[3958] in linux-announce channel archive
Linux-Announce Digest #250
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Digestifier)
Thu Dec 5 19:13:12 2002
From: Digestifier <Linux-Announce-Request@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>
To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
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Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 19:13:08 EST
Linux-Announce Digest #250, Volume #4 Thu, 5 Dec 2002 19:13:08 EST
Contents:
Note: the ISO 8859 to UTF-8 migration has started (Markus Kuhn)
GLLUG Meeting - 7th December 2002 (Steve Cobrin)
Ted 2.12, an easy RTF text processor for Linux/Unix/X-Windows released (Mark de Does)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: n02W49+mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk (Markus Kuhn)
Subject: Note: the ISO 8859 to UTF-8 migration has started
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 17:23:14 CST
UTF-8 -- The new common character set for GNU/Linux
===================================================
Red Hat 8.0 is the first major Linux distributor that configures
its default installation to use the UTF-8 character encoding
(ISO 10646, Unicode). UTF-8 replaces now the various
quite restricted old ISO 8859 8-bit character sets that
we have used for the past 10 years. Other Linux distributors
are expected to follow shortly.
UTF-8 is the encoding variant of the Unicode character set
that was specifically designed to replace ASCII at all levels
in a backwards compatible way on Unix-style operating systems.
It was first introduced by the fathers of Unix around a
decade ago on AT&T's Plan9 operating system and has since then
become a formal international and Internet standard and
gradually found its way into the Unix and GNU/Linux world.
The use of different 8-bit charsets has caused in the past
enormous configuration and data exchange problems and the only
viable longterm solution for these problems remains to
move eventually to one single character encoding all
over the planet under Linux for filenames, plaintext files,
email and terminal I/O streams. UTF-8 is the only widely
recognized encoding that fulfills the requirements of
all major language communities under Linux and is
destined to become this common global character encoding.
UTF-8 is a multi-byte encoding. It needs to be treated by
some application programs (in particular all editors and any
program that interacts directly with fonts) slightly
differently from single-byte encodings such as ISO 8859.
The main difference between UTF-8 and single-byte encodings
is that for any text string
- the number of bytes occupied
- the number of characters contained
- the number of terminal cursor positions consumed
are not identical any more, and any function that made this
assumption needs to be slightly updated.
Over the past three years, a handfull of enthusiasts have worked
intensively to upgrade the most widely used Linux tools to work
correctly with the UTF-8 encoding. As of late summer 2002,
UTF-8 upgrades have been completed or are in an advanced state
for example for glibc, gcc, Xlib, xterm, X11 fonts, bash,
textutils, emacs, vim, perl, python, tcl/tk, etc. UTF-8 support
has now reached a level, at which its first use in a production
environment can be recommended to a larger community of
experienced Linux users.
Of course, UTF-8 support is far from perfect and quite a
number of glitches can still be expected, especially with
less well maintained packages (just as it was with ISO 8859
10 years ago!). Red Hat had the courage to force this
issue somewhat by initiating a large scale test of
the available UTF-8 support, by setting the default locale
to UTF-8 for users in most countries. Please support them
by testing your own software with UTF-8 and address
related problems and user feedback quickly.
If you are maintaining a Linux package that might be affected
by the move to UTF-8, then please upgrade to a very recent
Linux distribution (e.g., Red Hat 8.0 or SuSE 8.1), pick
a locale such as LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 and for xterm one
of the ISO10646-1 fonts, and test the behaviour of non-ASCII
characters.
If you are maintaining a national-language support HOWTO
document, please start to consider UTF-8 as an alternative
encoding for representing the character repertoire of your
respective script and language under Linux.
If you are a journalist, note that the move to UTF-8 is one of
the major forthcoming breakthroughs in the evolution of the
GNU/Linux platform and its progress deserves a fair amount of
public attention.
For more information on UTF-8 under Linux, please have a look at
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html
and for expert advice join the linux-utf8 mailing list by
sending a message to
linux-utf8-request@nl.linux.org
with the subject "subscribe".
