From: tweek@netcom.com (Michael D. Maxfield)
Subject: Re: Son of SLS questions (tm)
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 04:09:00 GMT

In article <1hlbkvINN97h@savoy.cc.williams.edu> 93jay@williams.edu (Jonathan Young) writes:
>I have been spending much of the holidays tweaking SlS .99 on my
>machine. Having solved a few of the basic problems (default install
>has wrong passwd permissions etc.. ) I'm getting into more fun stuff.

Patience, coffee, lots of lack of sleep... Yep I know what you mean.

>1) My password seems to expire daily, no matter what usermod -e
>setting I use. This does not happen with root.

Don't use that. (If theres an easier way, I'm all ears, but this is 
what I did)  Try (as root) `passwd -x 9999 -n 0 -w 100'
-- the numbers are as follows:
         -x = number of days till expire
         -n = minimum number of days till a user may change his/her passwd
         -w = number of days prior to expiration that a user is warned

>2) I dug up an old printer to use and I can't find lpr or anything
>else which would address it. There is a macro called print which calls
>several programs not part of the SLS distribution (someone really
>should fix that sort of thing)

I tried that lpr thing too, and ended up with a file called /dev/lpr
What printer port is it on.  Try this:
                           ls -l >/dev/lp1  (or lp2 )


>3) I tried to install the fortune.tar from tsx-11 but the binaries all

Sorry,  I'm still trying to get the knack of compiling to.  I usualy
get a bunch of errors...  probably because I have so.4.2 ???

>4) lots of little things like that, I think the FTP version of SLS
>could use a bit of tweaking before it can be called 1.0 even if the
>kernel moves to 1.0 soon. i.e. minicom still refuses to run claiming
>that there is no global config file and there are no instructions on
>how to create one. I created the respective directories but even when
>I run it as root I get the message.. cannot create lockfile and it
>quits.

I, as root get a warning not to run it except with -s, and then it
crashes.  I tell you... I've used unix, but never came close to a
sysadmin on unix (unless you count DOS-Waffle sysop) and it is really
a whole new experience.  I have a lot of learning to do, and a lot of
trial and error hacking to do while confering with the man pages.  
there is a starter sysadmin document by Mark Komarinski which was
posted on comp.os.linux on Dec 3.  It is helpfull, although a bit
of it differs from my SLS system (which I believe is the .98 with
.99.1 updated kernel) ftpd from tsx on Dec 24.

>5) is there a way to display dvi files on hercules graphics? I see
>xdvi but no other dvi viewers.

Sorry, can't help you here either... I can't even get X11 running
yet.  (of course I only muddled through a few man pages so far.)

Anyone know of a good, fully explicit, but yet simple document for
setting up linux once it's installed.  (like I really believe that
this will get an answer thats more than a Haha <grin>)

I did get one error, while installing the SLS distribution.  (ah, found
the scrap of paper)  It was while installing SLS-B5.  It was during the
smail installation, and the error was `could not create symlink'.  Is this
usuall?  It doesn't bother me at present, since I have elm confiqured with
joe as an editor, and I don't plan to even hook the system up to the uucp
net for a while.

       tweek@netcom.com  tweek@tweekco.uucp  WWIVNet 5@5058  4@5056 
          I'd rather get my cable service from the phone company,
                than my phone service from the cable company.

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux