alt.binaries.warez.linux FAQ

v0.0.0-alpha5 [04 Feb 2003]

General Newbie Questions
  1. Linux is free, so how can there be "Linux warez"?
  2. Someone told me to "RTFM", what does that mean?
  3. Where can I find documentation?
  4. Someone told me to "use a search engine", what does that mean?
  5. Would someone post [favorite distribution] Linux?
  6. How do I fix my [kernel|video card|hard drive|whatever]?
  7. Linux sucks, Windows is best!
  8. Why do you like Linux so much?
News Server/Client Related Questions
  1. What is the best news server?/Do I have to pay for a news server?
  2. What is the best way to get someone to post or repost something?
  3. What types of posts can I expect to find here?/what can I post here?
  4. Someone is posting free software, what is up with that?
  5. What is the best news reader for Linux?
  6. Can I run Agent (or some other windows program) under Linux for news?
  7. Is there a program to retrieve files under linux?
  8. Is there a program to post files under linux?
Different File Types Explained
  1. .rar .r00 .r01 .r02... OR .000 .001 .002...
  2. .tar, .bz2, .gz, .tar.gz, .tgz, and .tar.bz
  3. .par, .p01, .p02...
  4. .nfo
  5. What are the "strange" characters I see in some .nfo files?
  6. .md5 and .sfv
  7. bin/cue
  8. .iso
  9. Which is better, a bin/cue image or an .iso image?
  10. How do I convert a bin/cue image into an .iso image?

Warranty

This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. It is the readers responsibility to determine how, and if, to apply any of the information contained in this document. In other words, if you blowup your computer, or erase your hard drive from following these instructions, then don't blame me or anyone else that contributed to this document. THE READER ASSUMES ALL RISK FROM USING THIS DOCUMENT.

Copyright

I'm putting this document in the Public Domain! Do whatever you want to with this. You can even sign your name to this document and claim you wrote it, I don't care. I've written this to contribute back to the group. (I hope most of the group likes it :)

Piracy

Piracy is selling program you don't own for profit. You will find no "piracy" going on here. You will find full versions of commerical programs here. Downloading "warez" may be illegal, it is up to you to know. Don't look at this as a way to get free programs, look at is as a way to avoid buying shitty software. If no one bought any of the programs downloaded here, then these (sometimes small) businesses will go out of business, and that hurts the Linux community as a whole. Please consider buying a progam you downloaded here, if you like it, and use it. If you don't like a program, then don't use it, and don't buy it. I find much of the time free software is better than the commercial alternatives, but not always. The more Linux programs that are bought, the more other companies will be willing to port their stuff to Linux. For example, I'm sure we (the Linux communuty) would have "Diablo II", if the other games available for linux were big sellers, but "Blizzard" won't even look at the Linux market if they can't make a certan amount of money from it.

Introduction

I did not write this as a "do this/don't do this" kind of FAQ, I am reporting on what I've read, experienced, and seen in the news groups relating to Linux warez. This is more like a linux supplement to the rules that apply to any of the alt.binaries.warez.* groups. There is more than one way to do things, and all the sample command lines you see in this document could have been done another way, and probably with another command. Also keep in mind, that some things go out of date very quickly, and other information is good for years. Because Linux is derived from Unix, most of this information also applies to your various Unixes (like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSDi, SCO, Solaris, AIX, Unixware, HPUX, etc...). All information is accurate to the best of my knowledge, at the time I typed this. If you have any comments, question, corrections, updates, gripes, and/or suggestions, then please use the form at the bottom of this page to send them to me.

General Newbie Questions


Linux is free, so how can there be "Linux warez"?

Linux, the kernel, is free, and most of the program for Linux are free, however not all of the program that run under Linux are free. This group is dedicated to all the non-free programs/files for Linux.
Someone told me to "RTFM", what does that mean?

RTFM means one of the following:
"Read The Fine Manual"
"Read The Friggin' Manual"
"Read The Flippin' Manual"
but most of the time it means:
"READ THE FUCKIN' MANUAL"
Usually you'll get this response when you ask a dumb question, that can easily be answered by...yep...reading the manuals.
Where can I find documentation?

Some places to find manuals and documentations are:
At the command prompt type "man man", and learn about "man" program.
At the command prompt type "info info", and learn about the "info" program.
http://www.linuxdoc.org/
http://www.linuxdocs.org/

Someone told me to "use a search engine", what does that mean?

