered so you could select them with the kb.
>
>> I guess that guy was trying to insult me with the "Boze" thing.
>> Weird. I have vague memories of watching Bozo the Clown on the
>> television when I was a very small child, and loved him.
>
> Nope. It was a complement, but you've doubtless already read the
> other replies by now.
My _feeling_, originally, was that it was a compliment. Good to
hear it again, though.
>
> Well done scoring such a complement in such a short time BTW.
Once upon a time, in the stone-age of computers, I was God.
Otherwise known as The System Administrator.
Now I am the system administrator of a computer and operating
system that makes the one I was using then look like a stone axe,
but I don't have a bunch of underlings from their workstations
bowing and scraping in my august presence.
I have certainly come up in the world.
>
> Whatever interface does the trick for you, have fun. :)
Excellent. Thanks for the intelligent support.
Tom
Tom N
Snicker.
Learning how to type takes some serious work. Undisciplined, scatter-brained,
self-indulgent people don't work at anything. I see a lot of that. They were
raised by the Boob Tube...
Tom
Tom N
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 12:30:15 +0100, Tom N wrote:
>
>> On 2007-11-14, ~kurt <actino...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> VERY interesting. Condensed history. I'll have to read that a few
>>>> times and
>>>
>>> We have our share of crazies. The group Mr_full_of_himself believed
>>> that Pat V. had to listen to his ideas or Slackware would fail (people
>>> have been saying that for a while). He considers me the group
>>> sociopath, and Alan the group bully. GP was also very full of himself,
>>> not being able to understand how Slackware could survive without his
>>> input. Then, there was Allan (sp?) Connor (one of many aliases) who
>>> was a bit schizo. Connor had this belief that he was some super hacker
>>> for using Slackware. It was funny because he would keep coming back
>>> under a different name, but would essentially out himself when he went
>>> into one of his little rants. I haven't quite figured out what Dan C
>>> is. I know he likes guns, so he can't be all bad.
>
><OT>
> This questioning should be a good track to have a clue on the topic
> of 'liking guns'...
> Well, besides, I like knives ;D)
></OT>
I prefer suitcase nukes. Nobody bothers ME.
Sure is. Alice Cooper is one of the best musicians and
composers to come out of the 60's and '70's. I love his
take on the "Desperado/Behind Blue Eyes" theme on the "Killer"
album. Can't remember the name of tune.
Good poetry set to good music.
Tom
Michael Black
>> Slackware newsgroups also have another early history. Before the
>> internet was widely available something called a BBS was very popular
>> for us in the 9600 dial up modem clan. Some of them, not many early on,
>> also carried USENET but more than likely it was FIDO, another type of
>> newsgroup thing. That's where I got the idea to try Slackware. My first
>> kernel was version 0.9 :-) I can't remember what Pat was using for a
>> version number for Slackware. It (installation media) fit onto what guys,
>> about 7-8 floppies?
>>
>> I see a few people I've seen posting all the way back to then on FIDO.
>>
>
> That would be in the early 1990', Ron?
>
I got caught up in the history that I forgot that the key factor
is when Slackware became available.
In reality, the internet started becoming readily available about
the time Linux and then Slackware made it onto the scene.
Fido started up in 1983 or '84. Usenet in 1979. I know I first
read about usenet in 1984. Yes, around that time the average
BBS wouldn't carry Usenet, but there were already bigger systems
like The Well that provided Usenet access.
Certainly by '94 there was gatewaying of Usenet to various BBSs,
since I started reading various newsgroups on a BBS. Since that
was the first time I stayed (I'd been going through the rigamarole
of dialing BBSs, getting registered and finding little of interest
for a decade, and each time I made the effort I soon lost interest)
so I can't say when it became common, but surely '94 was late.
I used a 2400 baud modem up until the fall of '96, when I splurged
on a 14.4K, but that was the year I got full internet access.
Michael
Ron Gibson
>> newsgroup thing. That's where I got the idea to try Slackware. My
>> first
>> kernel was version 0.9 :-) I can't remember what Pat was using for a
>> version number for Slackware. It (installation media) fit onto what
>> guys, about 7-8 floppies?
>> I see a few people I've seen posting all the way back to then on FIDO.
> That would be in the early 1990', Ron?
Exactly. IIRC, 1992 0r 1993.
Ron Gibson
> I used a 2400 baud modem up until the fall of '96, when I splurged on a
> 14.4K, but that was the year I got full internet access.
the time :-)
Floyd L. Davidson
>Tom N (t...@somewhere.com) writes:
>
>>> Slackware newsgroups also have another early history. Before the
>>> internet was widely available something called a BBS was very popular
>>> for us in the 9600 dial up modem clan. Some of them, not many early on,
>>> also carried USENET but more than likely it was FIDO, another type of
>>> newsgroup thing. That's where I got the idea to try Slackware. My first
>>> kernel was version 0.9 :-) I can't remember what Pat was using for a
>>> version number for Slackware. It (installation media) fit onto what guys,
>>> about 7-8 floppies?
>>>
>>> I see a few people I've seen posting all the way back to then on FIDO.
>>>
>>
>> That would be in the early 1990', Ron?
>>
>I got caught up in the history that I forgot that the key factor
>is when Slackware became available.
Your account is pretty accurate.
>In reality, the internet started becoming readily available about
>the time Linux and then Slackware made it onto the scene.
>
>Fido started up in 1983 or '84. Usenet in 1979. I know I first
>read about usenet in 1984. Yes, around that time the average
>BBS wouldn't carry Usenet, but there were already bigger systems
>like The Well that provided Usenet access.
Note that Usenet was not carried on The Internet
initially. However, by perhaps 1987 it had
significantly moved to The Internet for transport, and
by 1990 that was virtually 100%. Prior to that it was
major companies and major universities who had access to
Usenet, which was somewhat similar to The Internet and
that necessarily led to the two being integrated. Which
was of course something that FidoNet could not really
do, mostly because it simply was not technically
sophisticated enough at the base level.
FidoNet never came close to the sophisticated network
that Usenet was from its beginning. But it is an
interesting example though! One person with a
reasonable about of savvy and a lot of go get 'em
attitude put up a national network of home users that
did actually function. That was astounding!
