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Linux Online - Configuring and Setting up the WebDAV services

Things to sort on the Red Hat 8.0 Laptop:
1 - Sound under Flash in Mozilla
2 - APM / ACPI - I just get a very dim screen when the battery hits 50% and can't do anything about it.

On the plus side, the built-in wireless networking worked perfectly from the install - I'm posting this from Red Hat over Wi-Fi :)

So, it looks like the keyboard bounce is fixed :)
I just followed Jeremy Thompson's useful advice (Option 2):
"In file /etc/X11/XF86Config, set the Xkbdisable function as follows:

# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
Option "XkbDisable"

This works more reliably than Method 1, but you will lose some keyboard functionality, specifically anything invoked by the AltGr key."
...I never used the AltGr key anyway.... ;)

Macromedia - Flash TechNotes Flash Player (Mozilla Plug-in) for Linux ReadMe

Found a relevant thread at linuxquestions.org.

...Arse - sound under flash in Mozilla is still crap. More research required.

....Oh yeah, and the MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME is set by the /usr/bin/mozilla script, so that's sorted as well :)

OK; sorted the Mozilla version issue.
Basically, when you click on the browser icon on the panel in Red Hat 8.0, it invokes a script callled htmlview.
htmlview calls your favourite browser, which is Mozilla if you use Gnome and Konqueror if you use KDE as far as I can see.
Anyway, changing the icon to directly launch the browser rather than htmlview would be easy, but I enjoy pain and wanted to work out how to do this elegantly.
I was going to try hacking htmlview, when I realised that it actually calls a script, /usr/bin/mozilla which in turn fires up mozilla.
In the script, /usr/bin/mozilla, there are many references to your present mozilla install. This resides in /usr/lib/mozilla-1.0.1 by default in Red Hat 8.0, so changing all references here to reflect your new mozilla install (e.g. /usr/lib/mozilla-1.2.1 or wherever you put it) sorts everything out..
The benefit of this approach is that the cleverness of htmlview and the /usr/bin/mozilla script are preserved.
Note that you need to log out and log back in to effect the change, although I suspect that relaunching/refreshing the panel would do it.

So, I've installed mozilla 1.2.1 and flash plug-in under Red Hat 8.0, andd it looks good, exceptt for thhee mozilla iinsttall error:
[root@dhcppc1 mozilla-installer]# ./mozilla-installer
Warning: MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME not set.
Also, need to fond out howw to ggeet deffault browserr iccon to ppoint aat new versiion, and sorrt out this fuckingg keyboard bounce. I am not taking the piss :(

Red Hat 8 RPM's for Mozilla 1.2.1 :)

Also gtk-gnutella and kazaa for Linux (apparently); the link for that one seems a bit dodgy.

giFT - p2p file transfer software.

A useful tip on how to sort out keyboard bounce in Red Hat 8.0.

Going back through some links, I found the browserspy from gemal, who has now reinvented his site as a blog. Linked to him because he seems to do a lot of good work with mozilla, my cross-platform browser of choice at the moment.

Reference for screen brightness under Linux on Toshiba laptops.

I've been trying to get my 64MB USB pen drive to mount under Linux, because it's just so useful when there's no LAN. Eventually found the official answer at the PenDrive FAQ:
Q: Linux 2.4.x does not automatically recognize my Pen Drive?!

A: Linux uses a so-called "USB Manager", which does automatically loads kernel modules (drivers) for USB devices. It loads only drivers for devices that are present on the USB bus to reduce memory usage. Per default, the USB Manager does not come with the Pen Drive preconfigured. However, you can easily configure the USB Manager to automatically recognize the Pen Drive yourself. Just add the following to the configuration file,
usbmgr.conf (usually in /etc/usbmgr):
vendor 0xd7d product 0x100 module scsi_mod, usb-storage
This line identifies the Pen Drive and tells the USB Manager to load the SCSI as well as the USB storage module. The SCSI module is needed in order to talk to both SCSI and USB storage devices, while the usb-storage module is needed to talk to USB storage devices.
Do not forget to either reload the USB Manager's configuration or to restart the USB Manager (for instance, do as root: /etc/init.d/usbmgr reload).

BTW, experts-exchange is fast becoming one of my favourite sites for looking up answers to my dumb-ass problems :)

Okay, irritating error when trying to mount smb shares as a normal user iin Red Hat 8.0:
smbmnt must be installed suid root for direct user mounts (500,500)
smbmnt failed: 1
Discussed here and the answer seems to be:
"To change the smbmount executable to be SUID root, execute the following:
chmod u+s /path/to/smbmount
Note: This has some security implications, but IMHO not too serious if you're behind a firewall..."
...so some more research might be appropriate......

Just to say that I've been surfing with mozilla 1.0.1 on Red Hat 8.0, using a PIII 1GHz machine and 512Kb broadband, and it absolutely flies!!
Sound under flash is still a problem (the plug-in does say it's designed for mozilla 1.1 or later), but this is probably the fastest web page rendering I have ever seen!

Red Hat 8.0 does not ship with mp3 support, due to legal issues surrounding mp3 encoding. Details here.
I use xmms, and the simple fix for it is here.

Explore2FS - browse linux volumes from windoze - very useful for dual boot systems.

Thought I'd put a note here to explain; I've set up my work laptop (a Tecra 9000) to dual-boot with Windoze XP. This means I can play with Linux when away from home :) and try using it in the corporate environment.

Useful note: if you want to dual-boot a windoze NT derivative with Linux, and to use the NT boot loader, here's how to do it:
1. Install windoze. Make sure that you have 75MB free space within the first 1024 cylinders of the disk (i.e. leave 75MB free space at the beginning of the disk). Put windoze on a primary partition, or make sure that the extended uses up the rest of the disk.
2. Install Linux. Use the 75MB as /boot. Select LILO as the boot loader and install LILO at the start of the /boot partition, not in the MBR. Create a boot floppy so you can boot Linux.
3. Boot Linux from the floppy and mount the windoze partition.
4. Copy the LILO boot sector to the root of the windoze partition. If you have mounted your windoze partition as /dos, and /boot is /dev/hda1, the command would be:
/bin/dd if=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1 of=/dos/bootsek.lin
5. Boot windoze and edit boot.ini to include a line:
C:\bootsek.lin="Linux"
Now when you boot, the windoze boot loader gives you the option "Linux". Tidy!
NOTE that steps 4 & 5 must be repeated if you update the kernel, so keep that boot floppy somewhere safe!!
It is much easier to just use GRUB to boot both OS'es, but I had a scenario where Linux might be removed later, but the windoze would have to stay, so this method allows that to happen.

I had an old P150, 64MB RAM lying about, and thought I might get round to having a look at the mod_dav module for apache at some point, so I decided to build the machine as a Linux box. This means that I can balls things up without killing my existing Red Hat server, which I am now quite dependent on as a file server.
Problem was that the Creative 8x CDROM in the machine didn't like any of my home-burned Red Hat CD's. My solution was to go back to an old set of SuSE 6.4 silver, pukka CDROMs that I actually have the full box edition of.
I'd forgotten how ace SuSE is - easy install, (excellent X-configuration) and best of all, no bloated Gnome required. SuSE like KDE, and it seems to be much smaller. Full default install plus samba, apache, window maker and some other odds comes to just over 800MB.
Just downloaded and installed latest stable mozilla build, and we're in business. I have to say that the mozilla installer for Linux also rocks - very easy indeed.
mod_dav was available as an install option, so I've done that. More notes later when I play with it.

The good news is that the Mac OS X port of Open Office is at final beta for X11. The not so good news is that there still seems to be some way to go before the Quartz / Aqua version will be available. The Open Office team need help, even if it's just testing and feedback, so if you're a bit of a UNIX geek with an Apple.....
Additionally, well done to the X-Box Linux Project who have managed to not only get Linux running on the X-Box, but also have it running Open Office.
Also, check out the Darwin Streaming Server from Apple: an Open Source streaming media server for Linux, Solaris and Windows. More on Darwin here.