Linux

...

Sounds like a hardware problem, not OS. No boot screen, no text as the drivers load, no nuthin? Almost certainly hardware, guy. If the drives are at least spinning up, try swapping in a new video monitor as being a likely candidate and the path of least resistance.

Good luck, Dave

There is a proposal to alter our daylight saving and a similar topic arose on a local newsgroup. I haven't tried any of it but the following has been posted

or (some of the following will need to be changed to reflect your timezone and hemisphere etc)

begin quote

Switch the bytes for 30FDFFFF = FFFFFD30 The first bit is 1 so it is a negative number invert all the bits - 00 00 02 CF Add 1 - 00 00 02 D0

2 D0 hex = -720 decimal which is minutes from GMT or -12 hours

Applying the same rules to the C4FFFFFF field you get -60 - the number of minutes to apply at DST

the next 16 bytes describe standard time

00 00 - year from 1900 03 00 - First byte is month 03=March 00 00 - First byte is week 00=Sun 03 00 - Week of month 03=3rd week, put 05 if it is the last week 02 00 - First byte is hour 2am 00 00 - Minutes 00 00 - Seconds 00 00 - milliseconds

And the last 16 bytes describe daylight time

00 00 - year from 1900 0A 00 - First byte is month 0A=10=October 00 00 - First byte is week 00=Sun 01 00 - Week of month 01=first week, put 05 if it is the last week 02 00 - First byte is hour 2am 00 00 - Minutes 00 00 - Seconds 00 00 - milliseconds

Piece of cake to change

end quote

Any credit goes to the original posters.

snip

-- Regards Malcolm Remove sharp objects to get a valid e-mail address

I use Windows, happily, at work and at home on a daily basis.

Linux on desktops offers nothing that Windows doesn't have already. Which is the reason why after my using Linux exclusively on my home desktops for about five years, I wiped the disks clean and installed Windows XP. XP runs the software I like, is stable, and secure.

For the first time in a decade, I'm actually looking forward to the release of Microsoft's next generation of Windows, Vista. Will give me an excuse to replace some of this aging hardware I'm using.

No. You can make your system dual-boot. Essentially your boot loader is replaced by a program called "grub" which asks you which OS you want to use. But you have to partition the disk so that there is a Windows side and a Linux side.

There are tools to repartition and "resize" a Windows box so you can run Linux. This moves files around, and lets you repartition your Windows disk without looking anything. It's a little tricky, and you can - if you screw up - lose all of the data on your Windows disk. I can go into more detail if you want to.

Alternately - you can use WINE- an emulator, or use virtualization software (VMWare is a commercial product) and you can run Windows inside of Linux (or Linux inside of windows).

(The new Fedora Core 6 has some virtualization software, but i'm not familiar with it)

Or - as Gunner has said - you can have a liveCD with Linux on it. Leave the Windows disk alone.

Or get a cheap second disk. That's the safest.

On 2 Nov 2006 06:42:44 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, snipped-for-privacy@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) quickly quoth:

My new XP box didn't handle it, either. It changed the time but didn't notify me of the changes it made. I don't much like that.

Since I don't watch broadcast TV, I missed the change by a day.

If you are "not a computer guy", I would suggest not installing Linux, at least not on a PC that you need for something else. Now if you could find some junk old computer, it would be a good opportunity to try Linux, as it requires a lot less computer resources than Windows.

My 5.5 year old son runs Linux on a very decrepit 800 MHz computer and it runs fine.

i

I have an old Linux first-person anecdote -- first: I run a small Red Hat partition on my laptop in addition to Winblows, so I can do "real" work occasionally .

Back in the 80's, right after the not-so-reliable 50MHz 486's came out, I had a need to set up a web server at our company.

We ran a hodge-podge of IRIS, Unix, and DOS/Win3x/95 systems. Linux was foreign to all of our programmers.

I nabbed a diskette image copy (40 diskettes about??) of Slackware off the web, and installed it on the 486 in my office, the one that had a whopping extended memory of about 2mb, IIRC. I downloaded Apache server, then fiddled for about three days configuring the system and the server.