But Usenet was put together by a small group of the
brightest computer networking experts in the country and
managed to make use of massive amounts of resources from
both large companies (AT&T for example, in the early
80's provided, at no cost, most of the coast to coast
transport) and Universities (all of them, provided the
regional distribution).
There was never any real comparison, Usenet was larger
and just plain slicker! Indeed, the history of Usenet
is a series of way points at which the initial
conceptualization continued to function, but the initial
mechanisms had to be discarded. The use of the basic
networking features built into Unix and modem transport,
for example, gave way to NNTP via The Internet. Also
the 1980's topology of major transport being provided by
large companies and regional distribution provided
gratis by various universities changed to the current
system that is totally commercial. Yet even today the
underlying concepts of Usenet have not significantly
changed from what existed 1 year after it was started!
>Certainly by '94 there was gatewaying of Usenet to various BBSs,
>since I started reading various newsgroups on a BBS. Since that
The gateway between Usenet and FidoNet actually began in
1988.
(Of course gatewaying these various messaging pseudo
networks was a big deal back then. The absolute biggest
was when the Russians first got access to The Internet
in about 1991. Computer networking, at home or at work,
at that point actually did become truly a global
experience.)
>was the first time I stayed (I'd been going through the rigamarole
>of dialing BBSs, getting registered and finding little of interest
>for a decade, and each time I made the effort I soon lost interest)
>so I can't say when it became common, but surely '94 was late.
One of the potentially useful things that never caught
on could have made that easier. In the mid-1980's, just
as the BBS idea was becoming popular, there were also a
few publicly accessible Unix systems around the country.
Some of them had Internet access too, and the potential
was fabulous. But it was more expensive than the
average BBS by a significant amount and the typical
operator and the typical user were both techies to an
extreme. And in about 1990 the Secret Service and the
FBI infiltrated a few of them, and proceeded to press
bogus charges of copyright and theft of IP against
several people. Some of them actually served jail time
before it was demonstrated to be an over reaction by
government officials without a clue.
But that totally killed the concept of global network
access in that manner. Virtually all of the public
access unix systems closed down.
>I used a 2400 baud modem up until the fall of '96, when I splurged
>on a 14.4K, but that was the year I got full internet access.
That pretty much coincides with Microsoft discovering
The Internet, the beginning of AOL, and the making of
"Internet" into a household word.
Before that Internet, and Usenet, were places where
people discussed what was going to happen when the other
99.9% of the population discovered the benefits of what
it was...
--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) fl...@apaflo.com
notbob
> But we're not your brain surgeon.
Yes, that would require a brain and you traded yours in for a mouse and
a gui.
nb
Realto Margarino
>On 2007-11-14, Mike <N...@Arizona.Bay> wrote:
>> Nothing silly about this idea at all IMO. The whole point of a
>> user interface is that it should make things as streamlined as
>> possible, therefore not acting as a set of hoops the user will
>> have to jump through just to perform normal everyday tasks. If a
>> user has to stop doing what they are doing, and do something else
>> because of how a user interface is designed, then that user
>> interface is faulty in my book.
>I am redeemed. Thank you, Mike.
And endorsement from "Mike" is hardly redemption, doofus.
>So far, I have to use it with Firefox. Be nice if the links were
>numbered so you could select them with the kb.
Sure, that's what we need. More information on web-pages for the
technically-challenged.
But why are you using firefox while lynx is still out there? Tsk,
tsk, man, you're letting all the other Luddites down.
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
>Snicker.
He who laughs alone ...
>Learning how to type takes some serious work. Undisciplined,
>scatter-brained, self-indulgent people don't work at anything. I
>see a lot of that. They were raised by the Boob Tube...
We did our first computing in the 1970's, doofus. Almost 30 years
ago. Unlike yourself, it seems, we have managed to keep up with the
times.
We don't like to see slackware users categorized as oddballs.
Either get with the program, or bugger off, ok?
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
>On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:52:07 +0000, Michael Black wrote:
>
>> I used a 2400 baud modem up until the fall of '96, when I splurged on a
>> 14.4K, but that was the year I got full internet access.
>
>LOL! Boy I remember getting my first ISA USR 14.4 - That kicked ass at
>the time :-)
We remember using a 110 baud acoustic coupler...then 300, 1200,
2400, 14.4, 28.8, 57.6...
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
We'll match our keyboarding experience and skill against your own
anyday. The difference is, that we aren't afraid of moving on to
something better.
cordially, as always,
rm
Floyd L. Davidson
>On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:31:34 +0100, Tom N wrote:
>>> I see a few people I've seen posting all the way back to then on FIDO.
>
>> That would be in the early 1990', Ron?
>
>Exactly. IIRC, 1992 0r 1993.
1987!
http://wps.com/FidoNet/FidoNews/1988/FIDO503.NWS
Go down to page 4. It is an absolutely *facinating*
perspective, given that we can now look at it with
20-20 hind sight.
Realizing back then what was going to happen was not
actually all that unusual. I think most netizens did
have a pretty good idea where it was all going. The
questions were how fast and how deep was it going to get
before it became extremely uncomfortable to those who
currently used it... :-)
Most, of course, were all for getting on with it and
making the public aware. Getting the Internet into the
mainstream of public knowledge to spread the benefits to
everyone was a major target. A few people did resist,
not incorrectly seeing that it was not all going to be a
rose garden.
The article in the above URL discusses the seriousness,
in 1988, of letting typical Fight-Oh-Net users have
access to the "professional" atmosphere of Usenet. Given
what Usenet is today, that is just hilarious!
Ron Gibson
> Hi Ron. Thanks. I made the backup copy and am looking forward to the
> 'tweaks'.
They are sometimes hard to get as the docs on X are hard to track down.
Lots of tricks you can do. Google fonts and X to improve Truetype and
overall performance. Here's a link...
> Went through /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the only WW/EE flags have to do with
> DRI and this, which is related to DRI being disabled: intel(0):
> xf86AllocateGARTMemory: allocation of 1024 pages failed (Cannot allocate
> memory).
