dselect updating when Debian config changes
G'day, all. How can I prevent dselect from downloading packages that are already installed, merely because the Debian version has changed? Really, it is intolerable that that happens. It can cost a lot of money in download fees. I have attepted to defeat it by general freezes, but that makes it a lot of work to select something when I want to upgrade. It is made worse by the terrible practice of splitting up the author's source into multiple Debian packages. Several weeks ago I decided that my Debian system had become totally unmaintainable. That was after I had modified a lot of selections so I could install something, and dselect for some reason told me that if I went ahead it would uninstall 90% of my system. I guess, instead of looking at thousands of listed packages I was doing group selections. I have reached total lockup. Please reply to the list, because I'm not going to ask again if no replies show up. Apologies if you've recently discussed it - I've resubscribed to the list only to ask this question. Regards, Michael Talbot-Wilson
Re: dselect updating when Debian config changes
OK, If you wish to get a new package that is released WITHOUT updating all existing packages that have new versions, just use apt-get to install tha package directly. apt-get update #update the package DB apt-get install package Note, this WILL download and install updates to dependancies, if they are needed. Okay. Thanks. How can I prevent dselect from downloading packages that are already installed, merely because the Debian version has changed?
Re: bash scripting
On Mon, Jul 26, 1999 at 08:18:48AM +0200, Gerhard Kroder wrote: ever RTFM for bash? it says: I love how people insist on firing off this remark. It is sooo much more explanatory than pasting in a piece of the manpage then breaking it down to a newbies' terms. Then _calmly_ telling them (OFF THE LIST) that th= ey should RTFM without using the RTFM flame. I just think we spend way too much time falming, and not enough time correcting these people who neglect to re= ad the docs. Just my 2 cents. People start to say it after they have politely answered the same question approximately 500 times. There are about 10,000 new newbies coming onto the Internet every day, all with the same cluelessness and the same questions. Every day, every week, every month, every year. The manual should only need to be written once, not thousands of times. The person who did write it is usually best qualified to do so. You seem to think anyone else in the world can express the matter better than the original author. If you were to read the bash manual page yourself you would see that it is a brilliant piece of writing that no-one is going to better. The kindest thing you can do for anyone in difficulty is to persuade him that he really does need to study the manual. He shouldn't even be posting questions until he has looked into the matter himself and drawn a blank on all fronts. So any question answered in the manual deserves either to be totally ignored or to be flamed. It does NOT deserve an answer. It is bad netiquette to paste part of the man page, because it creates traffic delivering something that the recipient already has. And no-one owes the newbie that kind of favor. He can cut from the man page himself. He has it, and he can do it. The rest of us are busy people and life is running out. Help where it is needed is one thing. A crutch for the lazy, or foolishly trying to do for someone else what he must surely do for himself, merely because he sent a message out into the wide world, is quite another.
Re: bash scripting
The kindest thing you can do for anyone in difficulty is to persuade him that he really does need to study the manual. He shouldn't even be posting questions until he has looked into the matter himself and drawn a blank on all fronts. So any question answered in the manual deserves either to be totally ignored or to be flamed. It does NOT deserve an answer. This is a bit strong isn't it? Sometimes newbies don't know how to find the A bit, but only a bit. And the first quoted para not at all.
Re: ftping through a router
I guess that you used ipfwadm/ipchains to set your box as a router. What's probably happening is that you have blocked the incoming connection from the ftp server. To solve this you can either change your ip rules or try and use the passive (pasv) form of ftp where the server tells the client the port to connect to and the client then does the connection: note that some windows FTP clients can't do this commonly the dos box ones can't. On Sun, Jun 27, 1999 at 12:00:40AM -0500, Robert Rati wrote: I setup a router for a home network, and everything seems to work fine but one thing. I can't use ftp. I can connection to sites outside my network via ftp, but I can't do the ls command. Usually, when you do a lsc, you get something back like: 200 Port Command or something like that, but instead, I get: 500 Illegal PORT Command If you are masquerading, make sure you have the module ip_masq_ftp.
Re: A stylistic question?
Hi. I finally worked out how to do the Linux equivalent of batch files (scripts) and was wondering if there was a generally accepted directory for keeping user (and/or root) scripts in. I don't think there is, but it is generally accepted that anything that is not host-specific (such as binaries, which depend on the CPU) should go under /usr/share. Unless someone has a better idea I would put general-purpose scripts in /usr/share/bin.
