Re: [newbie] Linux-MD 6.0 Display Probs
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: well i thank you all for the answer to my previous question - but i have just one more.. is there a way to reconfigure the display/monitor settings in the Linux GUI interface? I am able to see everything, but it is huge - where do i go to fix that?Thanks,Paul Try Xconfigurator or look for a drak tool. I believe that you should have Xconfigurator available, but if you don't and you don't have a Mdk installation guide or manual, and you're desperate, then do a search for all drak tools and then examine these for the one which would provide the functionality you seek. One way to do such a search would be the primitive way: find /usr | grep -i drak find /bin | grep -i drak find /sbin | grep -i drak If that fails to turn up drak tools, then do rpm -qa | grep -i drak You might find it quicker to start with the rpm search, first. Besides, this would also be more useful, because if the drak tools are rpm installed, then you'll be able to use rpm to get basic information about each tool using the rpm -qi option. For example, if the diskdrake tool is called diskdrake, then rpm -qi diskdrake would give you basic information on the tool. rpm -qil diskdrake would tell you what files were installed or can be installed with a complete install and where these files are located. If you see man page files, then you would be able to use man to get more documentation on the tool. If you don't see man page files, but you see info files, then you'ld have access to the additional documentation using the info command. If that fails to provide more complete documentation on a tool and you directed the install program to install all documentation, then you should be able to find documentation under or in the /usr/doc directory. If you didn't instruct the install program to install all documentation, then you can use rpm to install the documentation, all of it, or for individual RPMs, as you wish. You could do this by running rpm for individual RPMS, and you'll probably find one for all documentation, or all documentation by documentation type, such as man, info, HOWTOs, etcetera. Mount the install cdrom and check the RPMs in the Mandrake/RPMS directory of the cdrom. If you have a directory named /Mandrake, or /usr/Mandrake, or /usr/doc/Mandrake, on your system, then check this or these directories, to learn what's there. One of the first and essential things for newbies to learn is the layout of the configuration, what's available for documentation, etcetera. This can definitely help to find answers more quickly than from a mailing list. Sometimes mailing lists provide quick results, but don't let this become a handicap. mike
Re: [newbie] display blinking
If you don't find X*Setup on your system, then check for Xconfigurator and or a drak configuration tool. SuperProbe will also tell you about your video card. Before running SuperProbe, though, read the man page for this tool. Supposedly, running SuperProbe (with uppercase S and P) can cause problems (works without a problem with my #9 video card). You might not need to use SuperProbe, though, if the configuration tool you use successfuly probes for the information needed. If the configuration tool can't successfully probe for the video card information, then try all of the configuration tools which can be used for this kind of configuration, such as Xconfigurator and the drak tool, if there is a drak tool for this, and only if all of these fail, then look into SuperProbe. If you need to use SuperProbe, then read the man page, run SuperProbe, write down the information, and then run the configuration tool again, this time typing in the information, instead of letting the tool probe for the information. mike Bruce K Hilliker wrote: I had this problem when I tried installing Corel Linux, I found this in their FAQ. And it worked for me. I'm not sure if it's the same problem - but; on my machine, the only time the keyboard was active (you could type) was when the screen was visible (get you timing right).At the prompt (when it appears) type "killall kdm" (without the quotes). Once you've accomplished this (it took me a little while). Go to directory "/usr/X11R6/bin", and run "XF86Setup" (without the quotes). The directory and application names are case sensitive. Now these is the directory and application in Corel Linux. I'm not sure if there the same in MD. I didn't have any (well not much) problems with my video in MD as with CL. Hope this helpsBruce :-) - Original Message - From: alex.avellaneda To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 4:53 AM Subject: [newbie] display blinking I just installed mandrake but as it loads, the screen is blinking every 4-5 sec.; I guess it's got to do with the refreshing rate or something (my display: LCD, TFT, I haven't got any doc for its config). Could you help? Thank you.to reply remove the REMOVEME from the address
Re: [newbie] installing failed :-(
Claus Atzenbeck wrote: On Fri, 21 Apr 2000, J D wrote: did you partition your hdd? or do you have an empty hdd? are you running any other os's? if you can, provide a little more info, and we'll see what we can think of. Thanks for you mail, also to Eric! Yes, there were no partitions available. I had good luck to have also SuSE here in order to format my hard drive. How would I be able to format my hard drive without any tool except Mandrake CD-ROM? The graphical installer provides partitioning hard drives befor installing, not so the text installer... :-( If you have SuSE installed, then boot into this OS and create the filesystems or partitions for your Mandrake configuration using the fdisk available with SuSE. Don't format the filesystems (the Mandrake install program should at least be able to do this); only create the partitions you want. If you want Mandrake on a single, large filesystem, then you'll only need to create one partition with fdisk. In fdisk, choose the m option, to see the available commands. Adding or creating a new partition is probably unchanged and n. Are you sure the Mandrake text install doesn't provide partition creation? Check again. Also, why isn't the gui install not working? Where does it fail? mike Regards, Claus. -- Atzenbeck. Data structures design http://www.atzenbeck.de 'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability. -- George Bernard Shaw
Re: [newbie] KDE and Gnome removal
Emmette Hutchison wrote: how to I remove or stop using a desktop environment like gnome or kde? At this point I just want enlightenment running. (I'm assuming that I have to edit an x settings file somewhere, but I'm not quite sure where.) Emmette To be able to stop using or to uninstall? Assuming you don't want to uninstall, but just to stop using, the following are my directions. Read the documentation for both gnome and kde is the approach. Go into the kde desktop and search through the Help documentation for how to stop using kde. I believe the command is something like "kde off" or kde -off" or something like this, but haven't used it yet and therefore don't remember the documentation accurately. To your gnome is probably used on top of Enlightenment. If this is the case, then when in this environment, look through the desktop menus for a source of documentation, or a switch or option to close the gnome portion. If this doesn't help, then search the gnome and kde documentation directories under or in the /usr/doc directory. If you want to uninstall gnome and or kde, then you should read the documentation on these, first. To uninstall kde safely, you may need to turn it off, first. You may not need to do anything like that to uninstall gnome, though. However, if disk space isn't an issue, then I'ld suggest leaving gnome and kde installed, at least long enough to explore Enlightenment. mike
Re: [newbie] 64Mb instead of 128Mb??
Claus Atzenbeck wrote: On Thu, 20 Apr 2000, Nickolay Belostotsky wrote: Hello! It's my first ever installation of Linux, so please be nice :-) Fine! So. I installed it into my D: DOS partition using Linux4Win (not the best variant, I know... Just didn't want to lose my 8Gb of information :-). And in Linux, when I get info about memory, the system tells me I have 64 Mb, which is wrong - I have 128 Mb. Is there any way to amend it? Thanks in advance! You need to edit your /etc/lilo.conf and add the following line in your image specifications: append="mem=128M" I'ld suggest doing this with a configuration tool, such as linuxconf. I tried making this change to lilo.conf using an editor (vim), and then running lilo, but the change didn't take effect. Making the change using linuxconf always worked. There are other tools, like a drak tool, for changing the lilo configuration, I believe, but the only one I'm familiar with is linuxconf. Or, if you prefer to tell Linux your memory in kb, use "K" instead of "M". Of course also increase the size number. mike Regards, Claus. -- Atzenbeck. Data structures design http://www.atzenbeck.de critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Re: [newbie] OT - Partition magic
Wayne Petherick wrote: This is OT so I will take it OLcould anyone here who has partition magic v5 contact me off list please.Thanks,Wayne Why is that OT? The subject is pertinent to this mailing list, because this list is about supporting people with installation and configuration of Linux, which is an OS which comes with a boot manager to handle booting into multiple and or different OSs. Others here could probably benefit from the question and answer(s); therefore, I'ld like to suggest posting such questions and answers here, instead of keeping such information private or "proprietary". mike
Re: [newbie] can't read partitionn table, too corrupt???
Martin Dowman wrote: Product: Complete Linux Mandrake 7.0. After running the included partition magic and setting up the Linux partition @ 860MB I am recieving a message during Linux install: Mandrake provides PM, from PQ? Try the real PM from PQ? mike "I can't read your partition table, it's too coorupted for me :( I'll try to go on blanking bad partitionsextended partition: no normal partion in exteded partition"then a button "OK". I click "OK" and the next screen said, "Please click on a partition" and shows hba as blank and labled as "Type: Empty Size 19571 MB (99%) I bailed on the install at this point because of all the existing data on the multiple drives. HELP, WHAT DO I DO? ### INFORMATION FROM SYSTEM INFORMATION ### Microsoft Windows 98 4.10. A AMD-K6-3/400 128MB RAM DRAM - 100mhz Available space on drive C: 102MB of 1043MB (FAT) Available space on drive D: 365MB of 2039MB (FAT) Available space on drive E: 515MB of 2039MB (FAT) Available space on drive F: 745MB of 2039MB (FAT) Available space on drive G: 561MB of 2039MB (FAT) Available space on drive H: 1091MB of 2039MB (FAT) Available space on drive I: 1915MB of 2039MB (FAT) Available space on drive J: 1280MB of 2039MB (FAT) Available space on drive K: 1070MB of 1215MB (FAT) Standard Floppy Disk Controller ETEQ Bus Master PCI IDE Controller (Ultra DMA) TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1212 CDROM HP CD-Writer+ 8100 CDROM IBM-DPTA -372050 HDD GENERIC NEC FLOPPY DISK
Re: [newbie] in second stage install problem
J D wrote: well, i can tell you that it is a problem with X. i had the same problem, but it was caused by another problem (mainly my hdd becoming read only). but i don't know how to fix it. sorry man. May have already been answered, but in case it hasn't, then try with the text install method. There's documentation on the Mandrake install cdrom for how to do a text install. mike From: Francois Massin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [newbie] in second stage install problem Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 23:08:15 -0400 Hello there, I try to install Madrake 7.0 on my P100 32Mb Ram. Seems to start ok but then I have this message: message begin in second stage install _X11ransSocketUnixConnect: Can't connect: errno = 111 _X11ransSocketUnixConnect: Can't connect: errno = 111 Sun Apr 16 15:04:05 2000 Gtk - WARNING: Cannot open display :0 at /usr/bin/per l-install/my_gtk.pm line 139 install exited abnormally Sending termination signals ... done Sending kill signals ... done unmounting filesystems ... /tmp/rhimg /proc You may safely reboot your system. message end So what' s wrong ? Is this a video card problem ? (Ati xpert 8Mb PCI) or a monitor problem (AOC 4N) ? Have a good day Francois Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: [newbie] How-to have Multiple distros on one hard drive
May have already been answered, but in case it hasn't I'll provide an answer. You need a separate /boot for each Linux configuration you have installed. Whether or not you give /boot it's own filesystem or make it part of the / filesystem partition is up to you (I have separate filesystems for /boot, /, /usr, /usr/local, /usr/src, /home, /var and /tmp, but all of these can also be placed on the same filesystem partition using a single partition for your the entire Linux configuration). Making /boot a separate filesystem makes it easier to keep this below the 1024 cyl boundary; however, this isn't necessary, if you install lilo or the boot manager in the mbr, which is what I'ld recommend doing for a system like your's, with one huge hdd, or even if you have multiple HDDs. By placing lilo or the boot manager in the mbr, the 1024 cyl. boundary problem is circumvented, because the mbr is at the beginning of hda. Also create boot floppies for each of your configurations, and read through the HOWTO on large disks. You could probably find this through the LDP web site, but I thought this was www.linuxdoc.org and this isn't producing anything, or not much anyway. There's another web site for the LDP documentation, and this web site contains links to all of the HOWTOs, FAQs, and other documentation. I'm not sure how to get to that web site, but you can probably find a link to it through the Mandrake web site, or RedHat's, looking through the documentation pages of these sites. mike philomena wrote: Hi all, I just got a machine with a 40 GB drive. For various reasons I would like to try and setup Windows (I know, I know - I need it for work..), Mandrake and another linux distro - possibly suse, or have a second mandrake install for playing around with new stuff, yet maintain a stable install. I have plenty enough disk for this, and have setup a dual-boot windows/mandrake system before. But, I'm not sure about approaching this - the threads I read today about what you can and can't have below the 1024 cylinder got me thinking. For this, would I need 2 \boot partitons ? Is that possible ? Or just the one for lilo and then just partition the heck out of the machine ? help ! thx, phil
Re: [newbie] GUI is gone and so is my sanity
Might be able to use Xconfigurator to tell Linux to boot into gui mode. Check out this tool; although, there may also be a drak tool for this, and you could search your system to find the drak tool. mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You mean you started playing w/ Linux BEFORE you went insane. That explains a lot. ;) Seriously tho - quick and dirty way to get to a gui: Log in at the Penguin prompt. You'll get another prompt type 'startx' w/o the quotes of course. You have probably changed your default run level somewhere. I don't remember the EXACT location/name of the file right now, but I'm sure someone will reply w/ it. Ty C. Mixon F.T.C. Enterprises [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ 26147713
Re: [newbie] X
Erik B. Flitman wrote: My system was powered down improperlyto make a long story short, I get the following error when attempting to run anything that requires X: /usr/X11R6/bin/X: error in loading shared libraries: libfont.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory However, the file appears to be there and is in the path. Any ideas? Ask in the expert mailing list, because this isn't a newbie kind of question. You might want to verify with the ldconfig command. Read the man page man ldconfig thoroughly and then experiment. If this tool doesn't repair your problem, then the tool also should not cause any problems or be dangerous to use. Be careful, but the man page should be adequate for you to follow. mike Erik B. Flitman ebf technolgies, inc. 305-751-8822 office 305-757-3736 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [newbie] Qt
Because qt is installed from an rpm, you can find the files for qt with rpm rpm -qil qt If you need more information on qt, then read the man page on rpm, for query options, and you might find useful information in the qt documentation directories under or in the /usr/doc directory. mike Ben Donahue wrote: Im running Mandrake 7.0, with Blackbox/KDE as my window manager. I want to install Blackbox Tools. To do this i have to edit the Makefile and tell it where to find Qt, the only problem is i dont know where the hell Qt is.I know it's on there because i chose everything on install.Please could someone tell me where it is or how to find it.Thanx in advance :-)Ben Donahue[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [newbie] path
Tommy Kelly wrote: I know this is probably a dumb question, but how do you add a directory to the path For instance, instead of going to /root/mozilla/ to run ./mozzila, I would like to be able to type ./mozilla in any directory. To add the directory to your path, add the following to your .bashrc file, in your home directory: PATH="/root/mozilla:$PATH" ; export PATH Then, at your shell prompt type: . ~/.bashrc That's not always a good idea, depending on what's in ~/.bashrc. If there are only aliases and other benign defintions, then this isn't a problem; however, some people use this startup script for things which could potentially cause problems if resourced, sometimes. One way around that is to use conditional programming, but this should be rarely needed for this file. However, why would a program like mozilla be installed under root's home directory, instead of one of the system bin directories? I'm not familiar with mozilla, except for what I believe is some relationship with netscape; therefore, I'm asking for myself, but also to help this knowledge or the answer to be understood by other people new to mozilla. Is mozilla a separate rpm, or does it come with the netscape RPM(s), or what? Usually, RPMs aren't installed under any user's home directory; although, configuration files and directories often go there, like for the ~/.netscape, ~/.kde, ~/.seyon and other directories. These are only for individual configuration, though. I'm not prepared to deal with mozilla yet and still use netscape 4.05, until finishing the upgrade of my system, or somewhere along this path, but because of the odd nature of installing such executables under home directories, this question may be worthwhile for many newbies. Of course, I'ld also be learning in advance (have definitely fair memory). mike (You only have to do this second step once, and even then only in the xterm or session in which you change the .bashrc file. Any new xterms or logins will do it automatically.) You can then run: mozilla from anywhere. Note that I have removed the inital "./" from the command. If you do type: ./mozilla then your $PATH variable is ignored and you will attempt to run the "mozilla" command from directory "./", that is your current directory. And if no executable of that name can be found in that directory you'll get something like: ./mozilla: Command not found. t
Re: [newbie] Programming