The FAQ above might help.
> Aand ACPI "Open ACPI failed...." (I didn't install that package.)
>
> I'll be studying up on those subjects.
Here's a few CLI tricks I use. maybe you already know about mc but if
you don't definitely try it. It's a CLI dual pane file manager and more.
You can use it as a FTP client and the file...
/usr/share/mc/mc.menu
Can be edited to add user defined operations (That the F2 key bring up).
Also adding the line...
export EDITOR='/usr/bin/jed'
to
/etc/profile
Allows you to use jed as your editor if you configure mc not to use it's
internal editor. If you'd rather use another editor then set it in...
/etc/profile
Tom N
Those pioneering days must have been really a kick.
Tom
Tom N
> On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:52:07 +0000, Michael Black wrote:
>
>> I used a 2400 baud modem up until the fall of '96, when I splurged on a
>> 14.4K, but that was the year I got full internet access.
>
> LOL! Boy I remember getting my first ISA USR 14.4 - That kicked ass at
> the time :-)
>
I checked out your webpage.
Do you think I could borrow your helper for the weekend?
I have some, ahem, files that need to be sorted.
Tom
Tom N
Hi Floyd. Damn that's interesting.
Did I read the above correctly? Are you saying that the
internet grew out of the usenet?
Tom
Tom N
>
>> Hi Ron. Thanks. I made the backup copy and am looking forward to the
>> 'tweaks'.
>
> They are sometimes hard to get as the docs on X are hard to track down.
> Lots of tricks you can do. Google fonts and X to improve Truetype and
> overall performance. Here's a link...
>
> http://www.x.org/wiki/FAQ
Will check it out.
Fonts are intimidating.
>
>> Went through /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the only WW/EE flags have to do with
>> DRI and this, which is related to DRI being disabled: intel(0):
>> xf86AllocateGARTMemory: allocation of 1024 pages failed (Cannot allocate
>> memory).
>
> The FAQ above might help.
>
>> Aand ACPI "Open ACPI failed...." (I didn't install that package.)
>>
>> I'll be studying up on those subjects.
>
> Here's a few CLI tricks I use. maybe you already know about mc but if
> you don't definitely try it. It's a CLI dual pane file manager and more.
> You can use it as a FTP client and the file...
>
> /usr/share/mc/mc.menu
>
> Can be edited to add user defined operations (That the F2 key bring up).
>
> Also adding the line...
>
> export EDITOR='/usr/bin/jed'
>
> to
>
> /etc/profile
>
> Allows you to use jed as your editor if you configure mc not to use it's
> internal editor. If you'd rather use another editor then set it in...
>
> /etc/profile
I've been using elvis, just because that was the first one I ran into.
I installed mc. Trippy! Looks like it will take a while to learn, but
is probably worth it. A senible user interface.
I assume that I can do something about that dreadful puke green and
eye-watering blue. Wait! mc -b. Much better. I'll worry about
a nice color scheme later.
Oh boy. This will keep me up late tonight.
I'll play with it while I'm listening to Coast to Coast AM, and
get serious on the numerous commercials.
Thanks again, Ron,
Tom
A Guy Called Tyketto
Hash: SHA1
Realto Margarino <r...@justlinux.ca> wrote:
>
> We remember using a 110 baud acoustic coupler...then 300, 1200,
> 2400, 14.4, 28.8, 57.6...
>
And even with the little you know and possess, you are still
truly a man among gods.
BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email: tyk...@sbcglobal.net
Unix Systems Administrator, | tyk...@ozemail.com.au
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF
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Realto Margarino
>Here's a few CLI tricks I use. maybe you already know about mc but if
>you don't definitely try it. It's a CLI dual pane file manager and more.
>You can use it as a FTP client and the file...
Now, now. mc is gui. It might be called from the CLI, but then, so
it X.
>/usr/share/mc/mc.menu
>Can be edited to add user defined operations (That the F2 key bring up).
>Also adding the line...
>export EDITOR='/usr/bin/jed'
Jed? Are you nuts? This guy uses ex or ed (not sure which yet).
He even shares his paragraph reformatting program!
Besides, the internal mc editor blows away jed anyways...
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
[memories deleted]
>Those pioneering days must have been really a kick.
And you quoted all that just to say this?
You really are an ass-kisser, aren't you?
Smootch, smootch.
cordially, as always,
rm
Realto Margarino
Realto Margarino
[Polar Bear Roadhouse gossip, deleted, unread]
>Hi Floyd. Damn that's interesting.
Smootch.
>Did I read the above correctly? Are you saying that the internet
>grew out of the usenet?
Who cares if he did? It's not like he is any kind of authority.
You're a real clown. Please, please, go away.
cordially, as always,
rm
Loki Harfagr
> Sure is. Alice Cooper is one of the best musicians and composers to come
> out of the 60's and '70's. I love his take on the "Desperado/Behind
> Blue Eyes" theme on the "Killer" album. Can't remember the name of tune.
I'd say it has to be the song also named "Killer"?
it started with:
---
What did I do to deserve such a fate
I didn't really want to get
Involved in this thing
Someone handed me this gun and I
I gave it everything
Yeah, I gave it everything
---
Floyd L. Davidson
>
>Hi Floyd. Damn that's interesting.
>Did I read the above correctly? Are you saying that the
>internet grew out of the usenet?
The other way around. Usenet was developed as a way to
emulate ARPANET (eventually to become The Internet).
Back in the 1950's, as the cold war heated up, one
obvious national security problem was protection of
communications systems. At the time, the US the military
developed and built the AUTOVON system based on standard
telephone networking using circuit switched technology.
The vulnerabilities of circuit switched networks were
well known, and later became of great concern.
When the Soviet Sputnik satellite was launched in 1957
one reaction in the US was an organization called DARPA,
or the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (since
then the name has changed back and forth between DARPA
and ARPA, so you'll see both). DARPA funded many
computer projects, which otherwise appeared to be
non-military in nature, but the underlying cause was
the well known risk of the circuit switched AUTOVON
network.
