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Minutes of the second meeting of the Israeli Linux User's Group
Here it is:
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The Second Meeting of the Israeli Linux Users Group
(as usual, all male attendance numbering in the 50-80 range)
The meeting convenes at the Schriber Building of the Tel Aviv
university on Friday, the 2nd of June, 1995, at 9:30 in the
morning. Surprisingly, almost no one comes late.
Harvey Stein, being the eldest, takes to the stage and proposes a
tentative agenda for the meeting:
1. Connecting to the Internet, the High School Perspective
2. Tcl/Tk and its ilk
3. COMPUTAX 95, organization and preparation for it
4. Administrativia
============================================================================
Shy Rojanski and Ariel A-Very-Long-and-Unpronounceable-Surname,
students of the Hebrew University High School ("Ha'Tihon Le'yad
Ha'Universita", commonly known as Leyada) present the Internet
Connectivity for High Schools Project in which their school
participates, together with Gilo High School and Ort.
The Leyada project is intended to provide students with access to the
Internet, especially to the WWW. Unlike Ort's, the Leyada project is
not intended to provide SLIP accounts to its users, but rather to
allow its students access from in-school computers which are in turn
connected to a primary server, itself connected via Frame Relay to an
ISP.
The server itself runs Linux but the rest of the school machines must
run DOS/Novell and cannot be yet (if ever) upgraded to Linux,
especially so since the school obtained a peculiar brand of NIC's that
is not supported by Linux (the brand of NIC's is not disclosed by the
presenters). An additional raison d'etre for maintaining DOS/Novell is
lack of knowledge and flexibility on the part of some of the
day-to-day users of the school computers who like Windows and will not
convert to the one true creed.
Therefore, the in-school computers (one is loth to name them
workstations) run client software under MS Windows (i.e. Netscape,
etc) and connect to the Linux server via the TCP/IP over Novell (again,
how this is accomplished, whether "over" or "instead," is not
mentioned by the presenters).
The Frame Relay connection is slated to go online by September 1st
latest and the possibility of conducting classes about, as well as on,
the Internet has already been advanced. However, obtaining the Frame
Relay has not been seamless and an unknown brand of DEC FR has been
finally promised by Digital. Leyada powers that be may purchase the FR
after testing (Ira Abramov notes that the FR is probably DEC 1919 and
is, in fact, a CISCO. In addition, BeZeQ offers a mini-router of
unknown quality and abilities for US$30/month).
The primary problem facing the Leyada project is lack of money which
prompted it to rely on donations or partial donations for hardware and
on its own student body for implementation. And, while the present
implementors may possess technical acumen, there is no certainty that
their successors will be able to ably carry the torch after them.
Harvey Stein suggests "writing anything and everything down, very
carefully," in order to facilitate the learning process of future
maintainers of the school project, especially "those things that are
easily fixed by a small change here or there," and imparting this
information to the next generation of students. Shy humbly replies
that the present student body contains no students with the ability or
the talent that the two present implementors possess, especially in
the lower classes. However, both Shy and Ariel will endeavor to train
worthy successors.
Gilo, comparatively rich, has been able to obtain the services of
Binat Technologies (Ira Abramov was, until recently, their support
critter). The Gilo school also runs Linux, albeit on a number of
machines.
Harvey Stein raises the censorship question, mentioning
http://www.penthouse.com/ and the possible deleterious effect of its
usage on the management's peace of mind. This is answered by the
presenters that anyone caught looking at naked women who want to be
viewed (as opposed to peeking into the girl's showers) will lose
access to the net.
As a corollary to the Internet Connectivity project, an introductory
course to Unix/Linux is being bandied about and interest among
Leyada's students is developing.
Guy notes that there's no security and break-in prevention in the
described set-up and is answered that the school wishes to protect the
world from its students, not vice versa. Firewalls are not the answer,
since they make access harder and less convenient and the censorship
a-la Big Brother (something the Technion seems to be attempting) is
foolish. However, it is mentioned that high school students have
compromised security, especially users of Snunit (Hebrew University's
limited e-mail facility for high schools) who wished to have full
fledged Unix and Net access.
Boaz mentions using Linux for Electronics and Image Processing
(Khoros).
A round of general griping is held, but thankfully, it is short.
An additional aspect of the Leyada project is the BBS that allows
users without FTP access to download Linux (a Slakware v2.2
distribution). Albeit being 80MB in size (roughly 14 hours of download
time at 14,400 bps) the distribution has already been downloaded some
fifteen times.
A question of "Why Linux at home?" is raised by someone unnamed. Ira
Abramov, who has by now climbed onto the stage, answers that Unix is
already recognized as not only a University/Research operating system
but also as a home operating system. Novell plans to replace NetWare
with UnixWare in toto within five years and even Microsoft is planning
to integrate Windows and Unix (nervous laughter in the audience).
Since Slakware distribution is very unsecure, with many commands
having their suid bit set, it is proposed to create a secure
distribution in order to promulgate it as an Internet connectivity
introduction kit. It is this writer's hope that this proposal shall not
die the quiet death of the previous proposal to create a minimal Linux
distribution.
