___________________________________________________________________ issue 5 http://console-newsletter.hypermart.net __ __ _ _ __ __ )) __ console: tips,tricks & news about linux ((_ ((_)((\( _))((_)(( (('_ _______________________________________ [1/2000] "a good read.." + headlines RedHat, to provide consulting and support services for a network of approximately 3,000 Linux-based Intranet terminals in AutoZone's store locations throughout the United States. http://www.redhat.com/about/1999/press_autozone.html -- + hmm.. NEW YORK, Dec. 14 - Charles M. ("Sparky") Schulz, creator of the PEANUTS comic strip, will retire January 4th, 2000. In a letter to his readers, colleagues, fellow cartoonists and friends, Schulz wrote: "Thank you for your kindness and support over the years and for the outpouring of good wishes since my surgery." http://www.snoopy.com/comics/peanuts/letter.html hmm.. No (new) peanuts in the Sunday paper, bummer. Best wishes Mr.Schulz -- + humorix The GPL Is Not Y2K-Compliant! BOSTON, MA -- Panic ensued earlier today at GNU Project Headquarters when it was discovered that the GNU General Public License is not ready for the year 2000. Thankfully, the panic quickly subsided when RMS posted an emergency diff file to Usenet that patches the GPL to eliminate the problem. http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/jun99.shtml#GPL-Y2K -- + distro watch RedHat v6.1 - w/ new graphical install: https://www.redhat.com/commerce/redhatlinux.html Bad Penguin - Italian Linux: http://www.badpenguin.org/ -- + new apps xenon (xe) - text editor, small fast, no extra libs needed: http://www.proximity.com.au/~ben/xenon.html w3m - a pager/text-based WWW browser can render tables, frames: http://ei5nazha.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/~aito/w3m/eng floatbg - subtly changes the color of the root window over time, so slowly that it won't be noticed: http://www.debian.or.jp/debian.org/Packages/stable/x11/floatbg.html -- + article Yeah Baby! A success story for Win9x based newbies - Tomas Vera I am a newbie getting over the hump. Having seen a lot of the "I'm giving up on Linux" posts, I thought I'd throw out my trials and tribulations so that others can see that sticking with it will pay off. Here's my story: I am your typical newbie. My background has been almost exclusively Windows (95/3.11/3.0) all the way back to 1989 when it was just "Windows". I have used DOS, obviously, and missed it when Win95 rolled around. I program as a hobby mostly in C/C++, am learning JAVA and fiddle with plain vanilla HTML (http://userzweb.lightspeed.net/dadkind - beware, it deals with pro-wrestling!). Pretty standard background stuff. At work we are dealing with our Y2K problem. We are a small ag engineering firm, so other than updating some database programs, our Y2K requirements are relatively small and well underway. Except for our server. We are running Novell 4.10 (the bastard child from Novell it seems). It is not Y2K compliant and only recently (it seems) have patches become available. A whole bunch of patches. Being a reasonable person, I realize that it would probably be faster, and more economical in the long run, to perform a version upgrade to the server (NW 5), or even to switch operating systems (NT4). About that time I started reading about Linux. My curiosity was piqued, so one day I went out, bought Linux Unleashed (3rd ed.) which came with RH 5.1. That same day, I persuaded my wife to let me spend about $500 for a new P133 based system, that was almost exactly what we already had at home. I set up my system, inserted the CD ROM and nothing. I went through the readmes and found out that I needed a boot floppy to install RH. I created my boot disk, rebooted and installed, with grand expectations. Boy was I in for a shock. What?!? It boots to a prompt? I thought this was a recent version of Linux?!? Typical response from a Win95 convert. Here's where things got "interesting". The book I bought was one of those that tries to be all things to all people, and succeeds in meeting the needs of no one. So just as it started to show me how to do things, the lesson was over, and I was left hanging. On to the newsgroups. A few posts to alt.os.linux from my original Win95 machine taught me about the most essential command: man. I also learned about vi, emacs and startx. This last one was important because it allowed me to use Netscape to read the HOW-TO's that were installed. Little by little I learned that my video card was not supported, so a card swap with the old machine and re-configuring X allowed it start up correctly. Reading the man for pppd showed me how to set up the ppp daemon from the command line. Later I learned how to configure the interface in X. So now I had internet connectivity. Next came network cards. I went out, spent some computer money (made on the side helping someone with their Novell system), and bought a network starter kit from Netgear. Installed the cards, booted both machine into Win95 and voila' Win95 networking. Some tweaks there and my son and I were "dooming" over out little network. Next, time to install the card under Linux. Netgear has Linux drivers on their website. I downloaded them and followed the instructions for compiling the source, and insmod-ing the module. Kept getting an "invalid reference" error during boot up (more on this later). Frustration set in. Complete re-install number 3. Network card detected by the system... drivers loaded... all looks good. But Win95 can't see the linux box. Back to the newsgroup to find out that I need Samba. I used glint to install the Samba RPM. Made one change to the smb.conf file. Rebooted and now win95 sees my linux box. Cool. Next, I decided to tackle the sound card. Tried running all the standard routines: sbconfig, sndconfig, etc. with no luck. Finally figured out that I would probably have to reconfigure the kernel to enable sound support. After I installed the kernel source (it took me two days to figure out that I did not have the sources installed), and ran "make configure" a couple of times ("make menuconfig" actually), I followed the directions carefully, and rebooted. Sound, glorious sound came out of my speakers! I see posts all over the place with the phrase "rebuild the kernel" in the remedy portion. Like most newbies I see this and freak. Having never been exposed to this in the Win/DOS world it seems a desperate move to have to perform. I see now that it is not the case. It is do-able if you follow the HOW-TO instructions. I believe now that the reason I had trouble installing Netgear's driver for it's card is that I did not have NIC support in my kernel as installed originally. The compiled object file had not where to hook into the kernel, hence the "invalid reference" error message. Now I am down to a manageable list of things to do that will take me where I want to be with Linux, none of them vital, but worthwhile, I think. Here's a list: 1. Add support for True-Type fonts (so I can see pretty web pages as intended). 2. Add the INN news server service (including cron to update this NG overnight). 3. Run a POP3/SMTP server for e-mailing the Win95 machine 4. Set up the linux box as an on-demand router. 5. Anything else? I guess my point is this: STICK WITH IT !! I had perhaps more of a challenge than others in that I only left myself about two hours a night, four nights a week to mess with Linux. Had I been able to devote four, five or six hours a night (like when I was learning C back in 1989) it probably would have gone faster. Nonetheless, I did manage to progress. And so should anyone else willing to put in the effort. Is there anything that would have made things easier? Absolutely. Here are some: 1. Linux newsgroups are good, but a lot of messages from newbies go unanswered, and a lot of answers read like greek to a newbie. A good windows - to - Linux site and messageboard would help here. 2. A good list of "Linux for Beginners" or "Linux for Windows users" type books would help. As i mentioned above, "Linux Unleashed" just did not do it for me as a newbie, and as for more detailed info, a seven year old copy of "System V R4 The Complete Reference" by Coffin was much better. The "standard" books (e.g. "Running Linux" from O'Reilly - I think that's the title) would be better suited to someone who is past the initial hump, I think. Well, gotta get back to work. Those are my thoughts. What are yours? -- + quote of the month No pressure, no diamonds. -Mary Case -- + grok how to use tar: tar zxf to extract file.tar.gz tar zcf to create file.tar.gz tar ztf to list files in file.tar.gz to disable the splash screen in netscape for linux: netscape -no-about-splash -- + jargon :WOMBAT: /wom'bat/ adj. [acronym: Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time] Applied to problems which are both profoundly {uninteresting} in themselves and unlikely to benefit anyone interested even if solved. Often used in fanciful constructions such as `wrestling with a wombat'. See also {crawling horror}. Users of the PDP-11 database program DATATRIEVE adopted the wombat as their notional mascot; the program's help file responded to "HELP WOMBAT" with factual information about Real World wombats. -- + hobbes' internet timeline 1965 ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers" 1966 Lawrence G. Roberts, MIT: "Towards a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers" -- + !new codecraft Someone showed me a file a few days ago with hashes (#) in its filename (e.g. #thefile#.tmp). He wanted to delete it, but typing $ rm #thefile#.tmp didn't work. How could he get rid of it? The solution is to put quotes around the filename: $ rm "#thefile#.tmp" This trick also works on filenames with spaces and/or other non-alphanumeric characters in them. Be warned, though - these files are usually created by scripts or programs and not humans, so be sure you know what you're doing before moving, editing or deleting them! A friendly tip provided by: Codecraft http://www.cyberelectric.net.au/~collins/index.htm -- + article Safe mode for Linux - digs Picture this: The latest kernel patch is out and has support for that nifty scanner you just bought or, you'd like to enable some razzle-dazzle that went unnoticed before. "Wait a minute" you think, "My system is running quite good as things stand, what if I compile a new kernel, make a mistake and my system refuses to boot!?!" No sweat. Or maybe even, "gulp... I've forgotten my password" Piece of cake. We've all done it before, whilst in windows made a subtle change to the system and as a result of that change, during the next boot, a menu appears suggesting 'safe mode' to correct the offending error. I can only speak for myself but that would be handy for Linux, no? The trick is another kernel and a choice via /etc/lilo.conf. A quick reminder is in order here: Always keep a bootdisk handy and make backups in 'advance' of any