Re: still configuring PPP :-(
Hello and thanks a million to those who have responded to my request for taking some of your precious time to help me out. I downloaded wvdial and minicom like some of you suggested and wvdial cannot find my modem. I sent a message to them like they suggested because I am 100% sure that my modem is in Com3. For some reason Linux is not detecting it in ttyS2. COM1 and COM3 typically share IRQ4, and COM2 and COM4 typically share IRQ3. If you look at the output of the dmesg command (dmesg | grep ttyS) soon after booting you should be able to see the Linux kernel's detection of these devices. I guess that Linux will have no problems with the modem in COM3. Certainly it handles multiport serial cards that share interrupts with no problems. Still, in your present predicament I would be trying the modem on ttyS0 or ttyS1. Maybe you can move your two other serial devices and give this a try.
Re: still configuring PPP :-(
And I think that sharing of IRQs by serial ports is a kernel config option. It may be that your particular kernel can't do it.
fvwm pager window
When I exit fvwm and restart it the pager window background goes black. This is on Debian Potato Fvwm 2.2.2.
Re: Danger of software patents in Europe
Software patents are threating the freedom of programmers and users of free software in Europe alike. If this becomes a reality then the Free Software Community will suffer a hard blow to say the least. So if you live in Europe please take this seriously, make your voice heard and tell all other satisfied users of free software products about it! The exploitive nature of software patents is shown pretty clearly by Microsoft's US patent on cascading style sheets, applied for in 1995 and granted this year. http://www.w3.org/1999/02/Patent-Statement It appears that a company can discover the Internet and then take out patents on the technology it finds there. (You mentioned this in your mail but it was lost in the detail.) But these are really ordinary patents. If you invent a method of doing something it doesn't matter whether it is implemented in hardware or software. If the EU is legislating patents for software specifically, then (without knowing the details) it may be a good thing. It could mean that software is being taken out of the scrum of patents in general, and that more appropriate rules will therefore be applied to it. It may be that is will become extremely difficult to patent the solutions to software problems. And that is what cascading style sheets are. Rather than railing at software patents, maybe we should do just what the EU is doing, introduce patents for software, thereby making software unpatentable except under special rules that take account of the nature of software invention and development.
Re: Netscape crashing -- a lot.
On Tue, 15 Jun 1999, Craig McPherson wrote: Are any of the earier versions of Netscape more stable than 4.6? I'm willing to use whatever is stable. I haven't yet tried earlier Netscapes. same thing happens to me with 4.51 and 4.08, both linked with glibc2. i think it's a glibc2.1 issue. anyone have libc5 debian packages for 4.08/51/6? It's not glibc2. Netscape 4.6 (Potato) runs fine, at least if you have a Cirrus CL-GD5446 (PCI), kernel 2.2.9 and plenty of RAM. Look for something else. And I don't think it's the window manager. At least, Netscape's okay on Enlightenment. Have you tried the SVGA X server (acceleration off)? Does XF86Setup find any parameters specific to your card? Have you upgraded XFree86 to glibc2?
Re: Netscape crashing -- a lot.
Alisdair McDiarmid wrote: i found 4.6.1 even more unstable than 4.08. at least i know that, if i don't close windows, 4.08 is unlikely to crash. 4.6 just died all the time. well, then it seems, that the poor glibc2.1 people should go to the libc5 version. Nope. This poor, underprivileged glibc2.1 person has cleared libc5 off his system and (so far) is happy as a lark. Netscape 4.6 is fine. Some people are having problems with several versions of Netscape. Some people. Several versions. But guys, there are a few installations of Netscape around, and this looks like a minority thing. Maybe you should be looking for a different cause. Or maybe, for you, you are right. If libc5 fixes your problem, terrific.
Re: Year 2000 status of debian
Wait a while. In six months no-one will care.
Locating fdformat...
Where in potato are fdformat and setfdprm? They aren't in util-linux. Does Debian have a cross-reference of programs to the packages that contain them?
