Re: A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
A stunning f'ing piece of work, Mike. Most excellent. A collective thanks for all the gurus for taking the time to produce such prose and share it with the masses. A note on the minimalist approach I've seen is clarkconnect. I believe this is a stripped down RedHat release, massaged into a iso of around 100mb or so. Ideal for your favourite linux router project. To add to the wireless AP thought that David Bandel brought up is mikrotik. www.mikrotik.com. Again the distribution is free, but they also provide a flashram/ide solution so no moving parts to fail. ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Why I use gentoo - was A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Fri, 23 Nov 2001 07:09:35 -0500 David A. Bandel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Collins Richey wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:26:27 +1130 Mike Andrew [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] My biggest problem with LFS is that they resolutely stick to the maxim: linux is the basic *nix command-line product, potentially even without communications capability. If you want a gui environment or much else, you're on your on. Sure, there's another LFS follow-on group to provide more, but I can't begin to count the times I heard the response from the core LFS bunch: We're not interested in doing that. Also I got really tired of posts to LFS user groups which resulted in: You're posting to the wrong group; go away or try lfs-xxx (one of the many other lfs groups); I never could keep them straight.. Well, the LFS groups seem to be populated by children with nothing more to do than make childish comments. I was on one or two lists and tried to help folks. Some seemed to appreciate it, but several very vocal morons who never helped (that I saw) had a lot of denigrating comments. They did their best to drive folks away. Nothing wrong with the distro itself. I find it a great source for the latest version of some of the basic packages. But as I said, early on you have to add essential libraries like PAM. And if you don't know how (and when) to do this, you can't. I have a very nice LFS system (actually several) that run a whole lot more than what they have (including blackbox on X, could run KDE since I have Qt and GTK, etc.). But you have to know how to fix broken compiles, etc. Some of what's missing: PAM (said that) cron (how do you run a system without cron?) openssl/openssh (how do you administer a system remotely without these) devfs (cause I like it) ntp lynx any kind of ftp program (netkit-ftp) most of the netkit stuff inetd dhcp bind basic mail (sendmail, procmail, mailx) mail clients (mutt, etc.) X xv lprng (or cups) just the beginning. OTOH, the LFS book is a worthwhile intro to the basics of a linux distribution. I didn't find it any great shakes either. A shameless plug for gentoo. Once you've done the basic install for gentoo (excellent instructions on the gentoo site), all of the minimal stuff David is looking for in a distro (plus my personal essential package, the Sylpheed mail client) is provided. I use xinetd, as (so I have been told) it is a little more secure. At present, almost all the packages (gentoo calls them ebuilds) are installed from source, which means that you can optimize everything exactly the way you like it.. You need to do a little admin work on your own, so this isn't the distro for the total newbie. Most new functions you add don't come with a good set of post-install functions, so you have to integrate them into the init.d scripts yourself. If you have the system resources and patience to do the compiles, you can tailor the system to do what you want it to do. I currently have almost the complete gnome and kde series available, for example, but I use xfce as my regular wm and only invoke gnome/kde apps from the xfce menu as needed. Except for galeon, which is now my preferred browser, I find that I need depressingly little from among the gnome/kde apps. The gentoo-dev and gentoo-user lists are quite responsive, if you encounter problems - even typical newbie questions are dealt with rather professionally. Like most other lists with a mission they don't tolerate the variety of off-topic stuff that our list does. Eventually, gentoo will offer a binary distro that is more suitable for newbies, but not until they get everything else right. Try it; you'll like it! -- Collins Richey Denver Area gentoo_rc6 k2.4.15-pre5+ext3+xfce+sylpheed+galeon ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:54:10 +1130 Mike Andrew [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 19:51, Myles Green wrote: I'm not having the kdesud problem here, for whatever reason. I just ran xcdroast as root and setup my 'mere-mortal' user as a user of xcdroast and