More 2 Cent Tips & Tricks LG #86

...making Linux just a little more fun! | More 2¢ Tips! By The Readers of Linux Gazette

See also: The Answer Gang's Knowledge Base and the LG Search Engine

- Re: [LG 84] 2c Tips #2 --or--
  When LILO lies low and you see LI
- Learning Red Hat 8.0 --or--
  Learning about mail
- a new language
- Linux Router ISP Network Ip pool Details
- Why is my connection breaking? --or--
  security = obscurity, in this case
- Headless Linux
- Re: [LG 85] help wanted #2 --or--
  Crashing mystery? Try no DRI
- imac_X-problems
- Compiling Kernel and Installing on a new machine
- Partitioning without setup
- Red Hat 7.3 Installation
- is this the right place?
- Switchboard
- ThumbDrive

### When LILO lies low and you see LI

Thu, 28 Nov 2002 09:38:15 -0700
Neil Koozer (neilkoozer from adelphia.net)

Adding to the Issue 84 2 cent tip #2 ...

I wish to clarify what the LI result from lilo means.

The often quoted segment from the lilo readme is sort of backwards in both halves of the sentence. When you get LI and nothing else, the second stage loader was NOT loaded. A block of bytes was loaded, but from the wrong location. This wrong block of bytes WAS executed, but since it is garbage nothing is printed.

Neil.

### Learning about mail

Tue, 26 Nov 2002 23:09:30 -0800
Heather Stern (Linux Gazette Technical Editor)
Question by James M. Haviland, RN (jhavilan from attbi.com)

A continuation of Issue 85, 2 cent tip #10 ...

I have installed RH's 8.0. I'll have to admit I'm in Windows at the moment.

'sokay, that's fixable :> Or if you get really tricky you can convince a good copy of WINE to use the Windows setup, and run mswin apps even when you are in Linux.

Also the e-mail program that came with 8.0 that isn't connected to a browser retrieved my mail, but wouldn't, couldn't send my mail.

That's probably:

> Fetching mail from another serv explicitly (via POP3) works. (This is common. Your ISP did all the work setting up and keeping that POP server, your mailer just visits it once in a while.)

Sending mail outbound, no SMTP server is found to talk to. (There are a few browsers which will "speak SMTP" on their own, but they are not very good mailers on the average, for other reasons.)

Adding an SMTP server to your setup is usually quite easy; look for an RPM package named any one of sendmail, qmail, or postfix. (but you only want one of them.)

> and I forgot to mention that if your ISP actually gives you the explicit address of an SMTP server to use, say, mail.isp.example.com, then you could try telling that to your mailer, rather than worrying about setting up your own. -- Heather

Thank you for your time.

You're welcome

### a new language

Wed, 27 Nov 2002 15:55:29 -0800
Rick Moen (the LG Answer Gang)
Question by Jack (jackdrook from hotmail.com)

> Jack asked us a question that was so general Rick answered it with the applicable Linux answer... -- Heather

You lost me on the KPPP Tool and Linux. Linux is an OS, right?

Indeed. Thus the term "Linux Answer Gang", you see.

Now, where did I get your address? I asked some friends about how to get my telephone to operate through the PC. One person sent me a forward with "The Answer Guy" and the address. I believe it to have been a page from an old site that contained pertinent information, but not the site itself. Does this help?

Not nearly as much as it would if you inquired with that person and tracked down the "old site" for us. That would be much appreciated, as we continue to be deluged with misdirected non-Linux queries.

I am self-taught, so do not confuse me with high-altitude techtalk, just the facts.

Self-taught was at one time the only way to learn Linux, back when many of us got started with it, so we sympathise, and now attempt to assist others while, as we say, "Making Linux just a little more fun".

What is my best approach for learning a program language?

Well, first you'd have to install a Linux distribution, of course.

> Strictly speaking, most of these languages are available for Windows too, but some of the mswin implementations may be less than perfectly portable, or the documentation may suggest non-portable over portable coding strategies. Go for dual booting, perhaps. -- Heather

You'll find that it comes with an amazing variety of programming language development kits, from C, C++, and Python through tk/tcl, Java, Lisp, and heavens knows what else. I personally maintain a list of Integrated Development Environment software for Linux, here: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/#idedev . As you'll see, the list has grown to pass 100 entries.

How you would proceed from there would depend on which type of programming language you'd like to use, and what you want to do with it.