Re: PPP
On Fri, 11 Jun 1999, Andy Bottman wrote: Thanks, I have done this at least 10 times in the last 2 days, I don't think I am missing any prompts. I am looking for more than the obvius, is there somting that I could not recognize as related to PPP. Well, the next step is to give more information on what you did. Post the .config file and tell us every command you issued between 'make config' and booting the new kernel. Andy Bottman wrote: How do include PPP support in the kernel when I compile? I have been using 'make config' and 'make menu config' to configure the kernel and even though I thought I have been choosing ppp support under networking I am still without. This whole issue started after I was compiling to support my ISA NE2000 ethernet card. hm, what would i do in such a case? certainly, i would run ´make menuconfig´, go to _every_ point and read the help page. sure, this costs time, but it´s worth ;-) imho hafi == ANDY BOTTMAN [EMAIL PROTECTED] == -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!
On Sat, 12 Jun 1999, Gertjan Klein wrote: point-and-click interfaces suck, because they are too easy. Windows could learn a lot from Linux in terms of performance, power and stability, but Linux doesn't even come close to the ease of installation and use you'll find with Windows. This is not something to be proud of, Who said it was? or something to blame on (new) users. It would be nice if the people you It is not blamed on users. Contemptible complaints and demands attract contemptuous replies. Ignorance does not. Love of ease does not. These have nothing to do with it. mention above realize that the vast majority of computer users in general are absolutely not interested in learning about operating systems, file systems, the files in /etc, and so on - they just want to get a job done, as quickly and easily as possible. There is absolutley nothing wrong with that. This self-important and self-serving claim is made too often. There is a pretence that I am a serious, business-like person with a job to do, and therefore I am too important and too busy to learn how to do it. That is bogus. If you like to do things the hard way, then fine. But it doesn't really Not many people like to do things the hard way. That is not intelligent. This is absolutely irrelevant. mean that you're more intelligent or more knowledgeable than people who click a few buttons in a GUI to accomplish the same thing. Even if it did mean that, so what? And intelligence has nothing to do with it either. It is laughable to think high intelligence is required to discover the Install Manual on the Debian Web site or to discover install.txt on a Debian CD. The problem was that too much explanation was given. That is hard to avoid in the circumstances. The information is addressed to people who know nothing, who need background in everything. But this has nothing to do with intelligence. Simpler here means save me the effort of reading all this. Alan Cooper has written an interesting book about user interface design (he prefers to call it interaction design). It addresses a lot of the issues that users have to deal with when operating high-tech equipment like computers; these issues are universal, and apply to interacting with Linux as well. A sample chapter is available online at So what? What is the relevance of saying that user interfaces can be designed, and that we can move beyond the present to better systems in future? We would all like the installation of Debian to be simpler. Debian is a huge effort directed to making installation and maintenance of Linux simpler. That is exactly what it is about. However simple it is we would like it simpler. We'd like to do everything more easily. But only a shithead screams MAKE IT SIMPLE! so that he won't personally have to make any effort. If you want someone to MAKE IT SIMPLE! all you have to do is ante up a billion dollars. Come to the party with Microsoft's development budget. Debian is developed and maintained gratis, by volunteers. Linux is developed and maintained gratis, by volunteers. A few, with very good track records in free software development, may in the end get do to paid development on tiny parts of these systems by the likes of RedHat. But in essence, if anyone gets paid it is a donation, a grant. Ditto the GNU utilities. The person who screamed MAKE IT SIMPLE! had not paid a cent for the software. It is completely bogus to suggest that the world is divided into businesslike people who want to do serious work with the computer, just want to get on with using the software, and masturbators who just like to fool with it. The real distinction is between the tolerant and appreciative who will make an effort to solve their problems, and the intolerant and demanding who will not, who think people who have given them free software are their servants and that they have a right to complain about anything not perfectly to their liking. And a right to demand to be helped by the user community at large. Those in the first group learn by their first efforts. They find their problems are soluble. And then they are better placed when they strike other problems. They grow in knowledge and ability. They are able to help others. And to judge and flame others who will not do what they did. But they are still users who have the software to use it. People in the first group, even if they stick to Microsoft Windows and leave Linux alone, use the software effectively. The person who is too busy to make an effort to learn how to use Microsoft Excel, who just wants to use the program for real work, who is too busy and too important and too demanding to direct any attention to the software itself, will remain a lame and inefficient user, just limping along, wasting vastly more time than he pretends to save. My employer once sent me to a two-day course in Excel. No-one recoils in surprise that there are such courses and such
Re: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!