In 1961 Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first
paper on packet switching theory. In 1962
J.C.R. Licklider, at BBN, outlined the concept of a
global computer network. And that, for all intents and
purposes, was the initial statement of what The Internet
is today. By the mid 1960's ARPA was funding computer
networking research, and by the late 1960's it had
become obvious that a packet switching scheme was the
right direction to go. In April 1969 ARPA bid out a
contract, which was won by BBN, to develop the first
such network. (It was won by BBN as much for any other
reason... because most of the 140 companies invited to
bid thought the entire concept to be unworkable!)
The first message on the new ARPANET was sent in October
1969. It consisted of the two letters "L" and "O". It
was supposed to be the word "LOGIN", but the system
crashed after the first two characters... :-)
In the early 1970's Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf became
part of the ARPANET research team. By 1976 they had
developed the concepts of TCP, by 1978 they developed
the Internet Protocol separate from TCP. At that time
the ARPANET was a mixed protocol network mostly based on
the original NCP protocol and with a few sites using the
new Internet Protocol. In 1980 the Department of
Defense adopted TCP/IP as the standard protocol. The
ARPANET moved towards becoming a TCP/IP only network,
and on January 1, 1983 the original NCP protocol was
dropped.
At exactly which point "The Internet" began in that
series of events is perhaps a matter of opinion. There
is no question but what it existed on January 1, 1983,
but perhaps in reality the origination is either with
the original TCP or with the implementation of TCP/IP.
But it was available only at select Defense Department
contractors and research institutions. And one result
was that others who were aware of it wanted to duplicate
some of the functionality. That is how Usenet came into
existence.
Tom Truscott and (the late) Jim Ellis, at Duke
University, came up with Usenet in late 1979. A then
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student,
Steve Bellovin, wrote the first program to implement the
idea (three pages of Bourne Shell scripting, which he
later re-wrote in C). Duke and UNC "joined" Usenet in
late 1979. (In the late 1980's I actually had my hands
on, and was able to read, all of the initial several
hundred or so messages passed at the start of Usenet.
Like everyone else, I didn't save a copy of it because
everyone else had it... and as far as I know today
there are no surviving copies.)
The first official "release" was Netnews Version A,
written by Steve Daniel (another graduate student at
Duke) in 1980. Netnews Version B came in 1982 (authored
by Matt Glickman and Mark Horton). In February 1986
RFC-0977, by Phil Lapsley (UCB) and Brian Kantor (UCSD),
was released specifying the NNTP protocol for
transmission of Usenet news via the Internet rather than
as UUCP modem traffic. In 1989 Version C was released
(authored by Henry Spencer and Geoff Collyer).
Mark South
> We did our first computing in the 1970's, doofus.
Damn, I actually have something in common with rm.
> Almost 30 years ago.
Most of the 70's are already > 30 years ago....
Tom N
Been a long time, Loki. Last song on the first side of
the album. Those lyrics aren't ringing a bell, but that
doesn't mean they aren't right.
I'm much more of a music person than a lyric person...
When I get sound configued here (which I have no idea how to
do, yet) I'll track down the tune and post a link.
Cheers,
Tom
Tom N
>>
>>Hi Floyd. Damn that's interesting.
>>Did I read the above correctly? Are you saying that the
>>internet grew out of the usenet?
>
> The other way around. Usenet was developed as a way to
> emulate ARPANET (eventually to become The Internet).
That's what I meant.
The model came from the ARPANET, but there wasn't an
Internet before there was a Usenet, and it was created
using the Usenetwork, physically and 'digitally' as its
foundation.
Ha!
BBN? Not an acronym I recognize. I assume it still exists
under a different name.
> The first message on the new ARPANET was sent in October
> 1969. It consisted of the two letters "L" and "O". It
> was supposed to be the word "LOGIN", but the system
> crashed after the first two characters... :-)
Oh my.
>
> In the early 1970's Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf became
> part of the ARPANET research team. By 1976 they had
> developed the concepts of TCP, by 1978 they developed
> the Internet Protocol separate from TCP. At that time
> the ARPANET was a mixed protocol network mostly based on
> the original NCP protocol and with a few sites using the
> new Internet Protocol. In 1980 the Department of
> Defense adopted TCP/IP as the standard protocol. The
> ARPANET moved towards becoming a TCP/IP only network,
> and on January 1, 1983 the original NCP protocol was
> dropped.
>
> At exactly which point "The Internet" began in that
> series of events is perhaps a matter of opinion. There
> is no question but what it existed on January 1, 1983,
> but perhaps in reality the origination is either with
> the original TCP or with the implementation of TCP/IP.
>
> But it was available only at select Defense Department
> contractors and research institutions. And one result
> was that others who were aware of it wanted to duplicate
> some of the functionality. That is how Usenet came into
> existence.
I had no idea that the Usenet played/plays such an
important part in the Internet. Many people with Internet-
connected computers today don't even know it exists.
The ISPs that I have looked into certainly don't push
it, if they even offer access. I don't think the
Establishment much likes the free speech that exists
here. We are supposed to be on the Web reading their
commercials and buying their products.
> Tom Truscott and (the late) Jim Ellis, at Duke
> University, came up with Usenet in late 1979. A then
> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student,
> Steve Bellovin, wrote the first program to implement the
> idea (three pages of Bourne Shell scripting, which he
I'd love to see those scripts.
> later re-wrote in C). Duke and UNC "joined" Usenet in
> late 1979. (In the late 1980's I actually had my hands
> on, and was able to read, all of the initial several
> hundred or so messages passed at the start of Usenet.
> Like everyone else, I didn't save a copy of it because
> everyone else had it... and as far as I know today
> there are no surviving copies.)
>
That's a crying shame.
> The first official "release" was Netnews Version A,
> written by Steve Daniel (another graduate student at
> Duke) in 1980. Netnews Version B came in 1982 (authored
> by Matt Glickman and Mark Horton). In February 1986
> RFC-0977, by Phil Lapsley (UCB) and Brian Kantor (UCSD),
> was released specifying the NNTP protocol for
> transmission of Usenet news via the Internet rather than
> as UUCP modem traffic. In 1989 Version C was released
> (authored by Henry Spencer and Geoff Collyer).
u>
Wonderful post. It's really good to know this stuff, to
put it all in perspective.
