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Re: [Wlug] You can't get there from here...

by Andy Stewart

On Sunday 12 October 2003 2:25 pm, Gregory Avedissian wrote: > At the meeting last Thursday, I asked about a problem I'm having with > KDE desktop, and Tim mentioned I should run 'tail -f /var/log/messages' > in another terminal while loading KDE. Hi Greg, What happens if you create a brand new user, and then log in as that user and fire up KDE? I'm wondering if there is a system problem or if something is fubar in one of your user specific KDE files. Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

Oct. 13, 2003

You can't get there from here...

by Gregory Avedissian

At the meeting last Thursday, I asked about a problem I'm having with KDE desktop, and Tim mentioned I should run 'tail -f /var/log/messages' in another terminal while loading KDE. Description of problem: KDE starts to load, tells me it's checking peripherals, and then the screen goes black. Ctrl-alt-back kills the xserver and gets me out. In running the tail, I discovered that KDE really is runnning OK, but I have to switch to another virtual console (alt-F2) and then ctrl-alt-F7 will get me to the kde desktop. I get error messages from modprobe while kde is loading. It's looking for sound-slot-1, which I think is odd, because modules.conf doesn't say anything about a sound-slot-1. I only have one sound card, and it's at sound-slot-0. I tried turning off the sound server in the kde control center, and that didn't help. I also get gpm error messages when I go in an out of an x-session. Changing GPM_PARAMS in /etc/rc.config to the correct type of mouse helped get rid of flaky mouse behavior in console, but the error messages continue. Below are the messages. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated. Thanks, Greg Oct 12 13:54:29 linux gpm[1601]: Error in protocol Oct 12 13:55:04 linux last message repeated 38 times Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1 Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0 Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1 Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0 Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1 Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0 Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1 Oct 12 13:55:05 linux modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0

Oct. 12, 2003

Re: [Wlug] NIC settings -- how?

by David Goss

Hi all... hope someone can help... been away from the meetings for a while... ( like a year ) due to health reasons... then to boot my linux machine had a massive failure and i had to replace it... had it all set up the forward and masquerade a couple of windows boxes through my dsl connection... ( verizon ) have the pppoe all set up... but can't for the life of me remember how to set up the ipchains to handle the windows boxes for the wife and kids... and man they are getting hostile about not being able to get on the internet from home... i know it was not that hard to set up but for the life of me i can not find the docs i used in the first place... hoping to make some meetings soon... now that the health is getting back to "normal"... and buying beer for the helpful guy that can get my network back to normal as well... best regards to all dave goss

Oct. 11, 2003

Re: [Wlug] NIC settings -- how?

by Charles R. Anderson

On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 01:18:34PM -0400, Bill Mills-Curran wrote: > How can I view and alter NIC settings, like auto-negotiate, speed, > duplex on my Red Hat 8/9 boxes? mii-tool or ethtool, depending on the driver. -- Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886

Oct. 9, 2003

NIC settings -- how?

by Bill Mills-Curran

How can I view and alter NIC settings, like auto-negotiate, speed, duplex on my Red Hat 8/9 boxes? Thanks, Bill

Oct. 9, 2003

Re: Old Hardware (Re: Re: Debian question)

by Bob George

"Chuck Homic" <chuck(a)vvisions.com> wrote: > [...] > Currently it is an excuse to own the domain underpowered.net. Hah, great name! > [...] > - How can I get on this list? That sounds cool. Info is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/survpc/ . Be forewarned however: It's an often contentious place, with a few hard-core DOS holdouts. Not all that it could be, but success stories for using "old stuff" are always welcome. > - I chose Debian for three reasons. 1. familiarity, 2. laziness, 3. the > aforementioned 240M hard drive. Since Debian would install a working > base system in around 50M, I figured it could conserve well. That's why I wound up on Debian, although with a *bit* more disk space! > Currently > I'm running DNS, HTTP, FTP, & IMAP with ~100M free for data. I have to > erase the HTTP logs of virus attacks on a fairly regular basis to keep > that free space, though. ;) Great to hear that it keeps up with all that. A few folks on the list have asked about using various distributions on limited hardware, and I've generally recommended Debian as worth considering. I've installed it on 486en, but usually with 32M or more memory. I wasn't sure about less being practical (recogizing practical depends on the individual). > - In retrospect, it would be nice to have a package manager with more > modest RAM requirements. However, I'll decide this for real when I > install the second hard drive. With one HD just for swap, it might not > matter so much. Are you using dpkg or apt? > - I have no problem saturating my 10Mbit ethernet with a 486-25, so I'm > sure it would make a fine firewall/gateway if you don't use it for > anything else, and you might have to go easy on the firewall rules. Or > it might do fine with fancy firewall rules, who knows? Experience > running NAT (for a T1) on similar hardware indicates that that would be > no problem. I did notice that old NE2000 clone NICs caused my CPU utilization to spike, especially ISA versions. My 486-66 did fine with PCI cards, though that was a couple of kernels ago. > - Although installing packages is a pain (which would be fixed up for > $0.50 of RAM, I presume) it just hums along in the interim. I don't > know how much RAM the motherboard can take, and I wouldn't know who to > buy 30/72-pin SIMMs from. :) Although experience shows I wouldn't have > to buy them, they would be given to me if I express interest. (That's a > big bonus for old hardware! Hmm. If I didn't toss 'em before the big move, I might actually HAVE some 4M 30 pin SIMMs. I think I'm out of 72 pin though. I get sad thinking about what I had to toss in Phoenix due to no time prior to my move. I did give away a couple of trunkloads of old stuff. > [...] > - It's a good box just to have hooked up to a wire, but if you have such a > thing and you ever find yourself thinking about adding a second 486 to > boost resources, you've gone off the deep end. After the novelty value > subsides, you have to think about the energy cost. How many services > can you provide per watt? How would that compare to a 50W power supply > on an old P-100 thinkpad or something? Yeah, I finally started consolidating boxes. A real problem in Phoenix was heat, where my "den" easily ran 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the house. 'Course, here that's not quite the issue it was. Still, I don't like waste, and the quiet hum of my current systems is much nicer than the roar of fans I had (as well as the AC working overtime to keep up.) > (I'd often thought about using > aging laptops as servers, to simplify the UPS situation. I figure a > ~$40 car battery plugged into the AC jack could provide backup power for > quite a long time, but that's just insanity.) I wanted to do the same thing! Quiet, low power, and UPS built-in. Oh, and small too. Thanks for the info! - Bob

