THE LINETTE LINUX INSTALLATION
Saturday, June 16, 2001
03:05 AM
IF YOU GOT HERE DIRECTLY, please go to the Home Page, or What Is This Place?, or even What's New. If you are interested in the BYTE Fiasco (or if you don't know there was a fiasco), please go look there. Don't just send me mail without finding out a little about this place. I understand that many Linux enthusiasts have been directed to this section without passing through the home pages. We'll both be better off if you find out before you turn on your flame thrower.
Relevant other places to look: The Linux Adventure: mail, comments, and the like, largely from readers.
Linux Queries: questions I had (or may have).
Linux links and references: reference information from readers. NOT INDEXED.
There are four pages for historical reasons. The relationship among these three is not exact, and I may one day consolidate them all into one page. For the moment this is what we have.
DISPLAY variable must be set.
Recovered; searching for applix
A new Book: RUNNING LINUX from O'Reilly
Monday, October 5, 1998
The Linux Adventure begins. Most of that journal will be on this page. For the moment I'll also put my QUERIES HERE although there is a query page. This multi-page confusion won't last, but it's inconvenient to change everything now.
Linette is a Cyrix MX chip system, with MSI motherboard, 7 gigabyte IDE hard disk, Creative Labs ISA Sound Blaster Pro card, Bay Systems Ethernet card, STB Velocity 128 video, and 64 megs of memory. The mouse is COM 1 serial port 3 button generic mouse. The keyboard is a Microsoft humpback generic. There's no USB yet, and I can't get this mother board to believe that there is any such thing as a PS/2 mouse. I don't understand why: there's a pinout for it, and the manuals say it should recognize it, but there's no place in the BIOS to turn it on and connecting a mouse through the mother board pinout does nothing. Otherwise this is a pretty normal system for Chaos Manor...
Windows 98 is installed on a 1 gigabyte partition, and works normally. The system is turned off...
The beginning was good: insert the boot disk, and fire up. The choices were all simple, and it found my TEAC 6 CDROM player without trouble. Now the problems begin: what in the world do I do next? More later. I think I had better have my vitamin pills and coffee before I continue this.
The problem is this: neither the book nor Disk Druid tells me what to do once I am ready to partition the disk. There's too much information. I have a huge disk, 7 gigabytes with 6 feee, 1 being taken up by what LINUX sees as DOS but I see as Windows 98. Now I am invited to do /, or /usr, only there's also some kind of boot manager partition, and I don't know in what order to install those, or whether they are all subsidiaries of the "/" partition. I am sure those more accustomed to UNIX know. It's also possible that I need my morning coffee and time to think on this. So far, all is well, but the next step is a big one.
Afternoon:
I have lots of notes I have not written up, including partitions. I figured them out, and it all went well until:
Everything went just fine until we hit the Network Card. That one we can't find anything for. Up to then we had drivers for the STB video card, the NEC 21" monitor, the serial mouse; all installed fine. But we can't find the Network card. I'll have it try some other configurations.
What I have in there is a SOHOWARE Fast Ethernet Card. I may have to go buy a genuine 3com or else put in an Intel EtherExpress 10 base 2 coax board. That it knows about. But I don't know how to STOP…
EVENING
First, from the log book:
Everything goes well until I am asked what partitions I need. Although there is a large section in the Red Hat book, it's both dense and without much in the way of examples. Worse, I have conflicting advice from different people.
Some say make one big root directory and be done with it. Linux/UNIX will make all the subdirectories I need, and I won't have to worry. Oh, yes, do have a swap partition, but otherwise, forget it.
Darnell says that "Old School UNIX" always wants lots of partitions, but in fact he hasn't found they were needed, and a big "\" AKA root is probably good enough. Others say different. Talin has a good discourse on partitions that I will put in the Linux answers page. Others send other advice. Darnell took the trouble to look at his Linux installation and report on the percentage use of the various partitions he has, so that for a first cut we can see what was over allocated and what was under.
I used the Red Hat Linux Disk Druid, which explains what it is doing pretty well; use common sense. Alt-tab rather than shift-tab moves backward among fields.
Eventually I got:
hda1 1027mb DOS
/boot hda5 allocate 10 got 15 (the book says 10mb is generous).
/usr hda6 2000 mb
/home hda7 1750
/var hda8 500
(swap) hda9 127 ONE DOES NOT NAME THE SWAP partition. This isn't clear.
/src hda10 101
/ hda11 1325
while this is probably not optimum, it will do. The system then comes up and asks what partition to use for the swap. If I hadn't known it was hda9 (because I wrote all the above down while in the partitioning section) I could have used the default which was hda9 but it offered other choices even though 9 was the only one designated as a swap type.
System trundles, offers to format the swap file. Let it. Now it asks what to install. I tell it everything. It then goes to information about what you are to install, and offers to tell you things about the different processes. Since I'm installing it all, I didn't do much with this.
At 2:10 PM it began to trundle. It's very quiet, none of the disk chatter I heard when Windows was going in. There is no fuel gauge or progress meter, but every now and then the message changes. At 2:35 PM it was still going, still quietly. About 2:45 it was ready for more information. It knew about the STB Velocity video board, the NEC monitor, and serial mice. It had already located the TEAC 6 changer or at least the first drive of it. If I can't manage at some point to have it find all 6 then I'll start over and install with a TEAC single drive.