I don't think that's off-topic, because it's related to working in or with Linux, very related. Most newbies will want to develop programming skills; therefore, your question is good. You'll get a variety of answers, depending on what people do; however, bash and Perl would be good to start with. bash is necessary if you want to modify system scripts, including the base ones like .bashrc, .bash_profile, /etc/profile, and /etc/bashrc. bash is also handy if you want to write scripts to do or automate some systems administration tasks, like renaming all of the directories and files in a particular directory, or copying them to some other directory and then tarballing the set, etcetera. There are frequent uses for bash. Perl is good, because it can be better than bash for some systems administration tasks. Plus, Perl has much functionality; it's definitely at least considerably powerful, and being a scripting language, you don't need to deal with compiling, which makes or can make it useful for rad (rapid application development). Scripting is very nice for many reasons, and Perl is a mighty scripting language. Much of what can be done with C and C++ can be done with Perl, and scripting being a good approach, and Perl being a mighty capable scripting language, well, just makes Perl all the more worthwhile. There are many other programming languages and tools you can learn to work with Linux, such as - tcl/tk (now integrated with Perl), - expect (believe Linux has expect, or it can be downloaded), - python (haven't done any work with python, but it seems to be used a fair amount - you'll find a fair number of python scripts, which has also been integrated with Perl), - C and C++, - sql (for rdbms - relational database - programming), - java, - many others. I'ld suggest starting with bash and Perl. Perl, again, is broad. You can do rdbms programming with it; network programming, including ftp, sending mail, tcp/ip, web page and cgi programming (internet and intranet), and possibly other types; sockets programming; gui - tying in with tcl/tk for example; automating systems administration tasks; stochastics programming; oo programming; powerful and very practical regular expression parsing; etcetera. After that, you could look at the other languages, depending on what it is you want to do. If you want to focus on web page programming, using html, cgi, etcetera or what ever, then you could in the least consider Perl and Java. If you want to do rdbms work, then there's PostgreSQL, Oracle, and others, with the language being SQL. This is often useful when doing web development, because many web interfaces interfaces with an rdbms. For flat file databases, I'ld suggest using Perl, but Perl can also be used to interface with SQL databases (some of them anyway). At that level, though, you'ld want to learn some of the servers, Apache being a core one as far as internet/intranet development would be concerned. Perl has a module for interfacing with the Apache server, now, too. You can find specific mailing lists for these. I don't know that there are any for Unix scripting, like with bash, but there are for the others; Perl, Java, C, and C++ anyway. There are newsgroups for various servers; therefore, if you're interested in learning about these, then look for specifically related newsgroups and subscribe. One general Unix/Linux Perl resource web site is http://wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu/cc/services/unix/perl/ There's a fair amount of documentation installed on your Linux system, once Perl is installed. If you're just starting out programming, then bash and Perl should be two good places to begin. If you get to the point where you want to modify kernels, then you'll need to learn C and possibly C++. If you want to learn C++, then you might want to consider learning Objective C, first. From recent reading, Obj-C supports oo, but more simply than C++. You could probably learn about Obj-C through the gnu web site http://www.gnu.org I'm not sure, but Obj-C may be what you should begin with, out of a choice of C, C++ and Obj-C; although, you'ld definitely be learninig C along the way, because Obj-C is (if memory's accurate) more similar to C, than C++. If you learned Obj-C, then you'ld be able to do both structured programming with C, as well as oop (object-oriented programming). However, for many other things, Perl would be adequate, and if working in Linux or Unix, then Perl should be on your agenda. Perl, SQL and Java would probably be more generally useful, if you don't want to get into low level systems programming. Some applications are developed in C and or C++, though, like the underlying aspects of GNOME and KDE. Hence, which way to go depends on what you imagine you want to do. You could read up on the documentation for Perl, python, tcl/tk, Java, and the others, to get a better idea. I don't know where you could find documentation for SQL, other than books of course. However, one method of learning
Re: [newbie] Major Problem----still
J D wrote: yeah, you're right. i'm gonna e-mail an expert list about this. the only problem is that i'm so short on time (who would have thought becoming an engineer would require so much time??? ;) ). man, i picked a bad time to install linux. wait, there's never a bad time to get away from the frustrating blue screen of death every time you go to compile code you just wrote. too bad i can't submit my programming homework in unix. damn this university's use of windows! Speak with your professor(s). I don't see why they'ld prevent you from doing your homework with Linux. The school should be unbiased in this respect, unless your program is MCSE or something specific to MS. If it's a general university program, then the profs would need to be dorks for refusing valid work done on Linux. Linux is growing in use and popularity, and is based on and very similar to Unix in many respects, with Unix being a platform used considerably in industry; more important than MS anyway. If you were in a MIS program, specializing in office computing, then MS would be understandable, albeit Linux will become competitive in this area, too. For engineering, I'm surprised they're not using a Unix variant, albeit many engineering firms began converting much of their infrastructure to MS a couple or few years ago, but only due to pricing, as far as I was told and know (now, MS Windows 2000 Server is expensive, albeit Windows 2000 WS may be less expensive than Unix WSs, but certainly not less expensive than Linux). If you'ld really like to be able to do your work with Linux, then ask, before jumping to absolute conclusions. If the school's not going to give you a MCSE, then the school shouldn't have any moral right to prevent you from using Linux. If the profs refuse and you have a few more years of schooling involved, then you might consider contesting and appealing to the next higher level of the court. Maybe your profs don't know Unix or Linux, and they might use this as a basis to refuse work done on Linux, but that's only a lazy approach, instead of a moral one. They should encourage students to use Linux, because schooling is already expensive enough without needing to purchase expensive OSs, like Windows 2000. mike From: Mike Corbeil [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Major Problemstill Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 23:55:38 -0400 BILL wrote: J D wrote: okay, i've tried several things to fix my major problem. nothing has worked. so how do i format my linux partition? last night i got bored and tried rm -rf / as i read to never do this unless i wanted to reinstall linux. but it didn't work. help! I would not suggest doing that, ever. There are better, more appropriate, ways of reinstalling linux or any OS. If you do rm -rf /, then this means to remove the root directory and I've never done this, but know that rm -rf /* will remove everything under the root directory. rm -rf / probably does the same thing, but based on other contexts, this would also remove /. In either case, this would mean not being able to shutdown or reboot the system using any command, because everything would be gone. You've got to explain your problem, because as you should obviously see, there's no description left of your problem, if you ever described it. You want help. Help others to help you. Explain what your problem is, with more detail. __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Okay, I don't truley know if this will help your MAJOR problem,but as a newbie I have had times where I too did somthing somewheres that sent my partitions kablooey.Tried lots of stuff that did n't work and wound up 'reinstalling" but installing another distro ;like Caldera,and letting it clean up the partitions when it installed,then I went back and reinstalled mandrake after the fact when I saw that the Caldera was successful. I've done this a few times and it has worked for me ,but then I/m a newbie,and only came up with this on instinct,couldn't tell you if it did anything to my machine or not .Don't think it has since I now have a nice Mandrake 70 install thats working to ,my satisfaction .Good luck if you decide to try this. Bill Not instinct; just desperation. This approach should not be required. You're better off asking in the expert mailing list, to learn how to properly handle your problems with Mandrake, even at the install level, before bothering with installing another distribution to try to recover. There are ways to recover or to do successful installs. mike __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: [newbie] Books
Michael Holt wrote: On the contrary, I've used quite a few 'xxx for dummies' books, and they give you a great start on a topic in simple language (not everyone has a computer science degree). I do agree that O'Reilly books are great to. Personally, I like to go down to the local Barnes Noble (or equivalent) and sit down in the Unix / Linux section and start sifting through books. What I've found is that seldom does one book cover everything that you need to know; 'Running Linux' from O'Reilly is a great book, but I also have Linux 6 unleashed from Sams, Linux in a nutshell (also from O'Reilly) and a few others. My advice is to decide what you want to know about, then try to find the topic at the bookstore. I usually need to gleen info from a few different books before I feel comfortable with the answer that I've come up with. Not all are rich and books aren't cheap. This is why I don't bother with programming for dummies books, and I don't think that a cs degree makes a huge difference. After all, we didn't start with programming for dummies books in the first courses in school. However, if people are rich and can afford all the books they want, then what the heck. Not everyone has that luxury, though. mike Mike Corbeil wrote: Dreja Julag wrote: Can anyone direct me to any good books covering all areas of Linux, including networking, maintenence, troubleshooting, history, using, etc? This would be very helpful. I already have read Linux for Dummies. Howtos can end up being very dificult to read and there are very few. Thanks :) Books titled "xxx for dummies" tell you exactly what these books are, low quality. Try O'Reilly. They have a web site and probably the most thorough coverage of Linux, Unix, X, and everything related, of any publisher. There's usually a fair sampling of their books at good bookstores and you can probably mail order over the web, or by phone, or just get the bookstore which carries any of their books to order books they don't have and you want. BN usually gives around 30 days to check out the book and return if you don't want it, I believe. mike -- The Penguins are coming!!! Michael Holt [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1
Alan Shoemaker wrote: Mikecorrect me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the guy who's been telling some folks in this list that their questions aren't appropriate for this forum and to go ask them in the expert list? Well I think that your response in this thread (quoted below) was not appropriate for the newbie list. The remedy here was very simple and your four rambling paragraphs have simply served to confuse the issue. Not really, but then maybe I've been accustomed to less than trivial for longer than I can recall. When I first started learning about computers and programming, my ramble wouldn't have caused any problems, but then I also had a few years of math and physics behind me. Nonetheless, if I think back to before that, then I wouldn't have been put off by a more thorough explanation. Heck, my father wanted me to help him remodel the house when I was a mere 8 years old; therefore, I've been held to above normal expectations for decades. If you're confused, then don't think that this means that everyone else who's a newbie would also be confused. As I recall in school, in every course, at every level, not everyone was equally comfortable with the material. What I prefer to do when I find an answer or document too complicated, is to stick with the one I was more comfortable with, as long as it works. Otherwise, I just ask questions for clarification. We're not communicating between people in grade 1 of elementary school, here; therefore, expect some people to provide more thorough answers. When you don't like it, move on. If newbies seeking help scream in panic, then this will definitely help to indicate that what you say is true, but as it is, you're pretending to be able to speak for them, instead of letting them speak for themselves. As a relative newbie to Linux systems administration, but not to Unix and programming, I presented information I learned as a newbie to Linux systems administration, and based on this, the additional info wasn't out of context. Besides, newbies also need to learn the system and some will catch on very quickly, while those who don't, can either ask for clarification, or stick with the simpler responses they've received. How complicated do you want to make this? Some people in the newbie list have already proven that they're not newbie; only to installing Linux and only in some respects, more in some and less in others. By providing more thorough information in a newbie mailing list, as well as more elementary answers, this satisfies the entire group. If you're not happy with an answer which is correct, then skip. If you're not happy with an answer which is not 100% correct, but along the correct line(s), then correct the errors. This mailing list is for learning, as far as I'm aware, because getting help inherently implies learning. Part of accepting to learn is accepting to make errors or mistakes, and to learn from these. Why treat people like babies, instead of giving them something to chew on? People using this list to get help for their employment should subscribe to professional support mailing lists or resources; therefore, I don't perceive these mailing lists except for the much more general audience, including hobbiests. My case is neither of these, but instead merely learning, to merely become more marketable, kind of like going to school, but without the tuition fees and the piece of paper at the end. You'll find people using these mailing lists for various reasons, but you seem to only want to reduce or restrict to people who are 100% newbie to computing, which is not the reality. If you wish to share more about your pedagogical philosophies or approaches, then feel free. However, I wouldn't bother based on this thread, because what I presented is not really above the newbie level. Again, I learned it during my newbie phase to Linux systems administration, but then I tend to spend a fair amount of time reading ahead and reading various documentation I come across and which might be even remotely related. Just because others don't do this, doesn't mean that this approach isn't relevant to people at the newbie level. Baby food is nourishing, but it's usually more nourshing when there's an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals. I'm not knocking the response to set umask to 0 for the dos partitions, in the fstab file, but also didn't present anything above newbie level. Hence, argumentation or discourse. mike Alan Mike Corbeil wrote: Alan Shoemaker wrote: Bobyou also need to include umask=0 on that line in /etc/fstab. Must be a fairly new requirement, or there's a difference in the default umask value between RH 5.1 and Mandrake, because I don't need umask=0 to be able to write to my dos partitions. I merely set it to noauto,rw and this is adequate. The only reason you'ld need to included umask=0 is because of the system-wide default value for it, probably defined in /etc
Re: [newbie] Programming
Rob Edwards wrote: I have found that the best one so far is KDevelop, writing in C++. Let me know if you know of a better one cause I really could do with it, but in my limited use of Linux this is the best yet. That could be fine for people wanting to focus on gui development with KDE, however there are also other factors to consider. One factor is what country the person is in. If in the USA, then I wouldn't focus overly much on gui development, because this is work which can be easily shipped overseas, or for which less expensive foreign labor is brought in to do. Been in that situation and not only observed it, but also experienced it. If you're in the USA and American, then it might be better to develop skills for work which can't be done from overseas. Examples are systems and network administration when these involve setting up systems. Systems can be administrated from remote, but they definitely can't be set up from remote. Systems adminstration also often requires being on-site. Hence, these types of skills are more secure with respect to employment, for those for whom this could be a concern. Database administration is probably also more secure than sw development and engineering. As for KDevelop, I'm not sure and can't really recommend one way or the other, but can open the floor for discussion by saying that KDE is only one of several or many window manager and desktop environments for Linux, and isn't used on Unix, at least not as far as I'm aware. In this respect, I'ld open the floor to comments regarding what gui environment would be better to learn, first: KDE, GNOME, X, Motif, ... I would put forth the idea that learning to develop tools or apps that will run well in any wm and desktop gui environment would be the better approach, because, then, your skills or knowledge are restricted to only one environment. On the other hand, I believe KDE will increasingly become more commonly used on Linux boxes; therefore, this is not to knock KDE, which is the wm and desktop I've been using for a few months. If you don't mind "specializinig", then whether you choose KDE or GNOME to develop skills with should not matter too much. I look at it, however, from an income point of view. For example, if there's no income to be made developing in KDE, but there is in developing with GNOME, then shouldn't be too difficult to guess which of the two I'ld choose; and vice versa. Etcetera If you wish to start your own small development business, or you wish to work for KDE, or a Linux disbributor, then look at what skills would be appropriate. If you wish to work on large systems for large companies, then there are other considerations, some at the skill level and some with respect to what's been going on with respect to massive immigration and the replacement of Americans with foreigners, as well as all of this leading to age discrimination. This hasn't happened to all Americans, however for Americans envisioning finding employment in the USA, there are definitely factors which immediately exist to give due consideration to. I am one among many who knows this reality. People in other countries don't have this market factor to worry about, albeit recently read that similar circumstances are evolving in Germany. Also, look at market factors, how you want to work, and the kind of work you want to do. E.g., sole proprietor vendor, sole proprietor consultant, or employee, for large systems, business systems, telephony, web - intranet/internet -, gui, database, systems and or network installation and administration, ... Consider what technical line is of potential interest, how you want to work, and market factors. I don't know what the future is going to be for Americans who focused on developing gui development skills, but know from experience and observations that many foreigners are hired for this work and placed in environments were they sit elbow to elbow. People in other countries may have market factors worth considering, but I'm only aware of what's been going on and continuing to go on in the USA, as well as what some large German companies recently said they plan on doing, bringing in many foreigners. I don't have a link to that article; therefore, for people in Germany, or planning on looking for work there, this might be worth researching. If, however, people wish to develop programming skills more as a hobby, with or without the potential, eventual, possibility, of being able to earn "side" income from these skills, then there's definitely far less need to be concerned about what you learn. In that case, take the basic skills, like bash and Perl, learn these, explore what can be done with these, and then read up on other areas, in "belated" parallel, to see what else would trigger interest. All newbies interested in programming can find some relevant information in this. Those just wanting to develop a hobby have the easy
Re: [newbie] more LILO trouble
Neville Cobb wrote:
Hi, a copy of my lilo.conf is attached if that is of any use.