A 3-minute demo of UTF-8 under Linux is on
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/quick-intro.txt
If you are completely unfamiliar with UTF-8, then please read
one of
- man utf-8
- http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#utf-8
- http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2279.txt
for a description of the encoding, and refer to the
Unicode Standard (Addison-Wesley, 2000) for all the
gory details.
Markus
--
Markus Kuhn, Computer Lab, Univ of Cambridge, GB
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ | __oo_O..O_oo__
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------------------------------
From: Steve Cobrin <cobrin@highbury.demon.co.uk>
Subject: GLLUG Meeting - 7th December 2002
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 17:23:20 CST
Meeting: 7th December 2002
The Greater London Linux User Group is set to have another meeting.
That's right, there is a GLLUG meeting on Saturday 7th December,
between 12noon and 5pm.
We will be meeting in the New Cavendish Street campus of Westminster
University. This is in the shadow of the BT Tower, the nearest
tube stations are Great Portland Street, Warren Street and Goodge
Street. You will find a map at [http://www.wmin.ac.uk/static/maps.asp]
or via the html version of this message at the GLLUG web site.
NOTE: you will need to sign in at the front desk to gain access to
the building. There are building works at the moment but we'll post
signs if the entrance has moved.
Talks
We have three talks planned for the December meeting. These will be
in the large lecture theatre on the second floor:-
12:00 - 12:30
Welcome and Introduction. also opportunity to try and debug overhead
projectors :-)
12:30 - 13:30
Alasdair G Kergon - Logical Volume Management - LVM/LVM2
LVM is the established standard for on-line disk storage management
under Linux. It is included in the 2.4 kernel series.
LVM2 is the new implementation of LVM available from
ftp://ftp.sistina.com/pub/LVM2/ which uses a lightweight kernel driver
known as the 'device-mapper' that provides generic support for volume
management. The device-mapper is included in the 2.5 kernel series
and is available as a patch for 2.4.
LVM2 introduces a new metadata format designed to improve efficiency
and to offer more options for recovery in the event of problems.
The aims of this talk are:
1. To introduce LVM concepts and tools under Linux;
2. To explain the architecture we chose for LVM2 and the
device-mapper, and to demonstrate some of the new features
provided.
14:00 - 15:00
Michael Meeks - Gnome 2: Desktop of the future
This talk will showcase the Gnome project, and show how we are
developing our vision of "Free software on every desktop". With
extensive demos of Evolution (our Outlook replacement), and the range
of desktop applications.
New features in the recent 2.0 release will gleam at onlookers, plus
how our strategic direction and long term vision matches business
needs. Accessibility support for impaired users, vital for government
deployment, and US software sales will also be demonstrated.
15:30 - 16:30
Professor Peter Kacsuk - Cluster and Grid talk.
This will be an introductory talk along the lines of: what is a
cluster, what is the grid, what problems can be solved using clusters
and the grid.
He has lots of material and can change the talk depending on what
people want on the day.
To round the meeting off: Steve Cobrin will chair an open forum
discussion. The topic is open, but some topics to get you thinking
could be: 'KDE vs Gnome vs others. (handy since Michael will be here)'
Do please be aware that we can't guarantee that the talks will happen
at the times stated, but we will do our best to make sure they do.
Other activities
Away from the formal lectures, we have two rooms set aside, both on
the second floor, same level as main lecture room.
The network lab, as it is known, can be used for rolling demos of
Linux being installations and to experiment with configuration.
We also have the Multimedia room. This will be used for people to set
is up their own machines. You can do this if you have something to
show off, or you are looking for a solution to some problems. If your
are bringing in your own machine, make sure you sign it in when you
arrive, otherwise security won't let you take it when you go! We'll
have monitors, keyboards, mice, and powerleads available. [So no need
to lug all that stuff].
We will have access to some of the latest iso images and a CD-Burner.
If you decide to bring a PC, please have the serial number written
down ahead of time, in case it needs to be registered at the ground
floor Reception. We may also take a picture of you and your PC as
proof of ownership.