I think the Internet was a better thing when the scientists
ran it. Merchants run it now and they con't care about anything
but selling stuff.
Thanks a lot, Floyd. I'll read as many of these as you feel
like writing.
Tom
Ron Gibson
> I checked out your webpage.
> http://rsgibson.com/linux.htm
> Do you think I could borrow your helper for the weekend?
> I have some, ahem, files that need to be sorted.
For some reason everybody wants her to help :-)
Geez, I just noticed the links are busted for the "Many Diverse..." and
that was a really good additional resource. I have to repair those and
figure out what happened. Until I fix the page I should eliminate the
page from my signature line.
Thanks for getting me to stumble across that as its been fine for over
three years. Oh well. Everything breaks sooner or later.
--
mr.b
> BBN? Not an acronym I recognize. I assume it still exists under a
> different name.
Bolt, Beranek & Newman
notbob
> Now, now. mc is gui. It might be called from the CLI, but then, so
> it X.
There you have it, folks. The CLI is actually a GUI. rat man logic at
its zenith.
> [...] This guy uses ex or ed (not sure which yet).
Not surprising, since you can't even distinguish between the CLI and a GUI.
nb
notbob
> anyday. The difference is, that we aren't afraid of moving on to
> something better.
Oh yeah .... like MC and a mouse. LOL You eeeee-diot!
nb
notbob
> ago. Unlike yourself, it seems, we have managed to keep up with the
> times.
It "seems ...we" are eee-diots! MC is a gui. Yeah, rat man, you're
righ on top of it. LOL
nb
notbob
> Most of the 70's are already > 30 years ago....
Yeah, he's got a mind like a steel trap ....rusted shut!
nb
Floyd L. Davidson
>On 2007-11-15, Floyd L. Davidson <fl...@apaflo.com> wrote:
>> Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Hi Floyd. Damn that's interesting.
>>>Did I read the above correctly? Are you saying that the
>>>internet grew out of the usenet?
>>
>> The other way around. Usenet was developed as a way to
>> emulate ARPANET (eventually to become The Internet).
>
>That's what I meant.
>
>The model came from the ARPANET, but there wasn't an
>Internet before there was a Usenet, and it was created
But there was an Internet before there was a Usenet.
The concept of "internetworking" was developed in the
early 1970's, and certainly was a real thing when the
ARPANET was using TCP (in addition to NCP) in 1976. By
1978 TCP had been split and TCP/IP was in use (i.e., the
Internet Protocol was distinctly separate).
As noted, TCP/IP was _officially_ adopted by the DoD in
1980, and in January 1983 no other protocol was allowed
on the ARPANET.
Usenet was conceived in late 1979, well after the entire
intent of ARPANET research was directed at
internetworking.
>using the Usenetwork, physically and 'digitally' as its
>foundation.
The other way around. Usenet was designed to emulate
ARPANET, specifically the mailinglist functionality.
...
>> In 1961 Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first
>> paper on packet switching theory. In 1962
>> J.C.R. Licklider, at BBN, outlined the concept of a
>> global computer network. And that, for all intents and
>> purposes, was the initial statement of what The Internet
>> is today. By the mid 1960's ARPA was funding computer
>> networking research, and by the late 1960's it had
>> become obvious that a packet switching scheme was the
>> right direction to go. In April 1969 ARPA bid out a
>> contract, which was won by BBN, to develop the first
>> such network. (It was won by BBN as much for any other
>> reason... because most of the 140 companies invited to
>> bid thought the entire concept to be unworkable!)
>
>Ha!
>
>BBN? Not an acronym I recognize. I assume it still exists
>under a different name.
"Bolt, Beranek, and Newman" was the original name. They
are located near MIT, and of course those three
individuals were originally at MIT, as eventually were
most of the research people who worked there. Initially
the did acoustical work, and for example were hired to
examine audio tapes from the Kennedy assassination and
also from the Nixon Watergate scandal (the tape with 18
minutes that was erased).
A high tech defense research company from the start,
they used computers extensively. They eventually
designed UNIX based computers for the DoD that were used
as ARPANET nodes by the military.
...
>> At exactly which point "The Internet" began in that
>> series of events is perhaps a matter of opinion. There
>> is no question but what it existed on January 1, 1983,
>> but perhaps in reality the origination is either with
>> the original TCP or with the implementation of TCP/IP.
>>
>> But it was available only at select Defense Department
>> contractors and research institutions. And one result
>> was that others who were aware of it wanted to duplicate
>> some of the functionality. That is how Usenet came into
>> existence.
>
>I had no idea that the Usenet played/plays such an
>important part in the Internet. Many people with Internet-
>connected computers today don't even know it exists.
Usenet played almost *no* role in the Internet. It's
the other way around. The fellows at Duke who could not
get access to real internetworking on the ARPANET went
out and created their own way to emulate one small part
of what ARPANET was doing for the people who had access.
>The ISPs that I have looked into certainly don't push
>it, if they even offer access. I don't think the
>Establishment much likes the free speech that exists
>here. We are supposed to be on the Web reading their
>commercials and buying their products.
For an ISP, Usenet is nothing but a huge headache if
they try to do it themselves! Almost all ISP's
subcontract Usenet to someone like supernews.com.
Twenty years ago, before there were commercial ISP's, it
was not uncommon for each university or each company to
run a server. When commercial ISP's began to crop up
some of them tried to do the same, but Usenet had gone
from being a few dozen text newsgroups to being a few
thousand newsgroups, many of them for binaries, and the
bandwidth needed was beyond the reach of most.
Administration was also a nightmare as the size
continued to grow.
Companies like UUNet, Zippo.com and Supernews.com came
along, and Usenet distribution/servers became their main
business.
...
>Wonderful post. It's really good to know this stuff, to
>put it all in perspective.
Perspective is indeed the hard part. All the facts are
easily available (google can find any of them). But it
really is hard to picture how that all intermingled.
>I think the Internet was a better thing when the scientists
>ran it. Merchants run it now and they con't care about anything
>but selling stuff.