The server went up, and started hosting our company web page. While it was running, I did extensive daily "C" development on the same machine with an X-server link to my X-window desktop.

I crashed my own partition probably two times a day, all the way to 'dump' mode.

Apache ran in its own partition continuously for 390 days before we took it down for an upgrade.

LLoyd

Im sure its hardware. It runs into a 4 port KVM..which is working. I need to pull it out of the rack, stick a stand alone monitior on it. It spins ups some of the drives..least the lights shows they are starting to spin up..then simply stays in that state.

Ive got about 100 gigs of ebooks and tech manuals on the drives, damnit.

Gunner

Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"

No, they were trying to trademark a number so AMD, etc. could not make a chip and call it "80386" and "80486" and etc. as is always done for chips. The patent on the guts was entirely different, and AMD had cross-licensing for those.

But trademark a number is not possible.

sdb

That would have been 90's... IIRC, 486's weren't before about 1992 or

1993. :)

And slackware did not exist until the 1990's... First linux kernel post wasn't until 1990 or 1991 and slackware was a year or two later.

sdb

Ok, it was in the nineties. It's hard to remember three or four jobs ago .

LLoyd

[ ... ]

Hmm ... sounds like drives (or at least one drive) which had enough evaporated and re-condensed grease plated on the platters, and once the heads landed (and especially if you gave them time to cool off), they were glued there forever.

I suspect that it is time for new disks.

At least, this time it is probably not the OS's fault.

Good luck, DoN.

[ ... ]

Zones\New Zealand

Hmm ... this is compared to replacing the zoneinfo text files with the new ones downloaded, and running zic on them to format them into the database which the computer uses. The part for the US looks like this:

====================================================================== # Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule US 1918 1919 - Mar lastSun 2:00 1:00 D Rule US 1918 1919 - Oct lastSun 2:00 0 S Rule US 1942 only - Feb 9 2:00 1:00 W # War Rule US 1945 only - Aug 14 23:00u 1:00 P # Peac e Rule US 1945 only - Sep 30 2:00 0 S Rule US 1967 2006 - Oct lastSun 2:00 0 S Rule US 1967 1973 - Apr lastSun 2:00 1:00 D Rule US 1974 only - Jan 6 2:00 1:00 D Rule US 1975 only - Feb 23 2:00 1:00 D Rule US 1976 1986 - Apr lastSun 2:00 1:00 D Rule US 1987 2006 - Apr Sun>=1 2:00 1:00 D Rule US 2007 max - Mar Sun>=8 2:00 1:00 D Rule US 2007 max - Nov Sun>=1 2:00 0 S ======================================================================

With the last two lines being the new ones, and the 2006 in the "TO" column changed to that from "max" in two earlier lines. Note that it covers timezone offset and DST rules for all times since the start of DST in the US.

Here are all the files supplied in that download (in a single compressed tarfile).

======================================================================

-rw-r--r-- 1 dnichols family 580069 Oct 31 23:22 UST1-UASuppl-current-draft-P-EXT.pdf

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 21719 Oct 2 15:31 africa

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 12027 Oct 2 15:32 antarctica

-rw-r--r-- 1 dnichols family 72076 Oct 10 11:31 asia

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 55875 Oct 2 15:32 australasia

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 3721 Oct 2 15:32 backward

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 2920 Oct 2 15:32 etcetera

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 106239 Oct 10 11:31 europe

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 311 Oct 2 15:32 factory

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 4043 Oct 10 11:31 iso3166.tab

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 3079 Oct 2 15:32 leapseconds

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 102085 Oct 10 11:31 northamerica

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 1111 Oct 2 15:32 pacificnew

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 19224 Oct 2 15:32 solar87

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 19242 Oct 2 15:32 solar88

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 19518 Oct 2 15:32 solar89

-rw-r--r-- 1 dnichols family 45943 Oct 10 11:31 southamerica

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 1464 Oct 2 15:32 systemv

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 707 Oct 2 15:32 yearistype.sh

-r--r--r-- 1 dnichols family 18235 Oct 10 11:31 zone.tab ======================================================================

Note that this supplies lots of timezone information for all around the world, including solar time, and covering the leapseconds. The "factory" time entry simply prompts you to select your timezone.

