November Linux Shareware

This month the Linux think tank continues to play a game of 'anything-you-can-do' with the international commercial software fraternity.

By James Morris

There are two very similar packages produced to link DHCP and DNS together on Linux. Both use a Perl-based program to monitor changes to the DHCP leases file and then run a command to have DNS updated to reflect the new DHCP entry. The packages are dhcp_dns by Mike Stella, and dhcp-dns by Stephen Carville. Both these programs require Perl. In addition, Mike Stella's package requires the Net-DNS Perl module. You can download the module from:http://theory.uwinnipeg.ca/scripts/CPAN/authors/id/MFUHR/Net-DNS-0.12.tar.gz.

Installing these programs is not difficult for a system administrator, but neither is well integrated into any Linux distribution (they were not written exclusively with Linux in mind and should work on any Unix system). Both require some manual changes to be made to some configuration files. Both could use a service script to make them operate as a standard system service under Linux. Internet Software Consortium (ISC, at http://www.isc.org/), which maintains and develops both DHCP and BIND, is supposedly working on baseline integration between these two packages. Until this bears fruit, the programs described here are a good way to integrate DHCP with DDNS.

If bridging the gap between DHCP and DNS is important for you, take your pick between these two simple programs.

Mesa is available for Linux as a number of different components. If you simply require Mesa library support for a program that uses Mesa, then Mesa is the only package you will require. If you wish to develop OpenGL code using Mesa, then Mesa-devel is required. Numerous example programs are provided in the Mesa-demos package.

Mesa is complemented with the GL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) library, which is independent of the installed windowing system. The Mesa components, being available as RPMs, install without a hitch.

You will need to use Mesa if you install a program, such as Blender, that requires it. Alternatively, you might use it if you wish to develop graphical software with sophisticated 3D visualisation capabilities.

Blender development is now under the control of a NeoGeo offshoot called Not a Number, or NaN. It is being aggressively developed and is set to become a real time 3D and game authoring tool. NaN's business model is based on selling the Complete version of Blender for 95 euros (about $150), and on selling related merchandise such as books. Blender has a Silicon Graphics heritage and is built on the renowned OpenGL graphics library. Blender also has its own API for plug-in extensibility.

Installation of Blender is a breeze. With the Mesa RPM loaded, Blender installed and ran without a hitch. When running, it takes up the full screen. It doesn't follow the design conventions of most contemporary GUI-based programs. It is aimed at the professional animator, not the home user.

There is a well-designed HTML-based manual available free that explains the advanced concepts upon which Blender is based.

HylaFAX implements robust client-server fax communications that can be shared by many people across your network. Fax servers can support fax pools for high volume work.

The client program I have used is WHFC, or Windows HylaFAX Client from Transcom in Germany. This works well with Windows 95, Windows 98 or NT. It provides a nice GUI to manage the fax queue and allows you to install the network fax server as a virtual printer on your local Windows PC. Faxing is simply a matter of printing a document to your HylaFAX virtual printer and entering the destination fax number at the prompt. As the imaging model used by HylaFAX to render pages is PostScript, it depends on the widely used Ghostscript package for PostScript support.

At the server end, HylaFAX provides full support for custom cover sheets and for command line sending. The software is very well documented, maintained and developed. I had no problems installing the server software, because it is available in RPM format. The current version is 4.1beta1.

When installing HylaFAX, you'll need to add the address of you local network to HylaFAX's host file. Unless you do this, the HylaFAX server will refuse connections from PCs on your network. Another thing that was not made obvious in the install process was that it's necessary to add a line to the /etc/inittab file in order to run the faxgetty process.

HylaFAX is a solid, reputable network faxing implementation that would equally suit home or enterprise use. It is at home with Linux, as well as any mixed network. If you want a GUI fax client for your Linux desktop, take your pick from susefax, tkHylaFAX or KHylaFAX. Links to these sites are on the HylaFAX Web site.