I've burned *many* copies of RH7.2 to pass out at the college - as 'me' not 'root' - since then. /usr/bin/whatever - 'consolehelper' consolehelper then wants root password. The 'fix' is rm /usr/bin/whatever ln -s /usr/SBIN/whatever /usr/bin/whatever chmod u+s /usr/sbin/whatever I did an xhost +localhost and then 'su -' to root and called xcdroast, did the setup thing and closed it off. You said you upgraded to 7.2 from 7.1? I didn't, I blew away slackware 8 and installed clean. Maybe that's where the difference lays? well, it got my burner but missed the dvd in the append statement, I had to add it but that's about all it missed. I know nuthin about dvd. what are the details please? I know almost as much as you do snivel it's the time, I need more hours in a day! /snivel The Llllama! posted a step on playing avi/divx not long ago and there's also a step on dvd full-screen with nVidia video cards, those will be where I start ...just as soon as I find some of that ellusive thing called 'spare time'. yes, you do have to create (a ~/bin) but isn't that 'normal'? I don't follow your reasoning for that. I see it as 'incomplete'. Perhaps it is, I dunno... I created ~/bin quite some time ago (when you *did* have to do it all by hand) for my own little collection of handy scripts so I just never noticed 'they' didn't, I guess. It's always just been included in all my backups and carried from one distro to the next with me. A person could always just make an /etc/skel/bin so it *would* be created for any new users, if they were so inclined. ;) -- Myles Green Calgary AB Canada Alberta Linux Step by Step Mirror: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mylesg/ ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
[ snips ] On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 14:29:44 +1130 Mike Andrew [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you do nothing else, after installing, run the sysV init editor.Your jaw might drop how many processes have started that you don't want, (and each one slugs your cpu). That's always been my chief gripe about the standard distros. They take forever to start/stop because every daemon known to mankind is started at bootup. Each release brings on a newer, bigger, faster, (better?) method of print management. Under the covers it's CUPSEuropeans watch out, Kde / Redhat insist your printer is US letter. It's about time that Europeans have to pay the piper. We letter oriented folks have had to tolerate A4-dominant KDE releases since the dawn of time! grin -- Collins Richey Denver Area gentoo_rc6 xfce+sylpheed ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
Mike Andrew wrote: [snip] I did a custom install on an old ext2 partition reformatted to ext3 (by the installer). I strongly suspect that for the first time ever, if I had chosen 'workstation' I _probably_ would have got exactly what i wanted and saved myself a lot of finger picking. Redhat have dropped the 'powertools' approach and supply dual cd's. This means that the days of 'install everything' are probably over since there's now just too much stuff you'll never use. You really do need to pick thru, or at best, use the workstation/server type bundles. For hardened penguins, the Gentoo or Linux from Scratch distros where you minimalise the lot is a better option. I was hoping for a minimal install select on RH72 but didn't find one (unless you assume 'custom' means just that). RH73, or for that matter SuSe 74 should look at that 'feature', it's becoming a necessity. Once you install a kernel, an xfree, and a few admin tools, that should be good enough to boot and do the rest later. It took me over an hour to go thru each package I thought I wanted *before* continuing the install, this is frustrating because (as we know), you generally install twice due to boo-boos. [snip] Oh my. Linux From Scratch, while good, is not for most. I would hardly recommend this to anyone unless they have a _very_ good understanding how things work. For one thing, you have to know where/how PAM is installed if you want to use it (LFS doesn't). And that's just for starters. That's not to say LFS isn't good. I use a heavily modified LFS baseline to build custom CD firewalls and wireless access points that don't even have hard drives. This isn't exactly for novices (although 15 minutes on their mailing list and you'll think these are all 7 year olds playing with their latest toy computer). LFS probably is the most versatile, but unless you know how to fix broken builds, probably not what you want. I'd steer folks to true distros. Ciao, David A. Bandel -- Focus on the dream, not the competition. -- Nemesis Racing Team motto ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 23:44, David A. Bandel wrote: Oh my. Linux From Scratch, while good, is not for most. I would hardly recommend