I don't like attachments, because ya never know what they might contain. I don't
think that attachments should be used in these mailing lists. I'm not going to open
it, which
means that I don't know if the lilo.conf shown below is your's or that of Leanne.
Nev
Leanne Leith wrote:
Some wonderful person told me that I could fix my LILO problem by typing in LILO
from the super user prompt. The result was "Syntax error near line 2 in
file/etc/lilo.conf"
The problem is that the second line of lilo.conf is missing a word, and how would
we know what that is? does anyone know?
All the other lines have "***= something"
My second line has "root= "
What's on the rhs of root=?
You need to specify the /dev/hd[ab]{n} file associated with your root (/) partition,
there.
For example, one of my configurations has /boot on hda5 and root or / on hda12 (not
sure why it got shoved that far up, but t'was the install program which did this).
Hence,
for root=, I have
root=/dev/hda12
mike
boot=/dev/hda5
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=linux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
other=/dev/hda1
label=windows
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
label=floppy
unsafe
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/hda6
append="hdd=ide-scsi"
read-only
Re: [newbie] Supermount
Jim Adams wrote:
How do I safely remove supermount from fstab?
Use a filesystem configuration tool. I don't know what your gui
environment is, however you may find a tool in the desktop, and there
are tools which can be run from the command line shell, like linuxconf
and fsconf (I use linuxconf, so far). There's surely one for Mandrake,
called drak{something}, maybe drakconf. Look around, bring up the tools
you can find, and investigate. These all have gui's; therefore, you
should be able to quickly find one which has a supermount option you can
toggle.
mike
Re: [newbie] Linux Partition
andy wrote: How come when you are in Linux, you can see your Windows partition, but not the other way around?? Andy Becasuse MS doesn't like competitors. However, you can get software which provides the capability or functionality you asked about, and Exceed is one such tool, from Hummingbird. mike
Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1
Pittman, Merle wrote: YOU ARROGANT P---k!! So a few math and physics courses (probably from mail order, or your nearest community college) make you all that. I have 2 advanced degrees in engineering (electronics and computers) yet I think myself no better or smarter than anyone on this list and neither should you. Having advanced degrees does not necessarily make you a sharper human being, except that you know more about the technical business you studied in. Humans are not reduceable to merely technological terms. There's a hell of a lot more to being a totally balanced human being than an ego trip over advanced degrees in technology. Don't know if you're noticed or not, but technology has also been much the cause for the serious degradation of the natural environment on this planet; therefore, before waving your pieces of paper, think first, because these aren't impressive, no where as much as the continuous destruction of the natural environment of this planet is. If only people with might high pieces of paper in technical studies could only figure out that simple reality. My arrogance is only your interpretation. I wonder if someone who waves highly advanced pieces of paper can figure out the simple meaning of this; however, to give you a little assistance, what it means is that I'm not at all arrogant and it's merely in your eyes that I am. What I am, though, is FRANK and a no-bs type. If you prefer bs, pc crap, then by all means, continue to live that way, if that's how you like to perceive the world; however, don't ever pretend your two pieces of paper to be of any true significance to me, for reasons as stated above. That's what I have to think about many so-called highly educated types. I don't reduce humanity to mathematics or science, but instead take the opposite pov, which is to put these sciences to the service of HUMANITY. Hence I BELIEVE in PEOPLE, far more than I believe in the sciences we discover and develop, but use so atrociously. If you don't grasp this truth, then believe me when I tell you, you'll never be convincing, not to me. If you knew how to read, then you'ld have realized very clearly that I wasn't bragging, but only describing my pov and reasoning to illustrate. T'was not at all for bragging, because, as per above. mike -Original Message- From: Mike Corbeil [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2000 2:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1 Alan Shoemaker wrote: Mikecorrect me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the guy who's been telling some folks in this list that their questions aren't appropriate for this forum and to go ask them in the expert list? Well I think that your response in this thread (quoted below) was not appropriate for the newbie list. The remedy here was very simple and your four rambling paragraphs have simply served to confuse the issue. Not really, but then maybe I've been accustomed to less than trivial for longer than I can recall. When I first started learning about computers and programming, my ramble wouldn't have caused any problems, but then I also had a few years of math and physics behind me. Nonetheless, if I think back to before that, then I wouldn't have been put off by a more thorough explanation. Heck, my father wanted me to help him remodel the house when I was a mere 8 years old; therefore, I've been held to above normal expectations for decades. If you're confused, then don't think that this means that everyone else who's a newbie would also be confused. As I recall in school, in every course, at every level, not everyone was equally comfortable with the material. What I prefer to do when I find an answer or document too complicated, is to stick with the one I was more comfortable with, as long as it works. Otherwise, I just ask questions for clarification. We're not communicating between people in grade 1 of elementary school, here; therefore, expect some people to provide more thorough answers. When you don't like it, move on. If newbies seeking help scream in panic, then this will definitely help to indicate that what you say is true, but as it is, you're pretending to be able to speak for them, instead of letting them speak for themselves. As a relative newbie to Linux systems administration, but not to Unix and programming, I presented information I learned as a newbie to Linux systems administration, and based on this, the additional info wasn't out of context. Besides, newbies also need to learn the system and some will catch on very quickly, while those who don't, can either ask for clarification, or stick with the simpler responses they've received. How complicated do you want to make this? Some people in the newbie list have already proven that they're not newbie; only to installing
Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1
Alan Shoemaker wrote: Mikenever mind, you just don't seem to get it. I consider this subject closed. Maybe for you, but if others wish to provide more educational information, then believe me when I tell you, I'll be glad to read it. You can just skip the thread. Never prevent others from learning topics that are useful and are relevant to newbies to Linux. Some don't want to read it and some do; therefore, those who don't can just skip, while letting those who wish to learn more, gain the knowledge others are willing to share. This rule of thumb should be so simple and straightforward that no one should ever feel any need to comment about whether a thread should closed, because you're not the God over what others care to share and learn, especially when it's related to the mailing list. If it was a topic unrelated to the mailing list, or more suitable for the other mailing list(s), then I wouldn't disagree, but the topic is related to this mailing list, and a couple of others have shown their support, one by also saying that he/she likes to learn and the other providing more knowledge. If you can explain what's wrong with that, then I'm prepared to read your pov. mike Alan Mike Corbeil wrote: Alan Shoemaker wrote: Mikecorrect me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the guy who's been telling some folks in this list that their questions aren't appropriate for this forum and to go ask them in the expert list? Well I think that your response in this thread (quoted below) was not appropriate for the newbie list. The remedy here was very simple and your four rambling paragraphs have simply served to confuse the issue. Not really, but then maybe I've been accustomed to less than trivial for longer [snip] [snip] argumentation or discourse. mike Alan Mike Corbeil wrote: Alan Shoemaker wrote: Bobyou also need to include umask=0 on that line in /etc/fstab. Must be a fairly new requirement, or there's a difference in the default umask value between RH 5.1 and Mandrake, because I don't need umask=0 to be able to write to my dos partitions. I merely set it to noauto,rw and this is adequate. The only reason you'ld need to included umask=0 is because of the system-wide default value for it, probably defined in /etc/profile or /etc/bashrc. This may also depend on whether you're allowing only root to write or make changes to the dos partitions, or also allowing users. I don't give users access to my dos partitions, albeit it's a standalone system and I'm the only user anyway. I read somewhere, recently, that umask should be set to 0 in the system-wide login scripts, but that's the opinion of one author of documentation. If, however, you're going to set umask to 0 for the dos partition(s), then you might want to simply set the system-wide value to this anyway, which means you wouldn't need to include this in fstab. You'ld need to do some research through various documents which touch upon this subject, before taking my word as gospel. mike Alan Cox Family wrote: another stumper for me? I just wanted to make a new directory on the DOS partition that I could put some WP8 files in (because the apostrophe comes out on the printer as something stupid in Linux right now) and it said I didn't have permission. I checked the "fstab" and hda1 includes "user" in permissions. I checked properties by right-clicking on the icon and it includes user, group and others for both read and write. OK, so I made the directory as super-user, gave it "a+rwx" permissions, and still couldn't save a file in it. Access denied. No permission to write or what ever Again, what am I missing here? Bob
Re: [newbie] cd-roms
David Herman wrote: I'm having a problem ejecting cd-roms (on a dvd drive). If I haven't accessed the drive or if I've accessed it through kfm then I can eject by pushing the button on the drives face, but if I've been using kpackage or rpmdrake I can't eject the disc unless I try to install a package that is not on the current disc. Close kpackage or rpmdrake, first, or move the current directory to one which isn't on the cdrom or dvd drive. Sometimes this causes umounting to fail, because the device is still considered in use. Closing kpackage and rpmdrake should definitely allow you to eject the cd. If the cd still won't eject after this and you have cdrom or dvd drive icon on your desktop, then position the mouse cursor over the icon, click the right or left mouse button, and if a menu appears with umount or unmount as an option, then choose that. If an option says eject, then choose that. kpackage is still in development, I believe. Was as per a couple or few months ago, the version I downloaded anyway. If that doesn't work, then follow-up. There are other possible solutions, however you could also open a terminal window and run eject /dev/hdc or what ever /dev/hd? device file your drive is attached to, which you can verify in the /etc/fstab file. If that also fails, then check the man page for eject and umount. mike Is yhere a way to use the context menu to eject a disc from the workspace? Thanks for any help Dave
Re: [newbie] Linux Partition
flupke wrote: andy wrote: How come when you are in Linux, you can see your Windows partition, but not the other way around?? It's because Micro$oft developpers couldn't ever think that someone uses zinblow$ and another OS at the same time. In fact, I don't think that they are aware that there are other OS'es. But there is a tool called explorext2fs that allows you to browse your ext2 filesystem from zinblow$. Never heard of that tool before. Is it available from MS's web site, or share or free-ware? I don't need it, but others here might be interested. Have you tried it and if yes, then what did you think of it? mike HTH Flupke
Re: [newbie] Linux Partition
George Jones wrote: Because Widows is SUPERIOR You will never need another OS. Forget all of this Linux hoopla!!! Forget... Forget... You will obey the desktop overlord Willam Gates! Bwaahahahahahahahahahahaha He at least ack'd at least twice last year that Linux is a definite competitor for a platform. That was refreshing to hear. Didn't need it to believe, but was good to hear. Only the grunts in the trenches don't want to admit it. I'm sure he'll be happy to port his apps to Linux, because he's in business to make . Don't underestimate too much. mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 04/19/2000 02:57:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: (bcc: George Jones/US/ABNAMRO/NL) Subject:[newbie] Linux Partition How come when you are in Linux, you can see your Windows partition, but not the other way around?? Andy
Re: [newbie] RE:MS WORD
Michael Holt wrote: Abiword does a good job of importing MS word, but it's still in it's infancy. I've just bought Corel Office 2000 deluxe, and I'm very pleased with it; it imports and exports MS 97 / 2000 files as well as most other popular formats. SO isn't bad, for Linux anyway. Doesn't have the fancier MS Word kind of gui, but can get the job done, and imports as well as exports MS Word format(s). Corel WP is based on the older WP and although I haven't checked it out yet, it's probably a fairly fine app, and there's a free version for at least checking out the suite, I believe. WP was the strongest competitor with MS Word for a fair number of years, and always remained useable. Corel merely took over WP and converted it to Java, although, don't know if it's still in Java or not. SO is supposedly buggy on MS platforms, but based on the review I read, these problems shouldn't occur on Unix or Linux. There's also Applixware for an office suite, but haven't a clue if it imports/exports MS Word format(s). I examined SO last december, MS version, and although I didn't try everything, and the gui aspect wasn't quite as "refined" as MS Word, I wouldn't hestitate to use this office suite. I don't care about fancy looking gui's as much as merely the functionality. In this respect, I wouldn't refrain from doing work with TeX and LaTeX, as well as other associated tools or add-ons. TeX produces very nice output. Otherwise, what's the big mistake you believe to have made? You left that aspect of your commentary hanging in "guess land", and I haven't a clue what you're referring to. mike Mike Emanuele La Rosa wrote: Maybe you are right but it crashes too many times and it has some bugs. I decided to write my thesis with Staroffice and sill I'm doing it, but now I'm quite sure that I've made a big mistake Star Office can open and save Word documents without problems. Depending (maybe) on the version of Word and Star Office. Note: Star Office is free (Not Open Source, but you don't have to pay for it) and in my opinion as good as MS Office. -- The Penguins are coming!!! Michael Holt [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1
Michael Holt wrote: Mike Corbeil wrote: Alan Shoemaker wrote: Mikecorrect me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the guy who's been telling some folks in this list that their questions aren't appropriate for this forum and to go ask them in the expert list? Well I think that your response in this thread (quoted below) was not appropriate for the newbie list. The remedy here was very simple and your four rambling paragraphs have simply served to confuse the issue. Not really, but then maybe I've been accustomed to less than trivial for longer than I can recall. When I first started learning about computers and programming, my ramble wouldn't have caused any problems, but then I also had a few years of math and physics behind me. Nonetheless, if I think back to before that, then I wouldn't have been put off by a more thorough explanation. Heck, my father wanted me to help him remodel the house when I was a mere 8 years old; therefore, I've been held to above normal expectations for decades. If you're confused, then don't think that this means that everyone else who's a newbie would also be confused. As I recall in school, in every course, at every level, not everyone was equally comfortable with the material. What I prefer to do when I find an answer or document too complicated, is to stick with the one I was more comfortable with, as long as it works. Otherwise, I just ask questions for clarification. We're not communicating between people in grade 1 of elementary school, here; therefore, expect some people to provide more thorough answers. When you don't like it, move on. If newbies seeking help scream in panic, then this will definitely help to indicate that what you say is true, but as it is, you're pretending to be able to speak for them, instead of letting them speak for themselves. As a relative newbie to Linux systems administration, but not to Unix and programming, I presented information I learned as a newbie to Linux systems administration, and based on this, the additional info wasn't out of context. Besides, newbies also need to learn the system and some will catch on very quickly, while those who don't, can either ask for clarification, or stick with the simpler responses they've received. How complicated do you want to make this? Some people in the newbie list have already proven that they're not newbie; only to installing Linux and only in some respects, more in some and less in others. By providing more thorough information in a newbie mailing list, as well as more elementary answers, this satisfies the entire group. If you're not happy with an answer which is correct, then skip. If you're not happy with an answer which is not 100% correct, but along the correct line(s), then correct the errors. This mailing list is for learning, as far as I'm aware, because getting help inherently implies learning. Part of accepting to learn is accepting to make errors or mistakes, and to learn from these. Why treat people like babies, instead of giving them something to chew on? People using this list to get help for their employment should subscribe to professional support mailing lists or resources; therefore, I don't perceive these mailing lists except for the much more general audience, including hobbiests. My case is neither of these, but instead merely learning, to merely become more marketable, kind of like going to school, but without the tuition fees and the piece of paper at the end. You'll find people using these mailing lists for various reasons, but you seem to only want to reduce or restrict to people who are 100% newbie to computing, which is not the reality. If you wish to share more about your pedagogical philosophies or approaches, then feel free. However, I wouldn't bother based on this thread, because what I presented is not really above the newbie level. Again, I learned it during my newbie phase to Linux systems administration, but then I tend to spend a fair amount of time reading ahead and reading various documentation I come across and which might be even remotely related. Just because others don't do this, doesn't mean that this approach isn't relevant to people at the newbie level. Baby food is nourishing, but it's usually more nourshing when there's an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals. I'm not knocking the response to set umask to 0 for the dos partitions, in the fstab file, but also didn't present anything above newbie level. Hence, argumentation or discourse. mike Mike, I've been watching your posts for the last couple of days. You know, sometimes it's just good to add a couple of lines to a post if you think you can help, you don't have to write a novel every time someone says 'help'. That's about as helpful as reading a howto. I have to agree with Alan here
Re: [newbie] GNU, what does GNU stands for ?