On Sat, 12 Jun 1999, Gertjan Klein wrote: On Sat, 12 Jun 1999 21:04:56 +0930 (CST), Michael Talbot-Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A few phrases of your mail: Contemptible complaints and demands, self-important and self-serving claim, laughable, a shithead, completely bogus, intolerant and demanding, a lame and inefficient user. I don't think this was justified, and I don't want to be dragged into a flame war, so I won't respond other than saying that my mail, although bearing critisism, was intended constructive, while yours obviously was intended demeaning. Ouch. I didn't think I intended that.
Re: Poisonous xdm
On 12 Jun 1999, Martin Bialasinski wrote: MT == Michael Talbot-Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: MT When I start xdm my keyboard locks and I have to switch the MT computer off. The mouse works. This happens when more than one display manager or getty tries to handle a virtual console. Check /etc/inittab which is the first unclaimed by getty console. Then check that xdm uses this one in /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers . You were right. Changed vt7 to vt24. Fixed it. Thanks. Also make sure xdm doesn't try to use the same console as wdm, gdm or login.app OK.
Poisonous xdm
When I start xdm my keyboard locks and I have to switch the computer off. The mouse works. Clues, anyone? And is there any way of rebooting with the mouse in X11 (as can be done with gpm)? I don't really like switching off a running Linux system. --Mike P.S. Potato's xdm (3.3.3.1-7), Linux 2.2.9. X is fine when started with startx. I've purged and re-installed xdm with no luck.
Re: initrd and booting SCSI
On Thu, 10 Jun 1999, Gareth wrote: G'day Just a quick point me in the right direction question. I am trying to get my system to boot from the SCSI disk and pass some parameters to the kernel (mem=128M is one of them) however I cannot get it to boot from the SCSI disk! (it hangs at LI) I had this problem exactly (but with additional parameters, and AFAIK your syntax is wrong for mem=, or is not what I found in the doco). The LILO User's Guide says it's caused by a geometry mismatch. In my case it was not that, and I fixed it by setting boot=/dev/sda instead of putting the boot sector on a primary Linux partition. (Someone recently wondered out loud on this list why anyone would put LILO on the MBR...) Probably the cause, if not a geometry mismatch, is corruption of the MBR. You might try lilo -u or lilo -U to uninstall LILO, and start again. Or restore it from your backup if lilo refuses these requests. Or boot another operating system -- e.g. use Microsoft's FDISK with the /MBR option. You should then be able to put LILO on the boot sector of a primary Linux file system, e.g. boot=/dev/sda1. Or if you are nervous about a dd onto /dev/sda, just install LILO on the MBR, i.e. boot=/dev/sda. My take on the mem= parameter is that I need append=mem=0x1000 ... for 256 MB of RAM. Maybe decimal megabyte parameters are okay; I'm just going by what I read. I have checked and double checked the LILO stuff and disk partions. I have been told I shoud use a 2 stage bootup with initrd to load SCSI stuff to boot from the SCSI disk. (I am currently using a bootfloppy) Okay, in full I have append=mem=0x1000 reboot=warm aha152x=0x340,10,7,1 but that is only because I have a second SCSI adapter. I think the first should be probed. I.e. you should not need a 2 stage bootup with initrd to load the SCSI driver to boot from the SCSI disk. IMHO.