That means you asked a dumb question that could easily be answered with a visit to a search engine. I suggest you try http://www.Google.com/ first. Some other search engines you can try are http://astalavista.box.sk/, http://www.MetaCrawler.com/, http://www.WebCrawler.com/, http://www.AltaVista.com/, http://www.Excite.com/, http://www.Lycos.com/, http://www.Yahoo.com/, and many more.
Would someone post [favorite distribution] Linux?

Probably not. Most of the Linux distributions are free anyways. There are a few distributions that are not free, like SuSe. Most of the distributions can be found at linuxiso.org. If you want one of the distros that are not free, then keep your eyes open, because they may not be posted in this group. If your favorite distro is being posted to another group, then someone will usually say what group it is being posted to. (for example, SuSe 7.1, 3 cd set was posted to alt.binaries.images, and only a few messages said anything about it, so pay attention).
How do I fix my [kernel|video card|hard drive|whatever]?

If the problem does not relate to something you downloaded here, then we don't care! This is the wrong group for these kinds of questions, try another newsgroup with "linux" in the name.
Linux sucks, Windows is best!

This is not a question! If you think windows is better than Linux/Unix then you're in the wrong group. This is not the newsgroup to have a "my OS is better than your OS" flame war in.

Why do you like Linux so much?

Linux is much more stable than any version of windows. I like having source code to the programs I run. I've personally made modifications to wget, blow, network monitor gnome applet, linux kernel, cdrdao, binchunker, xv, oss license generator, and xmame (that I can remember). I have Linux boxes that have never crashed (really), 200-300+ days of uptime (at %100 CPU usage) is not uncommon. I have never seen a windows box run for over a month (with or without a CPU load). All the problems I've had with Linux in 2 years is less than the ammount of problems I've had with NT in 2 months. I don't have to reboot my Linux box to "fix" a problem. Here is the output from the uptime command on 5 different boxes I maintain.
  2:06am  up 331 days, 20:38,  1 user,  load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
  2:10am  up 243 days,  6:06,  0 users,  load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
  2:11am  up 198 days,  5:43,  0 users,  load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
The 198 day box is a router/firewall running on a 133Mhz Pentium, if this quit working, I'd have lots of people pissed at me. The 243 day box is a mail/web/dns server running on a PentiumPro at 200Mhz, and if that didn't work, I'd have probably even more people pissed at me. The 331 day box, is a redhat 5.0 system, running on an old 486 66Mhz Compaq, with a 120Mb hard drive, running samba, and playing music on my stereo through the built in sound card (over the network). These are real life systems that are running as I type this, not systems that belong to someone else, or some great uptime from a year ago. I just installed a Linux router, that boots off a floppy disk, then runs the entire system from a ramdisk, lets see you do that with windows. Linux/Unix is more robust, stable, secure, and mature than windows will ever be. (Linux/Unix has over 30 years of heratige, that is not "old", this is "mature").

News Server/Client Related Questions


What is the best news server?/Do I have to pay for a news server?

The best news server is the one you're happy with. If you don't like one, then there are others to choose from. If you want a good news server you will probably have to pay for it. The average rate is $10 a month. If you're lucky, your ISP will use a good news provider. Most ISPs that run their own news server aren't worth a crap. When I was paying for a news server, got easynews, because they have a very long retension time (2 weeks or more), and they hardly ever miss any parts. My current ISP outsources their news to supernews, who is usually complete, but they have a very short (2-4 day) retention time. Some pay news servers I found are:
http://www.Supernews.com/
http://www.newsfeeds.com/
http://www.uncensored-news.com/
http://www.Easynews.com/ 'free' 3 day trial at https://www.easynews.com/trial/trial.phtml
http://www.GigaNews.com/
http://www.TeraNews.com/ Supposedly free 50Mb a day download

What is the best way to get someone to post or repost something?

Ask nicely. Much of the time, if someone has something to post, they post it because they have it, not because someone asks for it. Don't ask for something 15 times, if someone had it they would have posted it when you asked the first time. Don't ask for a repost untill 5 days after the original post, then ask nicely. No one gets paid to post stuff, and the posters don't owe you anything. If you're not polite then you'll probably get nothing. If you have a corrupt rar file, check to see if the archive can't be "recovered" before asking for a repost.
What types of posts can I expect to find here?/what can I post here?

You can find just about anything that runs under Linux that is not free software. Some people post windows software that works with Linux/Unix (like X servers). Windows warez belong in a windows newsgroup. If you post windows software that you think would be useful to the Linux group, then please post a notice in alt.binaries.warez.linux telling everyone what you've posted and in what group (and maybe why they'd want to take a look at it).
Someone is posting free software, what is up with that?

