2002 January

Linux.ie
http://www.linux.ie/
Linux.ie is a clean and informative site put together by ILUG - the Irish Linux User Group. With current up-to-date articles on items of interest to nearly any Linux user, Linux.ie is a great daily read. Currently, the features include a distribution review of Astarto Linux and a howto on building a file server with [...]

Mice [80 K]

http://www.coprolite.fsnet.co.uk/mice-4.0.tar.gz
http://www.coprolite.fsnet.co.uk/software.html
“Mice (Mundungus Internet Connection Enhancer) is a server designed for a home network where one machine has a modem to connect to the internet. Clients on other machines can communicate with the server and ask it to connect to the internet. The server keeps track of client requests and disconnects when all clients [...]

The House Is On Fire!
Crisis Management in Linux
There’s nothing in the computer world quite like backups. We all clearly understand the necessity of creating them regularly, but few of us actually do it. Linux is particularly well equipped for creating these backups and doing it, for the most part, completely in the background. These backups [...]

Proper Time
When I was building and installing telescopes, a critical element of the RedHat installation was assuring that the system time was properly set and maintained. That system time was the basis for many of the important astronomical calculations for the telescopes. There are, however, many other programs and processes in Linux that rely heavily [...]

Man, you all know how to write a script. I’m seeing a lot of interesting, useful and just plain fun scripts for the upcoming series on shell scripting. Remember that this series will be written by users. Don’t hesitate to submit you favorite, most esoteric, most useful script for publication the week of February 4.
I’m [...]

JustLinux
http://www.justlinux.com/

JustLinux manages to walk a fine line. It takes a 10,000-foot view of the Linux world while managing to cover enough details and timely information to be useful on a day-to-day basis. The site features a Linux Registry, product reviews, and a marketplace for Linux-related items and services. Also available are a full compliment of [...]

Gnu Ledger [54 K]

http://freshmeat.net/redir/gnuledger/15940/url_tgz/GnuLedger-0.2.5.tar.gz
http://webaccountant.sourceforge.net/
“GnuLedger is a Web-based accounting system. It has all of the functionality that an average home user needs to manage their finances. Its backend is a MySQL database, and it currently uses a web browser front-end. It has been tested using Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, and QNX’s Voyager.”

The House Is On Fire!Crisis Management in Linux
There will come a time in your Linux use when you’ll need to call in the crisis management team. Count on it. No matter how far down the guru path you travel, sometimes stuff happens. The best way to minimize the damage of that heart-stopping moment is to [...]

Speeding Up Your Modem
I’ll admit to being spoiled. I’ve had a cable connection to the Internet for more than three years, now. In fact, I’m not sure I could tell you the last time I connected to the Internet using a dial-up modem. But, having spent the three years before that on a dial-up, I [...]

The scripts are rolling in. I found a cool dozen in my inbox within 4 hours of posting yesterday’s Penguin Shell. They’re all very interesting to pore through and point out the creativity of Linux users. Remember, we’re covering shell scripting the week of February 4 - a series that will be written by users. [...]

Linux Radio
http://www.linuxradio.info
Unearthed by Charles Layno
Linux Radio is the brainchild of Penguin Shell reader Charles Layno, a 20-year veteran of the broadcast industry. The site went live on January 1, featuring indie music and hourly newscasts on the Linux and open source world. Linux Radio features three mp3 streams at 16k, 24k and 56k. With an [...]

GKrellM [452 K]

http://enigma.freshrpms.net/pub/gkrellm/gkrellm-1.2.8-fr1.i386.rpm
http://web.wt.net/~billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.html
“GKrellM is a single process stack of system monitors which supports applying themes to match its appearance to your window manager, Gtk, or any other theme.” This is a very nice set of system monitors. GKrellM allows you to visually monitor such elements of your system as CPU use, running processes, disk reads [...]

The House Is On Fire!
Crisis Measures in Linux
Any responsible homeowner keeps a fire extinguisher somewhere near the stove. You’re cautious. Home safety is paramount in your mind. But in the event of a huge mental lapse or circumstances outside your control, it’s always important to have a way to minimize and repair damage. For the [...]

Getting Help
Linux is renowned, in part, for its vast and extensive online help system. Each distribution comes complete with all the tools you’ll need to learn more about commands, to explore programming and usage potential, and to gain a deeper understanding about how the Linux kernel and all its various components work.
But, despite the promises [...]

Just a few quick notes for you today.
The AOL/RedHat merger seems to have been mere rumor. According to this article, these talks were never taking place to start with. Even when we thought they were, the best thinking had this merger as one that would give AOL an inside track to embedded devices, rather than [...]

LittleIgloo.org
http://www.littleigloo.org/

Gnu Phantom Home [265 K]

http://www.joethielen.com/phantom/home/Phantom.Home-1.00-1.i686.rpm
http://www.joethielen.com/phantom/home/
“GNU Phantom.Home is a computer controlled home automation system. The software includes a circuit diagram for building the Phantom.Home.Controller, a simple circuit board that attaches to your PC’s parallel port. Using the combination of hardware/software you can control (i.e. flip on or off) nearly any 120V device. And with a little [...]

Journalling Filesystems
We talked awhile back about ext3, the journalling filesystem found on new RedHat distributions, among others. You also have the option of installing ReiserFS, the other viable journalling filesystem option for your Linux system. To understand how these systems work and their value, a short discussion of filesystems in general is in order.
All filesystems, [...]

Tailing Along
An interesting and useful tool in Linux is the ability to follow along as files are being written. This is especially valuable when the need arises to see log files as their entries are being created. For example, after setting up my procmail filtering system, I wanted to watch the log files being written [...]

When I stumbled straight into a writer’s wall last night while preparing this issue of Penguin Shell, I did what I always do - sat down in the living room with a half-gallon of Moose Lake Fudge ice cream and flipped on the rebroadcast of The Screensavers. It turned out to be a re-rebroadcast of [...]