Mike Tracy Holt wrote: GNU is a 'recursive acronym' which stands for 'GNU is Not Unix'. Mike That's the superficial way of looking at the world. If you really want to know what something means, then you've got to dig a little deeper. http://www.gnu.org tells the interested all about it. E.g. You go up to someone and ask them, where's town and the person says "it's over there". You look at the general direction their nose is pointing in, or their finger. Do you find that helpful? Maybe, but certainly not much, especially if you don't see the sign to the entrance of the town from where you're standing. "GNU is Not Unix" can simply refer to the fact that the products aren't developed strictly for Unix, but instead ported to many platforms. Still, that doesn't do much justice to the meaning of GNU and all that's gone into it. GNU is a relatively major story in, or part of, the history of computer sciences. Read all about it at the above url. mike - Original Message - From: "Mike Corbeil" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 4:01 AM Subject: Re: [newbie] GNU, what does GNU stands for ? Josep Molero i Puig wrote: Hi everybody ... I'm very new in Linux world (just a week) and this weekend I have bought a book about LINUX. I have been reading it with interest... There is a word that appears very often. GNU General Public License. GPL for short. I think I know the sense of this General Public Sense... And I have read that GNU stands for : Gnu is Not Unix But in this case, GNU appears again ... So what does GNU stands for ?? It's a recursive standing for ?? You will be able to learn all you want to know at http://www.gnu.org mike
Re: [newbie] HELP!!
Jamey Patrick wrote: You all are going to laugh at me for doing this or asking this but, I need some kind of software to COMPLETELY erase all my partition info. Some how i manged to screw it up, My hdd is 3.2gb's and i meant to give half to linux and the other half to windows. Well some how i manged to give only 900megs to windows and the rest to linux, so i downloaded a programed to resize it. But somehow it screwed my whole hdd up and now i only have a 900meg hdd! Ive tried Fdisk and it doesnt even show anything! If anyone could help me i would be more than grateful to you! Sorry for such along message. Thanks What did you use to run fdisk when it didn't show anything? Were you able to login on your Win partition and that's where you ran fdisk? If yes, and I think that this is what you did, then I believe dos fdisk still doesn't see Linux partitions. If you can see your first dos partition of 900MB, with dos fdisk, then you could run that fdisk again, and create another dos partition for the remainder of that half of the hdd, or split that portion into two additional dos/win partitions (logical drives). Create the second and possibly third dos drive(s) and format. Then, do your Linux install, which will provide you with an interface at some early point to create Linux partitions, and complete the install on the second half of the hdd. If you want one single partition for dos/win, then delete the 900MB one and recreate with the size you want. I don't know why you'ld want one single partition for dos, though. You can create additional logical drives, which will provide long term flexibility. Also, I don't know which OS you plan to work with the most, but you might want to consider allocating more space for Linux, maybe 1GB for dos/win and the rest for Linux; or even less for dos/win, but 2GB for Linux is a nice size for someone starting out. If you only have one hdd and don't plan on purchasing another to add a second hdd, then you might find it worthwhile to get a reliable disk partitioning tool which supports resizing partitions without losing the data on targeted partitions (as well as others of course). Otherwise, you might or would eventually find it preferable to not have created one single dos partition taking up half the disk. If you used half the hdd for dos/win and created two or three different dos partitions, or logical drives, and you ever find yourself needing more space for Linux, then you'll have an easier time of getting that space. If you use one partition for dos/win and use half the disk, then you won't have this capability, not without a partitioning tool which supports resizing without losing data (e.g., Partition Magic), or creating backups and recreating your dos/win partition in a more tedious manner, requring use of fdisk and reinstalling your dos/win configuration from the backup(s). How many HDDs do you have on your machine? Do you foresee adding another one within the next year? How many applications and what applications do you plan to use on your dos/win partition? Do you plan on developing on one and porting to the other, such that you'ld need about equal space for both systems? What are your plans? If you only plan to use dos/win for MS Office, for example, then you don't need to create a large dos/win partition for this. 300MB would likely be more than ample for total dos/win configuration. You could consider something like the following scheme or schema (total 3.2GB): 2GB - main Linux configuration 1GB - all dos/win partitions (or dos/win configuration) .2GB - a "rescue" Linux configuration, very base/minimal install If the above 300MB condition would suit your needs on the dos/win partition, then you could add this to Linux, and instead of creating a .2GB rescue Linux configuration, create a 900MB to 1GB one for testing new packages and software builds, before installing on your primary Linux configuration. It's not a bad idea to have a second Linux configuration for testing new installs or upgrades and software builds, before making the changes to the primary Linux configuration. This way, if such a test ends up screwing up the system, then you can always boot into the primary partition to work on recovering the test/build configuration, for example. Adding another hdd of similar or larger capacity would also be useful, eventually anyway. Just some ideas. mike
Re: [newbie] login
Daniel Anderson wrote: I've installed Mandrake 7 and cannot log in in console mode.Login to the gui works fine.I get a login incorrect message when I try to login to a console either as root or as a user.Any ideas? Thanks Dan During the install, did you at some point specify that you wanted to login starting with X and a window manager by default? I don't know how your problem could be occuring, because I've never run into this kind of problem. However, login with the gui mode and examine your .bashrc and .bash_profile files. Check if there's a command startx, which would probably be near the bottom of the file. If you see this command, then comment it out, by placing a # in front of the command. ACTUALLY, before doing this, go into gui mode and then choose to exit the gui environment. What does this do? Does it cause the system to return you to the login prompt, or to reboot, or does it leave you in a shell at a command line prompt? Do that ACTUALLY part and report the results, here, before doing anything else. Also note and report any error messages you see during boot. If you don't remember these, then run dmesg junk 21 Include the output of dmesg in your reply. The problem could be a non-problem or could be due to some configuration file, based on how you did the install. The file, in this case, might be correct, based on how you did the install, the options you chose. One possible example is if you chose an option to allow only login environments only in gui or X (not sure if this option exists, but believe to recall seeing something kind of like this). Wrt the latter, I just let it install for normal login and if at some point decide that I always want to start immediately with a gui, then I simply add the startx command to one of the startup scripts. If at some point I don't want this, then I merely re-edit the login script to comment out the startx line. I haven't heard of any bugs the other way, but this leaves me in the driver's seat. mike
Re: [newbie]
Chris Angus wrote: Hi, I've just installed Mandrake v 7.0 on an old pc (minus monitor) and have taken an instant liking to the funky window managers running on top of X. What would be the best way to get this running on my windoze PC? I've installed MIX which works ok but twm is hardly the same flashyness as KDE. This machine must be run remotely as more than one of us is sharing it. Does anyone know of either a groovy (free/very cheap) Win95 X-server with some neat window managers. A way of upgrading MIX's window manager. Try the following web sites. http://www.PLiG.org/xwinman/ http://www.x11.org/ http://www.xfree86.org/ http://www.gnu.org mike
Re: [newbie] Major Problem----still
BILL wrote: J D wrote: okay, i've tried several things to fix my major problem. nothing has worked. so how do i format my linux partition? last night i got bored and tried rm -rf / as i read to never do this unless i wanted to reinstall linux. but it didn't work. help! I would not suggest doing that, ever. There are better, more appropriate, ways of reinstalling linux or any OS. If you do rm -rf /, then this means to remove the root directory and I've never done this, but know that rm -rf /* will remove everything under the root directory. rm -rf / probably does the same thing, but based on other contexts, this would also remove /. In either case, this would mean not being able to shutdown or reboot the system using any command, because everything would be gone. You've got to explain your problem, because as you should obviously see, there's no description left of your problem, if you ever described it. You want help. Help others to help you. Explain what your problem is, with more detail. __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Okay, I don't truley know if this will help your MAJOR problem,but as a newbie I have had times where I too did somthing somewheres that sent my partitions kablooey.Tried lots of stuff that did n't work and wound up 'reinstalling" but installing another distro ;like Caldera,and letting it clean up the partitions when it installed,then I went back and reinstalled mandrake after the fact when I saw that the Caldera was successful. I've done this a few times and it has worked for me ,but then I/m a newbie,and only came up with this on instinct,couldn't tell you if it did anything to my machine or not .Don't think it has since I now have a nice Mandrake 70 install thats working to ,my satisfaction .Good luck if you decide to try this. Bill Not instinct; just desperation. This approach should not be required. You're better off asking in the expert mailing list, to learn how to properly handle your problems with Mandrake, even at the install level, before bothering with installing another distribution to try to recover. There are ways to recover or to do successful installs. mike
Re: [newbie] running windows in linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This sounds like a pcanywhere type interface threw telnet between Linux and windows98. Is that right? If so I could really use this type of interface. If it's not, is there another piece of software like this? Is there a site to read more or download and try? I tried the hummingbird site but did not get much specifications or info just hype. As others explained, Exceed gives you a "window" from your PC Windows OS into a remote Linux/Unix server, like telnet, except a telnet with a full gui. I don't know PCAnywhere; therefore, I can't give you any analogies other than telnet'ing into another machine, with a gui front end. This tool allows you to view the directory structure and files of the Linux/Unix server, to manipulate/modify/move/... files, run applications, compilers, etcetera, like you'ld be able to do with a telnet terminal, except with a full gui. The limitations with respect to what you could and could not do would be defined by the permissions your login account has, like a user account directly on a Linux/Unix box. That should probably do for an explanation of what Exceed is, and several people have confirmed that it's a good and reliable tool. Hence, I think that this should be enough. If you have any additional specific questions, then ask. I know or believe that PCAnywhere is to access remote PCs and if this is true, then there's probably a fair amount of similarity. mike Thanx in advanced Mike I am running Exceed right now. It is great, but it only a Xwindows clien= t, it doesn't allow you do have run both operating systems as such. You are right, if you have linux(UNIX) running on another box you can connect through Exceed and run Linux applications directly on a Win98/NT box. It connects through a telnet session same as any other telnet session. The difference is it creates an Xsession for you so that display can be expor= ted and stuff like that. =20 With that said, it is a terrific product, but I am not sure if its exactl= y what you may think it is? -Original Message- From: andy [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 11:13 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Re: [newbie] running windows in linux =20 I saw something in a magazine this month (PC World (UK version), I thin= k) for something called Exceed from a company called Hummingbird. =20 The trick here was someone had both Windows AND Linux running simultaneously, Linux was on a 'Dumb Box', and the Exceed software allo= wed the user to have both a Windows desktop and a Linux one. The software i= s about =A320 and you can get an 'Evaluation Disc' from www2.hcl.com (N= o, that ISN'T a typo, that is the address!!). =20 I'm not yet experienced enough with Linux to go for this yet, but certainly in a couple of months, it sounds just the thing I could use..anyone see= n this or had any experience with it? =20 Cheers =20 Andy Get your own free email account from http://www.popmail.com
Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1
Alan Shoemaker wrote: Bobyou also need to include umask=0 on that line in /etc/fstab. Must be a fairly new requirement, or there's a difference in the default umask value between RH 5.1 and Mandrake, because I don't need umask=0 to be able to write to my dos partitions. I merely set it to noauto,rw and this is adequate. The only reason you'ld need to included umask=0 is because of the system-wide default value for it, probably defined in /etc/profile or /etc/bashrc. This may also depend on whether you're allowing only root to write or make changes to the dos partitions, or also allowing users. I don't give users access to my dos partitions, albeit it's a standalone system and I'm the only user anyway. I read somewhere, recently, that umask should be set to 0 in the system-wide login scripts, but that's the opinion of one author of documentation. If, however, you're going to set umask to 0 for the dos partition(s), then you might want to simply set the system-wide value to this anyway, which means you wouldn't need to include this in fstab. You'ld need to do some research through various documents which touch upon this subject, before taking my word as gospel. mike Alan Cox Family wrote: another stumper for me? I just wanted to make a new directory on the DOS partition that I could put some WP8 files in (because the apostrophe comes out on the printer as something stupid in Linux right now) and it said I didn't have permission. I checked the "fstab" and hda1 includes "user" in permissions. I checked properties by right-clicking on the icon and it includes user, group and others for both read and write. OK, so I made the directory as super-user, gave it "a+rwx" permissions, and still couldn't save a file in it. Access denied. No permission to write or what ever Again, what am I missing here? Bob
Re: [newbie] running windows in linux
Kurt donald Cobain (on windows) wrote: take me off the mailing list Hmmm. Quite a change of topic, don't you think? Exceed = "take me off the mailing list". WOW! Don't see the relationship. mike - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 4:07 PM Subject: Re: [newbie] running windows in linux Exceed is quite a mature product. It turns the windows based PC into X Terminal. The window manager you use depends on your X server. I have used Exceed on a PC (Pentium 133) and the X server was on Sun. Hence, Exceed does not require a high spec PC. M.
Re: [newbie] Loging on
Sami A. Kutbi wrote:
I'm looking for a way to log in as root while i'm in a user in KDE. with
out logout and login out from user...