Oct. 9, 2003

Old Hardware (Re: [Wlug] Re: Debian question)

by Chuck Homic

On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 08:31:25AM -0400, Bob George wrote: > "Chuck Homic" <chuck(a)vvisions.com> wrote: > > Oh, hey... my Debian rant reminded me of something! > > > > I have Debian running on a 486-25 with 12MB of RAM. > > [...] > > Hey, mind if I ask what you use it for? The reason I ask is that I'm on a list > dedicated to old PC hardware users, which until recently equated to a base of > fanatical DOS holdouts. Slowly though, most are inquiring about Linux, so I'd > like to give them some useful info about using Debian as a "modern" > distribution on low-resource systems. Unfortunately, I've had to dump most of > my old systems, so can't speak from first-hand experience anymore. Currently it is an excuse to own the domain underpowered.net. It doesn't do much right now, due to lack of storage. My 5G SCSI drive doesn't work with my old old Future Domain controller, so it's running 240M right now. I bought a new interface (urrm... new to me, for a 16-bit ISA SCSI adapter. $1 at eBay, woohoo) and have yet to see if it works better. Anyway, I mostly use it for file transfer, right now. Like if I'm at work and want to send a large file home, I'll drop it there. Or if I want to email friends/family digital photos, but no mail server I know of will accept a 50M attachment, I send a link to http://underpowered.net/whatever In the future I plan to put some of my hackish projects there, expecting that the low bandwidth needs of such things will match the low power available. And of course it runs primary DNS for underpowered.net. > Stephen Darnold, the guy who put Basic Linux together, used to lurk there, and > there was often extensive discussion on what could be run on older hardware. > Yours sounds like the lower end of the spectrum, so I'm wondering how well it > works. Would it work well with Debian specifically as a firewall/gateway? Would > you say the benefits of running something current offsets the inconvenience of > those delays with installs etc.? Whoa, this is like, an interview or something. Let's take it 1-by-1: - How can I get on this list? That sounds cool. - I chose Debian for three reasons. 1. familiarity, 2. laziness, 3. the aforementioned 240M hard drive. Since Debian would install a working base system in around 50M, I figured it could conserve well. Currently I'm running DNS, HTTP, FTP, & IMAP with ~100M free for data. I have to erase the HTTP logs of virus attacks on a fairly regular basis to keep that free space, though. ;) - In retrospect, it would be nice to have a package manager with more modest RAM requirements. However, I'll decide this for real when I install the second hard drive. With one HD just for swap, it might not matter so much. - I have no problem saturating my 10Mbit ethernet with a 486-25, so I'm sure it would make a fine firewall/gateway if you don't use it for anything else, and you might have to go easy on the firewall rules. Or it might do fine with fancy firewall rules, who knows? Experience running NAT (for a T1) on similar hardware indicates that that would be no problem. - Although installing packages is a pain (which would be fixed up for $0.50 of RAM, I presume) it just hums along in the interim. I don't know how much RAM the motherboard can take, and I wouldn't know who to buy 30/72-pin SIMMs from. :) Although experience shows I wouldn't have to buy them, they would be given to me if I express interest. (That's a big bonus for old hardware! That's how I got my 5M SCSI drive... it's one of those big full-height Seagate bricks, and fits in no modern case known to man.) - It's a good box just to have hooked up to a wire, but if you have such a thing and you ever find yourself thinking about adding a second 486 to boost resources, you've gone off the deep end. After the novelty value subsides, you have to think about the energy cost. How many services can you provide per watt? How would that compare to a 50W power supply on an old P-100 thinkpad or something? (I'd often thought about using aging laptops as servers, to simplify the UPS situation. I figure a ~$40 car battery plugged into the AC jack could provide backup power for quite a long time, but that's just insanity.) Well, enough rambling. Work to do. -Chuck BTW, speaking of old hardware... some folks on the list might remember my '87 Plymouth Sundance. My brother put in a new engine, and it now runs like da shiznit, and is approaching 210,000 miles. You don't get free parts for a 15 year old car like a 15 year old computer, but there are other advantages.