Re: [off topic] installing linux from scratch
On Tue, 8 Jun 1999, Armin Wegner wrote: Hi, can anybody tell where to find information on how to install linux from c source code. This is not quite clear. You can't install the Linux kernel from its source code on a bare computer---you have to bootstrap via simpler systems to get to the point of having a running kernel. I think you are asking about installing programs on an existing Linux system using the source code as released by the developer. The information is in the source packages themselves. They are generally available as *.tar.gz or *.tgz files. Look on sites like tsx-11.mit.edu, not sites that are specific to single distributions. Once you have some version of the source, look in it for the location of the principal release site, which will have the latest version. You need the C compiler (gcc), the binutils, the Linux kernel source or its .h files, and other programs commonly needed to build from source, including make, bison, flex, sed and a couple of others (you will find out what's missing when you try to do it). Then you can follow the directions that usually come with the source, and generally build and install the binary, though there are sometimes portability problems. Currently I'm using Debian. Debian is fine. But there is no support for my Riva TNT chipset in X 3.3.2.3. So I've installed version 3.3.3.1 from source to /usr/local. Now there are many very anoying problems with the Hmm... Okay. It is quite unclear what you are trying to ask. dpkg dependency check, when installing application for X. dpkg won't let me install twm without installing xbase, etc. before. If you've installed XFree86 3.3.3 from source I think you will have twm. If not, install X11 with the binaries from ftp.xfree86.org and you will certainly have it. dpkg is missing an option to tell it, that an package has been installed by hand and there is no need to install the .deb package. If you already have a program installed but Debian doesn't know it and thinks there is a missing dependency, and you want to run a Debian system, in my limited experience your simplest option is to download and install the corresponding Debian package. In fact I've just done this with X11 - I deleted a /usr/X11R6 installed from the xfree86.org binaries, and installed Debian's idea of the same thing (from potato). Someone else may have a better idea, but that is a simple (if not quick) way. If I have some program or documentation that was installed by hand on a Debian Linux system, I want to install the corresponding Debian package over the top of it and get rid of what is not Debian, to improve the consistency, simplicity and intelligibility of the total system. On the other hand I wouldn't want to pollute a Slackware system with Debian packages, for the same reason. I'm using very few package. Propably it's an option for me, to install linux from source code. My /usr/local is bigger then /usr. Given the attitudes you seem to be expressing, I think Debian is probably a bad fit for you. You might be happier with Slackware.
Using hold (dselect)
Is there any simple way to toggle hold on all installed packages?
Unwanted package downloaded
Hi. I didn't select doc-linux-text. How come it is downloaded? Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: tetex-base kernel-source-2.2.9 tetex-bin xmanpages xserver-svga emacs20 picon-users 5 packages upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 47.5Mb/48.0Mb of archives. After unpacking 97.1Mb will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y Get:1 ftp://ftp.au.debian.org unstable/main tetex-base 0.9.990510-2 [12.0Mb] Err ftp://ftp.au.debian.org unstable/main tetex-base 0.9.990510-2 Unable to fetch file, server said '/pub/debian/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/tex/tetex-base_0.9.990510-2.deb: No such file or directory. ' Get:2 ftp://ftp.au.debian.org unstable/main tetex-bin 0.9.990510-2 [2885kb] Err ftp://ftp.au.debian.org unstable/main tetex-bin 0.9.990510-2 Unable to fetch file, server said '/pub/debian/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/tex/tetex-bin_0.9.990510-2.deb: No such file or directory. ' Get:3 ftp://ftp.au.debian.org unstable/main doc-linux-text 1999.04-1 [3721kb] 3% [3 doc-linux-text 1747184/3721kb 46%] 1944b/s
Getting rid of vi color
For some reason, vi (elvis) has started to display colors and behave in a generally unpredictable way. I first (just now) noticed this in a .h file in which it is also disallowing things I want to do, e.g. it beeps when I try to delete (with 'x') the first character of a commented-out line, although the file is world-writable. It works sometimes, but not after I have done a search with '/' to get to the line I want to amend. It turns out that sane behavior can be obtained by deleting or renaming the directory /etc/elvis. That directory contains 10 files containing program code in a language unknown to me. Well, I see from the man page that they are EX commands. I would like to make a mild protest against the unnecessary complexity of this setup. I would like to be able to run the program without interference due to the maintainer's over-elaborate configuration. If I have to delete the Debian configuration to make the system work, that tends to defeat much of the rationale for using Debian. And makes the KISS approach of another distribution appear brilliant, inspired, and a great time-saver. The problem with the color is that dark blue against a black screen is not, for me, very readable. The file is mostly commented out and I guess the blue signifies that and some people may like it. But I should think the onus should be on those who want the elaboration to configure it, rather than for the rest of us to have to learn more than we wanted to know about vi in order to defeat it. It is a very good idea to provide full configuration files for a program if it is configurable; but the default configuration should produce the default configuration. I.e. /etc/elvis/ should contain files which explicitly require the default vi behavior. That way, they serve as documentation for those who might want to investigate customization. Regards, Mike
Junk?