The network lab and the multimedia room are the places you can go to,
should you be looking for sanctuary away from the formal talks. If
we're lucky the Refectory on the ground floor will have its food and
drinks machines restocked.
After
After the meeting, for those that want, the group will move off to
'The Green Man' public house, very close to Great Portland Street. We
have it booked from 5:30pm, part of the ground floor area of the bar is
reserved for us. Even if you were unable to make the daytime meeting,
please feel free to join us at the pub. To help you find the pub have
a look at this external streetmap link.
Next meeting
The date for the next meeting has not yet been set, but should be a
Saturday sometime in January or early February; keep watching these
pages for further announcements.
Contact us
If you have any ideas for future events, you can either discuss
them on the main mailing list, or get our direct attention by
mailing to gllugadmin@linux.co.uk
-- Steve Cobrin
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------------------------------
From: Mark de Does <mark@mdedoes.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Ted 2.12, an easy RTF text processor for Linux/Unix/X-Windows released
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 17:23:21 CST
Ted 2.12, an easy RTF text processor for Linux/Unix/X-Windows released.
Utrecht, December 1, 2002
Available from
==============
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/editors/ted
http://www.nllgg.nl/Ted
Description of Ted
==================
Ted is a text processor running under X Windows on Unix/Linux systems.
Ted was developed as a standard easy word processor, having the role
of Wordpad on MS-Windows. Since then, Ted has evolved to a real word
processor that still has the same easy appearance as the original. The
possibility to type a letter, a note or a report on a Unix/Linux
machine is clearly missing. Only too often, you have to turn to
MS-Windows machine to write a letter or a document. Ted was made to
make it possible to edit rich text documents on Unix/Linux in a wysiwyg
way. RTF files from Ted are fully compatible with MS-Word.
Additionally, Ted also is an RTF to PostScript and an RTF to Acrobat
PDF converter.
To my own modest opinion, Ted is really easy to use and of good
quality. I hope that you will find Ted useful.
Changes since version 2.11
(Ted 2.12 December 1, 2002)
* Fixes in image rendering.
* GTK version is now more mature and even usable. Source
Adapted to GTK 2.0
* Solid shading of paragraphs and table cells.
* Colored table cell borders.
* Text colors.
* GTK version uses X11 resources for configuration, like the
Motif version.
* To change the hyperlinks as saved by older versions of Ted to
blue and underlined once run the command TED_HYPERLINKS_BLUE=1
Ted old.rtf and save the document.
Details on Ted
==============
Ted is a text processor running under X Windows on Unix/Linux systems.
Compatibility with popular MS-Windows applications played an important
role in the design of Ted. Every document produced by Ted should,
without any loss of formatting or information, be accepted as a legal
.rtf file by Word. Compatibility in the other direction is more
difficult to achieve. Ted supports many of the formatting features of
the Microsoft applications. Other formatting instructions and meta
information are ignored.*) By ignoring unsupported formatting Ted
tries to get the complete text of a document on screen or to the
printer. Ted can be used to read formatted e-mail sent from a Windows
machine to Unix, to print an RTF document, or to convert it to Acrobat
PDF format. Below we explain how to configure Ted as an RTF viewer in
Netscape and how to convert an RTF document to PDF with Ted and
GhostScript.
*) Most of the ignored information is not saved either when you
modify and then save an RTF document with Ted.
Features
· Wysiwyg rich text editing. You can use all fonts for which
you have a .afm file and that are available as an X11 font. Ted
is delivered with .afm files for the Adobe fonts that are
available on Motif systems and in all postscript printers:
Times, Helvetica, Courier and Symbol. Other fonts can be added
with the normal X11 procedure. Font properties like bold and
italic are supported; so is underlining and are subscripts and
superscripts.
· Ted uses Microsoft RTF as its native file format. Microsoft
Word and Wordpad can read files produced by Ted. Usually Ted
can read .rtf files from Microsoft Word and Wordpad. As Ted
does not support all features of Word,some formatting
information might be lost.
· In line bitmap and windows metafile pictures.