Cheers, Rick Moen

### Linux Router ISP Network Ip pool Details

Fri, 6 Dec 2002 14:24:43 +0530
Jim Dennis and the Gang (the LG Answer Gang)
Question by jeevan (jeevan from asthatech.com)

Is it possible for me to run Routing Protocols(ospf,BGP,rip) on my Linux Box connected to an ISP (through cable modem) and obtain all the network (including subnetwork ip pool)ip pool range of my ISP.

> [JimD] Look for GNU Zebra: http://www.zebra.org It's considered to be the best available package for Linux, and has (I'm told) syntax that's reasonably similar to Cisco's IOS.

> [someone else in the Gang expands] Of course you can! This is not your grandpa's operating system, here. OSPF v. 2 and BGP4/4+ are both supported by either the gated daemon or the GNU zebra daemon, both of which should be standard on your Linux distribution. Zebra can also do pretty much every variety of RIP (v.1, v.2, and RIPng). The standard old routed (prounounced "route-dee") daemon can do RIPv1, and gated can do RIPv2. (gated will also do EGP, thrown into the bargain.)

Thanks for replying. But what I wanted exactly to know is that should I need any kind of details from the ISP (like Router ip,ASN...) or any permission from the ISP for my LINUX Router to have a OSPF session with the ISP Router.

With Regards
Jeevan

### security = obscurity, in this case

Mon, 2 Dec 2002 23:10:33 -0500
Faber Fedor (faber from linuxnj.com)
Question by Michael Havens ()

When I go to login with my online stockbroker

I get this:

> "Connection to host www15.scottsave.com is broken"

Why do you think that is and what do you think can be done about it?

> Let me guess, you're using the Konqueor 3.0 web browser, right? Konq is broken with respect to SSL sites. I have the same problem and I need to find an updated Konq to use or switch to another browser.

> I'm not able to verify this; it could just be the same problem as in Konqueror 2.x, where the SSL support is a seperate package (kdebase-crypto under Debian; your distro may vary), and Konqueror only visits non-encrypted URLs if you don't have that package installed. Of course it doesn't bother to say so... an error message like "https: protocol not supported" would have been a little more useful. -- Heather

> Galeon and Mozilla will work, but you need to d/l the Personal Security Manager (PSM). I've looked at installing it and it looks like a PITA.

> Until I find an updated Konq or install PSM, I use an old version of Netscape (4.x) which works fine.

### Headless Linux

Sun, 22 Dec 2002 22:54:45 -0800
Dan Wilder (dan from ssc.com)
Question by Steve B. (admin from bsdfan.cncdsl.com)

I've been looking around and can't find the info I need. How do I configure Linux to run headless with a terminal connected to a serial port?

Not quite headless, with a serial terminal connected. I choose to call the condition "nearly headless", after the phantom named "Nearly Headless Nick" in the Harry Potter series.

Take a look at:

> Documentation/serial-console.txt

in the kernel source. This won't get you quite everything you'd get from a console connected. In particular, you don't have access to the BIOS. But if you can get past that, you're pretty much there. You can even tell LILO to use the serial port, as described in the documentation file. No doubt there's also a GRUB option for serial console, if that's the boot loader you're using.

As I understand it, there's at least one card which will even make the BIOS available via a serial port.

### Crashing mystery? Try no DRI

Wed, 11 Dec 2002 08:19:37 -0500
Drew S (linux_man_us from hotmail.com)

Something for rajachemist of Issue 85 Help wanted #2 to try.

Though you never mentioned what your video card was, I will respond since I was having a similar problem with Mandrake Linux 9.0 on my home-built machine. I was getting lockups all the time and yet I could ssh into the box from another machine and see that everything behind the scenes was still running fine. Just X froze, but it also meant that I could not kill it with CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE. I happened to have an ATI Xpert 2000 video card (Rage 128 chipset). The ONE item that fixed it was that the card does not seem to handle DRI properly. I commented out the line in my XF86Config file that said: load "dri", restarted X and I never saw the problem again. Perhaps your problem is similar.

Drew

### imac_X-problems

Thu, 28 Nov 2002 10:24:46 -0800
Rick Moen (the LG Answer Gang)
Question by kuettner (kuettner from tuebingen.mpg.de)

after using linux for several years now on i-586 I tried to install it on my imac-g4. the problem: I do not get X to run, because of my NVIDIA GeForce4 MX. I am using debian woody for ppc and don't find any hints in the net. can anybody send me a working XF86Config for XFree 4.1.0 or any other help.