this to anyone unless they have a _very_ good understanding how things work. My boo boo, scratch that comment, I was over-emphasising the need for a minimal install process. -- http://linux.nf -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 19:51, Myles Green wrote: I'm not having the kdesud problem here, for whatever reason. I just ran xcdroast as root and setup my 'mere-mortal' user as a user of xcdroast and I've burned *many* copies of RH7.2 to pass out at the college - as 'me' not 'root' - since then. /usr/bin/whatever - 'consolehelper' consolehelper then wants root password. The 'fix' is rm /usr/bin/whatever ln -s /usr/SBIN/whatever /usr/bin/whatever chmod u+s /usr/sbin/whatever well, it got my burner but missed the dvd in the append statement, I had to add it but that's about all it missed. I know nuthin about dvd. what are the details please? yes, you do have to create (a ~/bin) but isn't that 'normal'? I don't follow your reasoning for that. I see it as 'incomplete'. -- http://linux.nf -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:26:27 +1130 Mike Andrew [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2001 23:44, David A. Bandel wrote: Oh my. Linux From Scratch, while good, is not for most. I would hardly recommend this to anyone unless they have a _very_ good understanding how things work. My boo boo, scratch that comment, I was over-emphasising the need for a minimal install process. My biggest problem with LFS is that they resolutely stick to the maxim: linux is the basic *nix command-line product, potentially even without communications capability. If you want a gui environment or much else, you're on your on. Sure, there's another LFS follow-on group to provide more, but I can't begin to count the times I heard the response from the core LFS bunch: We're not interested in doing that. Also I got really tired of posts to LFS user groups which resulted in: You're posting to the wrong group; go away or try lfs-xxx (one of the many other lfs groups); I never could keep them straight.. OTOH, the LFS book is a worthwhile intro to the basics of a linux distribution. -- Collins Richey Denver Area gentoo_rc6 xfce+sylpheed ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Sun, 18 Nov 2001 18:16:56 -0500 Kurt Wall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, list, I'm finishing up a chapter for an unspecified book on Red Hat Linux and you have the opportunity to contribute. In particular, if you ran into problems either installing or configuring a stock installation of 7.2 (or, perchance, one of the pre-7.2 betas), tell me what it is and I may be able to add it to a chapter on troubleshooting and problem solving. If you do so and it makes it into the chapter, you will have both my gratitude and a mention in the acknowledgements. Ayup... OK, I did a re-install lastnight so I could nuke everything on hda (way too many partitions). I chose the 'expert' install and then selected 'custom' and went from there. I set my partitions up as follows: hda1 /boot (50MB, ext3) hda2 / (balance of 15GB drive, ext3) hdb1 swap (1024MB) hdb2 /home (balance of 40GB drive, ext3) The only things I've noticed are: - Logitech Marble mouse (USB or PS/2) was seen as a 3 button mouse by anaconda - easily changed during install. - during the lilo config portion the append box had only hdc=ide-scsi, needed to add hdd=ide-scsi. - although X was configured and 'works' outta the box, pressing ctrl+alt+num-pad+ or - does't change resolutions and the truetype fonts I added aren't seen because the fontpath section only points to unix/:7100. - I've found the stock firewall to be quite good but had to add a '-l' (dash ell) to the rules in order to get logging. So far most everything I've checked out 'just works' including burning CD's (haven't tried playing a DVD yet), though I did add xcdroast myself and used that to burn. This install, I included apache and anon ftp but haven't set them up or anything as of yet so, nothing to report there. I will be setting both of these up later this week. Overall, I was/am very impressed with this version of RedHat, including the up2date feature - so much so that I intend to purchace a boxed edition which I haven't done since Caldera released eD2.4 way back when. There you have it, my $0.02 =) -- Myles Green Calgary AB Canada Alberta Linux Step by Step Mirror: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mylesg/ ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
