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treeg

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  1. I thought everyone alread knew about this from Tom's original pages at: http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/utils/utime.html or http://www.mandrakeusers.org/docs/utils/utime.html It's considered bad practice to use a stratum 1 time server unless you are a stratum 2 time server. See: http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/servers.html NIST and US Naval Observatory stratum 1 time servers are listed at: http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/servi...me-servers.html and http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ntp.html Most restrict access to stratum 1 servers. If you try to use them, you'll get "CONNECTION REFUSED." The time.nist.gov server allows free access but you can get several seconds of inaccuracy because it is so heavily used. There's a list of stratum 2 NTP servers at: http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/clock2a.html For the greatest accuracy, especially using rdate, pick the closest server. Getting the time from a local stratum 3 server will probably set your clock more accurately then pinging a stratum 1 or 2 server that is more distant. The delays and errors as your ping and the reply transit the Internet are far greater than the tiny difference in accuracy between stratum 1 and 3 when using rdate, which does little to compensate for latency delays. Try ntp1.yourisp.domain or ntp-1.yourisp.domain. I use ntp1. or ntp2.crosslink.net, my ISP's local network time servers, when I can't get time more accurately via CHU or WWV. NTP clients/servers are the 'gold standard' and xntp is included in every major Linux distribution. Unfortunately, NTP software is bloated and an NTP server uses a lot of resources. Although NTP can run without continuous Internet access, it's a pain to do so and becomes an "error averaging" system that might remain accurate but is at the mercy of the drift of the individual computers in the network. With continuous Internet access, NTP servers will ping higher stratum servers for time corrections every 11 or so seconds to stay synchronized. SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol) clients replaced rdate. SNTP applies some corrections to compensate for network latency and is far more accurate than rdate. I don't know why distro's don't include an SNTP client. Perhaps I'll build an SNTP rpm for contrib's over the winter since I'm in the process of learning about building rpms. You can get the source code for a Perl implementation of SNTP at: http://www.kloth.net/software/sntp.php I haven't used it. Dr Berstein's ClockSpeed and TaiClock at: http://cr.yp.to/time.html are written in C and are what I'm working with in my home network. Try out clockspeed. It's supposed to 'discipline' the system clock to compensate for drift. I hope that TAI will be compiled into kernels in the near future as we approach 2036 when Unix time will crash. Check Dr Berstein's pages for his take on the problems. I like TAI and TaiClock but I break my systems too often when trying to custom compile kernels. {grumble} Although it's no longer maintained, there's a good mini-HOWTO at: http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Howto/mini/Clock.html Most of the information is still current. I've actually used Canada's CHU time broadcasts to get stratum 1 accuracy in my home network. The shortwave radio received cost 5 USD at a garage sale and has worked for years. See: http://www.rossi.com/chu/ It's possible to get stratum 1 accuracy at home. Chrony is also good, especially the scripts for turning your time client on and off by modifying ppp scripts so your time client isn't constantly trying to ping an NTP server when you have no Internet connection. The xntp HOWTO at: http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Howto/Time...OWTO/index.html is still maintained. Sorry, but using rdate isn't very accurate. It does a poor job of compensating for latency in the Internet. It's just a novelty to say that you synchronized with the atomic clock at NIST. Expect accuracy of only +/- a few seconds using rdate and the NIST public server. More accurate is a phone call to NISTs public phone server to get accuracy of +/- .5 second or better. SNTP and Clockspeed can give you accuracies of about +/- 50 milliseconds. NTP with a continuous connection to the Internet can maintain accuracy of +/- 5 mS. To get more accuracy costs money for GPS or WWV receivers and precision crystals in phase-lock loops and... Learning about time in Linux can be interesting. I guess I'm a 'time geek' ??
  2. Most newer digital cameras connect to PCs by USB so you can mount them as a storage device. IMO, cameras with removable storage are even better. I looked a a lot of them and chose the Nikon CoolPix 3500 that uses CF cards for storage and has an easily replacable battery. It has a 'scene' menu with 'snow' and 'landscape' settings to compensate for brightness of scenes, giving you a huge improvement in pictures under other-than-normal light conditions. It does macro down to two inches, too. The CoolPix 3500 is NOT supported by gPhoto but it mounts as a 'removable drive.' I copy the jpg's to my laptop's HD directly from the camero when I'm traveling or put the CF card into the reader in my home PC. I know of no camera manufacturer that distributes software to run on Linux and gPhoto is the only libris+gratis software specifically designed for digital cameras.
