Linux Tips #2



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*1. USING PERL                 
        
Although Perl is probably best known by Web developers, it is
 also a popular language for system administrators. However, it
 has some benefits that make it useful even when using other
 languages: Perl excels at regular expression manipulation.
 Text manipulations that can take tens or hundreds of lines of
 code in C can be reduced to a handful in Perl. 

In addition, Perl has been used to develop a huge variety of
 tools, most of which can be found at CPAN (Comprehensive Perl
 Archive Network), located at 

http://www.cpan.org/


*2. WRITING A CGI                 
        
Often the first Internet programming a person attempts is writing
 a CGI. CGIs can be written in virtually any computer language,
 from shell scripts to Cobol to C to Perl. They can be a compiled
 or interpreted language. However, the examples are often limited
 to a few selected languages. 

The most language-agnostic introduction to CGI can be found at 

http://www.w3.org/CGI/


*3. SCHEME                 
        
Rumors to the contrary, Lisp is not dead. The most frequently
 used dialect these days seems to be the language Scheme, which
 has bindings for most of the common GUI toolkits. 

For those of you who are not familiar with Lisp or other
 functional languages, these languages are very different from
 the more familiar imperative languages. It's a different
 programming paradigm and one that you might try if you find
 traditional programming difficult. 

If you're interested in checking out Scheme, the main site can be
 found at 

http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/scheme-home.html


*4. ML                 
        
Another functional language that is different from Lisp is ML.
 This language is elegant, but difficult for me, because I am too
 steeped in the procedural paradigm. Nevertheless, it is a very
 neat, concise language. With Gtk bindings written by David
 Monniaux (monniaux@clipper.ens.fr), ML can be used as a
 general-purpose GUI programming language. The bindings are for
 the ML dialect known as Objective Caml, which can be found at 

http://pauillac.inria.fr/ocaml/ 

A good introduction to the Objective Caml language can be
 found at 

http://pauillac.inria.fr/ocaml/htmlman/node2.html 

A fabulous resource for learning ML can be found at the
 following site: 

http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/course-notes/sml/manual.html


*5. SUMMARIZED HELP FOR CUSTOM CONFIGURATION ISSUES                 
        
If you are fairly new to Linux, you might like to have a summary
 of the kinds of configuration and administrative tasks that may
 be required of you from time to time. Such help is at hand. One
 online document, Linux Administration Made Easy, attempts to
 summarize the installation and configuration, as well as the
 day-to-day administrative and maintenance procedures that should
 be followed to keep a Linux-based server or desktop system up
 and running. It is geared to an audience of both corporate as
 well as home users. It is not intended to be a full overview of
 Unix operations, since other documentation is available in cases
 where more detailed information is required. 

In general, your Linux server can operate with a minimum of user
 maintenance. Routine tasks, such as rotating and discarding of
 system logs, are automated. Therefore, for the most part, even
 with very little user intervention, Linux will hum along doing
 its job. However, in cases of custom needs or system failure,
 check out Linux Administration Made Easy, by Steve Frampton, at 

http://qlink.queensu.ca/~3srf/linux-admin/


*6. GET FREE DYNAMIC DNS SERVICE                 
        
The justlinux site offers a lot for developers, including
 downloads, documentation and support, news, links to other
 sites, and forums. One download recently released is
 jlclient-1.1 for its free Dynamic DNS service. jlclient-1.1 is a
 small utility used for updating your hostname and IP address
 with the free Dynamic DNS service, which allows you to choose
 your name in the penguinpowered.com domain. With this service,
 you can run your own Web, FTP, Telnet, IRC, or other TCP/IP
 services using a hostname instead of a dynamic IP address. Find
 out more about the Dynamic DNS and how to download jlclient at 

http://www.justlinux.com/dynamic_dns.html


*7. USING ORACLE WITH LINUX                 
        
Database applications are a frequent problem in programming, so
 the next few tips will be about the availability of database
 tools for Linux. 

Oracle is a relational database that scales well for use in
 production servers. Oracle has many programmers working on the
 Linux port to ensure that Linux can be used for large-scale
 databases. Oracle's Linux site can be found at 

http://platforms.oracle.com/linux/index_lin.htm 

A trial version of Oracle for Linux (145MB) can be downloaded at 

http://www.oracle.com/products/trial/html/trial.html


*8. DEPLOYING DB2 FOR LINUX                 
        
One of the widest-deployed databases is IBM's DB2, now available
 for Linux. The install process did not impress me. Like Oracle,
 it's designed for interoperability with Java. IBM has set up a
 newsgroup for support issues, so people can ask and answer each
 other's questions. 

The download of DB2 runs 44MB; the SDK is also available
 separately (for those who wish to write Linux clients talking to
 DB2 databases on other platforms) with a size of 17.5MB. More
 information can be found at 

http://www.software.ibm.com/data/db2/linux/


*9. SYBASE FOR LINUX                 
        
Sybase is another of the large database vendors. It has taken a
 slightly different tack in that it explicitly supports
 distributions such as SuSE. However, Sybase lacks some features
 (such as row-level locking) that make it suitable in high-volume
 multi-user environments. 

A trial version can be found linked from Sybase's site at 

http://www.sybase.com 

The exact URL for the Sybase site depends on which distribution
 you use. The trial version is approximately 42MB,
 including documentation.


*10. INFORMIX NOW PORTED TO LINUX                 
        
Informix has been ported to Linux; unlike other database vendors,
 it has tried to be more open about which Linux distributions it
 supports. A 30-day trial version of Informix can be downloaded
 from its site. More information on the Linux version of Informix
 can be found at 

http://www.informix.com/informix/products/pa/lnxannc.html