Thanks for the help
Bring up a terminal window and su to root
su root
or just
su
Then, you'll be prompted for the root password and until you close the
window or run
exit
you'll be working as root.
If you want to do a complete login as root, to be placed in root's home
directory, instead of remaining in the directory currently the present one
in the terminal window, then add the -l option
su -l {user}
where in your case {user} would be root.
Adding the -l option runs or sources the login scripts of the user you su
to, eg., .bashrc, and makes your present working directory (pwd) the home
directory of that user, as if you had logged in to that account from the
initial login prompt.
With the -l, these scripts are sourced or run and you don't change
directories until you explicitly do a cd.
If -l doesn't do this, then read the man page on su
man su
-l is what was used on Unix and I believe to have used it a couple or few
times in Linux, but do it so rarely that I'm guessing that I'm remembering
correctly. Definitely -l on Unix, though.
mike
Re: [newbie] apache install
jeff beddow wrote: Where is the document that describes getting Apache running under Mandrake 7.0? I hope it isn't under my nose. Thanks for any help. try the LDP at http://www.linuxdoc.org (or .com) There are man pages, HOWTOs, FAQ, ... there. You might also find documentation locally, under /usr/doc/HOWTO and in /usr/doc. for a local search, to find the file or directory containing documentation on apache, try find /usr/doc | grep -i apache Under /usr/doc/HOWTO, there are a number of HOWTOs on various servers and server topics. LDP is worth checking out. The documentation doesn't always provide enough information or examples, but worth checking anyway. mike __ Do You Yahoo!? Send online invitations with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com
Re: [newbie] Books
Dreja Julag wrote: Can anyone direct me to any good books covering all areas of Linux, including networking, maintenence, troubleshooting, history, using, etc? This would be very helpful. I already have read Linux for Dummies. Howtos can end up being very dificult to read and there are very few. Thanks :) Books titled "xxx for dummies" tell you exactly what these books are, low quality. Try O'Reilly. They have a web site and probably the most thorough coverage of Linux, Unix, X, and everything related, of any publisher. There's usually a fair sampling of their books at good bookstores and you can probably mail order over the web, or by phone, or just get the bookstore which carries any of their books to order books they don't have and you want. BN usually gives around 30 days to check out the book and return if you don't want it, I believe. mike
Re: [newbie] More X Stuff
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ok, I'm playing w/ X config stuff, and found a neat util that directly reads my settings from the monitor. But when I put the generated modelines into XF86Config it errors out when I start an x server saying the dotclodk is too high. So where in h**l do I change the maximum dotclock? I can't just run xf86config b/c it locks up my scsi card, and I use a scsi hd as my /. Any ideas appreciated. Check SuperProbe, all lowercase except the S and P, which are capital or uppercase. There's a man page for this tool, which you should read, first. man SuperProbe mike
Re: [[newbie] more LILO trouble]
Michael Scottaline wrote:
"Leanne Leith" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[snipped]
All the other lines have "***= something"
My second line has "root= "
Try telling it where your root partition is located. for example, hda5, or
whatever partition actually has your /
Mike
That would be /dev/hda5, or what ever hd[ab]{n} your / (root directory) is located on.
If
you leave out the /dev/ part, then this won't work, I believe. Definitely works with
the
/dev/, as long as the hd[ab]{n} part is correctly mapped to your / directory.
Other mike
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Benjamin Frankilin
Sounds good. Had a fine Quebec micro a few times called "Don De Dieu", which means
exactly
what you said, "Gift from God". God also obviously isn't cheap, because it's a nice
9%.
Same brewer also brews "Fin Du Monde" and "Maudite", translated as "End of the/this
World",
and "Damn" (for damn fine brew, albeit prefer Fin Du Monde).
Higher % means less pollution, due to fewer bottles for those who don't recycle to
leave
lying around. Not my category, but saves on the number of bottles you need to open
until
you're satisfied (good developers or programmers are "lazy", ya know, in the sense of
avoiding unnecessary work, or reinventing the wheel).
Just a btw aside joke.
Re: [newbie] need list
flupke wrote: KompuKit wrote: Hi...does anyone know WHERE (online)...I can get a list of all the COMMANDS for linux...that are used in a terminal access...for instance, in a rescue mission...or whatever... or that are used in a command line prompt...etc. ? I need to have a hardcopy of them...in case of emergency, I need them also to specify...the purpose behind each command, and their syntax...etc. You really want ALL of them? Then, you can get a list with this command : ls /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin Then you can have a doc about these with the man pages. But if you want most of them, someone posted a link to a really good pdf book that contained a good number of them. Unfortunately, I can't remember where it was. Look at the archives to find it. HTH Flupke Try xman. This is a gui for man. You need to bring up the man page for each command, but xman categorizes commands in a fairly nice format. Run xman in a terminal window from your window manager or desktop. The will place the job in the bacground, which permits you to continue using your terminal window for other work, or to close that window. mike
Re: [newbie] GNU, what does GNU stands for ?
Josep Molero i Puig wrote: Hi everybody ... I'm very new in Linux world (just a week) and this weekend I have bought a book about LINUX. I have been reading it with interest... There is a word that appears very often. GNU General Public License. GPL for short. I think I know the sense of this General Public Sense... And I have read that GNU stands for : Gnu is Not Unix But in this case, GNU appears again ... So what does GNU stands for ?? It's a recursive standing for ?? You will be able to learn all you want to know at http://www.gnu.org mike
Re: [newbie] MAJOR PROBLEM!!!!
J D wrote: i don't know what i did, but here's the problem: when i try to boot, it starts off normally, but when it checks the root filesystem, it fails. this is what it says after: The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 device :Is a directory while trying to open/ [FAILED] ***An error occured during the file system check. ***Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot ***when you leave the shell. give root password for maitenance (or type Control-D for normal startup): if i type control d, it just reboots and goes back to the same thing. shit, i've only had linux a month. someone please help me out!! Don't do ctrl-d, give root password to go into maintenance mode, and then provide a copy of your /etc/fstab file, /etc/lilo.conf, and the output of dmesg. You'll want to run dmesg so that the output is redirected to a file, which you could then copy into the email, along with the fstab and lilo.conf files. To redirect the output of dmesg to a file, do the following dmesg dmesg.out 21 You probably don't need the 21 portion, but it won't hurt to add it. Or, take a look through the output of dmesg yourself, to see if you find any other indications of the error. This is all I can think of recommending at the moment and I wouldn't want to direct a user to run e2fsck or debugfs. For that, you'ld definitely want to post to the expert mailing list. I've done this, but not many times; therefore, I wouldn't want to risk leading you into making your problem worse than it already is. You might want to post the follow-up with the additional information requested, to the expert mailing list anyway. Also, include the version of the OS involved or in question. You can add the output of uname -a for this. You might also want to try running startx once you're in maintenance mode, to see what this does. Might not bring up X, but also shouldn't cause any harm. If it does bring up X, then exit from that and reboot, to see if the problem's been corrected. I haven't had quite the problem you're describing in this sense, but occassionally can't bring up X the first time I run startx, but trying startx again has always worked, so far. mike
Re: [newbie] path
rich wrote: I know this is probably a dumb question, but how do you add a directory to the path For instance, instead of going to /root/mozilla/ to run ./mozzila, I would like to be able to type ./mozilla in any directory. I don't know if your question's been answered, yet, or not, because I'm ripping through the many emails I have; however, no, you would not like to do that. ./ always means the present working directory. What you would like to do is to be able to simply type mozilla without the ./ or any / or dot. Try this. If mozilla is installed, then this should work. If this doesn't work, then more direction is needed, but will wait for your reply. mike
Re: [newbie] need list
Donald Carpenter wrote: If your familiar with DOS, There's a a good book you can buy. It's called "Unix for dos users" by Martin R. Arick I bought my copy at a local bookstore. It's very helpful I'ld suggest Linux or Unix in a Nutshell, from O'Reilly. I never needed a book like "Unix for dos users", "Unix for dummies", or any of that kind of material, but the Nutshell books are definitely worthwhile for beginners. Also, try running xman This tool brings up a gui for man pages with nicely formatted or laid out categories. cp = copy rm = remove or del or delete mv = move or rename cd = chdir ls = dir (but there are many options so check the man page, "man ls") ls -F = ls with / and @ and * at the ends of names of directories, symbolic links and executables ls -l = ls with long listing format df = filesystem space usage and availability as well as mapping du = disk space usage etcetera The Nutshell books are worthwhile. I haven't looked at the one for Linux and haven't needed it, because I have the one for Unix, plus know about the various sources of free documentation, but compare the two and purchase the one which seems most suitable. mike Dreja Julag wrote: In the redhat manual, there is usually a list of commands. Same for Mandrake, rather it be on the CDROM, or not. Drew Jackman [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ 20177604 - Original Message - From: "KompuKit" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Mandrake Linux" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 4:51 PM Subject: [newbie] need list Hi...does anyone know WHERE (online)...I can get a list of all the COMMANDS for linux...that are used in a terminal access...for instance, in a rescue mission...or whatever... or that are used in a command line prompt...etc. ? I need to have a hardcopy of them...in case of emergency, I need them also to specify...the purpose behind each command, and their syntax...etc. -- ===KompuKit=== Kit Goins ICQ# 7110071 [EMAIL PROTECTED]Lowell, Mass. Web Designer http://kitdesigns.bizhosting.com WebServer:http://kompukit.dyndns.org (Server Runs between M-F 6pm-12am,S+S 12pm-12am EST) ===KompuKit===
Re: [newbie] permissions, kde and msec
Dreja Julag wrote: I finally found the entry in the digest... This does not quite fit into my problem, really. If I have Mandrake 7.0-2 installed, I only need to mount the drives, manually, correct? Drew Jackman [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ 20177604 - Original Message - From: Dreja Julag To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 9:42 AM Subject: Re: [newbie] permissions, kde and msec Does anyone know the orginal subject to this message? I am wishing to know how to mount my DOS drive as well. Thanks Drew Jackman [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ 20177604Thank you Stephen, In the mean time I have been using the following work-around:- I removed the /mnt/DOS* and created /c-drive and /d-drive as the DOS mount points. The f/etc/fstab looks like this at the moment:- /dev/hda1 /c-drive vfat rw 0 0 /dev/hda5 /d-drive vfat rw 0 0 /dev/hdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hdb2 / ext2 defaults 1 1 /dev/hdb3 /usr ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdb5 /home ext2 defaults 1 2 /mnt/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount fs=vfat,dev=/dev/fd0 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0 With this configuration I have full ccess everything on the DOS partitions. I followed what I had done with doslinux. Also KDE does not lock up anymore when I use kfm to look in /mnt. I don't know what your problem was, but this should be /dev/hda1 /mnt/c: vfat noauto,rw 0 0 /dev/hda5 /mnt/d: vfat noauto,rw 0 0 Leaving out the noauto means to mount during the boot process and you don't want Linux to mount your dos partitions during the boot process. During the boot process, all you want Linux to automatically mount and check are your Linux configuration partitions. The following are probably also wrong /mnt/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount fs=vfat,dev=/dev/fd0 0 0 /mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount These should be /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy supermount fs=vfat,dev=/dev/fd0 0 0 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount or /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy ... /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom ... I've read that some people are having problems because of supermount and this could be changed to be also noauto. Your fstab looks kind of messed up. I don't know what /dev/pts is for, and haven't dealt with networking, however you might want to redo your fstab using a tool, such as linuxconf or fsconf. There's an alternative from Mandrake, but I don't know the name. dos partitions, floppy and cdrom should not be automatically mounted during the boot process. If you don't have a writable cdrom drive, then you want to specify read-only. Why you don't have a 0 0 for the cdrom, I'm not sure. Perhaps these are the defaults, but they're present in my fstab; although, I'm basing this on rh 5.2 or 5.1 (probably haven't updated the fstab since 5.1 packages were in place). Try the configuration tools. You can at least go through the gui tool to check what all of the parameter values. mike
Re: [newbie] path
Pittman, Merle wrote: add the "PATH=/dirpath/Mozzilla" line to your ".kshrc" file or ".bashrc" file, depending on what shell you run. Should not be added to either of those files; it should be added to .bash_profile, which is only sourced upon initial login. .bashrc is sourced every time you open a terminal window and the PATH generally doesn't need to be sourced every time you open a terminal window. It normally only needs to be set once. However, if the person having this trouble wants other users to be able to run mozilla or mozzilla, how ever it's spelled, then this should be added to the system-wide file, which is /etc/profile. The other option is to set it in root's local .bash_profile file and copy the change to the /etc/skel/.bash_profile file. These skel files get copied to each user's account home directory when ever a new user account is created, whereas /etc/profile is executed when ever any user logs in, every time the user logs in, but not every time a terminal window is opened (as for the $HOME/.bashrc file). Nothing will get broken by placing the PATH definition in .bashrc, but the PATH variable is not an item that changes dynamically or anything of the sort; therefore, .bash_profile is the more appropriate of the two files for this, that is, other than for /etc/profile. If you don't want to place the PATH definition in /etc/profile, but still want users to have access to mozilla, then place the definition in root's .bash_profile file and update the one in the /etc/skel directory. If you only want some users to have access to mozilla, but not all users, then you could place the definition in /etc/profile and then add the directory to PATH while using code to exclude the users you don't want to allow access to mozilla. I don't know mozilla; therefore, I don't know the name of the executable. You don't, however, want to include the name of the executable in the PATH. Only directories are specified in PATH. The only other alternative to modifying PATH would be to create an alias. This would leave PATH unchanged and assuming the mozilla executable is installed in /usr/local/bin, say, and this directory is not in PATH, the alias would be alias mozilla='/usr/local/bin/mozilla' If mozilla, however, is in /usr/local/bin and this directory isn't in PATH, then add the directory to your PATH, in the .bash_profile file. .bash_profile and .bashrc have dot's for the first character of the name, to cause these to be normally hidden files. In /etc directory, the files don't have a preceding dot, albeit the files in /etc/skel do, because these are used for creating the skeleton files for the home directories of users, when new user accounts are created. Hence, in /etc (but not /etc/skel) don't put a dot in front of the names of bashrc and profile. I don't know why /etc/profile was used, instead of /etc/bash_profile, but it may be for compatibility with ksh, because ksh also uses profile in /etc, while using .profile in the user home directory and .kshrc instead of .bashrc. Check where the mozilla or mozzilla executable is located. If it's in a system bin directory, then you can add this directory to PATH. If mozzilla or mozilla is under root's home directory, then only make the change to PATH locally to root, so only root has access to it, that is, if that's where the moz* executable is supposed to be installed. If that's not where it's supposed to be installed, then moz* should be reinstalled correctly. Whether or not it's installed from an rpm, you'ld need to look on the cdrom to find out. If it's in an rpm, then it should be under Mandrake/RPMS. You can mount the cdrom and run the find command to find out where the install package is, find /cdrom -name '*oz[z]illa*' or use /mnt/cdrom if you don't have a /cdrom on your configuration. The *'s in the find command are for wildcard searching, and the z with [] indicates that the second z is optional. I'm not sure exactly how it's spelled. Alternatively, to do case insenstive searching, there may be an option for find (you'ld need to look at the man page for find to see), you could run find as find /cdrom | grep -i "moz" If you don't have /cdrom, but do have /mnt/cdrom and would like a shortcut, then create /cdrom as a symbolic link to /mnt/cdrom ln -s /mnt/cdrom /cdrom You need to be logged in as root, or to su to root, to create this symbolic link, because only root has write access in /. mike
