coverup

My mail clients have trouble reading mail from /var/spool/mail directory. It seems that the problem is that kmail/netscape and the like do not have permission to create a lock file in /var/spool/mail. As a temporary solution I changed permissions to give all users write access to this dir. That seems to work, but I would like to fix the problem in a more secure way. Does anybody have an idea? If that might help... This is a user account ctreated during install. Originally, it didn't have a mailbox at all, I created it by hand making /var/spool/mail/ owned by user.mail (ie owned by user, group mail), this is how mailbox is set on another box... Do I have to add user to group mail, or anything of this sort?

This may be not exactly what you're after, but... http://muthanna.com/quickswitch. (Credit to anon).

I have nano installed. Believe it or not, for me it does an amusing thing. When nano is run remotedly (via ssh), sometimes backspace strokes become DEL (with a good probability, it's every 8th stroke!)...

Ok, no worries then. Thanks.

Thanks, got it (the 9.2 version)... BTW, it gives me a warning: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID caba22ae Does this mean that the package could be tampered with?

Does anybody know, why are pine and pico rpms no longer included in Mandrake? According to rpmfind.net, for the last time they made appearance in Mandrake 8.2. I can of course download a tarball from their website, but am just curious...

Eventually, I sorted it out... Indeed, myhostname and mynetworks must be defined in the postfix configuration file main.cf. For fetchmail to work, option 'mda= '/usr/sbin/procmail -d -%T' must be added to the poll line.

Thanks for clarifying that, aRTee. All those modifications are easy to use if X is started from the console. As for the graphical logon, I tried to add -- -dpi 120 to the last line of xinitrc (copied it from /etc/X11/xinit/ and saved as .xinitrc in my home dir): # $Id: xinitrc-xinitrc,v 1.2 2002/09/10 05:53:43 flepied Exp $ # Set a background here because it's not done anymore # in Xsesion for non root users if [ "`whoami`" != root ]; then xsetroot -solid "#21449C" fi exec /etc/X11/Xsession -- -dpi 120 $* For some reason, that did not have any effect... On the hand, there is the following line in startx: defaultclientargs="" Apparently, one could add options between quotes, which will make them system wide. But I would like to make startx options user specific. Cheers.

Thanks, aRTee. Yep, DisplaySize should change dpi settings, I have used this trick before. I am wondering if there is a standard way of passing startx options into init 5 login. I assume that startx runs some scripts, so this should be a matter of editing a config file somewhere...

I would like to start X with some options. E.g., I would like to use -dpi 120 and/or different XF86Config-4 file. How can I set those options if I use the graphical login prompt? Can I add those options somewhere to make them default?

I did try synaptics for a while, and it worked for me just fine in MDK 9.2, at least when no other mice were connected. Since the synaptic driver was conflicting with an external mouse, I switched back to the standard PS/2 driver. My laptop has a dual pointing device, ie, touchpad+trackpoint, IBM calls it ultranav; both work fine with the PS/2 driver except for the middle button. altima, as a last resort, check Linux on ThinkPad maillist, mailman-linux-thinkpad.org. Also, depending on the model, IBM might have a driver for your laptop. Check their support site.

I can't really see anything wrong with the mouse section. Just to be sure, check the output of ln -l /dev/mouse. It should point to misc/psaux or something similar. You can also try replacing /dev/mouse to /dev/psaux in XF86Config-4 (in case /dev/mouse is simlinked to something else).