====================================================================== # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT Zone Factory 0 - "Local time zone must be set--see zic manual page" ======================================================================

What you actually download is:

-rw-rw-rw- 1 dnichols family 157084 Oct 27 22:49 tzdata2006n.tar.gz

And -- if you're missing the programs (or yours are too old), there is also this:

-rw-rw-rw- 1 dnichols family 187066 Oct 27 22:49 tzcode2006n.tar.gz

which contains the following files (this time without the long listing format which gives the size, ownership, and last-modified date):

====================================================================== Makefile logwtmp.c tz-art.htm usno1997 README newctime.3 tz-link.htm usno1998 Theory newctime.3.txt tzfile.5 workman.sh asctime.c newstrftime.3 tzfile.5.txt zdump.8 checktab.awk newstrftime.3.txt tzfile.h zdump.8.txt date.1 newtzset.3 tzselect.8 zdump.c date.1.txt newtzset.3.txt tzselect.8.txt zic.8 date.c private.h tzselect.ksh zic.8.txt difftime.c scheck.c usno1988 zic.c ialloc.c strftime.c usno1989 zoneinfo2tdf.pl* itca.jpg time2posix.3 usno1989a localtime.c time2posix.3.txt usno1995 ======================================================================

This includes new man pages (the files ending with ".1", ".3", ".5" and ".8"), the C language source for the commands -- including zic, in case your vendor left that out, too, and a Makefile to do it all for you, plus the README, which tells you where to get the next copy of the files when the politicans stir the timezone information again, and how to compile and install the whole thing on a linux or other unix box.

The files come from: ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub

(Note -- a .gov site, not a commercial one, so nobody is going to try to charge you for this. :-)

While if you need to do a full install, this becomes a little less trivial, I think that it is a lot easier than the described way to adjust the DST entries on Win98 -- which would still mess up earlier dates DST changes, IIRC.

Enjoy, DoN.

While I'm glad to be retired, and to need to use Windows only once per year. :-)

Security?

Secure? IIRC, I've already heard of security holes having been found in the just-released version of Internet Explorer.

How many other system *have* to run anti-virus programs to protect themselves?

And Windows XP you can't even easily protect it by keeping it off the net, as it wants to talk to Microsoft to register itself, and to report on any change in hardware, so it can decide whether you have made enough changes so it wants to call it a new machine, requiring a newly-licensed copy of Windows XP.

Well ... good luck.

DoN.

I don't "need" to use any particular software at home, it's by choice. At work I use what I'm supplied with with the computers and software being nothing more or less than expendable tooling.

Yes, security. Linux security is by obscurity because hardly anyone uses it in comparison to Windows making the Linux is more secure argument pointless.

Yeah, so? There are a bunch of security holes in Firefox too. No software is perfect. Currently there's a security vulnerability in "screen 4.0.2_4" which I use on my FreeBSD server (installed from ports). It's not a problem here since all users of my systems are well trusted, but on a shell server with lots of untrusted users where it's installed it's most certainly an issue.

I don't run anti virus on my XP system. I also don't run my XP system with admin privileges, or even power user privileges. That simple common sense admin decision eliminates 99% of potential Windows security problems.

And that is a problem how, exactly? If you're using a pirated copy of Windows there are issues of course. If not, you accepted such behavior when you accepted the Windows license agreement. My properly administered Windows machines are simply no less secure than my BSD machines in that none of them have ever been remotely exploited.

Karl, early Seagate drives had a "stiction" problem. The best solution to free up the spindle was to apply power, then quickly rotate the drive (by hand) around the axis of rotation. Even if you spun it the wrong way, the inertia of the disks would break the stiction, and allow it to run.