Well, it was a nicer place that's for sure. But from
day one the whole idea has been to bring this to every
home on earth. We know that is bound to bring in just
as many loonies as not.
The fun part was watching it become reality. Back when
it really was only the propeller heads who invented it,
they objected greatly when (due to the early work of Al
Gore in the US Senate) all the universities gained
access. People with an ".edu" domain were ridiculed,
"What do you expect from an edu site???". And there
were of course cracks about what happens when "just
anyone" gets access. And on Usenet it was easily
noticed that every September there was a huge influx of
newbies who knew nothing (and also that as soon as the
Christmas break began there was virtually no traffic at
all for a couple weeks.) Next it was "The Well". Those
with edu domains teased them. Then it was AOL and the
"never ending September". You get the idea... :-)
That, BTW, is what set up the social context which
brought this newsgroup to the state that Kurt described
in such a bland way (bland because in fact he was part
and parcel of the more obnoxious group of people, and
didn't want to tell you that). In fact, it was infested
with a number of jerks who fantasized themselves being
technical wizards if they too could hurl insults at
every newbie that showed up. That's what the one
individual he referenced did, and even though he did
have at least some technical talent, it was absolutely
wasted because of his mental problems. The term "bozo",
as it is normally understood, is what they were called
because that is what they were acting like. Several of
them are still here, though without a "leader", they
don't have the brass to act like bozos...
>Thanks a lot, Floyd. I'll read as many of these as you feel
>like writing.
Well, actually if you use the key words and names, you
can go to google and to wikipedia and get a lot more
info than I can put into a few Usenet articles.
Dragomir Kollaric
<cut>
>
> Slackware newsgroups also have another early history. Before the
> internet was widely available something called a BBS was very popular
> for us in the 9600 dial up modem clan. Some of them, not many early on,
> also carried USENET but more than likely it was FIDO, another type of
> newsgroup thing. That's where I got the idea to try Slackware. My first
> kernel was version 0.9 :-) I can't remember what Pat was using for a
> version number for Slackware. It (installation media) fit onto what guys,
> about 7-8 floppies?
About a year ago I tried to give new life to a very old Laptop of mine,
a Compaq Aero 4/25 with monochrome display. Originally it had win 3.11.
170 MB HD -Space
486 CPU
8 MB Ram.
As I could only install via Floppy I searched and downloaded Slackware
The version I found and use was/is 3.1 (This whole installation
uses 12 floppies in all but I downloaded only about 8 or so.
On this Laptop I don't run X.
I installed
Midnight Commander
Vi
and lynx (for webpages) I download and transfer via floppy.
with the base-system in place it says that about 25% is still free, and
this on a such a small HDD.
I read a book about Richard Stallman on that toy.
>
> I see a few people I've seen posting all the way back to then on FIDO.
>
Dragomir Kollaric
--
This signature is licensed under the GPL and may be
freely distributed as long as a copy of the GPL is included... :-)
Ron Gibson
> About a year ago I tried to give new life to a very old Laptop of mine,
> a Compaq Aero 4/25 with monochrome display. Originally it had win
> 3.11.
> 170 MB HD -Space
> 486 CPU
> 8 MB Ram.
>
> As I could only install via Floppy I searched and downloaded Slackware The
> version I found and use was/is 3.1 (This whole installation uses 12
> floppies in all but I downloaded only about 8 or so.
I think this is one thing that is a threat to the WINTEL consortium -
The ability to extend the life of hardware that others throw away because
it won't run the other stuff.
However I think they exaggerate the threat. A headless machine acting as
a firewall running an old version of Slack is not something you'll see
in every home in America.
You will see a multipurpose PC in about every home in America far more
powerful than what is needed to do the mundane tasks of email, web
browsing, etc. Hey! I want my PC to do a kick ass job with Unreal
Tournament too!
So people still buy more horsepower (hardware). We (Slackers and other
Linux'rs) just want more than the average joe does for OS's for our
PC's.
Tom N
> Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>On 2007-11-15, Floyd L. Davidson <fl...@apaflo.com> wrote:
>>> Tom N <t...@somewhere.com> wrote:
...
> them are still here, though without a "leader", they
> don't have the brass to act like bozos...
>
>>Thanks a lot, Floyd. I'll read as many of these as you feel
>>like writing.
>
> Well, actually if you use the key words and names, you
> can go to google and to wikipedia and get a lot more
> info than I can put into a few Usenet articles.
>
But, as you pointed out above, neither I nor most of
the authors of those articles have the perspective of
someone who has lived through it and in it.
Just as an aside, I have trouble thinking of the ARPANET
as the Internet because it wasn't available to the general
public. To me, and I think to many others, that's what
"Internet" means.
Thanks again,
Tom
~kurt
> kernel was version 0.9 :-) I can't remember what Pat was using for a
> version number for Slackware. It (installation media) fit onto what guys,
> about 7-8 floppies?
Just for fun, I installed version 1.0 on a 486SX. I hadn't gotten
into Linux until '98, and SW until 7.0, so I wanted to see what it
looked like. It was very familiar (although satan and friends were
there as default users...).
- Kurt
Floyd L. Davidson
But "internet" actually means the ability to connect
disparate *networks*, each of which might use entirely
different transport protocols internally.
When ARPANET started, they used NCP (Network Control
Program), and essentially every host on ARPANET was an
NCP node, with an ARPANET link (through a device called
an IMP, or Interface Message Processor) to the rest of
the network. It was just *one* network, using just one
method of transport between nodes. And no packet could
be sent to any host that didn't have an IMP to interface
it to the network. That was the only mode of transport
that could be used.
The essence of what Robert Kahn came up with in the
early 1970's was a concept where disparate networks were
connected, rather than individual hosts. Everybody and
their brother was busy developing networks that suited
their specific needs. Kahn realized that connecting
*networks* was the key, not connecting computers.
With the ARPANET, for you and I to pass email to each
other, we both would have had to have computers with an
IMP and an associated link to the ARPANET. They would
have been identical. But here we are with an Internet,
rather than a Network. I have a LAN in my house, which
happens to use 100baseT Ethernet. It could use ARCNet,
AppleNet, DECNet, a Token Ring network, or whatever.