Contacts for information on the Leyada project are:
Shy Rojanski (roji@cs.huji.ac.il)
Ariel Something-Very-Long (reln@cs.huji.ac.il)
=============================================================================
Tcl/Tk (pronounced "Tickle") and its ilk are introduced by Guy (?) and
Dr. Harvey Stein.
Guy speaks of Tcl/Tk, mentioning two way to develop applications under
it: the "dumb way" and another, almost unmentioned "smart way." Since
the presenter prefers the dumb way, it is the one that is discussed.
The problem with the dumb way is that Tcl/Tk commands have numerous
options and switches, requiring the code developer to either have
photographic memory or to have a reference (i.e. man pages) open all
the time in front of him. However, the Tcl/Tk package allows the
developer to create attractive and comfortable look and feel, with
buttons, slides, menus and whatnot. The widget is much more attractive
than the Athena widget set.
Guy notes that 8MB are _not_ enough to develop and use Tcl/Tk since
the library is compiled statically, out of the box, but has had no
experience recompiling it shared. Someone from the audience says it
is possible to compile shared.
In addition, Tcl/Tk may be embedded in normal C/C++ code (that was
what Tcl was developed for in the first place) but, again, this has
not been tried by Guy. Debugging Tcl/Tk code is very inconvenient.
Tcl/Tk operations not compiled into the library are very slow and any
extension should, in fact, be compiled into the library to be
viable. For example, the available widget set does not support
backward search.
Miscelaneous remarks:
Sun Microsystems is working on making Tcl/Tk into a commercial
product.
Tcl/Tk code may be compiled.
MOT (Motif on Tcl) gives Motif look-alike under Tcl, and is
useful for rapid prototyping of Motif applications.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
STk (Scheme Tk) is introduced by Dr. Harvey Stein.
Stk is quite fast (and an example of a Tetris is shown by Dr. Stein)
and has a syntax quite similar to Tcl/Tk (except that it has many
parenthesis). It also supports object oriented programming and is
generally very sexy compared to Tcl, but lacks (so far) a compiler.
Thereupon, Dr. Stein demos a call-tree browser for C code, written in
Stk. It is impressive indeed, and is quite fast. Dr. Stein mentions
that such a browser would be very heavy under Tcl/Tk.
Dr. Stein waxes on the advantages of interpreted languages as opposed
to compile-only languages, especially for incremental development and
quick prototyping. To the question whether interpreted languages are
better for small projects than for large projects, Dr. Stein answers
that it very much depends on the nature of the project.
Stk, at the moment, is interpreted-only but work is being done on a
compiler for it. Stk is available via FTP from:
kaolin.unice.fr
=============================================================================
Thereupon the meeting turned to the question of COMPUTAX 95 and
organization for it. Erez reported that 4m^2 of display area cost
US$1,100, a phone line installation costs NIS350 plus NIS500 deposit
against phone usage.
In all, some NIS2400 were promised by the Linux Useres Group, and a
gallant soul has agreed to provide the rest of the money.
Erez has reserved a booth, in the Multimedia Building, booth #30, with
enough shelf space to allow installation of some 5 machines.
In general discussion, it is suggested that a CD-ROM library be
established instead of participating in COMPUTAX, but this suggestion
is refused. The possiblity of mastering and selling CD-ROM's is
likewise raised and likewise refused, being unprofitable and
expensive.
The option of obtaining a network connection via an ISP present at the
show is raised. It is to be checked with the various ISP. (Euronet has,
in fact, agreed to provide a dial-up feed to the Linux booth).
The following people have agreed to be present at the booth:
Mon Tue Wed Thu
___________________________________________________________
Gili Erez Natan Yuval (yes)
Yuval Marc Shy Mark Z.
Nir Ofer Yaniv Evgeny
Yuval (yes) Ilan Yuval (yes) Guy
Evgeny Yuval (yes) Yuri (17-22) Nir
Sergei (16-21) Sergei (16-22)
Evgeni Gili
Hardware donated for the show:
Ilan: P90+32MB+2Gig+17"+NIC+SB+CD
Yaniv: dx2+8MB+256Meg+14"+NIC+SB
Yaniv: dx4+16MB+512Meg+17"+NIC
Gavri: dx2+8MB+?Meg+14"+NIC+CD
Yair: sx+16MB+?Meg+15"+SB
Yuval (yes): up to 10 NIC's (3c509)
Shy: Dot matrix printer
Gili: Amplifier+Speakers
Marc: Will try to print Linux books (low chance - Life
Sciences lost network over the long weekend and cannot
ftp) and some RG58 cables.
===============================================================================
DOSEMU was presented by Shy Rojanski, but this writer was in a hurry
and didn't write anything down. Summary - DOSEMU work, two parts exist
- DOS and XDOS. Both work, bus DOS is more robust. Runs much (but not
all) MS-DOS software. Norton Commander shown running in an X window
under XDOS. Seems impressive. WINE over Novell from Weizmann
Institute was also demo'ed - running Solitaire.
===============================================================================
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Cheers,
--Amos
--Amos Shapira | "Of course Australia was marked for
133 Shlomo Ben-Yosef st. | glory, for its people had been chosen
Jerusalem 93 805 | by the finest judges in England."
ISRAEL amoss@cs.huji.ac.il | -- Anonymous