Oct. 9, 2003

shameless promo of Slackware by the DistroWatch guy..

by Brian McLinden

DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 17, 29 September 2003 (opinion piece article by Ladislav Bodnar, the man who runs DW itself) "A new stable version of Slackware Linux was released late on Friday. As usual, the news was greeted with plenty of enthusiasm by many die-hard Slackware fans and by much curiosity from users of other distributions. What is so special about Slackware? Unlike other commercial distribution makers, such as Red Hat, Mandrake or SuSE, Slackware doesn't come with any system administration tools, it has an amazingly unsophisticated package manager and the company rarely makes headlines in the Linux media. Yet every a new Slackware release is announced, a wave of excitement sweeps the Linux forums and new sites (this OSNews review is a good example). Slackware is to Linux distributions what vi is to UNIX text editors - many people expected vi to die after an abundance of new, more intuitive and user-friendly text editors were introduced. But instead, vi flourished. And while other Linux distributions have certainly managed to take market share away from Slackware, there are still plenty of people out there -- probably a lot more than many would led you believe -- who would never consider using anything else. If you've never tried Slackware before, give it a partition now - and be prepared to fall in love... [end of comment]" Question - does he like slack because it is more like unix than any other distro? Back in the days when men were men............... __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com

Oct. 9, 2003

Re: [Wlug] I choose Slackware.. God help me! (And you guys, please?)

by Matt Higgins

Woops miss fire!! Let me get to answering your questions. 1. simple is not easy? Well this is debatable. Think simple and it mostly easy, think hard and it is always hard! Your first step to easy, is to build a command line vocabulary and familiarize yourself with a command line editor (vi,vim,emacs,etc..) the choice of which is as much philosophical as it is functional. To get you started I would recommend a few books. I love getting documentation on-line but I feel much closer to paper and ink then I do electron guns and liquid crystals, not to mention you will not have Internet access right off the bat. Learning the Unix Operating System, 5th Edition: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lunix5/chapter/index.html Running Linux, 4th Edition: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runux4/ vi Editor Pocket Reference: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/vipr/ These all just happen to be O'Reilly books these came right off the top of my head. The Learning the Unix OS book is a great place to start! It has examples and exercises and teaches you all the basic commands you will need to navigate the file system and start editing files. These will be your 1st tools and will also be the basis for learning other commands. Further more you can get started with these books before you get your system. 2. Partitions: The vendor should layout the disk in a reasonable way. If you want to leave some free space for the testing of alternative distributions tell them to leave 10GB free, that should be enough to install a few distros and not leave you strapped for space. As for the physical layout of the data on the disk, you realistically can't control this. The IDE controller will translate the physical layout of the disk into what amounts to one contiguous block. To say that file "foo" is on platter 3 and close the the spindle is almost impossible. Further more the file system will do its best to allocate blocks contiguously and fill in unused space in the most efficient way it knows how. I am not sure how the vendor will ultimately install everything, but the link you sent leads me to a high-end Linux workstation co. they may mirror the two IDE drives leaving you with md0-n and not the traditional hd[a-z][0-n]. File system layout is a big long topic something you will learn after reading the Running Linux book. For now trust the vendor and scorn them later when you are done reading. 3. Internet: You address 2 different points here. I will start with on-line-help. Slackware will come with ton's of documentation. This is often considered on-line even if its not on the Internet. There are docs for most installed applications in /usr/share/docs and there are man pages for just about everything else. You will learn about man in the Learning Unix book. Note that man pages are like legal documents, at first they are difficult to read but once you choke down a few you get the hang of it. Do you have dial up or do you have DSL? The two are a bit different with respect to configuration. I believe there is a section for configuring both in the Running Linux book. 4 Printer: I would recommend using the cups printer daemon. It replaces the old lp/lpd/lpr progs and has a much better configuration. There are scores of drivers, including ones for the latest printers. If it is not installed by default there is a package available. Cups supports almost all HP printers deskJet and laserJet. Wow that was a mouthful, I hope this ans most of your questions. Talk you soon.. Matt

Oct. 8, 2003

Re: [Wlug] I choose Slackware.. God help me! (And you guys, please?)

by Matt Higgins

Brian, Great post! Pleas excuse me for my lack of poetic sensablility throught this response. Fisrt I would like to commend you on your choice of Slackware, a fantastic distrobution with a lot to offer and wonderfull history.

Oct. 8, 2003