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Showing posts from September, 2007

How to get Linux box ping a Windows machine via netbios/wins

Name resolution in Linux is controlled by System Databases and Name Switch Configuration file which is located in /etc/nsswitch.conf, at least for my Debian based system. Note this is only true I think with libc5 and newer with NYS support and the GNU C Library 2.x (libc.so.6). The most import section to get a Linux to ping a Windows machine is the hosts statement. # ~: nano /etc/nsswitch.conf # <----- several lines before this one hosts: files dns wins What this says is that the gethostbyname and similar functions will first check the local database (/etc/hosts). If the name cannot be found then do use dns and finally wins. But for wins lookup to work, winbind needs to be installed. Winbind provides 3 major functions for integrating with Windows network. But we are not really using anyone of those 3 major functions but rather we need the functionality provided by /lib/libnss_wins.so library. So to get this file installed, do: #: apt-get install winbind And as a side note, I have

Creating Windows icon using GIMP

Windows application icons normally used in an application is a multi-page icon. One is 16x16 at 4bpp and 32x32 that can be set as high as 32bpp. Creating an icon in GIMP is a easy a creating a new graphics document. Set the background to transparent and size to 32x32. On the first layer, add 16x16 and on the second layer add 32x32 picture. Save the file as .ico and select 4bpp for 16x16 image and 32bpp for 32x32. That should be it and off you go, you know have a nice looking Windows icon.