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This article first appeared in the December 1998 issue of the Louisville Computer News. It was written by Lee Larson.
It's always nice to see the gasbags in the mainstream PC press get taken completely by surprise. While somewhat prematurely nailing the lid on Apple's coffin, they dutifully parroted Microsoft's press releases claiming that the future of computing is Windows NT. As the release date for NT 5.0 keeps slipping farther into the future, Microsoft has tried to save face by renaming it Windows 2000. Meanwhile, the gasbags got hit squarely in the back by a heavy, wet and growing snowball called Linux.
As you probably already know, Linux is a completely free Unix-like operating system written by a worldwide group containing hundreds of volunteers. Linux is the first large programming project to be a child of the Internet. It began life in August of 1991 as a hobby project by a Finnish computer science student named Linus Torvalds. He put his source code out on the Internet and encouraged others to improve it. That small snowflake was the beginning of the snowball.
Since anyone can download or give away Linux, it's pretty hard to estimate the number of users. Red Hat Software (www.redhat.com), a commercial distributor of Linux, tried really hard. In March 1998, they guessed at somewhere around 7.5 million worldwide. Other estimates put the number at more than 10 million. About the only thing they all agree on is that the number is growing fast.
But, what does this have to do with Macs? Well, Linux can provide some very inexpensive and reliable solutions to common networking problems.
The best example of this is a program called netatalk, which turns any Linux machine into an AppleShare/IP server. Netatalk is a good example of how software development occurs in the Linux universe.
The original netatalk was written by some programmers at the University of Michigan Research Systems Unix Group because they wanted to use standard AppleShare to move files between their Unix machines and the many Macs at the University. It worked quite well, and they put their source code onto the Internet, where many people grabbed it.
As Apple improved the AppleShare protocol, the original netatalk began to look a bit long in the tooth because it doesn't support such powerful new features as the speedy AppleShare/IP. Bugs also started to appear. For example, when Mac OS 8.0 shipped, both netatalk and Windows NT AppleTalk servers had the extremely annoying "dancing icons" bug, where the icons inside a shared folder randomly jumped all over the place in the Finder.
Because the netatalk source code was available, other programmers began working on fixing the bugs and adding new features. Within a few weeks after the release of Mac OS 8.0, patches to netatalk fixing the "dancing icons" bug could be downloaded. (Microsoft's fix for NT was not released until another ten months had passed.)
The current state of the art is the version produced by Adrian Sun, which includes AppleShare/IP support and many bug fixes contributed by other programmers. The original programmers at the University of Michigan can now roll all these fixes into the next "official" version.
I've been using netatalk for several years under various releases of Linux and NetBSD. It's always been reliable and fast, and it's even easy to install--for a Unix program. The AppleShare/IP in the most recent versions lets me use the Chooser to mount my shared disk on the Linux server in my office when I am at home connected by PPP. Files can be copied back and forth by dragging them in the Finder, and I can even run programs by double-clicking them on the remote disk, though the speed of a PPP connection would make me hesitate before launching Excel remotely.
Certainly netatalk's file sharing is its most important ability, but netatalk is not a one-trick pony. It also supports AppleTalk printing in a couple of interesting ways.
Netatalk can make just about any printer connected to the Linux machine appear in your Mac's Chooser as a PostScript laser printer. At home, my Mac thinks a cheap Epson inkjet printer plugged into the parallel port of my Linux box is a color PostScript laser printer. Netatalk does this magic by routing the PostScript output from the Mac's LaserWriter printer driver into GhostScript on the Linux machine. GhostScript is a free PostScript work-alike, and it does the work of converting the Mac's PostScript output into something the printer can understand. Using netatalk in this way took a lot of geek-work and lucky guessing to set up, but it's amazing to see how well it does work--when it works.
On the other hand, netatalk also lets Linux print to AppleTalk-only printers out on the network. This is very handy, because in conjunction with other programs, such as Samba (http://www.samba.bst.tj/samba/samba.html), it lets Windows 95/98/NT machines print to Macintosh-only laser printers.
