Welcome to my home on the internet. May the software and information below be useful to you. Please feel free to write suggestions and questions via email to me@wt.xpilot.org. However, the amount of requests for elementary help greatly exceeds my spare time. Please beg my pardon that I can no longer reply to newbie questions.

Table of Contents

  1. Publications
    1. Periodically updated


      1. CD-Writing HOWTO (on the schedule for February 2008)
        Many people use Linux to burn CD-ROMs, because it is reliable and easy. No bluescreens while burning and no headaches about getting the right combination of hard- and software. It just works once properly set up. The CD-writing HOWTO explains the setup, how to put data on the media and gives some interesting applications kindly submitted by the readers. ==>


      2. German HOWTO (neue Version im Februar 2008)
        Dieses Dokument enthält Tips und Informationen für deutschsprachige Linux-Anwender. (Note to English readers: this document explains the german specific aspects of Linux. The middle chapter is written in English.) ==>


    2. Current, sorted chronologically


      1. Pulpo Rapido, appeared in the german iX Magazin, co-authored with Susanne Schultz, December 2001
        The web server software Apache reveals two problems when used in production environments: a high amount of resource allocation (RAM, CPU) and the execution of web applications under a shared account. We describe an easy and robust solution. The complete translation of the article will be available soon. ==>


      2. Photos from the LinuxTag 2000 und 2001 in Stuttgart, June 2001
        The literal translation of LinuxTag is LinuxDay. This title is a leftover from ancient times, when the event really lasted one day and took place at the university of Kaiserslautern. High popularity of the LinuxTag enforced a new home, which was found at the fair in Stuttgart. I contributed by making photos in 2000 and 2001. ==>


      3. Xpilot, coming to terms with my past in the german Linux-User-Magazin and the english Linux magazine UK, May/June 2001
        Wie vieles bei mir begann es damals. Doom konnte man gerade mal innerhalb eines lokalen Netzes und unter Lahmlegung desselben spielen. Vorausgesetzt man hatte die höheren Weihen der IPX-Konfiguration unter DOS bereits empfangen. Und was man dann erlebte, machte Doom eigentlich überflüssig: Durch den vom Spiel ausgelösten IPX-Broadcast-Storm mutierten einige in ihrer Arbeit behinderte Sekretärinnen zu amoklaufenden Monstern. Oft war nicht zwischen Spiel und Wirklichkeit zu unterscheiden. Die neue Version von Xpilot ließ sich dagegen über das Internet spielen...


      4. Schnelllöser, article appeared in the german iX Magazin, November 2000
        A method and program code to speed up hostname resolving by the order of a magnitude and more. Instead of using threads, the built-in UDP socket handling of most modern operating system kernels is used to do the resolving in parallel. The idea of using UDP has been documented before (e.g. on linux-kernel), but the special application for handling large protocol files was new. Today the method can be found in many statistics applications.==>


      5. GUUG-mal!, a CD-ROM with videos; distributed by the German Unix User Group, january 2000
        Due to the size of the MPEG video files, I can't offer them on the web. Only the texts and pictures are available here. ==>


      6. Persistent shell objects, published 1999 in the magazine of the German Unix User Group
        Persistent shell objects are an Object Oriented extension to the Unix command line. They offer an alternative to the System-V startup style as well as to makefiles. One could also say persistent shell objects give you some useful functionality you would only expect on graphical desktops. ==>


      7. SQL4txt, published 1999 in the magazine of the German Unix User Group
        The concept of SQL-for-text (SQL4txt) gives you a SQL-view of a Unix system. So instead of using thousand different tools for system administration, you could use only one: the SQL command line. ==>


      8. Posix.1e, made available for download in July 1999
        Important note: this documentation is not my work. I'm just making it available for download. IEEE Std 1003.1e is part of the POSIX series of standards. It defines security interfaces to open systems for access control lists, audit, separation of privilege (capabilities), mandatory access control, and information label mechanisms. This standard is stated in terms of its C binding.==>


    3. Small yet useful texts


      1. Definition of Linux ==>
      2. The difference between FreeBSD and Linux (FreeBSD/Linux vs. Unix/Linux vs. Gnu/Linux vs. KDE/Linux) ==>
      3. Unixkurs (a short introduction into Unix for students of biology at the university of cologne) ==>
      4. Squid as a HTTP accellerator ==>
      5. A Linux Uptime survey ==>
      6. Erfahrungen mit den kölner Installationspartys ==>