I have some weird problems with configuring postfix. One strange thing is that there is no mailboxes in /var/spool/mail. I set up only one user account on the laptop (and root of course). The account was created during install. If I add another dummy user, userdrake creates the mailbox for that user. How come the very first user does not have a mailbox? Will it be Ok, if I simply create the maibox by $ touch /var/spool/mail/user? Now about the postfix... Since this is a laptop, I have two network profiles for home and work. For that reason, I have added this line to main.cf myhostname=hostname.works.fully.qualified.domain since at home domainname returns (none), I don't run a DNS server at home. After I've done that, I can send mail, but I can't receive any mail. When I start postfix I see these warnings postfix/postfix-script: warning: /var/spool/postfix/etc/localtime and /etc/localtime differ postfix/postfix-script: warning: /var/spool/postfix/etc/hosts and /etc/hosts differ postfix/postfix-script: warning: /var/spool/postfix/etc/resolv.conf and /etc/resolv.conf differ postfix/postfix-script: warning: /var/spool/postfix/etc/hosts.orig and /etc/hosts.orig differ postfix/postfix-script: starting the Postfix mail system It seems that the files in /var/spool/postfix/etc/ are those that were created during the first install. I edited the files in /etc since then. But /var/spool/postfix/etc/ was not updated. Should I update /var/spool/postfix/etc/ every time when I switch from one network profile to another (resolve.conf and hosts are different).

Can you post your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 here?

Sorry, altima, here are some suggestions... First, you may try using some other driver for your trackpoint. I would disconnect any other pointing devices before doing that. 0. Backup your XF86Config, XF86Config-4 files. In the terminal, type in su, then type in the root password. Then do the following: # cd /etc/X11/ # cp XF86Config-4 XF86Config-4.original # cp XF86Config XF86Config.original # ls Don't worry if you don't have one of those files and you will get an error. It's most likely, that you only have XF86Config-4. ls must show the new file(s) with extension .original in that dir. Now type exit. 1. Start Mandrake Control Centre (is there one in MDK10?). You can start it from the terminal by typing mcc in the command prompt, or choose an appropriate item from the menu. If you're in KDE, just click the large K in the left corner of the panel down at the bottom of the screen. If you can't click, just press ALT+F1, to show the menu. You have to choose "Configure my computer" or something similar to that. You will be prompted to to type in root's password, just do that. 2. In MCC, go to the section called Hardware. There must be an entry in that section that would allow you to configure your mouse. Navigate to that icon, and follow the instructions. First your hardware will be probed and you will be presented with a suitable (in Mandrake's view) configuration. You can accept Mandrake's choice or change it. Whatever your choice is, save it, then exit MCC. At this stage your XF86Config-4 will be rewritten (but you have the backup!). 3. Now you need to exit X and be able start it again. Windows would force you to reboot computer for this, but in Linux, you just need to logout to the console. You can do it gracefully by choosing logout from the KDE/Gnome menu. That would do, if you started X by typing startx. If that sounds like a bunch of strange words, you probably have a graphical login. In that case, pressing CTRL+ALT+Backspace should do the trick. 4. In console, type startx. Hopefully, the trackpoint will now work. If not, repeat steps 1 to 3, this time try some other mouse in MCC. If that doesn't work, post a message here.

On my TP, MDK 9.2 handles the ultranav device without a hitch. It was configured as a PS/2 mouse and worked out of the box. Both the trackpoint and touchpad work. With the synaptics driver, even trackpoint's middle button works. Try the synaptics driver (you may need to modprobe the evdev module first).