changes. There are four simple steps involved. Step 1 - Make a copy of your current kernel First, using a "known to be working kernel" simply make a copy of it. On my system '/vmlinuz' is the kernel name (other names might be /zImage, /boot/bzImage, etc...) so as root I would: cp /path/kernel_name /path/safemode.kernel This gives me a duplicate kernel to boot from. Step 2 Create a new /etc/lilo.conf Just in case backup your current /etc/lilo.conf: mv /etc/lilo.conf /etc/lilo.conf.old As root with your editor create a new /etc/lilo.conf I'll assume you have both Windows and Linux installed. # LILO configuration file # remarks preceded with '#' are comments and aren't read by lilo. # global: -------------------------------------------------------- # this section applies to -ALL- sections # most /etc/lilo.conf have the option 'delay' enabled remove it # and replace with the 'prompt' option instead. this causes lilo # to wait for input, which is needed if you want to choose another # kernel to boot. prompt # i use plain vanilla video settings this can be changed if you # prefer 'vga = ask' will offer several modes vga = normal # this option allows you to press 'one' key to boot a partition # you'll want this option unless you enjoy alot of typing |-) single-key # ok now specify the file from which lilo will read our boot # choices # (more on this later) # the full path to your boot menu message = /etc/boot.menu # linux: --------------------------------------------------------- # this section applies to your normally booted kernel # image = /path/to/your/current/kernel image = /vmlinuz # inform lilo where root "/" is located root = /dev/hda2 # a MUST make sure your /root is mounted 'read-only' so any fsk'ing # can proceed as planned read-only # The boot menu must reference a name for this partition # (note: the 'single-key' parameter used above requires a # SINGLE character) so keep it simple label = 1 # linux safe mode: ---------------------------------------------- # this section applies to your safe mode kernel # the /path/to/your/safemode.kernel image = /safemode.kernel # point lilo to your root for safe mode # since I keep all my kernel's in one place the path is the # same as our first kernel root = /dev/hda2 # your root (for safe mode only) is -NOT- mounted read-only! read-write # the label for our safemode.kernel label = 2 # the magic string that, disables init & the password protected # login append = "init=/bin/sh" # finally we need an entry for our Windows95 partition # !note: this assumes lilo is installed in your # master boot record on the first hardrive! # the /path/to/your/windows/partition other = /dev/hda1 # tell lilo to activate the non-linux partition table = /dev/hda # yup, you guessed it... label = 3 # end /etc/lilo.conf Step 3 - Create /etc/boot.menu with your favorite editor as root create, /etc/boot.menu mine looks like this: ======================================================== press a number: 1. - Linux standard boots your default kernel with all the goodies 2. - Linux safe mode boots a bare kernel bypassing init with no password required 3. - Windows95 boots your windows partition ======================================================== Now save that file and on to the final step :) Step 4 - update lilo Finally as root, issue the following command: lilo Lilo should rebuild error free. Reboot and you'll be presented with a nice menu offering a few choices. Do understand that choosing safe mode is a whopping security hole that allows root access without a password, but for most home users its non-issue. Tinker all you want, you've got safe mode to fall back on. Special thanks to Walter R. Taninatz, who all too often finds himself 'testing' my experiments. -- + funnies _______ (_)___oo) Ned the log -------- . Particle man -------------------- _______ | (_)___vv) humble Ned | ! particle man with bakers hat ------------------------------------------------------------------ -- + wrap up Coming next issue: We'll be reviewing (over several issues) a few of the major distros as well as some of the homegrown mini-distros. Graphical scripting with xmessage - a toolbar for your desktop. Home cooking with Betty [Grok]er |-) Ned & particle man, links, new distros & apps. Well friends, the big "Y2K" is quickly bearing down on us all, Hopefully no one suffers any loss of data, etc.. NOW is great time to make your backups, even a floppy to save your *rc* files in /etc couldn't hurt. And speaking of the year 2000, Tomas Vera's article should've been published last issue but space was tight sorry for the delay Tomas. Keep those articles coming in folks we all learn so much by sharing. And finally, for those of us that use a text mode browser, (lynx,w3m,etc..) please note a text-only page now at our website: http://console-newsletter.hypermart.net/text.htm later on, digs -- + subscriptions & submittals To subscribe send an email to: console-subscribe@onelist.com To unsubscribe send an email to: console-unsubscribe@onelist.com To submit an article visit this link: http://console-newsletter.hypermart.net/submit.htm Past issues can be found at: http://console-newsletter.hypermart.net/past.htm -- + about This issue of console was brought to you by: digs - chief writer & layout Tomas Vera - contributor Hobbes' Internet Timeline (c)1993-9 by Robert H Zakon. http://www.isoc.org/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html Console (c)99-0 Michael S Sanders, All Rights Reserved. -- eof