Welcome to the a2i User Bin

This page tells you everything you wanted to know About the Bin, about Using the Bin, about the Contents of the Bin, and about Contributing to the Bin.

About the Bin

The a2i User Bin is a collection of programs and scripts that a2i users have made available for their fellow a2i users. With the a2i User Bin, we can use software that a2i does not want to support and newer versions that a2i has not upgraded to yet. Whenever one person contributes something, everyone else benefits by not having to install, maintain, and use disk space for their own copies.

This project was inspired by NUGLOPS (Netcom User Group List of Programs & Scripts) and the Pack Rat Network (at CRL Network Services). These Internet service providers no longer exist.

See the History of the Bin and Bylaws of the Bin for more information about the Bin.

Using the Bin

To use the programs and scripts, put this in your .cshrc file:

set path = (/local/userbin/os/bin $path)

To use the man pages, put this in your .login file:

if ($?MANPATH) then setenv MANPATH /local/userbin/os/man:$MANPATH endif

See Seriously Using the Bin for more information about using the Bin.

Contents of the Bin

Each entry lists the following information:

Available as: the names of the commands (the User Bin often provides both generic and version-specific names), or the name of the library
Available for: which operating systems this thing runs on
Version: the version number
Location: where this thing actually is (just in case you want to examine a script)
Requires: other things you need
Documentation: where to read the fornicating manual
Other files: examples, source code, or other stuff
Home: where this thing originally came from

Description: what this thing does

Differences: if a2i has a copy of this thing, the differences between the User Bin's version (usually newer) and a2i's version (usually older)

Contributor: the person who contributed this thing (and their email address)

The contents are listed by type (commands (SunOS and FreeBSD), CGIs, and libraries) and by contributor. The contents are followed by the current managers of the Bin.

Access to some links is restricted to a2i users. If you are an a2i user, you can obtain access from your a2i account.

Commands
- SunOS Commands
  - bed - an editor for binary files
  - bzip2 - a block-sorting file compressor
  - c-archie - query the Archie anonymous FTP databases using Prospero
  - cal - display a calendar
  - Chipmunk BASIC - 'BASIC' language interpreter
  - ctags - generate C and C++ language tag files for use with vi
  - CVS - Concurrent Versions System
  - elvis - a clone of vi/ex
  - ex - Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor
  - Gopher - connect to gopher document server
  - groff - front end for the groff document formatting system
  - gzip - compress or expand files
  - html-check - check html files for syntax/conformance errors
  - iso2asc - converts ISO Latin 1 to readable ASCII
  - Kermit - file transfer and management, terminal connection
  - less - opposite of more
  - LHa - compress or extract files in LHa archives
  - lwp-download - fetch large files from the net
  - lwp-mirror - simple mirror utility for WWW
  - lwp-request - simple WWW user agent
  - lwp-rget - retrieve WWW documents recursively
  - Lynx - a general-purpose browser for the World Wide Web
  - man2html - converts UNIX man pages to HTML
  - mcvert - MacBinary <=> BinHex 4.0 and more file conversion utility
  - mimeqp - decoder/encoder for mime quoted-printable
  - most - browse or page through a text file
  - mpack - pack a file in MIME format, or unpack messages in MIME
  - NcFTP - browser program for the File Transfer Protocol
  - Par - filter for reformatting paragraphs
  - parchie - query the Archie anonymous FTP databases using Prospero
  - Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language
  - pico - simple text editor in the style of the Pine Composer
  - pilot - simple file system browser in the style of the Pine Composer
  - Pine - a Program for Internet News and Email
  - procmail - autonomous mail processor
  - rdist - remote file distribution client program
  - slrn - an easy to use NNTP based newsreader
  - tin - a Usenet newsreader
  - UNARJ - list, test, and extract compressed files in ARJ archives
  - unsit - extract/list files in a Macintosh StuffIt archive file
  - unzip - list, test and extract compressed files in a ZIP archive
  - urls - extracts URLs and displays them with lynx
  - userbin - displays the User Bin web page
  - uuencode - encode/decode a file
  - uuexplode - yet another smart multipart uudecoder
  - vi - Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor
  - Vim - Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor
  - vttest - test VT100-type terminal
  - w3m - text mode browser for World Wide Web
  - wget - a non-interactive network retriever
  - whereis - locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command
  - xbin - convert mailable format BinHex file into binary
  - xxd - make a hexdump or do the reverse
  - zip - package and compress (archive) files
- FreeBSD Commands
  - bzip2 - a block-sorting file compressor
  - cal - display a calendar
  - JDK - Java Development Kit
  - Kermit - file transfer, management, and terminal connection
  - less - opposite of more
  - LHa - compress or extract files in LHa archives
  - lwp-download - fetch large files from the net
  - lwp-mirror - simple mirror utility for WWW
  - lwp-request - simple WWW user agent
  - lwp-rget - retrieve WWW documents recursively
  - Lynx - a general-purpose browser for the World Wide Web
  - mpack - pack a file in MIME format, or unpack messages in MIME
  - Par - filter for reformatting paragraphs
  - Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language
  - slrn - an easy to use NNTP based newsreader
  - tin - a Usenet newsreader
  - UNARJ - list, test, and extract compressed files in ARJ archives
  - userbin - displays the User Bin web page
  - w3m - text mode browser for World Wide Web
  - wget - a non-interactive network retriever
  - whereis - locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command
CGIs
- cgiemail - generates formatted email messages from WWW forms
- mailform - mails contents of WWW form to user
- man - displays UNIX man pages
Libraries
- Perl
  - CGI - parses and interprets query strings passed to CGI scripts
  - Digest::MD5 - calculates MD5 digests
  - HTML::Parser - parses HTML documents
  - HTML::Tagset - contains HTML tag information
  - libnet - FTP, NNTP, PH, POP3, SMTP, SNPP, and Time client classes
  - libwww-perl - a library for WWW access
  - MIME::Base64 - Base64 and Quoted-Printable encoder/decoders
  - URI - accesses and manipulates URI strings
Contributors
- userbin (User Bin)
- artemis (Michelle Dick)
- cameron (Cameron Spitzer)
- chage (Carl Hage)
- danwise (Daniel Wisehart)
- dkaufman (Douglas Kaufman)
- dold (Clarence Dold)
- infodyn (Tom Corson)
- kjb (Kevin Burnett)
- limunltd (Lloyd Lee-Lim)
- rhn (Ron Nicholson)
- sterling (Brian Sterling)
- toddm (Todd McLaughlin)
- unicorn (Alex Matulich)
- wmage (Douglas Dike)
Managers
- Lloyd Lee-Lim

Contributing to the Bin

Although there are many things in the Bin, these things are not really "in" the Bin. Each thing is stored by the user that contributed it. The User Bin directories just contain symbolic links to everything.

To submit something to the Bin, install it somewhere and change the permissions so everyone can read and execute it. If there are man pages or other documentation, please install those files too. Then send email describing the thing, where it is installed, and where it originally came from. The information for the listing will be researched and/or verified before the submission is added to the User Bin.

Please send any comments, corrections, submissions, or suggestions regarding the User Bin to <userbin@rahul.net>.

a2i User Bin / 20 Mar 2004