I guess this is because I installed bo, upgraded to slink and then potato, but... There is a /usr/lib/elvis directory that contains documentation and trash (MS-DOS stuff). There is also a /usr/doc/elvis directory. There are directories /usr/lib/developers-reference, /usr/doc/developers-reference and /usr/share/developers-reference.
Re: Mail Relay for Debian
On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Anthony Landreneau wrote: Greetings, I host several domains and would like to have my DNSs get and hold mail when remote WAN host drop off line. I had been using sendmail, but it has become MUCH to complicated for this task. I am looking for a simple, yet controllable, program that will relay mail for my hosted domains. S'funny, I thought sendmail had become simpler with the improvements in the M4 config. But if that is what you are doing the MTA is pretty irrelevant, IMHO. There should be nothing you need to do, because if the host is not answering the mail will be queued. That is how SMTP works. Unless you are serving the remote WAN hosts with dynamic IP addresses. And then the problem is not with the MTA, but with the name server. What you need is dynamic updating of your name server config, giving the host, when it is off line, an IP address (in the DNS config) that will never be used. And when it connects, adjusting named.hosts (e.g. with an include file) and running named.reload. Incidentally, I notice that smail is the MTA favoured by Debian. --Mike
RE: why make partitions?
On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Person, Roderick wrote: I used to wonder the samething. When I started using Linux, I always wonder why partition a disk to use the same OS on all the partitions. Then I made a big boo boo and hosed system and re-installed all 500MB of downloads again, that took over a week to get!! So, I decided to try the partition and I even dedicated partition to only hold .debs and .tars and all downloaded stuff From: Jens B. Jorgensen [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] The best reason I can ever come up with for creating separate partitions is to allocate space which can't be spared: eg. create a separate /home so users with accounts on the system can't screw up the system by filling up the disk or so that runaway log files can't fill up / and screw things up. Remco van 't Veer wrote: Is the any technical reason why I should fdisk an extra IDE hdd and not mkfs the whole thing at ones? Apart from: hdb: unknown partition table at boot time everything works perfectly.. As well as the other reasons, you can't predict what you are going to want to do with the disk. Many people have had to re-partition their disks because they lacked to elementary foresight to create multiple partitions in the first place; and even if you plan to use fips or some other supposedly non-destructive means, you aren't going to do that until you have gone out and bought a tape drive, installed it, and backed up the disk. Well, you aren't unless you are prepared to lose everything on the disk, or unless you are a little naive or reckless. The every first law of computers is Murphy's, if anything can go wrong it will. Multiple partitions are a little inconvenient when you have filled one and another is empty, but you can even things up with symlinks, e.g. move /usr/lib to a half-empty partition, and plant a symbolic link to it in /usr, before upgrading from lib5 to lib6. It doesn't do much harm to keep some of your spare disk space in some spare partitions. Then you have more freedom to do things you haven't thought of yet, or just now are sure you will never want to do, e.g. increasing the size of your swap space. The average size of new hard disks has been growing a lot faster than the bloat of operating systems. The question you should probably be asking is, when I have this huge blank space, do I have any sufficiently good reason to not divide it into ten partitions before doing anything else? In other words, you don't need a reason to carve it up, you need a reason not to.