A quick review. Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Mon, 19 Nov 2001 13:18, Michael Scottaline wrote: I recently installed RH 7.2 on a sony Vaio laptop (FX340). I'm afraid I had no problems, thus none to share. Absolutely everything worked right out of the box, NIC, video, audio, CD (burner and DVD, though I haven't tried in that mode yet). Mostly same here. It was an even better install than the 7.1 and I was impressed enough with that: mostly due to kudzu / anaconda. A quick note on a CD burner gotcha is that you *must* fire up xcdroast as superman first (then as a mere mortal for evermore). Redhat/ kde have an unpleasant habit of forcing kdesud (you keep typing your root password to do simple things like kppp. Ditto cd burning.) There are ways of dealing with this, detailed on the SxS site. --- I did a custom install on an old ext2 partition reformatted to ext3 (by the installer). I strongly suspect that for the first time ever, if I had chosen 'workstation' I _probably_ would have got exactly what i wanted and saved myself a lot of finger picking. Redhat have dropped the 'powertools' approach and supply dual cd's. This means that the days of 'install everything' are probably over since there's now just too much stuff you'll never use. You really do need to pick thru, or at best, use the workstation/server type bundles. For hardened penguins, the Gentoo or Linux from Scratch distros where you minimalise the lot is a better option. I was hoping for a minimal install select on RH72 but didn't find one (unless you assume 'custom' means just that). RH73, or for that matter SuSe 74 should look at that 'feature', it's becoming a necessity. Once you install a kernel, an xfree, and a few admin tools, that should be good enough to boot and do the rest later. It took me over an hour to go thru each package I thought I wanted *before* continuing the install, this is frustrating because (as we know), you generally install twice due to boo-boos. --- When partitioning (by whatever means), be *very* generous with your swap space. The installer screams and screams if you have less than 2 x ram. The gotcha's with no cures were 7.2 refused to upgrade on a previous RH7.1 partition. It kept squealing that an fsck was needed. 7.1 'seemed' shonky when powering down. When first installed, 7.1 did auto power offs on shutdown, but after a kernel upgrade, that no longer occured. No amount of fsck'ing that partition stopped 7.2 squealing. I suspect a connection. -- Dual video cards threw it somewhat. It detected the pci S3 rather than the GeForce Agp. That surprised me. After taking the easy option of hurling the S3 out the door, it detected the correct Geforce model, and the correct 17 monitor. An impressive list of supported cards/monitors was there on show. While, naturally, that isn't Redhat, it was an impressive show of how far along Xfree has come (4.11-0), and to a certain extent how well integrated redhat have applied it. Ditto my usb mouse. It auto detected correct make, buttons, and model. Again, an impressive hit on how far usb has come (remember kernel 2.2.x?) and again, not bad RH for integrating it. Still on the subject of usb, the pace is furious. The /etc/hotplug directory contains more than 7.1 Again, this is not kudos to RH but a comment that after what? 4 months? RH72 was sorely needed to account for the rapidly expanding devices. 7.2 detected my hotplug camera, 7.1 did not. You get the feeling that the dot com bubble blowout is over, and it's back to business as usual where we all expect a distro, any distro, to keep pumping the releases within a few months (just like the good old days'). A few months ago most of us were despondent about the Linux desktop, it seemed to have run out of steam. The RH72 release serves notice on Windows that Redhat, at least, have picked up the cudgel and are running hard. kudzu / anaconda gets betterer each time. This release, it autodected my vibra128 (ensoniq). Rh7.1 had a series of common sound cards it couldn't detect. The consequences of that lack is there was a lot of /usr/src/linux/Documentation/ browsing. The big problem with sound is a *lot* of post and pre-install statements are required in modules.conf for nearly any sound card. I'm happy that kudzu figures them out because I can't. The vibra128 is hardly a new sound card, but it's good that obviously more common hardware is getting sorted. (I also installed RH72 on a system with AWE64, sans problems, same results) Ditto, it detected that I had a cd-rw and correspondingly put the all important append= statement in lilo.conf. It gave the impression of a few i's are being dotted and t's crossed. Ie some completeness in the install process. The one install dissapointment was my zip drive (parallel) and my parallel LS120. I wasn't fussed about the ls120, but a Zip is fairly standard isn't it? The problem is most likely to be the large changes that occured at kernel 2.4 to the
Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
Douglas J Hunley wrote: totally off-topic nitpick here Kurt, but could you adjust your alias for this list. I want to start getting away from that very label (re: refugees) How's that? Kurt -- Q: What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic existentialist? A: Is there a dog? ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