LLoyd

As an aerospace engineer who created custom computer systems for my company, I used Linux whenever I needed dependability and simplicity. Unfortunately I was still stuck with Windoze for compatibility with the remaining 120K+ employees for office work. Nevertheless, every one of my reliable, real-time systems was constructed with Linux. Norm

While I was at work, it was "need" to use what was supplied. As I was a unix network systems administrator, unix was what was supplied, but many non-technical users had Windows boxen supplied.

Here at home, the "need" comes from the limited availability of income tax software on anything other than Windows or Macs.

You have an interesting reinterpretation of the phrase "security by obscurity". The use which I am familiar with is that something which is "secure by obscurity" is something for which the source code is not available for security auditing -- depending on people not knowing the holes or the tricks which can work around supposed security features.

*This* is a perfect description of Windows, and the usual situation with Windows in which thousands of machines are infected per *month* is an indication of how much true security this offers.

Linux has the full source code available for examination, and people *do* examine it, looking for security holes. Those which are found are quickly patched -- normally *before* anyone figures out how to exploit them in the wild.

OpenBSD (my favorite) is probably the most secure against external attacks via the net, as they spend a *lot* of time scanning the source code for potential holes -- and closing them. In the years during which it has been available, only *one* externally-usable security hole has been found in the system as installed by default. Of course, someone with direct access to the machine has a much greater chance to break security, and some of the things which are disabled by default can be turned on, opening a bit more vulnerability.

Of course -- and direct access to any machine increases its vulnerability.

Do you also go through the system and turn off unneeded services which are on by default? Most Windows users don't do that -- and most don't even know that it is *desirable* to do that. Windows documentation is poor enough so it is difficult for the typical user to even find out how to discover what is turned on at any given time.

If you don't, there are services running which can be used to compromise the machine via the net, even if you *never* log on with anything beyond plain user permissions.

That is a problem where I used to work, where there were a large number of machines on an internal *secure* net, which handled classified information, and which could *not* be allowed to connect to the outside net. It would be a *Federal* *crime* to allow those machines to connect to the outside net. At the time I was there, Windows XP did not exist.

That is a problem for *me*, because I will *not* let a Windows box connect to the outside net from my IP block -- simply because I don't have the time to keep it patched to a semi-reasonable level of security. I run it only to handle the income tax software once per year (well -- several days in a row), and then it is turned off for the rest of the year.

So -- I am running Windows 2000 on that box, and will *not* run Windows-XP. So -- I did *not* accept such behavior. And, if you did not read about the behavior from some other source before your purchase, you did not know about it until you opened the box. As I have to seen the license, I don't know whether it explicitly explains the connections and the information which will be passed to Microsoft on a semi-regular basis.

In certain environments -- in particular on college nets at the beginning of the semester -- the uninfected lifetime of an unpatched Windows box is shorter than the time needed to download the needed patches from Microsoftj. The *proper* way to patch these machines in this environment is to get a CD-ROM containing all of the patches, and apply them all *before* even plugging in the network cable to the machine.

So -- you may say that a Windows box is secure -- as *you* use it. I say that by *default*, an Windows box is the most insecure machine on the net at present. And I would not personally believe that I could discover enough about the OS to truly secure it. So, for my token Windows box, I simply deny it access to the outside net (and deny outside access to it, of course).

Since you don't post with a real e-mail address, it is difficult to determine whether you are even truly posting from a Windows machine (perhaps if I had looked at the headers prior to posting, I could have told, but perhaps not, depending on what usenet client you are using).

But in some newsgroups, posting a claim of having a truly secure machine will result in at least some checking out just how secure it is. Since you are not making it clear -- and I did not bother to check the "NNTP-Posting-Host: " header (if present) I have no idea what you are really running

Your mention of a FreeBSD server suggests that your Windows box is likely to be behind a firewall. If you are running "pf" on that box, you might find it interesting to look at the attacks which are stopped by pf -- and break them down into how many are attacks against Windows vs how many are attacks against all other machines combined.

Are you sure that you are not a troll?

Enjoy, DoN.