Re: apt ftp can't download
Oops -- sorry to trouble you. I had some other difficulty and had renamed the destination directory. On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Michael Talbot-Wilson wrote: Could not open file /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/libpng2_1.0.2b-0.1_i386.deb - open (2 No such file or directory)^M
apt ftp can't download
Good day. I can't upgrade. I've tried both apt and ftp access methods and several mirror sites. I'm getting messages like this saying that there is no file, but (script session below) I can do Update from all sites. Could not open file /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/libpng2_1.0.2b-0.1_i386.deb - open (2 No such file or directory)^M What is wrong here? --Mike - Script started on Wed Jun 2 06:40:13 1999 chameleon:/u1/debian_dl# whoami root chameleon:/u1/debian_dl# pwd /u1/debian_dl chameleon:/u1/debian_dl# df . Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/sda32974550 20 2820708 0% /u1 chameleon:/u1/debian_dl# dselect Debian Linux `dselect' package handling frontend. * 0. [A]ccess Choose the access method to use. 1. [U]pdate Update list of available packages, if possible. 2. [S]elect Request which packages you want on your system. 3. [I]nstall Install and upgrade wanted packages. 4. [C]onfig Configure any packages that are unconfigured. 5. [R]emove Remove unwanted software. 6. [Q]uit[21GQuit dselect. Use ^P and ^N, cursor keys, initial letters, or digits to select; Press ENTER to confirm selection. ^L to redraw screen. Version 1.4.0.34 (i386 elf). Copyright (C) 1994-1996 Ian Jackson. This is free software; see the GNU General Public Licence version 2 or later for copying conditions. There is NO warranty. See dselect --licence for details. 0. [A]ccess Choose the access method to use.[K * 1. [U]pdate Update list of available packages, if possible. 0% [Logging in] 0% [Logging in] 0% [Logging in] 0% [Query] Hit ftp://ftp.au.debian.org stable/main Packages 14% [Working] Hit ftp://ftp.au.debian.org stable/main Release 28% [Working] Hit ftp://ftp.au.debian.org stable/contrib Packages 42% [Working] Hit ftp://ftp.au.debian.org stable/contrib Release 57% [Working] Hit ftp://ftp.au.debian.org stable/non-free Packages 71% [Working] Hit ftp://ftp.au.debian.org stable/non-free Release 85% [Working] Reading Package Lists... 0% Reading Package Lists... 100% Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... 0% Building Dependency Tree... 0% Building Dependency Tree... 50% Building Dependency Tree... 50% Building Dependency Tree... Done Merging Available information Replacing available packages info, using /var/cache/apt/available. Information about 2651 package(s) was updated. Debian Linux `dselect' package handling frontend. 0. [A]ccess[21GChoose the access method to use. 1. [U]pdate[21GUpdate list of available packages, if possible. * 2. [S]elect Request which packages you want on your system. 3. [I]nstall Install and upgrade wanted packages. 4. [C]onfig[21GConfigure any packages that are unconfigured. 5. [R]emove[21GRemove unwanted software. 6. [Q]uit[21GQuit dselect. Use ^P and ^N, cursor keys, initial letters, or digits to select; Press ENTER to confirm selection. ^L to redraw screen. Version 1.4.0.34 (i386 elf). Copyright (C) 1994-1996 Ian Jackson. This is free software; see the GNU General Public Licence version 2 or later for copying conditions. There is NO warranty. See dselect --licence for details. 2. [S]elect Request which packages you want on your system. * 3. [I]nstall Install and upgrade wanted packages. Reading Package Lists... 0% Reading Package Lists... 100% Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... 0% Building Dependency Tree... 0% Building Dependency Tree... 50% Building Dependency Tree... 50% Building Dependency Tree... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: mdutils syslinux wenglish lsof-2.0.35 The following NEW packages will be installed: libpaperg netscape-base-4 picon-unknown raidtools libmpeg1 picon-news fakeroot diffstat xfonts-scalable debhelper libpng2 tetex-base libgtk1.1 libglib1.1 xbase-clients netscape-base-406 esound perl-debug xterm motifnls debmake glademm xserver-common gv libmagick4g ghostview libgtkxmhtml0 dupload gdk-imlib1 orbit xbooks libgtk1.1-doc xfonts-75dpi tetex-bin libgnome0 emacsen-common navigator-dmotif-406 freetype1 freetype2 xfonts-base libesd0 devscripts lilo-doc glade libtiff3g hello xmanpages file netscape-java-406 lesstifg libaudiofile0 libgtk1 egcs-docs navigator-base-406 xfonts-100dpi gnome-hello tcl8.0 twm xdm imlib-base libjpeg62 libmime-base64-perl picon-weather xserver-vga16 liborbit0 tk8.0 emacs20 giflib3g svgalibg1 imagemagick xaw3dg indent imlib-progs debsums kernel-package dh-make lintian xf86setup xpm4g gs-aladdin picon-users gsfonts 0 packages upgraded, 82 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 63.0Mb of archives. After
Re: AIC7xxx not recognised
On Sun, 30 May 1999, Roy Coates wrote: Hi, I'm having a real problem getting a custom kernel to recognise an Adaptec 2940UW-Pro (AIC7xxx) controller on bootup. The kernel (2.0.36) has been configured with only the AIC7xxx driver as an internal module - no other scsi drivers have been selected. On bootup it simply refuses to recognise the scsi card, causes a kernel panic (unable to mount root FS) and I'm back to the drawing board. I've been building kernels (slackware redhat) for some years now but I'm a newbie to debian. Any help would be very much appreciated. (I installed using the 'unoffical' AIC7xxx rescue disk kindly built This may be no consolation if you want to stick to an old kernel, but I'm also a Debian newbie using a 2.2.9 kernel compiled on a hacked Slackware setup (but would not wish to be suspected of having be a Red Hat user:), and my AIC-7880 is detected. I don't think I've done anything Debian-specific... but I was appalled by the Debian liloconfig, and edited /etc/lilo.conf by hand. Presumably you've done the same. I've configured for another SCSI adapter as well and pass boot parameters for it. It shows up in the boot messages before the AIC-7880 which is detected without hints. The disk drives are on the AIC. I'm using the standard driver that comes with the kernel, not something 'unofficial'. :) It comes up like this: scsi1 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.1.10/3.2.4 Adaptec AIC-7880 Ultra SCSI host adapter Depending on how LILO works you may be able to use an append= for the AIC7xxx even though you can't read the disk. Check the boot something HOWTO. Or perhaps someone using it with 2.0.36 will pipe up.