Here is a piece of my .emacs file. If you have the auctex and reftex packages installed, including this code in .emacs file should add Command and Ref to the emacs pulldown menu. Like Qchem, I have the dvi file open in xdvi or kdvi. However, I run LaTeX within emacs using the pulldown menu (of course, you can run latex using an emacs minibufer command if you like). This makes locating a problem as easy as pressing C-`. (require 'tex-site) (require 'font-latex) ;; The 'TeX-command-list' (pull-down menu at the top of emacs appearing when ;; emacs is in TeX major mode) consists of the options below. ;; Invoking 'C-c C-c' in a TeX major mode will run the "LaTeX" command ;; of the command list. (After compiling, errors can be retrieved by ;; invoking 'C-c `' (Control-c accent-gr\`ave). ;; If no errors occur and if all cross-references are known, a second ;; 'C-c C-c' will run the 'View' command of the list. ;; First customize the printer list (defvar TeX-printer-list '(("Default" "dvips %s" "lpq") ("printer_at_home") ("printer_at_work") ;; Expand the list if you want to )) ;; Set up default printer (defvar TeX-printer-default (or (getenv "PRINTER") (and TeX-printer-list (car (car TeX-printer-list))) "printer_at_work")) (defvar TeX-command-list (list(list "LaTeX" "latex '\\nonstopmode\\input{%t}'" 'TeX-run-LaTeX nil t) (list "PDFLaTeX" "pdflatex '\\nonstopmode\\input{%t}'" 'TeX-run-command nil t) (list "View" "xdvi -s 5 %s" 'TeX-run-command t nil) (list "dviPS to file" "dvips -Pcmz %d -o %f" 'TeX-run-command nil t) (list "Ghostview" "ghostview %f" 'TeX-run-command nil t) (list "Convert to pdf using ghostscript" "ps2pdf %f" 'TeX-run-command nil t) (list "Print" "%p " 'TeX-run-command t nil) (list "Queue" "%q" 'TeX-run-background nil nil) (list "BibTeX" "bibtex %s" 'TeX-run-BibTeX nil nil) (list "Index" "makeindex %s" 'TeX-run-command nil t) (list "Check" "lacheck %s" 'TeX-run-compile nil t) (list "Other" "" 'TeX-run-command t t) )) ;; Add RefTeX mode (add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook 'turn-on-reftex) ; with AUCTeX LaTeX mode (add-hook 'latex-mode-hook 'turn-on-reftex) ; with Emacs latex mode

Thanks, arthur. That did the trick. The script is /etc/sysconfig/suspend. # Sometime USB doen't support well the suspending, specially for mouse # you may want to activate USBMOUSE_RESTART to make sure that your # mouse will work, if you want to restart the whole usb system set the # variable USB_RESTART USB_RESTART="NO" I replaced the last line with USB_RESTART="YES" USBMOUSE_RESTART="yes" and got my USB mouse back on resume.

Okay, I thought the problem with connecting an external mouse is behind... I connected my 3B mouse through a PS/2 to USB adapter and everything seemed to work - the usb device is recognised on boot, both the mouse and touchpad work... until I suspend the laptop. Upon resume, the external mouse is dead... Restarting X does not help either... Any advise please?

Then your best bet is emacs + auctex + reftex. Emacs is easily configurable, you can easily add a menu that will allow compiling tex/latex files, viewing dvi, running bibtex, pdftex, dvips, ps2pdf, etc. Auctex provides a set of macros that take care of adding eqnarrays, floats, font highlighting, reftex makes including references and citations very easy. Also, emacs spellchecker ispell is latex-aware, it won't curse you over each and every \ref and \eqnarray. Plus lots of other features, such as search/replace accross multiple documents (comes handy, if you treat chapters as separate latex files). All these goodies come with Mandrake, but you may need to install them - Mandrake's software choice is somewhat specific :D. Xemacs should provide the same functionality, though I prefer emacs.

Forgot to mention LyX, not sure though whether it is suitable for larde docs.

You can try TeXmacs, it's available from Mandrake contrib sites. Having said that, I recommend to use Emacs/Xemacs for serious work.

I use one of the MDK enterprise kernels on T41. Works fine for me except for poweroff does not turn off the laptop all the way. You can install it alongside your current kernel and just add a new stanza to lilo.conf.

I've done some googling, and found a remedy... I created an ISO image of the CDROM using the command $mkisofs -J -r file.iso /mnt/cdrom Then became root and mounted it to test it: # mkdir testdir # mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 file.iso /full_path_to_testdir/testdir/ # cd /full_path_to_testdir/testdir/ # ls # umount /full_path_to_testdir/testdir/ The files which previously produced an error were there. I suppose I could delete them, but I chose to keep them. Finally, I fired up k3b, Tools-> Write ISO image, selected file.iso and a few minutes after, I had a copy of the CD. Those two damaged files from the original CD were still producing an error, but the rest were OK...

Thanks, Qchem. That's sounds like an advise I was looking for. (I love this forum:-)). Could you please give/point to some instructions. I looked at man mkisofs, but got lost in the third line...