And the connection I use to my ISP is a Cable Modem,
which I could access either with Ethernet or with a USB
port too. Any of them will do... and that is true at
every node between you and I. My ISP and your ISP can
(and perhaps do) have different types of local networks
used internally. You might have a different LAN, or use
only one host.
That is what's so fabulous about the IP protocol!
And the use of the Internet Protocol, not public access,
is what makes it an internet. The fact that it goes
everywhere and connects to everyone, makes it *The*
Internet! :-)
~kurt
>
> That, BTW, is what set up the social context which
> brought this newsgroup to the state that Kurt described
> in such a bland way (bland because in fact he was part
> and parcel of the more obnoxious group of people, and
> didn't want to tell you that). In fact, it was infested
> with a number of jerks who fantasized themselves being
> technical wizards if they too could hurl insults at
> every newbie that showed up. That's what the one
You are wrong about this.
I walked into the middle of +Chiron+ after a bit of an absence.
While I consider myself friends (via the net) with some of those
who took an elitist attitude, I never supported the harshness
given to many newcomers. You must have a beef with me over something
else and are superimposing this on me. I don't think I was ever even
once assigned a BOZO point as they called it. I never made any
attempt to get one.
The worst you would generally get out of me is a suggestion
to search the web, but I would normally include more than just
STFW. The only time I would insult someone is when they were
incredibly stupid. One kid sticks out in particular. I listed
all the things he needed to look into to solve a problem - I listed
actual documents to read, and all he wanted is for me to do the
research and tell him step by step what to do. I finally gave up and
called him an idiot. Actually, I may have used the word "incorrigible".
Allan Connor, GP, ANC, rm, +Chiron+ - yea, I insulted them all
directly. I could at least respect +Chiron+'s occasional talent,
but the rest are all idiots - they could jump off a bridge for all
I care.
Lets put it this way. You accuse me of being in that group.
I never got a BOZO point, and I never had my name spoofed by
rm. I'm sure he (rm) never liked me, and I don't need much prodding
to mention how pathetic I think he is, but he has never once
seen it necessary to attack me in the way he did the others who
were often going too far with the BS. Heh, to think I'm using
rm as a method of defending myself in some way....
Now, I have gotten into some pretty heated OT debates (and even
more heated ones on the OT list - some of the arguments we have had
among "friends" make any insults made on this group pale in comparison).
Maybe it is my participation in the OT group that makes you think
I was one of the bozos? I do have a mod quote or two - is that it?
I have a vague recollection that I don't like you - but it wasn't
important enough to remember why.
> individual he referenced did, and even though he did
> have at least some technical talent, it was absolutely
> wasted because of his mental problems. The term "bozo",
> as it is normally understood, is what they were called
> because that is what they were acting like. Several of
As I said originally - I didn't like how the term came about.
Give a try at remembering what exactly it is you have a beef with
me about - your memory seems pretty good when it come to prehistoric
networking (interesting read, by the way). But don't lump me in
with everyone who was being abusive to new people for no good reason.
- Kurt
Floyd L. Davidson
>Floyd L. Davidson <fl...@apaflo.com> wrote:
>>
>> That, BTW, is what set up the social context which
>> brought this newsgroup to the state that Kurt described
>> in such a bland way (bland because in fact he was part
>> and parcel of the more obnoxious group of people, and
>> didn't want to tell you that). In fact, it was infested
>> with a number of jerks who fantasized themselves being
>> technical wizards if they too could hurl insults at
>> every newbie that showed up. That's what the one
>
>You are wrong about this.
I'll stand by that description. It has good
perspective.
>I walked into the middle of +Chiron+ after a bit of an absence.
>While I consider myself friends (via the net) with some of those
>who took an elitist attitude, I never supported the harshness
You didn't denounce it, and argued with those who did.
Shame on you for that. Shame on you today for your
description suggesting that the jerks were anything
other than jerks, then or now.
Of course, I'm *not* claiming you were the worst, by any
stretch.
Just imagine, for example, somebody who, when the
previous total idiot finally grew tired and left,
immediately put '+' on either side of their name and
declared themselves to have inherited the idiot's
position! That still takes the cake... (and
unfortunately it fuels a majority of the multiple
personalities of the Resident Moron).
Regardless of that, I should probably point out that I
doubt that history, or any of the individuals involved,
are actually responsible for either the multiple
personalities of the Resident Moron, or the total lack
of personality of Dan C, despite the obviously similar
characteristics and history. It looks as if they are
the only remanent of the previous era, but in fact I
think they are simply unique deviants.
~kurt
> ~kurt <actino...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>Floyd L. Davidson <fl...@apaflo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> brought this newsgroup to the state that Kurt described
>>> in such a bland way (bland because in fact he was part
>>> and parcel of the more obnoxious group of people, and
>>
>
> I'll stand by that description. It has good
> perspective.
Well, it is wrong.
>>I walked into the middle of +Chiron+ after a bit of an absence.
>>While I consider myself friends (via the net) with some of those
>>who took an elitist attitude, I never supported the harshness
>
> You didn't denounce it, and argued with those who did.
> Shame on you for that. Shame on you today for your
Oh, Christ, you are one of those types....
Or, were you just the guy who could never admit when he was wrong.
I know there is something I don't like about you, but bloody hell
if I can remember exactly what it was.
I had denounced it on occasion, but never made a big deal of it and
only gave the worst offenders any shit over it on rare occasion. People
should grow thicker skin. Most of the crew was not abusive, even though
some of the idiots accused them of being so because their bedside manner
was sometimes a bit curt.
And yes, I did argue with many who had to go crying home to their
mommas because their feelings were hurt and the group was filled
with nothing but meanies and how could Slackware continue to grow
with such meanies all over the group and wha wha whaaaaaaaa....
I believe it was Ron Gibson who made the only real level headed
argument against +Chiron+, and I certainly didn't argue against
what he said. I wish I could remember the exact wording, but
it was something along the lines of self serving abusiveness -
it was very well worded.
