From: vargish@sura.net (Nick Vargish)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: New Linux Install: Summary
Summary: Thanks all!
Date: 28 Jul 92 14:56:36 GMT
Organization: SURAnet, College Park, MD, USA, NA, Earth, Milky Way

Thanks to all the people who had the patience to help me with my
initial Linux installation. I am running 0.96c-pl2 quite happily now;
there are a few bumpy spots, but imrryr (my machine's name, now :^) is
looking more and more like a usable, working system.

Here's a quick summary of my questions, and the answers I found to
work for them:

-->1. Can't boot from HD.

This is still a problem. I need to find information on boot sectors
and how to fiddle with them manually. Someone mentioned that a boot
sector(?) must be on an odd or even cylinder, but could not remember
which it was supposed to be. Booting with floppies for now...

-->2. Can only log-in as "root".

Duh! "rm -f /etc/nologin" in the /etc/rc helps with this one.

-->3. I remember seeing a clue on how to disable the initial "Hit <ENTER>
   to see SVGA modes, any other key to continue" [sic.] messgae. 

I was told, "hack the kernel." Haven't done this yet, but I'm thinking
about it.

-->4. Mtools sometimes can't initialize my floppies, [..]

/etc/mtools:
A /dev/fd0 12 0 0 0     # 5.25 1.2 Meg (autodetect)
B /dev/fd1 12 0 0 0 	# 3.5  1.4 Meg (autodetect)

works fine... the autodetect code is a nice touch.

-->5. X doesn't work.

I may give this another stab this weekend (after I get my new HD). A
new video card would probably help (currently have 256-K Paradise).

-->6. Suspending nethack (the one I got from tsx-11, I believe) and then
   resuming it seemed to disconnect my keyboard. 

The terminal just isn't perfect... I have had this happen again,
though not with nethack (emacs did it). Sometimes output goes away.
Could this be a disconnected stdin/stdout problem?

-->7. Has anyone seen ghostscript or zsh for Linux? 

zsh is at banjo.concert.net in the GCC directory. One has to do a
"gcc -O zsh -o zsh.a -ltermcap" (the actual, correct, invocation is in
the Makefile somewhere...) to link an executable, but it seems
completely stable.

I have the ghostscript source package, but haven't gotten around to
installing it. I was told "compiles right out of the box." TeX is on
my list too.

----- My pl-2 Questions ----

-->1. pl2 won't compile "out-of-the-box"

Yes it will. If you remember to "rm -r /usr/src/linux/*" before
unpacking the archive into /usr/src/linux. I had some extra stuff left
in there from the older version. I hate making stupid goofs like that.

-->2. Currently I have a file called "vmlinux.96c+" [..]

Somebody needs to mention that after compiling a new kernel, and if
using a boot floppy, you must:

imrryr# cp /usr/src/linux/Image /dev/fd0

This makes a boot floppy that will actually boot the new kernel... ps
now works, for instance.

Thanks again for everyone's time... If anyone would like clarification
on any of these, just drop me a line.

Nick



-- 
|  Nick Vargish       | "I'm just another wide area network packet-herder..." |
|  SURAnet Operations +-------------------------------------------------------+
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|  h: 301 474-1863    | mutually-shared ideologies.  Don't assume otherwise." |
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux