On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 20:09:25 -0700 (PDT) Joshua Banks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: | I have about 17 questions, that should, for the experienced users, | should be very easy to see whats happening...I very much appreciate | your time.
Well, I can't answer all of them, but I can help you with some... | RPM cookers and RPM hell...And I mean HELL...Dependency | this..Dependency that..But I didn't give up. After two weeks of | getting no where, slowly lossing my sanity and Mandrake starting to | fall apart because of the frustrated dimwhitted attempts at blindly | doing anything/stupid things to get things to work, I got so | frustrated that I wanted to cause my computer PAIN. I'm sure everyone | knows what I'm talking about, most seem to anyway.. :D Most of all I | wanted to scream at Linus if he could only here me....And whats the | first thing I want to do,.....of course....go back to M$...like a | little baby..Yes, I admit it. I left Mandrake / RedHat a while back because of this. Tried LFS for a while, but it was too much work, and debian's package management is even more annoying than RPM... Gentoo's much nicer if you don't mind learning a few things. |The man pages help very little for a noob but I do read them. In case you're not aware of this, some software has better documentation in info. Try 'info whatever' if the man pages aren't helping... | # env-update && source /etc/profile (have no clue what this is doing | # but did it anyways)(I would | like to know though):D When do I know when to invoke this command? This updates your environment (configuration information). Use this whenever you make a big change to software or your system (compiler, glibc, probably anything x-related). It's never dangerous to run it, so if in doubt just do it. | [2] | # rc-update add xfs default (not sure what this is doing but I'm | # assuming that this is needed | before I can install KDE or GNOME or any other windowing/gui | stuff..)(maybe this is telling the kernel to add xfee at bootup..again | not sure exactly) xfs is a font server. Here you're telling gentoo to automatically start it whenever you boot your system. [3] | # /etc/init.d/xfs start (not sure...) This starts the font server. You could have rebooted with the same effect (thanks to your rc-update above), but hey, this is linux, rebooting is for kernel upgrades :) | # startx (This is obvious)(Started Xfree server)3 ugly ass | # windows...see ya..ctrl<backspace> TWM. Very ugly. | Then...the mouse...this is fine upto.... | [Quote:] | Don't forget to add the modules that your mouse uses to | modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.4. Code listing 2.10: Adding entries to | modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.4[4] | # nano -w /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.4 (not sure what this file | # is used for and what I'm | doing here..looks as though I'm telling the kernel to load hardware | settings about my mouse and or other hardware that I have) | # We will add the following lines to the file. | mousedev | hid | usbcore | input | [Unquote:] | | I didn't add anything to this file because I didn't understand what | they wanted me to add and why. I have a "IMPS/2" mouse and made the | appropriate changes to the /etc/X11/XF86Config file. But my mouse | buttons and scroll wheel work fine even after reboot. You only need to add those files if your kernel doesn't have support for your mouse compiled in natively. The file contains a list of kernel modules to load automatically at boot. If you build everything into the kernel, you won't need to put anything in there. | bash-2.05b# etc-update | Please select a file to edit by entering the corresponding number. | (-1 to exit) (-3 to auto merge all remaining files) | (-5 to auto-merge AND not use 'mv -i'): -3 | [8] | (I WASN'T SURE WHAT TO DO HERE AND I CHOSE -3 BECAUSE THIS SEEMED LIKE | THE LOGICAL CHOICE)(wHAT SHOULD I BE CHOOSING AT THIS POINT?) Unfortunately, this is one area that's not easy unless you know what those files do. etc-update applies changes to configuration files. Sometimes letting etc-update clobber files can wreck your system. Basically, don't ever let etc-update just replace things like /etc/fstab, /etc/rc.conf, /etc/conf.d/net*. It's best to keep it away from /etc/make.conf as well. If you're not sure what a file does, try asking in #gentoo on irc -- someone there will know. Some configuration files have man pages associated with them too... | Now it looks as though I have a new kernel to compile but I don't know | what steps SPECIFICALLY IN ORDER considering that I used Genkernel to | compile last time. And what effects this is going to have on the | software that I have emerged so far and exactly where the new kernel | is actually located. You don't *have* to compile a new kernel. However, there's a security flaw in kernels before -r6, so it may be wise. I'm not sure if genkernel (*shudder* evil *shudder*) created kernels are affected? 'Fraid I don't use ethereal or shorewall, so can't help there... -- Ciaran McCreesh Mail: ciaranm at firedrop.org.uk Web: www.firedrop.org.uk System: Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.8p1 Linux 2.4.20-gentoo-r6 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