Re: [newbie] need list
jero wrote: Wow...never knew something like xman existed. i'm impressed! Been using Linux for about 4 years...and I never knew there were so many commands! I take it you tried xman. I discovered this tool on Unix many years ago and liked it, albeit also had a couple of years of Unix behind me, at least knowing cp, cd, pwd, ... Nonetheless, I think that xman, the way it categorizes commands for "user commands", "system administration commands", "system calls", etcetera, should be something all newbies learn about early on. Otherwise, a newbie, and even experienced people, would need to list the contents of /bin kind of directories and then look at the man pages for each command, to find out if the command might be suitable. Categorizing commands according to "tasks" makes xman a much quicker reference. There's still plenty of learning ahead, but catagorizing like this is definitely useful. I'll emphasize to get the point across to all using the newbie list. mike Jero Mike Corbeil wrote: Donald Carpenter wrote: If your familiar with DOS, There's a a good book you can buy. It's called "Unix for dos users" by Martin R. Arick I bought my copy at a local bookstore. It's very helpful I'ld suggest Linux or Unix in a Nutshell, from O'Reilly. I never needed a book like "Unix for dos users", "Unix for dummies", or any of that kind of material, but the Nutshell books are definitely worthwhile for beginners. Also, try running xman This tool brings up a gui for man pages with nicely formatted or laid out categories. cp = copy rm = remove or del or delete mv = move or rename cd = chdir ls = dir (but there are many options so check the man page, "man ls") ls -F = ls with / and @ and * at the ends of names of directories, symbolic links and executables ls -l = ls with long listing format df = filesystem space usage and availability as well as mapping du = disk space usage etcetera The Nutshell books are worthwhile. I haven't looked at the one for Linux and haven't needed it, because I have the one for Unix, plus know about the various sources of free documentation, but compare the two and purchase the one which seems most suitable. mike Dreja Julag wrote: In the redhat manual, there is usually a list of commands. Same for Mandrake, rather it be on the CDROM, or not. Drew Jackman [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ 20177604 - Original Message - From: "KompuKit" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Mandrake Linux" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 4:51 PM Subject: [newbie] need list Hi...does anyone know WHERE (online)...I can get a list of all the COMMANDS for linux...that are used in a terminal access...for instance, in a rescue mission...or whatever... or that are used in a command line prompt...etc. ? I need to have a hardcopy of them...in case of emergency, I need them also to specify...the purpose behind each command, and their syntax...etc. -- ===KompuKit=== Kit Goins ICQ# 7110071 [EMAIL PROTECTED]Lowell, Mass. Web Designer http://kitdesigns.bizhosting.com WebServer:http://kompukit.dyndns.org (Server Runs between M-F 6pm-12am,S+S 12pm-12am EST) ===KompuKit===
Re: [newbie] installation
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: hi all. this is my first question here so be gentle ;) i'm trying to install mandrake, but i am getting an error after booting off of a floppy disk. it said that the cd in the drive does not appear to be a mandrake cd. i have two CD drives. any suggestions on how to set up my HDDs and cd-roms for easy set-up? should the linux one be on the primary controller? hmmm.. i have two HDDs * one for winblows [primary controller] * one for linux [secondary controller] * each one has a slaved cd drive (1 cd-dvd, 1 cd-rw). any help would be sweet. If you don't get an answer in the newbie list, then ask in the expert list. I'm still using the old CDROM kind of drive; therefore, I could only guess about the answer, no better or more easily than yourself. However, because you said you're trying to install Linux, if the cdrom doesn't work in one drive, then switch it to the other drive while you're in the installation program and start one step back, to have the install program try to read the cdrom again. If that fails, leave the cdrom in the other drive and reboot. Then, if you still get no further, and don't get a more concrete answere, here, then ask in the expert mailing list. Those are my directions re. how to get around the corner, to the next block. mike
Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1
Anthony Huereca wrote: In /etc/fstab, add "umask=0" w/o quotes as one of the options at the end of hte partition you want to be writable. Should be right after the other options. Here's mine for instance: /dev/hdb5 /windows vfat user,exec,nodev,nosuid,rw,conv=auto,umask=0 0 0 And this is another thing Mandrake should do automatically. They mount it automatically for you right now, so it probally wouldn't be that hard for them to make it writable to everyone. Or maybe there's a good reason to leave it defaulted as read only. There's generally, as far as I'm aware, no reason to mount dos drives automatically. This should be a /mnt mount point and /mnt mount points aren't intended to be automatically mounted. On the other hand, I'm refering to automatically mounting during the boot process, instead of when the mount point is accessed later on. rw should make it writable. I'm not sure why umask=0 is needed, unless this is just because it's not ext2. rw, alone, makes ext2 filesystems writable. Filesystems which don't directly pertain to the actual Linux configuration you boot into should not be mounted during boot, unless you're dealing with networking (in which case I don't have enough knowledge to say one way or the other, except that in many a Unix environment, these are automounted only when a user tries to access them, instead of during the boot process). What I've read and helps to keep everything clearer is that what you create in / are symbolic links to the mount points in /mnt. E,g., /c: = /mnt/c: By using ls -l or ls -F against /c: or even just /, the user sees /c: is a symbolic link to a /mnt mount point and can therefore immediately realize or assume that this is not mounted during the boot process. mount /mnt/c:- will "automatically" mount /mnt/c: according to the definition in the fstab file, if there's a definition for it there. If that's not done, a user does ls /mnt/c: and /mnt/c: is automatically mounted, then this is automounting as is often known in Unix. Then, /c: is accessible, in all of these cases. I'm not sure what form of automatic mounting people are referring to, here, because automatic applies in all three cases, in different ways. In Solaris, automounting "foreign" filesystems refers to the latter meaning, as far as I'm aware, but because this is a newbie list, people could mean something different. Even in the expert mailing list, people could mean any of these three possibilities. "Automatic" is a fairly general concept and context usually helps to clarify the meaning. Explicit explanation always clarifies the meaning. So, which are you people usually referring to? The general recommendation of placing any filesystems which aren't mounted during the boot process in /mnt is a good idea, because it keeps a system configuration more immediately understandable. Mount points can be placed almost anywhere, even buried n directories deep; however, to become accustomed to creating configurations according to more general or "standard" guidelines, it's good to follow these. Create mount points in /mnt and symbolic links to these in /, or your home directory (/ is better, because in / these are accessible by everyone who has the privileges to use these). It's a little extra overhead in setting up, but when doing ls -F on /, for example, it's immediately evident that /cdrom, /a:, /floppy, /c:, /d:, etcetera, are symlinks to /mnt mount points. Mounting can't be done using these, because they're symlinks, but mounting is done relatively infrequently, while access is done much more often; therefore, the extra typing of /mnt for mounting and umounting is insignificant. Mandrake may have made / the location of these mount points, but this renders the system a little less immediately understandable, because any actual directory hard links in /, should be part of the main configuration. cdrom, dos partitions, and floppies aren't always in use and don't really make up part of the principal Linux configuration. These are "add-ons", whereas /boot, /var, /home, /usr, /tmp are not conceivable as "add-ons". That's the "religious" point of view, but most systems probably do it this way, for this kind of reasoning. You'll find the same kind of explanation in LDP and other documentation, as well as books. On many Unix systems, you'll find such mount points in other locations, such as under some /usr directory. Sometimes vendors may choose to change the more standard ways, but this can potentially cause problems over the long term, as you switch from one environment to another. By adhering to "convention", this kind of problem is avoided. Also, not all programs accept symbolic links, as far as I'm aware (ran into one or two about a week ago). /mnt should not contain symbolic links, at least none used by programs, but / will on "conventional" Linux systems, where as not on others; therefore, some programs may need additional coding
Re: [newbie] MAJOR PROBLEM!!!!
J D wrote: dude, don't worry about leading me into more problems. i'll try anything that might work. i'm a newbie, and if it means having to get expert help, then i might just format my hard drive and start over. Done that before ample times. I never participated in lists like this until recently, and went through install failure and reinstall attempts, until I knew that the problem wasn't due to the local dude or machine, that I had done absolutely nothing wrong, and later learned through mags and reviews that I wasn't alone. However, today, Linux distributions are more mature; therefore, restarting the install process is surely worth a try. This has happened to me before, where an initial attempt at installing didn't work, but a subsequent one did. The most stubborn portion of the installs that finally worked, but which failed in this particular step, was creating boot floppies in the final step(s) of the install process. However, as long as the rest of the install works, then boot floppies can be created after booting up the system, from the root login shell, using mkbootdisk, or dd, albeit mkbootdisk automates the process; although, basically only requiring a little less reading. My experiences were with Slackware in 95, WGS in 97 (never got that one installed because there was a defect in the cdrom install), and since then RH. Based on all of the people exchanging in these mailing lists, Mandrake is installable, so give it another try. You shouldn't need to reformat your hdd; although, you may need to recreate your Mandrake partitions and filesystems. Give the install another try. If you're installing to the second hdd, then this might possibly cause problems with respect to the /boot filesystem, if you're also placing it on the second hdd. This shouldn't happen, but might. If you install everything on the second hdd, then you'll want to place LILO on the first hdd, or create a boot floppy for sure. If you're using large HDDs, and the second attempt at install fails, then you might find useful information in the Large Disk HOWTO, of the LDP, at http://www.linuxdoc.org mike From: Mike Corbeil [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] MAJOR PROBLEM Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 07:55:05 -0400 J D wrote: i don't know what i did, but here's the problem: when i try to boot, it starts off normally, but when it checks the root filesystem, it fails. this is what it says after: The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 device :Is a directory while trying to open/ [FAILED] ***An error occured during the file system check. ***Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot ***when you leave the shell. give root password for maitenance (or type Control-D for normal startup): if i type control d, it just reboots and goes back to the same thing. shit, i've only had linux a month. someone please help me out!! Don't do ctrl-d, give root password to go into maintenance mode, and then provide a copy of your /etc/fstab file, /etc/lilo.conf, and the output of dmesg. You'll want to run dmesg so that the output is redirected to a file, which you could then copy into the email, along with the fstab and lilo.conf files. To redirect the output of dmesg to a file, do the following dmesg dmesg.out 21 You probably don't need the 21 portion, but it won't hurt to add it. Or, take a look through the output of dmesg yourself, to see if you find any other indications of the error. This is all I can think of recommending at the moment and I wouldn't want to direct a user to run e2fsck or debugfs. For that, you'ld definitely want to post to the expert mailing list. I've done this, but not many times; therefore, I wouldn't want to risk leading you into making your problem worse than it already is. You might want to post the follow-up with the additional information requested, to the expert mailing list anyway. Also, include the version of the OS involved or in question. You can add the output of uname -a for this. You might also want to try running startx once you're in maintenance mode, to see what this does. Might not bring up X, but also shouldn't cause any harm. If it does bring up X, then exit from that and reboot, to see if the problem's been corrected. I haven't had quite the problem you're describing in this sense, but occassionally can't bring up X the first time I run startx, but trying startx again has always worked, so far. mike
Re: [newbie] permissions on DOS_hda1
Stephen F. Bosch wrote: Cox Family wrote: another stumper for me? I just wanted to make a new directory on the DOS partition that I could put some WP8 files in (because the apostrophe comes out on the printer as something stupid in Linux right now) and it said I didn't have permission. I checked the "fstab" and hda1 includes "user" in permissions. I checked properties by right-clicking on the icon and it includes user, group and others for both read and write. OK, so I made the directory as super-user, gave it "a+rwx" permissions, and still couldn't save a file in it. Access denied. No permission to write or what ever With FAT partitions, you have to specify the default umask value in order to alter the permissions and make folders writeable. There's a blurb on this in the FAT portion of the mount man page. This should be taken care of by simply using one of the gui fs config tools, such as fsconf or linuxconf, or the drak one. If there isn't a bug in these, then use one of these tools and then verify the /etc/fstab file to make sure the settings are correct for the dos drives. You'll only know if there's a "bug" in these tools after verifying the fstab file. Try these tools until you find one which is reliable for this task, and if none are, then edit the fstab file directly. mike -Stephen-
Re: [newbie] path
David Hugh-Jones wrote:
I read this and tried to create a symlink from /usr/bin to my Mozilla
directory. But when I run mozilla I get the message 'run-mozilla.sh: no
such file or directory'. This happens even if I create symlinks to
run-mozilla.sh as well. What have I done wrong?
Where is your mozilla executable? Provide an explicit directory listing. Go to the
directory where mozilla is and do the following:
pwd junk 21
ls -l *mozilla*junk 21
Then send the contents of this file.
Also, tell us what user account you're trying to do this from, root or some other
user.
Did you check using rpm? Don't do this using "run-mozilla.sh". Use rpm with the
name of the package, minus the .i386.rpm or .{[no]arch}.rpm filename extension,
otherwise you'ld need to add the -p query option.
You might want to include the output from this rpm test.
rpm -qil mozilla* junk 21
Am not sure if you need to say 21 or 21 for the commands after the pwd one.