Zoran's mailinglist account wrote: On Nov 18 Kurt Wall was heard saying: -Hello, list, [request for input] 1/ It still doesn't recognize a wheel mouse and thus doesn't configure the mouse properly. The list of available mice is rather empty when doing a re config with mouseconfig (the TUI utility). This is a keeper. 2/ The up2date utility is still buggy - it keeps asking to register chez RH even when it's done - and is a relatively big nothing compared to the auto update feature of SuSE or Debian... I haven't had this problem. The shortcomings are evident, but such are not the meat of a problem solving and troubleshooting chapter. 3/ The guy's at Red Hat have sometimes good idea's and do nice init scripts, but for Christ's sake, can't they comment them a bit more!? [...] Well, there's little to address in the book for this one. I suggest sending this as a suggestion to RH. Thanks for the reply. Kurt -- Wilcox's Law: A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants. ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Sun, 18 Nov 2001 18:16:56 -0500 Kurt Wall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, list, I'm finishing up a chapter for an unspecified book on Red Hat Linux and you have the opportunity to contribute. In particular, if you ran into problems either installing or configuring a stock installation of 7.2 (or, perchance, one of the pre-7.2 betas), tell me what it is and I may be able to add it to a chapter on troubleshooting and problem solving. If you do so and it makes it into the chapter, you will have both my gratitude and a mention in the acknowledgements. = Kurt, I recently installed RH 7.2 on a sony Vaio laptop (FX340). I'm afraid I had no problems, thus none to share. Absolutely everything worked right out of the box, NIC, video, audio, CD (burner and DVD, though I haven't tried in that mode yet). Suggestion: Have you tried posting a similar request to the RedHat list?? Or perhaps a scan of their archives?? I recently joined the list and it appears to be fairly active. I'm sure you'd get some hits. Just my US$0.02, Mike -- A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day, is neither just, nor stable. -PRESIDENT BUSH (dubya) ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
Kurt Wall babbled on about: Hello, list, I'm finishing up a chapter for an unspecified book on Red Hat Linux and you have the opportunity to contribute. In particular, if you ran into problems either installing or configuring a stock installation of 7.2 (or, perchance, one of the pre-7.2 betas), tell me what it is and I may be able to add it to a chapter on troubleshooting and problem solving. If you do so and it makes it into the chapter, you will have both my gratitude and a mention in the acknowledgements. Ayup... totally off-topic nitpick here Kurt, but could you adjust your alias for this list. I want to start getting away from that very label (re: refugees) thanks -- Douglas J Hunley (doug at hunley.homeip.net) - Linux User #174778 Admin: http://linux.nf Admin: http://hunley.homeip.net Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: Red Hat 7.2 Gotchas
On Nov 18 Kurt Wall was heard saying: -Hello, list, - -I'm finishing up a chapter for an unspecified book on Red Hat Linux -and you have the opportunity to contribute. In particular, if you ran -into problems either installing or configuring a stock installation -of 7.2 (or, perchance, one of the pre-7.2 betas), tell me what it is *** Two things that seem coming back : 1/ It still doesn't recognize a wheel mouse and thus doesn't configure the mouse properly. The list of available mice is rather empty when doing a re config with mouseconfig (the TUI utility). 2/ The up2date utility is still buggy - it keeps asking to register chez RH even when it's done - and is a relatively big nothing compared to the auto update feature of SuSE or Debian... 3/ The guy's at Red Hat have sometimes good idea's and do nice init scripts, but for Christ's sake, can't they comment them a bit more!? The latest example is /etc/sysconfig/harddisks. The file itself isn't very talkative. Going to rc.sysinit.sysinit, doing a search for hard and figuring out together with man what the entries mean is not a problem for me and others who know RH... Sometimes the scripts look like the maintainer started with loads of good ideas but run out of time at the end. The file harddisks is again a good example. Some entries should've been in the script by default. The guy's at RH should check Mandrake's scripts and see if it gives them an idea. Mandrake never worked for me but I liked their init scripts. Zoran. ___ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
