David Haraburda Issue #52, August 1998 The new kid on the block—Stampede Linux.       Stampede Linux was created because of our dissatisfaction with other distributions. We found that while other distributions had many useful features, none of them had everything we wanted. While the development team recognizes perfection is an unachievable goal, the driving force behind the development ...

David Sweet Issue #52, August 1998 Mr. Sweet teaches us how to write an application for the KDE desktop—for the experienced GUI programmer. The stated goal of the K Desktop Environment, KDE, is to provide a free, user-friendly desktop for Linux/UNIX systems. The project’s participants began by providing a window manager (kwm/kpanel) and a file manager (kfm) and retrofitting popular ...

Ben Elliston Issue #52, August 1998 Mr. Elliston is working on a protocol for using SCSI devices to network Linux clusters in order to transfer data at high speeds. I was introduced to the UNIX operating system about seven years ago, and I soon became familiar with the networking companion to UNIX: TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol). As time progressed, ...

Various Issue #51, July 1998 Our experts answer your technical questions. Unfinished Boot When I try to boot, either from floppy or CD-ROM, my computer does a soft re-boot partway through the process. It doesn’t even make it to the screen which asks if you have a color monitor, although I suspect it gets close to that point. I’ve tried ...

John Blair Issue #51, July 1998 When you need to network your Linux box with Windows, Samba is the way to do it. The whole point of networking is to allow computers to easily share information. Sharing information with other Linux boxes, or any UNIX host, is easy—tools such as FTP and NFS are readily available and frequently set up ...

Pete Popov Issue #51, July 1998 Mr. Popov shows us how easy it is to test SCSI devices when our operating system is Linux. A few months ago my ex-boss and I were discussing the latest product of his company and the systems they were using for testing purposes, both in the office and in the factory. “It’s all DOS—what ...

George Kraft IV Issue #51, July 1998 The Graphical Desktop Korn Shell (DtKsh) is a featured part of the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). DtKsh provides a consistent and reliable graphical Motif shell language that is supported on all CDE-compliant systems. Portability and pervasiveness are two important characteristics to consider when you are developing code. Using a programming language with a ...

Bear Giles Issue #51, July 1998 Here’s a good way to protect your files. Mr. Giles explains how to encrypt your entire file system rather than individual files. In one episode of “Miami Vice” Crockett and Tubbs have managed to gain access to a drug runner’s computer, only to be stymied by its insistence on a password before presenting incriminating ...

Pierre Ficheux Issue #51, July 1998 This article explains how Linux is used in the ViewSurf “Beach Report”, a fun WebCAM-based service. The raison d’être of ViewSurf is to give surfers access to up-to-date on-line weather reports. Classic weather report information is provided, such as temperature and wave status, but the bonus is an up-to-date video that gives the surfer ...

Clinton Jeffery Shamim Mohamed Issue #51, July 1998 This article gives a quick introduction to the programming language Icon, developed at the University of Arizona. Linux users are early adopters of new technology, so it’s not surprising that many in the Linux community wish to use the best programming language for a given application, rather than being limited to just ...