Try 21 and if this ends up obliterating prior text in the file, then start over
with 21. I just did a test and the 21 worked across the board.
mike
Re: [newbie] dumber than a door nail
Leanne Leith wrote: Okay, I successfully gunzipped some tar.gz files, now I can't access the sub-folders in them. I tried to use tar -zvf without luck, and tar -z all sorts of other combinations. what am I doing wront? Not enough hours in the day to learn all this stuff! Hours are required, but reading documentation and maybe a good book, like Linux in a Nutshell, or Unix in a Nutshell, and Essential Systems Administration, would surely be very helpful. Take the book where ever you go and when you have time, then read. You'ld find this would make a major difference with respect to the learning curve. However, I don't know why you're applying z in the options to tar. To extract, use x. If you're not trying to extract, then what are you trying to do? I'm not sure what you mean by sub-folders. Are you talking about directories or files? Directories are files in Linux and Unix, because everything is a file in Linux and Unix, but here I mean directories and files as per the more common understanding. Do you want to extract the entire contents of the archive, or only some directories and or files, but not all? Assuming you want to extract the entire contents of the archive, the following explains how to do this. If you only want to extract some, then we'll wait for your response. Complete extraction: Suppose you have file .tar.gz. To untar this, do the following: gunzip .tar.gz or, if it's the only .gz file in the directory, then simply gunzip *.gz Then, to untar, do tar xvf .tar or, if it's the only .tar file in the directory or you want all .tar files in the directory untar'd, then tar xvf *.tar That's x (for e-x-tract), instead of z. Be careful with these steps, though. At the gunzip level, if you have another .tar file in the directory and it's not the same, then you could clobber that file by gunzip'ing the .gz one. Similarly, untar'ing a .tar could clobber files. You need to be aware of this and where you're uncompressing and untar'ing. One thing you can do once the file is unzipped or uncompressed is to run tar with the options tvf tar tvf (maybe tf would be adequate, but I have no need to worry about the effects of v and therefore always use it to ensure verbose output). This lists the contents of the .tar file, like a toc (table of contents). When you use tvf, check the directory paths of the files in the archive. The paths will either be absolute or relative. If the directory paths are relative, then you could create a temporary directory, copy the .tar file to this directory and untar the file there. Then, you can examine the files there, or copy them to where you want them. This probably wouldn't be bad practice at first, for people who haven't used tar before. Once you're comfortable with the tool, then you'll be more sure of what you're doing when you extract in directories where existing files might get clobbered (overwritten or replaced). If the directory paths of the files in the archive are absolute, then it doesn't matter where you are, that's where the extraction will place those files. However, there may be a tar option to force local extraction, even in this case, instead of by the absolute paths (I think there is, but will let you check, if this is relevant to your task). Check the tar man page for this man tar You need to get used to man; therefore, might as well give it a try, now, before actually doing any extraction. (Of course, that's assuming man and the man pages are installed, which you'll immediately find out when you run man for tar. Should be installed. If not, then install the man pages - probably the man-*.rpm file.) If you don't use an option to force local extraction for an archive in which the paths of the files are absolute, then that's where the files will go, and you need to be sure that any files already existing in those paths and included in the archive, if clobbered, will be what you want for the result (replacement). There's probably a tar option for prompting on a file by file basis, that is, for the files being extracted and for which there's already a "copy" or instance in the paths the files will be extracted to. Check the man page for tar. It's very simple; therefore, don't panic and just read carefully without being so nervous that you make understanding more difficult. People seem to sometimes let their nerves get the better of them. Be calm and read carefully. There's no need to panic, until it's too late, and by then, it's probably too late to bother wasting energy panicing anyway. If you're not working on a critical system, then take mistakes as part of the learning curve, graciously, and, while you're at it, gratuitously. If, however, you're working in a mission critical environment or on a mission critical system, then tell your boss he or she is an idiot. Joking. If
Re: [newbie] Booting Up Multiple OS's
Yes, what you want to do can be done and without much trouble. andy wrote: I had a single 8.4gb hard drive, partioned with W98 in 6 gb, Linux in the remainder..Lilo worked just fine... I installed a 20gb h/d in addition to this this week-I've kept the original as master and the new one as slave. My plan was to put a completely clean install of W98 onto the new drive, make an image file using Norton Ghost, burn that onto a CD (Makes re-installing windows a brze!!), then drag all my personal files over and re-install the apps onto the new drive, then allow Linux to take over the entire original 8.4 gb by re-sizing the partitons. Fine..on paper (Or in my head!!) If you want to resize the Linux configuration without losing everything you have on it, then you'ld want to use a tool like Partition Magic, that is, if there are any alternatives to PM. PM has the capability of resizing partitions without losing anything, especially when increasing the size of partitions (not sure what PM does when you try to resize a partition to smaller than what's on it takes up, though). However, if you're going to have such large HDDs, then PM is probably something you should seriously consider getting. I heard that there were some problems with the 5.x version; therefore, you should do some research on this. You could check the zdnet, pcmag, cnet and such web sites: http://www.zdnet.com http://www.pcmag.com etcetera Those problems were reported last fall or earlier last year, though, so these have probably been fixed. When I'd done the fresh install of W98 on the new drive, I lost access to my original hard drive, so the only thing I could boot into was the new copy of W98.. I think I remember reading that, if you install Windows AFTER Linux, it over-writes the boot records so Lilo boesn't function any more. Is that right? Yep. The t*t that I am..I didn't make a boot floppy on my last Linux install (.hangs head in shame and stands in the corner!!) Look at it as learning. To cut this short then..I've finished up fdisk-ing the lot, installing Linux first onto the slave h/d in a 6 gb partition (Should be enough, shouldn't it??) Should be. If you eventually run out of space, then you can always create additional filesystems later, or manage differently. There are definitely ways of expanding later on without needing to redo everything just to gain more space. Might depend on what you plan to do, but 6GB would definitely be sufficient for many purposes. As per above, you can always create and add more filesystems later on. For example, say you created a /home filesystem of 1GB and you eventually run out of space, but this would still be adequate for /home. You could create a separate 1GB or large filesystem and move /home to that, while reassigning the space previously taken up by /home to another filesystem requiring more space that it's current size, only needing to modify the fstab configuration file. This isn't a great example, but it's an example of what could be done; although, if /home happened to be next to the filesystem requiring more space and following that filesystem, then you could delete the old /home filesystem or partition and expand the other one by the additional 1GB freed up in moving /home. The filesystem numbering would end up with a gap, if the new /home filesystem or partition was placed further on the same hdd, but this shouldn't be a problem (could in some cases, for PM, but think this example wouldn't be a problem for PM, albeit I still use PM 3.0). and I'll put W98 on the original 8.4 gb drive. Now, when I re-install W98 tonight, that mean that lilo will disappear again, won't it? Yep. So the question is..how do I boot into Linux without it (i've created a floppy disc this time, that will probably help) and once I've managed to get into Linux, can I then re-install Lilo at all? Make sure your boot floppy works before re-installing Win98. As long as the bf works correctly, then you should be able to do as you describe, being able to reinstall lilo and the works. You might prefer to use linuxconf or drakconf or drak?conf (not sure of the exact spelling and letter casing) for the lilo configuration, unless you know that the lilo.conf file is still accurate. If you're not sure, then use linuxconf or drakconf to make sure. (linuxconf will work, but I read earlier today that drakconf is or may be better.) mike
Re: [newbie] libjpeg.so.6 HELP!
Mike Corbeil wrote: Mike Corbeil wrote: That's --nopgp instead of --nopgpg. Added the extra g unintentionally. Try without --nopgpg, first. If it reports that no pgp key file is available, then try with --nopgpg. ALSO, read the available documentation on rpm related to pgp encryption, first, before installing anything with rpm. Sorry about that. After saying it's not --nopgpg, I go and type it, again, twice. Must've been sleepy eyed, or typing too quickly and not reading; however, I thought to have checked. Fizzing out, maybe. mike
Re: [newbie] Problems
Valjean wrote:
I have one 8.5 gig hd and one cdrom. I want to hook up two more hard
drives, copy some data from them, and then remove them from the system.
How do I get Linux to recognize them so I can copy, then remove them from
the system as easily?
Valjean
What type of HDDs do you have, IDE or SCSI? This is a piece of information
you could have included.
Assuming IDE, max two internal HDDs and not having a means of connecting the
two HDDs externally, the following is one way to do what you want to do.
From this you should be able to infer what to do under difference
circumstances.
- Install one of the HDDs as the second HDD, which will be seen by Linux as
/dev/hdb (for IDE)
NOTE: Refer to your PC system manual for how to install and change
HDDs for
electrical protection and proper jumper settings.
- Boot up your Linux configuration.
- Mount the hdb filesystem you'll be copying the data from (mount command,
if doing this from the command line).
- Copy the data from the hdb fs to where ever you want it on your hda Linux
configuration.
- Unmount hdb (umount command, if doing this from the command line).
- Shutdown your Linux configuration and power off the PC.
- Remove hdd
NOTE: Follow your PC manual for electrical safety, and reset
jumper settings to
the original settings.
- Repeat for the second HDD you want to copy data from.
This is a grosso-modo guideline. Make sure to follow your PC manual for
installing and removing HDDs. You want to follow this manual to also know
how to install the HDDs as secondary drives.
One way to mount hdb is as follows:
- Create the directory hdb in /mnt, that is, /mnt/hdb.
- Run the mount command to mount the filesystem on hdb.
How to run the mount command:
% mount -vt {fs-type} /dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb
This will allow you to access the fs on hdb. However, this is also assuming
that hdb has one, single, filesystem on it, or that the filesystem on hdb
you wish to access is hdb1.
If hdb1 is not correct, then you'll need to determine which /dev/hdb{n}
block device file to use, and this can be done using fdisk, running fdisk
with /dev/hdb as an argument:
% fdisk /dev/hdb
Once in fdisk, type p and press Enter. This will display the filesystems on
hdb, which shows the associated /dev/hdb{n} files the filesystems are mapped
to.
{fs-type} for the mount command's -t option depends on the type of
filesystem you'll be copying the data from. If it's a Linux filesystem,
then the value for -t is likely
ext2
If the filesystem is a MSDOS filesystem, then the -t argument is likely
vfat
You may want to specify another mount option, to mount read-only; however,
if memory is accurate, then this is the default, that is, filesystems being
mounted read-only (not whether or not my accurate memory should be
read-only, definitely doesn't sound like a good idea, unless born with all
of the knowledge one will ever need - lousy option for teachers).
You may need to be root to mount the hdb filesystem, depending on the
privileges assigned to the user account you'ld otherwise be using. If
you're doing this as a user other than root and the mount fails because the
user doesn't have the permissions to mount hdb, then simply switch (su) to
root and then run the mount command.
If you're using SCSI HDDs, instead of IDE, then the /dev file to use is not
/dev/hdb{n}, but instead /dev/sdb{n}. This should also be shown by fdisk,
and when you'ld run fdisk, the argument for fdisk would be /dev/sdb, instead
of /dev/hdb.
For more information, you can check the man pages for mount and fdisk.
% man mount
% man fdisk
Also, if you're running as root and using kde, then I believe that there's a
kde tool or utility for working with filesystems (mounting, unmounting,
adding, removing); however, I'm not sure which tool this is. I use mount
and umount.
In kde, you can create a destop icon for filesystem device and define it for
mounting and unmounting filesystems. However, this only mounts and
unmounts; although, might automatically bring up the tool for viewing, etc.
I'm not promoting kde over gnome. Haven't been using gnome, but definitely
plan to add it and begin using it soon, at least to check out both
environments. Until, then, though, I'll probably often refer to kde.
The command line umount command works as follows:
% umount /mnt/hdb
If you wish to take the time to modify the /etc/fstab file, then you could
add the mount information for hdb or sdb, depending on the type of hdd
you're using. This would permit running mount without needing to specify
the -vt option and argument as well as /dev/[hs]db{n}, as follows:
for IDE
% mount /mnt/hdb
for SCSI
% mount /mnt/sdb
This would then be all you'ld need to type when ever wanting to mount an hdb
or sdb (depending on whether you're using ide or scsi) filesystem mapped to
the same
Re: [newbie] shutdown problem
For problems of this sort, try reading the man page for the program or utility you're trying to use and don't seem to be able to get to work as you want. E.g., % man shutdown -h now is correct, but it's also important for newbies to be aware of the man pages and knowing this can sometimes provide quicker answers than asking in a mailing list. Reading the man page on shutdown would have given you the answer as quickly as it took for the initial question to be written, let alone waiting for the reply. mike mark willenbring wrote: shutdown -h now --- evan light [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi there...having a bit of a problem with shutting down 7.0. When I issue the "shutdown now" command, everything seems fine and dandy until it switches into "single-user" mode. If I try ctl-ald-del at the single-user prompt, I get the message "no authorized users logged in." If I try shutdown again, it spins for a bit and goes right back to single-user mode. At that point, I couldn't do anything but cringe and power it off.. Anybody have any ideas? -evan- __ Do You Yahoo!? Send online invitations with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com
Re: [newbie] How do I do this ???
Muhammad Hanif Bay wrote:
Hi
everyone,I'd like
to know, if there are any, ways to convert my linux-partitioned hdd(ext2)
into fat32 ???Please, help
medanke sehr.
Sure there's a way, and a few ways to boot.
Do you want to reformat the entire hdd, which hdd do you wish to format
(hda, hdb?), and if not the entire hdd, then what's the /dev/hd[ab]{n}
device file?
Also, do you have partition magic? Nifty tool for partition work
and certainly a worthwhile purchase, if you plan on needing to do this
kind of work a fair number of times over the next year or two or
three or more. I haven't regretted purchasing PM 3.x (3.0 I
think), and it's up to 5.x or higher now. One very nice feature of
this tool is that it allows you to resize partitions without destroying
the contents (I don't know of any other tool which has this capability).
You might find it sold at various prices; therefore, a little shopping
around might help to save as much as $20US.
mike
Re: [newbie] 7.0-2 version
Try % uname -a If this doesn't work, then check the versions of the kernel images and other boot files in the /boot directory. If neither of these work, then I'm not sure how else to check this. There may be a configuration file somewhere, which might contain this information; however, if neither of the above methods provides the information you want, then they should and you might want to report this in the Mandrake bug reports. mike Greg Martz wrote: I have been hearing about the above version, but saw nothing about it on the linux-mandrake.com web site. I then checked rpmfind.net and checking the VERSION file in both current and 7.0 I see that it is indeed marked as 7.0-2 (Air) When I do a Ctrl-Alt-F1, my mandrake install says 7.0 (Air). Are these the same versions? I have looked at the time/date stamps of all the files in the base folder for both my copy and the copy on rpmfind.net and they are the same. Is there a way I can check to see if I have 7.02 (Air) before downloading the whole package again? Thanks! Greg
Re: [newbie] help
Steven Cheong wrote: Hi there ! i hope someones can help me. I just finished install linux 6.0 to my pc and I attempt to install my video card driver which is sis 6215, but it doesn't be appeared in the database, so which driver should I use. thanxssteven Check with the video card vendor to see what other cards it's compatible with. If you have a manual for your video card, then you might find this information in the manual, which you should check before contacting the vendor. Perhaps someone here will know the answer to your question, however you might find better luck asking in the expert mailing list, because this isn't really a newbie kind of knowledge you're looking for. Subscribe to both lists, if you haven't. mike
Re: [newbie] Upgrade to 7.0 problems
Daniel Knapp wrote: Hello all, I have just upgraded from Mandrake 6.1 to 7.0, and almost everything still works (some things better than before). Unfortunately, when I try to run acrobat reader, or corel wordperfect I get the following error message: can't load library 'libXt.so.6' I don't get this message when I run staroffice, netscape etc. I checked for the above library and it seems to have been installed in the right places on my hard drive. I am mystified. Please help. Daniel If you don't get an answer, here, then check Corel's web site. I've never run into this kind of problem and therefore don't know the solution. Meanwhile, if you need to view .pdf files and you don't know of another tool, then try ghostview. I don't know how the display compares to adobe acrobat, but ghostview can be used to display, and I believe create, .pdf files. mike
Re: [newbie] Office
Huelskamp, VT wrote:
During installation I noticed that one of the packages was "office" is this star
office? how do you access the program? or do I need to download star office?
VT Huelskamp
USDA
Could even be office for kde, which I think is called koffice or k office with a space.
To see what this is (might want to start with the last method mentioned and then begin
at the top, here):
a) If office is installed and it's installed from an rpm, then run
rpm -qi office
You may need to give more information, depending on the name of this package.
b) If office is an rpm package and it's not installed, then go to the directory where
the
rpm file is located and install the package by running
rpm -vv -ivh --test {package-name}.rpm
{package-name} can be just office*, but use the fullest unique portion of the
name
if there are other, completely different packages beginning with office.
If this test works, then rerun the command without the --test option.
Then, run
rpm -qi {package-name}
This will tell you what the package is.