It looks like you'll need XFree86 4.2.0 or later, and will have to use the "vesa" driver (not the "nv" driver) in 16-bit mode, which is the only one supported thus far.

As you may know, these things do tend to happen with newly introduced video chipsets, and Nvidia have unfortunately been notably uncooperative with the XFree86 Project.

> That they didn't buy into the XFCom release sequence (compatible binaries, source eventually committed to the open source X code tree) and want to roll their own we can understand; but they have to keep up with the Xfree86 codebase or it makes them look slow. And act slow, if one has to back down to the generic servers in order to work... -- Heather

### Compiling Kernel and Installing on a new machine

Sat, 7 Dec 2002 13:11:07 -0800
Jim Dennis (the LG Answer Guy)
Question by Sunil Kayili (Sunil.Kayiti from fmr.com)

I am in a catch-22 situation. There might be an easy answer for this but I am not able to work around this problem. Sending this problem here.

Server Configuration:

> `
> Chipset 440GX
> Micron NetFrame 3400
> Adaptec 7680 SCSI Adapter (aic7xxx - HBA 6.2.8)
> Mylex Raid - DAC960`

Software:

> `
> RedHat 8.0 - Linux Kernel 2.4.18-14`

Problem:

> With 2.4.18-14 there is a problem in the kernel which loops on aic7xxx during boot up, hence it does not boot.

Solution:

> Compile the latest kernel 2.4.18-20rc4

Catch-22:

> I built the latest kernel on my other linux machine and wrote it into a CD ROM. Now how do I transfer it into my NetFrame Server.

I boot into the rescue mode using the installation CD but once in the rescue mode, I am unable to eject the CD. I have tried all possible mount points to eject the cd but to no avail.

1. Is there a any way to transfer the new kernel image into my NetFrame PC? I exhausted all options, i,e network (since it is in rescue mode)
2. Is there a way to disable linux to take control of the CDROM ejection mechanism?

Your help greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Sunil

> Suggestions:

> - Use a Tom's Root/Boot floppy.
> - Burn a bootable CD with the Tom's Root/Boot "El Torito" boot image (and your new kernel, etc. in all that other CD-R space)
> - Use the ifconfig and route commands (on just about any rescue CD or floppy) to manually configure your network, then fetch a tarball of the kernel and modules (etc) from any other machine on your network (using mount -t nfs, or wget or an FTP client).
> - Install an extra CD-ROM drive .
> - Configure a system on your network as a bootp/dhcpd server, install PXELinux, configure it to transfer a custom network rescue kernel and initrd system to your server, then configure the NetFrame to boot using PXE, etc).

> (Okay, that last one is way too much effort for way too little gain and the one before that is just plain silly).

### Partitioning without setup

Wed, 25 Dec 2002 22:46:15 GMT
Brandon Dean (bmdean from socket.net)

Hello,

I would like to know what linux program to get that I could use to repartition a hard drive without going through setup.

Thank You,
Brandon Dean

> [Dan] fdisk

> See "man fdisk"

> [Pradeep] If you want to repartition without losing data, GNU Parted is a great tool. Details at:

> > http://www.gnu.org/software/parted

> You can also use fdisk or diskdruid but both will destroy the data after repartitioning. These two should be installed by default in most of the distributions.

> Don't forget to make good backups first -- Heather

### Red Hat 7.3 Installation

Tue, 24 Dec 2002 13:19:39 -0500
Pete Keller (pkeller01 from snet.net)
Question by (dhar_mca from jntu.net)

Friends, Last week I posed a question for booting with 3 OSes. Thank U.

Here I again partitioned ... [lots of stuff about prepared system] I am trying boot from boot disk. It is coming upto "localhost login:" after which GUI screen be displayed. It displays the localhost login: prompt for a second or a half and then hangs. I thought its a problem with monitor sync values. Mine was samsung's samtron 56V model. But in the list specified - no exact match for it. So I opted for the default given (unprobed type)and modified the sync values with the ones given in my monitor manual. (My friends who have already loaded windows, have not even changed the sync values). One of my friend got the same problem. But his system didn't hang but it flashes between blank screen and the text based localhost prompt.