  3. If you're up for a bit of a challenge, check out Dr Bernstein's Time page. Libtai is especially appropriate if you box is older. NTP has become bloated and hogs a lot of system time.
  4. Why? Freedom to play, hack, change, configure and learn. What interest me? Everything Why don't I use MS, Mac or other OS? Actually, I tried BeOS, DR-DOS & FreeDOS, and FreeBSD as well as MS WWG3.11, Win95/98/ME. I don't use them because Mandrake Linux meets my needs better for less money. What made me start using Linux? Curiosity and a RedHat 5.2 boxed set on a discount table at Crowne Books. I just 'played around' with Linux until Mandrake 7.0, the first truly usable distro that I installed.
  5. In my household, spouse's geneaology hobby. She uses Win4Lin, a WinME partition and FAT32 partitions for 'Family Tree Maker' software that catalogs and organizes all her research, sources, photographs, pdf's of documents, etc. There isn't a libris software/OS equivalent ('Grandpa's ..' isn't even close).
  6. SuSe employs better publicists. You will probably find Mandrake on more student PCs than SuSe, especially in my area, Northern Virginia. The Mandrake download and basic edition are easier to get and provide more flexibility than SuSe. Check out the Yorktown High site and planned fall InstallFest, as an example. In the fall of 2001, the C++ class at Liberty High used Mandrake 8.0 for their development suite. Auto-install and a package selection floppy eased installs on the computer lab boxes. Every student was offered a disk set; most took one. Many of those students still use Mandrake, including my daughter who put 9.1 on her new laptop next to WinXP. Unfortunately, Liberty dropped their programming classes in favor of tech classes in web site development, computer graphics and such -- all using proprietary software on a common proprietary OS. If you use Linux, get involved. Volunteer to give a talk on Linux for a school computer club. When MandrakeStore offers 9.1 boxed sets at huge discounts (after 9.2 is released), donate a few bucks to the school library if they'll order on school letterhead. Recruit some help and offer to do installs. Turn a club meeting into an installfest. Then volunteer as one of the adult sponsors for the school LUG that will naturally grow out of the installs. Then... Plant a seed and it'll grow. Teenagers in your area will move on to college and eventually careers. In 2012, they will buy SuSe, the Linux that they know and love. In Northern Virginia, it will be Mandrake and RedHat. It's all good for Linux.
  7. Go to TigerDirect or any computer store or even your local WalMart and buy the lowest priced 802.11b complaint 'Cable/DSL Gateway Router' that you find and that has the features you want. I compared and found little difference between Belkin, SMC, Netgear, LinkSys, D-Link, TrendNet and so on through the manufacturers. Don't worry about 'high speed' 22/54Mbps unless you already have comparable high speed wireless cards. Expect to pay less than 50 USD after rebates for a good 11MBps gateway/router/WAP. Most gateway routers include a NAT firewall and 3 or 4 CAT5 connectors for your hardwire network. Some also include a serial port for a phone backup for your cable/DSL and a parallel printer port for a printer. I got lucky and found a close-out model with WAP, serial backup and printer server/port for $34.95. Most have Smoothwall inside. It's very easy to set them up with a web browser from any box in your little net. Good luck and have fun. Setting up your new mini-network will be one of the easier things you've tried if you're comfortable with Mandrake.[/url]
  8. I'm not sure what you mean by 'not postscript stuff.' Use CUPS. If you send plain text to your printer, it will print text. If you send formatted text, the CUPS drivers will (try to) print in the format that you specified. AFAIK, no 'filters' exist to strip the formating from formatted text but almost all word processors have the option to save and/or output plain text. Text editors output plain text unless you intentionally add formatting. I don't have a Fujitsu impact printer; mine is a Panasonic. I use it a lot in 'draft mode' to get a legible hard copy of a long script. Perhaps your Fujitsu also has a similar setting? Tree
  9. Nice basic tutorial at http://www.trylinuxsd.com/nuke/ (and info on the Admin account at http://www.trylinuxsd.com/nuke/pages/nuke9.html ).
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