    4. Covered by dust... (available upon request only)


      1. Crash-Kurs Linux,
        A very comprehensive introduction to Linux written in German. Used as printed hands-out for my free courses about Linux. The only change of the current release 3.9.1 are the relaxed license conditions. ==>


      2. Intranetworking mit Linux, Addison-Wesley 1998, 300 pages


      3. Xterm-Title mini-HOWTO, Internet 1996, superseeded by a mini-HOWTO with the same name
      4. Virtual-wu-ftpd mini-HOWTO, Internet 1996, discontinued because better software became available
      5. PPP-over-minicom, Internet 1996, discontinued because better software became available


  2. Talks and tutorials


    1. Internet for Radio, DW Cologne 2002
    2. Advanced Website Management for Radio, AMIC Singapore 2002
    3. Technical Aspects of Website Management, AMIC Singapore 2001
    4. Evolution einer Web-Site, MNU Köln 2000
    5. Intranetworking mit Linux, GUUG Frühjahrsfachgespräch, 1999
    6. Warum einfacher kein Schritt in Richtung Windows ist, GUUG Offene Systeme, 1998
    7. Filesystem replacing database interface (FReDI), Bofh-session, Linux-Kongress 1998
    8. A registry for Unix, Bofh-session, Linux-Kongress 1998
    9. An alternative to the System-V startup concept, Bofh-session, Linux-Kongress 1998
    10. Sicherheit unter Linux, GUUG Frühjahrsfachgespräche
    11. The document filesystem, Bofh-session, Linux-Kongress 1997
    12. Intranets, Linux-Kongress 1997
    13. Linux-Kurs, Kursprogramm RRZ Köln 1995,1996


  3. Databases


    1. CD-Writer Compatibility List ==>


  4. Software development projects


    1. Current
      1. FReDI, a filesystem replacing database interface.
        We have compiled together most of the software and ideas of the past ten years of developing applications for the internet. Current version is 9.3.17. Next official release is scheduled for 2nd of November. ==>


    2. Stalled or superseeded by other software
      1. Webgrep: a brute force text and image search engine. Superseeded by FReDI.
      2. mi2stn: A menu driven interface to the databases of STN/FIZ karlsruhe. Around the time of development (1993), web browsers werde not widely available. In fact, gopher was still state of the art. So we had to use vt100 graphics. However, the script had clickable buttons (in an xterm) and provided the one-click ordering of documents. Superseeded by FReDI.


  5. Private entertainment
    1. Xpilot
      XPilot is a multi-player 2D space game. Some features are borrowed from classics like the Atari coin-ups Asteroids and Gravitar, and the home-computer games Thrust (Commodore 64) and Gravity Force (Commodore Amiga), but XPilot has many new aspects too. Here are some contributions of mine.==>


    2. Mad Cow Desease
      The ultimative test if your cow is affected. The soundfiles are from 1995 from an anonymous source. ==>


  6. Linux

    Linux is a meta project, which was born around 1991. Unlike the BSD variants or the GNU project, which existed even before Linux, the Linux movement is not about a specific distribution, the right license model or best operating system (FreeBSD, The Hurd, etc). The approach of Linux has been much broader from the beginning.

    Over the last thirteen years, Linux created a vital and large environment of users, developers and companies. This enviroment sucessfully supported and supports the development of existing projects like BSD, the GNU project and even commercial Unices. The enviroment created by Linux has also led to many new major projects like XFree86, KDE, GNOME, Freshmeat, Sourceforge, LinuxTag and LinuxExpo. Even the definition for Open Source has been borned out of the Linux community ("Debian Free Software Guidelines"). And last but not least the so called Linux distributions like Debian Linux, Mandrake Linux, RedHat Linux, SuSE Linux or Turbo Linux, only to name some of them.

    It is important to understand that being a meta project, Linux must have conceptually higher goals than just developing or enforcing the best licensing model or the best technical strategy. Some prominent people propagate that Linux has no goals and ideals, but would need -surprise- their goals and ideals instead. This is dangerous nonsense. Such top level politics or religous beliefs would poison and perhaps break a sucessful meta project like Linux. Luckily people like Linus Thorvalds understood this from the beginning and acted accordingly.

    Lets keep it like this. False political correctness turns back time to the pre-Linux area only.