There is a real good chance it is not free. Please make sure your post is not free software before you post it. Before you bitch about someone posting "free" software, please make sure it is not free, and if it really is free, then tell everyone where to download it from.
What is the best news reader for Linux?

The best news reader is personal preference. Some people perfer the text based news readers like slrn, and tin. Most people agree that "PAN" is best Linux native GUI news reader available. You can get pan at http://pan.rebelbase.com/. Don't forget about Netscape, both versions 4.x and 6.x have news readers built into them.
Can I run Agent (or some other windows program) under Linux for news?

Yes, many people run Agent (for windows) under "Wine". Wine allows you to run windows programs on Linux without windows installed. I run Agent as long as I want with no problems (weeks at a time)...with fewer problems than running it under windows. Another alternative is running whatever program you want under VMWare. VMWare emulates the hardware in your computer, so you run Agent under windows, and you run windows under VMWare. You can find out more about wine at http://www.winehq.com/, and you can download, and find out more about VMware at http://www.vmware.com/.
Is there a program to retrieve files under linux?

There are 2 programs that I know of to retrieve files from news servers, "suck" and "nget". I've never used "suck" so I can't comment on it. I personally use nget, somewhat of a pain to setup the first time, but after it is setup, it is really nice (for my needs). I pay for a premium news server, but I only get so many gigabytes for downloading each month. I configured nget to get whatever files it can from my (crappy) ISP's news server before trying the premium server, so I don't waste my bandwidth. In case you couldn't tell, "nget" was named after the popular "wget" program.
Are there programs to post files under linux?

Yes, 2 programs that I am aware of. There is a perl script called "Blow" (and I've made a few patches to fix some problems with it). Then there is a C program called "newspost". The main website for 'blow' has not been up for some time now, and the original address, and a link to a local copy is at the bottom of this page. The newspost homepage is at http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/jfaulkne/newspost/.

Different File Types Explained


.rar .r00 .r01 .r02... OR .000 .001 .002...

Rar is a type of compression, similar to "zip". You can get a linux native version from http://www.rarsoft.com/. The .r00 .r01 .r02... files are pieces of a multi-part rar archive. You'll need all the parts in order to exract the entire archive. BTW, after .r99, you get .s00, and so on. Sometimes someone will post a self-extracting rar archive (single or multi-part) that will have an .exe extension. Just treat that like a regular rar archive (unless it is not a self-extracting rar archive).
.tar, .bz2, .gz, .tar.gz, .tgz, and .tar.bz2

These are files produced by tar, bzip2, gzip, or a combinations of these programs. Tar stands for "Tape ARchive", and puts multiple files into a tar archive. Gzip and bzip2 are compression programs that have a better compression ratio than the famous pkzip. Bzip2 is newer, and has a better compression ratio than gzip. Most tar program work with gzip and most newer versions of tar work with bzip2. Some sample command lines can be found in the quick command reference section. Why so many choices? That is the philosophy of Linux/Unix, several small generic program that do their job well, and you combine the programs to do larger tasks. For example if you had several jpegs or mp3s, which are already compressed, then you'd probably want to tar them. But if you had 1 big file, like an ISO image, you'd probably want to use gzip, or bzip2 on it. And if you had a web site with lots of files, and many of them text, then you'd probably want to use tar and gzip or bzip2. BTW, the .tgz extension, is a 3 letter version of .tar.gz, used by old microshaft operating systems (DOS).
.par, .p01, .p02...

"Parity Archive Volume Set" is the name of this project to make uploading and downloading archives on usenet easier. The .par file is, more or less, a table of contents, and a checksum for the original archive, and is a very small file. The .p01, .p02... files are the parity archive, and are the same size are the archive you're trying to protect. If you have all the parts to the original archive, then you don't need any of the .par files, but if you're missing files, or have corrupt files (same as missing), then the parity archive can rebuild the missing files, no matter which files you're missing. A 2 file parity archive can replace 2 missing files from the original archive, and so on. It does not matter which file(s) you're missing, or how many files are in the archive, so long as you're not missing more files from the original archive than you have parity files for. This uses the same basic concept that is used in RAID5 (if you know what that is). You can get the program, and all the details of how it works at http://parchive.sourceforge.net/. This program does not compile and install the "normal" way, (with 'configure' and 'make install') and the README included with it don't help much either. If I get enough requests then I'll include detailed instructions on how to compile and install it.
.nfo

The .nfo file types are "information" files. If you tried to pronounce "nfo" it sounds like "info". Most programs from the warez groups will have an .nfo in the archive. The .nfo file will usually have serial numbers or instructions on how to install the program. I suggest using the command "less -r filename.nfo" and if your "less" command does not support the "-r" option, then try "more filename.nfo".
What are the "strange" characters I see in some .nfo files?