Afterwards, if you just installed the package to query what it is, then remove
it if
you don't want it installed, using
rpm -e {package-name}
c) If it's installed and not from a rpm package, or not one by the same name, then
you'll want to do an rpm query to find out if it belongs to a package and which
one. See the rpm
man page for the various query options (I believe there's one for this). If you don't
know how to display man pages, then it's
man {command}
For rpm {command would be replaced with} "rpm".
d) If all of the above fail, or you just want a shortcut to your answer, and office is
installed, then simply run it. If it installed from the Mandrake cdrom,
then there should no danger in running this application. If it did not come with the
Mandrake cdrom, which means you downloaded the application, then start with
step 'a', but run rpm to check the
signature and validity of the rpm package, first, that is, if it's not installed yet.
This is done by running rpm with the -K option, and if this reports an
error, then run rpm with the -K and --nopgp options, before trying to install.
Check the rpm man page to learn how rpm can be used. Very important read.
mike
Re: [newbie] Help with Mandrake install ....
J.Carson wrote: when in linux, login in as root at the prompt type lilo, and it should automatically detect windows, and leave that as an option, thats what happened to me If that fails, then login the same way again and this time run linuxconf. This is a fairly straigtforward gui tool for various configuration purposes, lilo being one of them. mike
Re: [newbie] Executing a command in AUTOSTART
You might want to ask the question in the expert mailing list, or get a good book on running Linux. O'Reilly's Running Linux is supposedly a very good book. mike Josep Molero i Puig wrote: U... I'm very young in Linux World (2 or 3 days old) and I'm just trying to learn a lot on few days, I think. - Now I know the right syntaxis of a command (smbmount command to mount a NT sharing) I'd like it to execute whe I begin a new session in my Linux... I think using the AUTOSTART program is a good idea ... but ... really don't know. How can I do it ?? Thanks -- Josep Molero i Puig [EMAIL PROTECTED] Departament d'Informàtica - Domingo Pascual Carbó, S.A. -
Re: [newbie] Help with Mandrake install ....
This is redundant of me, however linuxconf, a configuration tool a la gui, will make your life easy. mike Alvarez, Angel wrote: ok It seems that you will not boot windows Please, check where your windows patitions is (hda,hdb hdc, etc) then read the lilo-HOWTO and follow the intructions on hot to add an image ( it's easy) run lilo and the screen displays something like Added linux* added flopy added your_image_name (could be win, windows win9x, or whatelse) Angel Claudio Alvarez
Re: [newbie] Off Topic but good
Try the Perl mailing lists and newsgroups, if you don't find an answer here. One location which supports several mailing lists is at http://www.activestate.com That isn't Perl for Unix or Linux, and instead for win32, but you might get an answer there. Otherwise, you'll need to search the internet for mailing lists or newsgroups. mike Phil Lamey wrote: Cheers Group, Someone sent me this question and it has me clueless. Cna anyone provide any insight on a solution that would work for both Linux and Winblows? Thanks, Phil Lamey Hey Phil. I've got a Perl question for you. Do you know how to send an email, preferably with an attachment in perl. Without having to send an HTTP request to some isp? Thanks. Mike.
Re: [newbie] Problems
I'ld suggest two things to start with:
1) check out samba and maybe (?) smb; and
2) you should ask this question in the expert mailing list, perhaps after step 1.
You will probably need to install samba to get the documentation, or you could
look through the LDP on the web. That's the Linux Documentation Project and
Mandrake should have a link to it through the documentation page. If not, then
you can find the link through Red Hat's web site, through their documentation
links.
Through the LDP you'ld find documentation on networking and samba may be
incorporated or separate.
I thought you planned on installing the other hard drives in your Linux machine.
Seemed like something someone might possibly want or need to do. This'll teach
me to ask the questions, first, before going on at length.
mike
Valjean wrote:
Thanks for the info..I know all about removing and reinstalled hdds,
they're ide sorry. I know about the hard drive stuff, I just needed to
know how to setup Linux to recognize and mount them.
The two extra drives are actually at the moment in another machine, which
does have a NIC and runs Windows 95. I do have some crossover cable..how
could I software-wise set up the linux and windows machine to interface
and be able to share files?
Val
On Thu, 13 Apr 2000, Mike Corbeil wrote:
Valjean wrote:
I have one 8.5 gig hd and one cdrom. I want to hook up two more hard
drives, copy some data from them, and then remove them from the system.
How do I get Linux to recognize them so I can copy, then remove them from
the system as easily?
Valjean
What type of HDDs do you have, IDE or SCSI? This is a piece of information
you could have included.
Assuming IDE, max two internal HDDs and not having a means of connecting the
two HDDs externally, the following is one way to do what you want to do.
From this you should be able to infer what to do under difference
circumstances.
- Install one of the HDDs as the second HDD, which will be seen by Linux as
/dev/hdb (for IDE)
NOTE: Refer to your PC system manual for how to install and change
HDDs for
electrical protection and proper jumper settings.
- Boot up your Linux configuration.
- Mount the hdb filesystem you'll be copying the data from (mount command,
if doing this from the command line).
- Copy the data from the hdb fs to where ever you want it on your hda Linux
configuration.
- Unmount hdb (umount command, if doing this from the command line).
- Shutdown your Linux configuration and power off the PC.
- Remove hdd
NOTE: Follow your PC manual for electrical safety, and reset
jumper settings to
the original settings.
- Repeat for the second HDD you want to copy data from.
This is a grosso-modo guideline. Make sure to follow your PC manual for
installing and removing HDDs. You want to follow this manual to also know
how to install the HDDs as secondary drives.
One way to mount hdb is as follows:
- Create the directory hdb in /mnt, that is, /mnt/hdb.
- Run the mount command to mount the filesystem on hdb.
How to run the mount command:
% mount -vt {fs-type} /dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb
This will allow you to access the fs on hdb. However, this is also assuming
that hdb has one, single, filesystem on it, or that the filesystem on hdb
you wish to access is hdb1.
If hdb1 is not correct, then you'll need to determine which /dev/hdb{n}
block device file to use, and this can be done using fdisk, running fdisk
with /dev/hdb as an argument:
% fdisk /dev/hdb
Once in fdisk, type p and press Enter. This will display the filesystems on
hdb, which shows the associated /dev/hdb{n} files the filesystems are mapped
to.
{fs-type} for the mount command's -t option depends on the type of
filesystem you'll be copying the data from. If it's a Linux filesystem,
then the value for -t is likely
ext2
If the filesystem is a MSDOS filesystem, then the -t argument is likely
vfat
You may want to specify another mount option, to mount read-only; however,
if memory is accurate, then this is the default, that is, filesystems being
mounted read-only (not whether or not my accurate memory should be
read-only, definitely doesn't sound like a good idea, unless born with all
of the knowledge one will ever need - lousy option for teachers).
You may need to be root to mount the hdb filesystem, depending on the
privileges assigned to the user account you'ld otherwise be using. If
you're doing this as a user other than root and the mount fails because the
user doesn't have the permissions to mount hdb, then simply switch (su) to
root and then run the mount command.
If you're using SCSI HDDs, instead of IDE, then the /dev file to use is not
/dev/hdb{n}, but instead /dev/sdb{n}. This should also
Re: [newbie] HELP!!!!!
Stephen F. Bosch wrote:
Claus Atzenbeck wrote:
before. Any ideas? Also, from console, what the hell is the shutdown
command??
"reboot" or "halt"
reboot will reboot the machine =)
shutdown will also reboot the machine, if the correct option is specified;
although, for this, reboot is a "shortcut" and therefore what's typically
used. If not mistaken, then I believe reboot is "mapped" to shutdown (with
"-r now" as the options, I believe).
reboot
is equivalent to
shutdown -r now
DOCUMENTATION:
However, for the newbie who asked what shutdown is, and the real point of
this reply, when dealing with a Unix/Linux command, just do a man on the
command as follows:
% man shutdown
% man reboot
% man cp
etcetera.
("%" is to represent the command line prompt, and it could be different,
depending on how the prompt is defined.)
man is for displaying the manual pages for commands and there are other
documentation tools or utilities on Linux, such as xman, which brings up a X
gui for man, with menus to make searching easier, especially for newbies.
man won't work for all commands, because not everything is in man; however,
all core Linux/Unix commands should be there, and you'll eventually find
other things included in man, such as related to Perl.
E.g.,
% man perl
There's also the info tool on Red Hat, and probably Mandrake, however I
haven't played around with this tool enough yet to know it thoroughly.
If using KDE, then many commands can be searched for through the main
KDE Help menu or utility, which has a web browser kind of u.i. (user
interface). KDE Help allows searching through KDE proper documentation, as
well as man pages, and possibly other sources.
If using GNOME, then I don't know if the newer version of GNOME provides a
Help tool, but users should look for one and can certainly run man in a
terminal window.
Read the documentation which comes with the system and packages. There's
much documentation under /usr/doc. Bring up a browser like Netscape or
KDE FM and peruse the directories under /usr/doc. (emacs and gvim can also
be used.)
There's also the Linux Documentation Project, which provides an abundance of
documentation freely accessible over the internet. I don't recall the url,
however it can be found through many Linux web sites, including Mandrake's at
http://www.linux-mandrake.com and Red Hat's web site at http://www.redhat.com
To get up to speed more quickly with Linux/Unix commands, O'Reilly publishes
a Nutshell book which isn't expensive and is fairly, or entirely,
comprehensive. However, this kind of information can also be found on the
web.
Get accustomed to using the documentation; it's an essential skill for anyone
planning on earning a living with any operating system and tools.
WARNING:
If a user doesn't know what shutdown is for, then be VERY CAREFUL when
working as the superuser or root, which is often the only way shutdown and
reboot work.
If you're networked, then you want to make sure control over who can and
cannot reboot or shutdown your system is properly defined. The defaults
should be correctly set, though.
ADDITIONAL GIBBERISH:
If you don't have important, unbacked up files, on your system, or in the
configuration you're working in, then, what the hell, experience really,
effectively, burns in knowledge or understanding. However, the superuser,
i.e., root, or anyone with adequate root (superuser) privileges, can
obliterate an entire system with one command
% rm -fr /*
This would remove everything under the root directory, which means /boot,
/usr, /root, /home, /var, /tmp, /mnt, /etc, /usr/local and /usr/src, while
leaving the user with a system that cannot be rebooted or shutdown using the
reboot and shutdown commands, because /bin and /sbin would also be gone
(everything would be gone). The user would need to reboot and reinstall the
system, or restore it from backup if a complete backup was made and stored on
a separate filesystem or medium.
Also, I'm not 100% certain of this, however if rm -fr follows symbolic links,
then any other filesystems mounted under /mnt would also be entirely erased.
I won't check, now, but if the command wouldn't or doesn't follow symbolic
links, then this additional loss wouldn't happen. I don't think rm -fr
follows symlinks, but this total effect could happen by using rm with another
option, or in combination with the find command (little less easy using
find).
The last paragraph is a little extra, only to indicate that there's nothing
the superuser cannot do, with respect to the immediate configuration and
mounted filesystems.
Users can certainly experiment with this on their own, personal, systems, but
it could be a sure way of being fired from a job.
READ the documentation if you're new to Linux, which also means having no
prior knowledge with Unix. Even seasoned gurus refer to the documentation
when they're unsure of something.
ALSO,
Re: [[newbie] HELP!!!!!]
The better way to do this would be with linuxconf, if Mandrake has it. I've used linuxconf for configuring the LILO boot prompt, operating system choices and configurations, and changing the memory to reflect what's really available, and this worked fine, albeit this has been with RH 5.1 and 5.2. linuxconf should still be a recommended tool, as well as available with Mandrake, I believe. I tried adding the append line, manually, in the lilo.conf file, using vi, and this didn't work (for some reason?), but specifying the memory with the LILO boot prompt, and with linuxconf, both worked. linuxconf provides an easier and more intuitive gui for making such changes, and can be used for many other configuration purposes. If using linuxconf, then I don't think that lilo needs to be run separately afterwards, such as to copy the new lilo.conf to the MBR (if that's where you place it - it's the location I use); however, if after rebooting the changes weren't made, then do the following: - check the /etc/lilo.conf file to make sure the append line was added for the full memory; and - run lilo from the command line, which merely requires typing in the word lilo and pressing Enter. You might want to make sure that the device where the lilo configuration will be store is correct, then check this in the lilo.conf file. In my case, I have it written to the MBR; therefore, the line shows /dev/hda. There's also a man page for lilo.conf. If users need or want to know more about this file, then just run man on lilo.conf (worked in RH 5.1 anyway). linuxconf can be run from the login shell at the command line, or within KDE and other WMs, at least within a terminal window, and am very certain that lilo doesn't need to be run afterwards, unless the user tells linuxconf to not activate the changes. mike Michael Scottaline wrote: Robin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. Worked with NT for a while, and was just won over to the light side! I need help! I have just done my first install, and even though I have a single 256 MB DIMM, the system is only seeing 64!!?!?!? I have never seen this before. Any ideas? Also, from console, what the hell is the shutdown command?? Thanx, Robin. = You can try adding append="mem=256M" to /etc/lilo.conf But first try adding the mem command at boot time: linux mem=256M To shutdown from a console: shutdown -h now Mike "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -Benjamin Frankilin Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com.
Re: [newbie] libjpeg.so.6 HELP!
Bob Chin wrote: Eljaibo wrote: Anybody knows where can I get the libjpeg.so.6 library ? I want install PENGUS a LEMMINGS clon Linux and I need this library. I've MANDRAKE 7.0 Thanx :) Did you try installing the libjpeg-6b-11mdk.i586.rpm package? This is from Mandrake 7.0-2. You might have a different version. To install do rpm -Uvh libjpeg-6b-11mdk.i586.rpm Of course, before running this kind of rpm command, run the rpm command with the --test option, first rpm -Uvh --test libjpeg-6b-11mdk.586.rpm You might also want to include -vv for extra verbostity in this --test, and you might want to run rpm -K or rpm -K --nopgpg (the latter if there's no pgp key available for the file), before running rpm -Uvh without --test (-vv can be used with and without the --test option). --test definitely cannot hurt. Nor will -vv ever hurt (only producing more verbose output). -K is used for verifying the signatures on the rpm file(s) you're considering to install. mike
Re: [newbie] libjpeg.so.6 HELP!
Mike Corbeil wrote: You might also want to include -vv for extra verbostity in this --test, and you might want to run rpm -K or rpm -K --nopgpg That's --nopgp instead of --nopgpg. Added the extra g unintentionally. Try without --nopgpg, first. If it reports that no pgp key file is available, then try with --nopgpg. ALSO, read the available documentation on rpm related to pgp encryption, first, before installing anything with rpm. I downloaded many rpm packages to update or upgrade my RH 5.1 system, to 5.2, and some of the files obtained from the RH download ftp page had Unknown signatures, which is considered problematic, at least potentially dangerous. You can and should read the rpm man page % man rpm and Linux Documentation Project documentation on rpm, to become familiar with rpm and everything the version of rpm you have can do and all of the options. When you don't know a command, you should always check the man page or what ever documentation is available for the command, before executing the command. man pages, info pages, and Linux Documentation Project (LDP) pages should always be verified, before doing anything, especially with respect to adding or upgrading. The person who told you to run rpm -Uvh on the .rpm package wasn't wrong. This will need to be done. However, you should also always check and test rpm'ing, before actually doing it or trying to do it. Do the --test and -K tests, first. Caution, with respect to rpm, never costs more than seconds, usually just a few. mike
