General Linux Gazette Information

1. Where can I find the HTML version of the Gazette?

• The main Web site-- linuxgazette.net.

• Mirror sites in 47 countries, some with translations in other languages.

• Indirect mirrors, including Linux Documentation Project mirror sites.

• In the Debian/GNU Linux distribution, as ordinary *.deb packages.

• On CD as part of a Linux Journal archive CD-ROM. There may also be other companies that include the Gazette on their CDs, but we don't currently have a list.

2. Which other formats is the Gazette available in?

• As a single HTML file. Every issue includes a TWDT (The Whole D--- Thing) file containing a copy of all the articles in one file. This is primarily intended for printing, but you may also find it useful if you have a slow modem. Hyperlinks in the TWDT version are not guaranteed to work. Look for the "TWDT" link near the bottom of the issue's Table of Contents page.
• As a single text file. This is a text-only version of TWDT. Look for "TWDT" near the bottom of the issue's Table of Contents.

• Via FTP. Each issue is available as a *.tar.gz file, containing both the ordinary HTML files and the TWDT files. See http://linuxgazette.net/ftpfiles/README for details. Other FTP sites are listed on our mirrors page.

To unpack *.tar.gz files on Unix, do either of these:

tar xzvf FILENAME.tar.gz
zcat FILENAME.tar.gz | tar xvf -

There are also graphical front ends for Linux such as LinTar and Midnight Commander.

Windows users need a program like Winzip or 7-Zip. Macintosh users need Stuffit Expander or Mac-gzip + suntar. These programs do recognize *.tar.gz files even though their native formats are different. Winzip and Stuffit Expander are no-cost but proprietary ("closed-source"), and Stuffit requires registration, whereas 7-Zip and Mac-gzip/suntar are true open-source. If anybody knows of other open-source GUI alternatives, let us know.

3. Which formats is the Gazette not available in?

Other archive formats. We need to keep disk space on the FTP site at a minimum for the sake of the mirrors. Also, the Editor rebels at the thought of the additional labor involved in maintaining more formats. We've chosen the formats required by the majority of Gazette readers. Anybody is free to maintain the Gazette in another format if they wish, and, if it is available publicly, I'll consider listing it on the mirrors page.

Other printable formats. (These are listed only for people who specifically want these formats. The easiest way to read the Gazette is through a Web browser, and the easiest way to print it is through the browser's Print... option.)

PostScript

Mozilla's (or Netscape's) "print to file" routine will create a PostScript file complete with images.

PDF

I know Adobe and others consider PDF a "universal" format, but to me it's still a one-company format requiring a custom viewer — not something I'm eager to maintain. If you can view PDF, can't you view HTML?

If you really want PDF, you can convert PostScript files to PDF using ps2pdf in the Ghostscript package. Thanks to Mark Kuchel for pointing this out in his 2-Cent Tip.

Word

I'll be nice and not say anything about Word....

E-mail. The Gazette is too big to send via e-mail. Issue #44 is 754 kB; the largest issue (#34) was 2.7 MB. Even the text-only version of #44 is 146 kB compressed, 413 kB uncompressed. If anybody wishes to distribute the text version via e-mail, be my guest. There is an announcement mailing list where I announce each issue: go to http://linuxgazette.net/mailman/listinfo/lg-announce to subscribe. Or read the announcement on comp.os.linux.announce.

Subscribing with "nospam" in your From: address or "dot" instead of "." is not going to get you subscribed. It just makes more work for the list administrator, who must deal with the resulting bounce messages and then unsubscribe the address.

If e-mail really is your only option, some organizations operate FTP-via-mail servers you can use.

On paper. I know of no companies offering printed copies of the Gazette.

4. How can I subscribe to the Gazette?

You can't. It's not a subscription magazine. What you see on the Web is what you get. See above for the other formats Linux Gazette is and is not available in. There is an e-mail announcement service if you wish to receive an announcement when each issue is posted.