Re: getting out of fvwm
On Sat, 29 May 1999, Bob Nielsen wrote: On Sat, May 29, 1999 at 09:28:11PM +0800, Barry Kauler wrote: I'm *still* installing my first Debian Linux! I got X windows running, with default window manager fvwm, but next time I logged in it didn't stop at the commandline --- went straight into graphics mode and gave me a login window for fvwm. In Red Hat, this is controlled by /etc/inittab, which sets the initial runlevel to 3. 5 is required to launch X. In Debian, inittab has default runlevel set to 2, so why is it launching straight into fvwm? Does anyone know what config file needs to be changed so I can login to commandline only? Also when I exit from fvwm, refuses to exit to the commandline. I'm back at that darn login window again. Even ctrl-alt-backspace won't get me out. You have installed xdm. This gives you the X login screen. To get out of X, type ctrl-alt-F1 and you should have a command-line login prompt. If you do not want to have the xdm login in the future, type (as root) dpkg -r xdm Surely it's possible to have it installed and still be able to choose whether to run it?
RE: getting out of fvwm
On Sun, 30 May 1999, Christian Pernegger wrote: cd /etc/rc2.d // for the standard runlvel,e.g. mv S99xdm _99xdm Thanks for the info. There is one advantage in the Slackware method of dedicating a run level to xdm--you can kill it off by changing to the non-xdm run level (telinit 3). Of course with Debian you could go /etc/rc2.d/S99xdm stop. Also when I exit from fvwm, refuses to exit to the commandline. I'm back at that darn login window again. Even ctrl-alt-backspace won't get me out.
(1) Upgrade failure; (2) /usr/lib/man.conf
Hello. I've installed Debian from a Debian 1.3 CD and partly upgraded to 2.1 by downloading with apt. This is my first encounter with Debian. (1) The upgrade failed because the ftp server hung up on a small number of files. They are represented in the partial directory. How can I restart this process? It seems that a server timeout is pretty devastating in that there is no recovery and the upgrade aborts. I got messages like this: Get:22 http://http.us.debian.org stable/main libdb2 2.4.14-1 [192kb] Err http://http.us.debian.org stable/main libdb2 2.4.14-1 Error reading from server - read (104 Connection reset by peer) Get:23 http://http.us.debian.org stable/main m4 1.4-9 [105kb] I tried to find out what --fix-missing did, and eventually discovered that it's not very useful, i.e. it doesn't make another attempt to download the missing files. Is there any automated way of doing that or do I have do download them one at a time? When I attempt to complete the operation by running dselect install with the existing settings it seems to want to download every file again. It just downloaded 35 MB, failing on a few small files. How can I get it to just finish the job rather than starting all over again? (2) One of the packages I installed was man-db which is supposed to supply the man pager and presumably its configuration file, /usr/lib/man.conf. But that file is missing (or is not installed), and running man dumps (I assume) compressed data on the screen. I can uncompress all the man pages, or get a config file from somewhere else, but I guess dselect/apt should be able to do this. Cheers...