> description suggesting that the jerks were anything
> other than jerks, then or now.
God forbid! Honestly, I could really give a fuck. I understand
that people act differently behind a keyboard than in person.
I deal with it.
> Of course, I'm *not* claiming you were the worst, by any
> stretch.
No, but you say I was part of the problem because I was not
part of the solution, despite the fact that I was never abusive (besides
what I mentioned in the previous post) and because I get along with some
of the "meanies" out there. What, are you from Kalifornia or something?
Most of those meanies are pretty good people. I believe some were
a little too influenced by +Chiron+ for a bit, but oh well. I used
to want to buy a Harley until I realized the Japs are the ones who made
real motorcycles....
> Just imagine, for example, somebody who, when the
> previous total idiot finally grew tired and left,
> immediately put '+' on either side of their name and
I never understood that, but he has contributed a great deal
to Slackware - whether you like it or not. He's a good guy
overall.
Like I said, we have all had some very serious disagreements on the
OT list - but everyone still keeps talking to each other. I believe Keith
learned to never again say "Gee, it has been quite around here..." because
of the neverending flamewar that started one post afterwards....
I can't get all worked up over computer know-how. I'm an aerospace
engineer - I know just enough about IT (as they call it now days) to
be dangerous. For some people, that is their business, and they can get
a little snotty with it. Tough shit. I've been given the snotty attitude
myself in the past - didn't bother me. I try not to be a pussy.
- Kurt
Dragomir Kollaric
<cut>
> Allan Connor, GP, ANC, rm, +Chiron+ - yea, I insulted them all
<cut>
Well, I blush when I mention this. In one *Linux* group he
gave the advice instead of "removing" files to put them into
a trashbin. He wrote a little script of it, and I used it
and I forgot about it. Every file I deleted on the
command-line instead of being deleted, landed in the trash.
Well in time it grew to such a huge directory that at one
time there was no space left on my /home partition. I think
I couldn't even log in as user at that stage. Such kind of
advice came from A.C. After that I ignored the dude. Sure it
was my own fault too, but having no knowledge about scripts,
I jumped gladly at it in the hope it would save me some
files I mistakenly deleted.
Come to think of it, no files I deleted at that time
were worth keeping anyway... The files in questions were
audio-files, from Tapes I recorded to the PC.
>
> - Kurt
Tom N
> On 2007-11-16, ~kurt hit the keyboard and wrote:
>
><cut>
>
>> Allan Connor, GP, ANC, rm, +Chiron+ - yea, I insulted them all
>
><cut>
>
> Well, I blush when I mention this. In one *Linux* group he
> gave the advice instead of "removing" files to put them into
> a trashbin. He wrote a little script of it, and I used it
> and I forgot about it. Every file I deleted on the
> command-line instead of being deleted, landed in the trash.
> Well in time it grew to such a huge directory that at one
> time there was no space left on my /home partition. I think
> I couldn't even log in as user at that stage. Such kind of
> advice came from A.C. After that I ignored the dude. Sure it
> was my own fault too, but having no knowledge about scripts,
> I jumped gladly at it in the hope it would save me some
> files I mistakenly deleted.
>
> Come to think of it, no files I deleted at that time
> were worth keeping anyway... The files in questions were
> audio-files, from Tapes I recorded to the PC.
>
>
>
>>
>> - Kurt
>
>
> Dragomir Kollaric
Do I have this right? You use a script that is designed to
send your deleted files to a directory so that they can be
checked before final deletion, then you don't check
the directory and just let it grow, which it obviously
will do, and then blame the author of the script for
the problems this creates?
I don't know which one of those people you are trying
to discredit, but in this story
the only one who looks bad is you.
I know a lot of people who run Windows, which has the
same functionality built in. Never heard of any of them
having a problem with it. Some of them are less than
10 years old.
Tom
notbob
> [...]
> So people still buy more horsepower (hardware). We (Slackers and other
> Linux'rs) just want more than the average joe does for OS's for our
> PC's.
I think the new linux desktop running gOS from Walmart is going to do
more to change people's minds about linux than even ubuntu. It's google
app centric (another M$ threat) and only costs $200. The first shipment
sold out almost immediately. I may get one just as a goof. But,
besides the can't-pass-up price, the custom linux OS is ready to go with
all the usual office/web/email apps pre-configured for John Q Puter.
Kinda like an OS X apple, only sanely cheaper. It should be an
interesting experiment ....if they can keep 'em stocked.
nb
Sylvain Robitaille
> ...
> Well, I blush when I mention this. In one *Linux* group he gave the
> advice instead of "removing" files to put them into a trashbin.
Not necessrily _bad_ advice ...
> He wrote a little script of it, and I used it and I forgot about
> it. Every file I deleted on the command-line instead of being
> deleted, landed in the trash.
Yes. That is, after all, what the script purported to do, right?
> Well in time it grew to such a huge directory that at one time
> there was no space left on my /home partition. I think I couldn't even
> log in as user at that stage. Such kind of advice came from A.C.
I didn't know he had it in him, I admit. Are we referring to the same
"A.C."? (there are a few that seem to appear on this newsgroup, from
time to time ...)
> After that I ignored the dude.
Would it not have been more to your advantage to simply take what you
had by then learned, and improve upon his script??? Most people ignore
him for completely different reasons than "he proposed a simple solution
to a problem I had ..."
> Sure it was my own fault too, but having no knowledge about scripts, I
> jumped gladly at it in the hope it would save me some files I
> mistakenly deleted.
I trust that you've learned more from the experience than simply to
ignore this one fellow. I would propose the following enhancement to
the script in question, but leave it to you to implement it (or not):
- check every time it's called what the percentage of space used on the
partition containing the "trash" directory is used by the "trash", and
above a certain threshold, (perhaps prompt the user to) purge contents
that have been there longest (until the percentage of space used by the
trash is lowered by some amount).
another (simpler) possibility would be simply to (again, perhaps first
prompting the user) simply delete files that have been in the "trash"
beyond a configurable amount of time. I'm sure that others could come
up with yet more possible approaches to the problem.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille s...@alcor.concordia.ca
Systems and Network analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------