The strange characters you see in some .nfo files are usually very clever, but very crude pictures, logos, or borders made out of the "extended" ACSII characters. The ASCII character set is only 127 characters long, but a byte holds 256 characters, so IBM put some block, and line characters in that "extra" space. These extended characters have nothing to do with Unix/Linux and are specific to the IBM PC. Most people can see these extended characters on the console since they're usually running on IBM PC compatable hardware, but under X you need to install VGA fonts to properly see the extended characters. You can get some VGA fonts and instructions on how to install them at http://home.earthlink.net/~us5zahns/enl/ansifont.html (get any of the 'ansi' fonts).
.md5 and .sfv

The .md5 file is generated by md5sum. The .sfv file can be generated with several program under windows and linux. Both .md5 and .sfv files are checksums, used to make sure the files you've downloaded are not corrupt. Md5sum is the Linux/Unix standard program for generating/checking md5 checksums. Md5sum is the perfered program for "unix people", where "windows people" perfer the .sfv format.
bin/cue

A .bin and .cue files are a "raw" CD-ROM format, with all the "extra" information between the sectors (without going into too much detail). The .bin file contains all the tracks (1 or more), and the .cue file tells how the .bin file is laid out. The .cue file is a text file, and you may need to edit the dos filenames contained in it. The .bin and .cue files can be generated with cdrdao for Linux, or cdrwin for windows. If you have a "copy protected" CD, A CD with more than 1 track, or a CD with audio tracks, then a bin/cue is probably the best image type.
.iso

.iso is short for ISO9660, which defines the layout of a "standard" cdrom. Most .iso images are really an extension to ISO9660, like Rock Ridge, Romeo, Joliet. (Romeo, and Joliet are microslop extension to ISO9660, Romeo is 128 character file names, all upper(or lower)case, and Joliet is 64 character "unicode" (double byte) filenames.) Rock Ridge is an extension to ISO9660 to make it more "unix friendly", which includes, permissions, ownership, and case sensitive "long" filenames.
Which is better, a bin/cue image or an .iso image?

In most cases an .iso is better because it is smaller, but if you have a copy-protected CD, or a CD with more than 1 track, then you'll most likely have to use a bin/cue format.
How do I convert a bin/cue image into an .iso image?

There is a program called binchunker (the executeable is called bchunk). Sometimes you'll run into a bin/cue that won't convert into an .iso properly (like the 2nd CD for Kylix, and I have a patch to fix that. If you run into a bin/cue that is 2048 bytes per sector, then you can treat that .bin just like an .iso.

Quick Command Reference

(sample commands for common tasks)

Links to Related Pages

DescriptionNameHome PageNotes
Gets files from news serverngethttp://www.azstarnet.com/~donut/programs/nget.html
suckhttp://www.sucknews.org/index.html
Posts files to news serverblowhttp://www.scuzzy.net/~akirarat/ (defunct)Local Copy
Patch
Patched Copy
newsposthttp://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/jfaulkne/newspost/
Converts bin/cue to .isoBinChunker for Unixhttp://hes.iki.fi/bchunk/
Patched Copy
Copy, create, and burn bin/cue imagescdrdaohttp://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/
Records CD-R, CD-RW and DVDscdrecordhttp://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/
employees/joerg.schilling/private/mkisofs.html
Makes an ISO file systemmkisofs
Manipulates .rar archivesrarhttp://www.rarsoft.com/
Creates and checks sfvcksfvhttp://www.fodder.org/cksfv/
Creates and checks sfv and md5cfvhttp://cfv.sourceforge.net/
Allows you to run windows program under Linuxwinehttp://www.winehq.com/
Creates a virtual computer, can run dos, windows, linuxbochshttp://bochs.sourceforge.net/
VMWarehttp://www.vmware.com/
Recover missing/damaged files from an archiveParity Archive Volume Sethttp://parchive.sourceforge.net/
Fonts that make the .nfo files look normalVGA fontshttp://home.earthlink.net/~us5zahns/enl/ansifont.html

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