> His "chooser" - the GUI login, keeps crashing but the system keeps trying to put it back up. kdm, gdm, xdm, one of those dm thingies. -- Heather

He was able to login. He logged into it with root and modified the Xconfigurator and now works fine.

Plz assist me.

> [Pete]

> 1. press control alt and F1 to get a text login.
> 2. login as root and run Xconfigurator

> If you're hung too hard for that to work, use the boot loader to put yourself in sincgle user mode, then fix the boot runlevel (/etc/inittab default entry) to stay in text mode. For Red Hat flavors that's runlevel 3. Set it back when you'r sure it's fixed, use startx as a user to run X explicitly while experimenting. -- Heather

### is this the right place?

Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:41:44 -0800
Mike Orr (Linux Gazette Editor)
Question by James M. Haviland, RN (jhavilan from attbi.com)

If I may. Is this the news group of ssc.com?

> I'm the Technical Editor; I'm cc'ing the Gang, so everyone can chime in if they like. -- Heather

Is it better in the future to write linux-questions-only@ssc.com? Will the server accept my e-mail

TIA Jim

> Yes. Linux-questions-only accepts queries from anybody; members of the list see all such messages and are expected to answer a few here and there. -- Heather

> Just to be clear, this mailing list (linux-questions-only@ssc.com) is owned by Linux Gazette (www.linuxgazette.com), which is published by SSC. However, most of LG's contributors and Answer Gang members are independent volunteers not related to SSC.

> There is no single ssc.com mailing list or news group. SSC hosts many mailing lists, some related to our business and others we host as part of our general commitment to Linux and to free software.

> Questions about Linux should go to linux-questions-only@ssc.com. Questions about SSC should go to... well, it depends on the question. Send it to info@ssc.com if you're unsure where to direct it.

> There is also linux-list, a discussion list about everything Linux (except advocacy or flame wars). linux-list is hosted by SSC and has a strong Pacific Northwest emphasis, but we do have people from other regions and people who have moved away but still want to keep in touch. To subscribe to linux-list or to any of SSC's other public lists, go to http://www.ssc.com/mailman/listinfo .

### Switchboard

Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:49:35 -0800
Ashwin N and Heather Stern (the LG Answer Gang)
Question by JRook78123 (JRook78123 from aol.com)

Dear Answerguy,

> [Ashwin] Hi Jack,

> There is no longer an answer guy here, but a gang of Linux enthusiasts! We answer queries on Linux in our free time.

I used to have an IBM Aptiva system that had in the bundle a switchboard supplied by Phoenix. I now have an hp pavilion 7850. It has a modem and phone dialer, but I cannot use the telephone through my computer as before. Is there some way to connect to my telephone line for normal surface telephone lines? What would I need to do?

> [Ashwin] If you're using Linux, have you tried connecting using the KPPP tool?

> [Heather] I'm not sure, but if he means that his computer used to handle the voice lines in his office (and yes, there are such things, which have some cute GUI app to configure them) ... then he may want to play with the program Asterisk, and maybe the hardware "LineJack" or "PhoneJack" by Quicknet, which are telephony cards you add to a computer.

> If he just means that his computer needs to reach the internet, then it's true we have a bunch of dialer-helpers (KPPP is one of the better ones; xisp and a few others are out there) ... but he will still need to know some basic things like his ISP's phone number, the username he was assigned, and maybe some connection features like whether they use PAP or CHAP to identify him.

> These are all things which his ISP can tell him better than we could.

### ThumbDrive

Mon, 2 Dec 2002 01:57:17 +0100
Robos (robos from muon.de)
Question by Syborg (linux_lover2003 from yahoo.co.in)

Is it possible to install Linux on a thumb drive(size 120 MB). Or Can I copy selected files from my normal linux installation(RH 7.2 on a 40 GB hard disk) and make the thumb drive bootable independently. What is the best way to do this? I thought of copying files from my normal linux installation.But i am in doubt whether i can boot this drive in this way. Looking forward to your suggestions.

Short answer -- try this:
  http://freshmeat.net/projects/runt

> You'll need to make sure your kernel has builtin USB, and that your machine is capable of considering it a boot device. If it can't directly, then you may have to carry a floppy with you to go with it. Yeah, it's bulky, but ... -- Heather

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Published in Issue 86 of Linux Gazette, January 2003