5. Is Linux Gazette available in German? Korean? Polish? Portuguese? Russian? Spanish?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. See the mirrors page.

6. Why is the most recent issue several months old?

You're probably looking at an unmaintained mirror. Check the home site to see what the current issue is, then go to the mirrors page on the home site to find a more up-to-date mirror.

If a mirror is seriously out of date, please let us know.

7. How can I find all the articles about a certain subject?

Use the Linux Gazette search engine.

Use the Index of Articles. A link to it is on the Front Page, at the bottom of the issues links, called "Index of All Issues". All the Tables of Contents are concatenated here onto one page. Use your browser's "Find in Page" dialog to find keywords in the title or author's names.

There is a separate Answer Gang Index, listing all the questions that have been answered by the Answer Gang. However, they are not sorted by subject at this time, so you will also want to use the "Find in Page" dialog to search this listing for keywords. (It's not up to date either: it's still called The Answer Guy even though it's now The Answer Gang.)

8. May I copy and distribute the Gazette or portions thereof?

Certainly. Linux Gazette is freely redistributable under the Open Publication License (OPL) (http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/), version 1.0 or later. You may copy it, give it away, sell it, translate it into another language, whatever you wish. Just keep the copyright notices attached to the articles, since each article is copyright by its author. We request that you provide a link back to linuxgazette.net.

If your copy is publicly available, we would like to list it on our mirrors page, especially if it's a foreign language translation. Use the submission form at the bottom of the page to tell us about your site. This is also the most effective way to help Gazette readers find you.

LG's official copyright statement is at http://linuxgazette.net/copying.html.

9. You have my competitor's logo on the Front Page; will you put mine up too?

All logos on the Front Page and on each issue's Table of Contents are from our sponsors. Sponsors make a financial contribution to help defray the cost of producing the Gazette. This is what keeps the Gazette free (both in the senses of "freely redistributable" and "free of ads" ) To recognize and give thanks to our sponsors, we display their logo.

If you would like more information about sponsoring the Linux Gazette, e-mail sponsor@linuxgazette.net.

10. Is there a generic URL to the current issue?

http://linuxgazette.net/current/ is now a symbolic link to the current issue. Please do not bookmark any article through it. The bookmark will obviously go dead when the next issue is published, or could end up pointing at the wrong article. Instead, change the "current" to the real issue number (e.g., "issue49") in your bookmark.

This link was added for the convenience of those wishing to download the current issue to their PalmPilot every month.

11. Do you publish announcements about Java products?

Occasionally we publish these in News Bytes: Software News, if there is a specific Linux connection besides simply the fact that it runs on a Linux server. (Because all Java programs can supposedly run on a Linux server.) A zine that specializes in Java would be a better resource for this.

12. How does the rsync server work?

Rsync was installed May 2000 as a convenient way for LG mirrors and others to keep their copies of the Web directory and the FTP files up-to-date.

Our system administrator writes:

1. You need rsync. See http://rsync.samba.org/

2. Some useful applications of rsync:

   rsync -az linuxgazette.net::lg-all/ /tmp/lg

   synchronizes everything (web files and tarballs) to /tmp/lg (your local directory)

   rsync -az --exclude ftpfiles linuxgazette.net::lg-all/ /tmp/lg

   gets just the web files

   rsync -az linuxgazette.net::lg-ftp/ /tmp/lg

   gets just the tarballs

3. The trailing slash in the "from" field is important!! Otherwise you will get a subdirectory named lg-all (or lg-ftp) inside your destination directory, and everything underneath that.

4. Add 'v' to the option string to see more of what's going on. There are many, many other options. For more info, 'man rsync'.

Ewen McNeill <ewen@catalyst.net.nz> uses:

rsync -rlHtSz -v --stats anonymous@linuxgazette.net::lg-all/ /dest/dir/

This is built up using environmental variables and a script.