· PostScript printing of the document and its illustrations.
Saved PostScript files contain pdfmarks that are converted to
hyperlinks when they are converted to Acrobat PDF.
· Spelling checking in twelve Latin languages.
· Directly mailing documents from Ted. Mail in HTML format is a
multipart message that contains all images hyperlinks and
footnotes.
· Cut/Copy/Paste, also with other applications.
· Find/Replace.
· Ruler: Paragraph indentation, Indentation of first line,
Tabs. Copy/Paste Ruler.
· Page breaks.
· Page headers and footers. Page numbers in page headers and
page footers.
· Tables: Insert Table, Row, Column. Changing the column width
of tables with their ruler.
· Symbols and accented characters are fully supported.
· Hyperlinks and bookmarks.
· Footnotes and endnotes.
· Saving a document in HTML format.
· Probably the best illustration of what you can do with Ted is
its documentation that has been made with Ted.
For a detailed description and a manual, refer to the readme.* files
on the web site in plain text, HTML or RTF format.
Changes since version 2.10
(Ted 2.11 March 1, 2002)
* Footnotes and endnotes.
* Detailed manipulation of the tabulator settings with a 'Tabs'
tool.
* Bugs and annoyances have been removed. In particular the
crash with printing on lp based systems like RedHat Linux 7.
* Added the posiibility to convert to PostScript without even
touching the X11 environment.
Changes since version 2.9
(Ted 2.10 April 30, 2001)
* Widow/Orphan control.
* Keep paragraph on one page, Keep paragraph on same page as
next supported.
* Better support for sending MIME mail. The html mail now is a
multipart mail message also containing the images.
* The border width of tables and paragraphs is under control of
the user.
* Manual entry of the font size no longer limits the selectable
font sizes to a limited set.
Changes since version 2.8
=========================
(Ted 2.9 January 31, 2001)
* Full support for page headers and footers including page
numbers.
* Functionality for making a table of contents such as
references and page number references.
* Command line conversion to html or to plain text.
* The improvements in WMF drawing and support for PAGEREF
fields make the pdf files from the printed postscript very
similar to the RTF original.
* Ted can be compiled to use the GTK+ Widget set. The GTK
version is not yet complete.
Changes since version 2.7
=========================
(Ted 2.8: April 15, 2000)
* Editing behavior closer to that of Word. E.G. support for
Control key in navigation and selection has been extended.
* Private compilations and installations have been made easier.
Changes since version 2.6
=========================
(Ted 2.7: December 31, 1999)
* A major step toward wysiwyg vertical layout: Pagination is
visible on screen.
* Many features added for printing the document. Ted now also
prints on Level 1 PostScript printers.
Changes since version 2.5
=========================
(Ted 2.6: September 30, 1999)
* The HTML produced is now simpler and syntactically correct.
* Better support for character sets different from latin 1. In
particular for Latin2 documents.
Changes since version 2.4
=========================
(Ted 2.5: July 31, 1999)
* Right aligned and centered text are supported.
* The PostScript Ted saves to file contains so-called pdfmarks
to keep the links and bookmarks when they are converted to the
Acrobat PDF format.
Changes since version 2.3
=========================
(Ted 2.4: May 21, 1999)
* Finding an X11 font with the PostScript font has been revised.
* Little bugs that prevented Ted from working with other than
Latin1 fonts removed.
* The Ted document has been improved. It is added as an online
document.
* Some compilation procedure fixes. Distribution also in RPM
format.
Changes since version 2.2
=========================
Compared to version 2.2, 2.3 is yet another usability update. (Ted
2.3: March 11, 1999)
* Printing of tables.
Changes since version 2.0
=========================
Compared to version 2.0, 2.2 does not offer much more functionality.
Many little features have been added, and a myriad of bugs has been
fixed. The user interface has been polished a lot to improve Teds
usability. (Ted 2.2: February 6, 1999)
* The compilation procedure has been improved a lot, and Ted
has been tested with LessTif.
December 1, 2002
Mark de Does.
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------------------------------
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