The best source of information about netatalk is the Linux Netatalk How-To page (http://thehamptons.com/anders/netatalk/).
Potpourri
A couple of notable updates have appeared recently on the Apple Software Updates web site (http://swupdates.info.apple.com).
There have been a number of complaints appearing on various Internet sites concerning disk damage with the installation of Mac OS 8.5. While it's certain that the number of such incidents are very small, Apple is investigating the problem. One help might be to make sure you use the latest disk drivers. Also make sure your data is backed up before you do the installation.
A couple of weeks after Mac OS 8.5 was released Apple updated its own driver installation utility, Drive Setup. Version 1.6 is on the Mac OS 8.5 CD, but the latest version is now 1.6.1. According to Apple "Any time you install Mac OS versions 7.6, 7.6.1, 8.0, 8.1 or 8.5 on your computer, you should use Drive Setup 1.6.1 to update the driver on your hard disk again...version 1.6.1 fixes a potential data transfer problem on the PowerBook 5300 and PowerBook 2300 operating in SCSI Disk Mode. Earlier versions of Drive Setup can reintroduce issues resolved with Drive Setup 1.6.1."
The G3 CD Update places new firmware on certain CD-ROM drive mechanisms. This new firmware eliminates an issue of long delays occurring during wakeup from sleep. This wakeup problem has only been observed in certain types of Power Macintosh G3 models, with a certain model of CD-ROM drive.
If you mention the "Talking Moose" to a Mac newbie, you'll likely get nothing but a blank stare. But these words will evoke a nostalgic smile from Mac veterans. The Talking Moose was an outrageous bit of software that would cause a chatty moose to occasionally appear on your screen, say a sarcastic bon mot, and then disappear. Regrettably, the moose couldn't keep up with advances in system software and retired to his Canadian home.
Good news, though. The moose is back in the form of M. Uli Kusterer's free extension/control panel combo, Uli's Moose. Uli's Moose takes advantage of Apple speech technology to produce not only the original moosely nuggets of wisdom, but a slew of new phrases as well. You can download your copy of Uli's Moose at http://www.macdownload.com.
Netscape (www.netscape.com) has released Communicator 4.5, the latest version of their browser for PowerMacs only. This version is certainly snappier at displaying pages than the previous 4.0 versions and has several new features. The most notable change is "smart browsing."
According to Netscape's press release, "Smart Browsing, an innovative service that helps users find information quickly and easily, leverages the power of Netcenter to take users to their desired location on the Internet without having to type cumbersome addresses, and without knowing the address at all. Users need only type a few key words into the location bar and Netcenter's keyword search does the rest."
Of course, what the press release doesn't say is this feature allows Netscape to direct users to favored sites and also keep track of what people are looking for. Privacy issues abound.
The download of Communicator 4.5 is about 14 megabytes and there is no stripped down Navigator only version available. For those wanting a smaller package, they also released the 4.08 version of Navigator with 128 bit encryption.
The state of Virex is a little confusing.
A few months back Network Associates (www.nai.com) purchased Dr. Solomon's Software, publishers of Virex. At the time, the latest version of Virex was 5.8. For some months there were no updates to the Virex virus definitions even though there was at least one new Trojan horse. Since Network Associates is self-described as an "NT-centric company," this prompted many to ask whether Virex was being killed.
In mid-October, Network Associates announced the release of Virex 5.9 with assurances that the product had their full support. Anyone who had purchased Virex within the last six months could call (408)988-3832 to obtain a password to download the upgrade. They also quickly released new virus definition which only work with Virex 5.9.
Then, a few days after making 5.9 available, it was withdrawn from their servers, only to return a few days later. There are apparently issues with Virex running on AppleShare servers and some compatibility problems with Mac OS 8.5, although the company has not given details.
Louisville Computer Society
The Louisville Computer Society normally meets on the fourth Monday evening of every month at 7:00 PM in the East Government Center on Juneau Drive in Middletown. But, because of the Christmas holiday, there will be no December meeting. For more information, see their web site at http://www.aye.net/~lcs, or e-mail lcs@aye.net.
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