It hasn't asked about the Sound Card at all. And now we're to networking.
NETWORK CARD
It doesn't recognize my card as any it knows about. Go back and say don't bother with local networks (just now). It now trundles, and asks to make a boot disk. I make one, and now it wants a password for the root directory. I give it one, and write that in the log.
Remove the floppy it made. Hit return. Lots of information flowing on screen. Now I am asked for a login. Tell it root, give it the password, and VOILA. I am looking at an incomprehensible UNIX prompt [root@localhost /root]#
Doubtless this will mean something to me one day. I note also that power management works: the screen goes blank in 10 minutes. And here I am, and I make no doubt many will tell me what to do next…
First thing is to shut it down (HOW? I expect the book will tell me) and install a different network card, I think. Then we can see.
I have always thought UNIX was like the Adventure Game, with dark little hints every now and then. I installed emacs. I once knew how to use that: I was in daily communication with RMS back when he was writing it at MIT. I'm sure somewhere in there I will be able to find it. For the moment there is only that rather mysterious prompt...
Tuesday, October 6, 1998
OK, it's there. Emacs starts and exits properly. Startx produces an odd result. A Windows like screen complete with "start" button appears, but everything is locked up. Typing commands does nothing. There is a cursor but the mouse does nothing. There is a window with some icons over on the left, and page up and page down causes it to scroll, and I can turn on the "time machine" but I can't exit the "time machine" and nothing else I do works at all now. Well one thing works. I can press return and get more copies of the time machine until I am up to my clavicle in time machine windows. Nothing I do will exit from them.
Ctl-Alt-Del does nothing.
Mouseconfig does nothing because no keyboard entry is accepted.
Pull the plug. Yes, I know, that's the wrong thing to do with any UNIX system, but someone is going to try it and it might as well be me.
Restart takes a long time but eventually it "forces" various checks, asks if I want to do control-d, and there we are. I am back in the system. Login as root again. Do mouseconfig. There is no test to see if that was successful. How to test the mouse. Nothing for it, startx.
And here I am. No mouse, the keyboard does little. I can now open Modem Config. In fact every time I press return another modem config opens. I am up to my clavicle in modem config screens. If I use TAB I can get to one of them, but I can't get it to accept either OK or cancel to get out. And that is where I am now. I would like to be sure I have recorded the right serial port for the mouse. For that matter I would like to change mice. This is a 3 button mouse that works fine with Microsoft Windows so I presume it is Microsoft compatible, but since it doesn't work at all, I can put a regular Microsoft Serial Mouse on there.
Interesting. I plug the Microsoft mouse into the port. Nothing. Plug it into the OTHER port. Mouse works fine. OK, I had the wrong port. And NOW I can close that infinitude of modem configuration windows. Hurrah. Now I can get to the command line window!
Get to the command line window, run /usr/sbin/mouseconfig again. I'll tell it to emulate a 3 button and use the Microsoft two button for the time being, since I don't know what a 3 button DOES.
The moral of this story is that if you don't have a mouse working, don't start X Windows. Alas, there's no way to test the mouse EXCEPT to start X Windows. Linux would do well to build some kind of MOUSE TEST into the mouse config dialog.
I have a pile of mail ranging from polite to one beginning "you idiot" (I love getting that kind of mail in response to keeping this journal) advising me to create a non privileged account to play in because as root I can destroy everything very easily. All true, now I have to figure out how to do that. I used to have a whole bunch of UNIX books here. I suspect I gave them all away long ago.
Aha. UNIX FOR THE IMPATIENT Abrahams and Larson Second Edition 1995. Well, it will have to do. I doubt the command structure of UNIX has changed much over the last 3 years. This is a good time to collect some new UNIX books for review. I'll have to tell the publishers. As usual I start with the beginner stuff and work up. Rommel said of the Americans that they knew less and learned faster than anyone else he had to fight. I tend to be that way: I fool around with so many things that I can't possibly know them all simultaneously, so I have concentrated on learning how to tool up. I was once the world's foremost expert on inertial guidance for about 3 weeks until I didn't have to know about it any more. Now I don't remember a thing except that PIGA stands for Pendulous Inertial Guidance and I've forgotten the A and I doubt they use 24-hour pendulums for intertial platforms anyway, so it would be pointless to have remembered it anyway. As Sherlock Holmes once observed, there's only so much room in your head and if you fill it with irrelevant material you won't have room for what you need to learn…
OK, I have the basics here. X-Windows works. I don't know what the middle button does, but I'll find out when I need to know.
I still need to shut down to change net cards. The only card I see at the moment is the Intel EtherExpress, and that is for ISA and 10 base 2. I sure wish I could find an NE 2000 compatible. I can live with 10, but I would rather not have to string coax around to this work station.
Then, I must REINSTALL; I guess I have to reinstall. Not sure how to do that, but I figure I can learn. Then install that pile of productivity stuff and see how good it is, and whether one could learn to live with it. Now it's time for breakfast.
==
Darnell says the Net Gear FA 310TX will work. I have one. It uses the Digital chip. That solves the network problem. I will have to hut down and reinstall. We'll see how long that takes.
To shut down: /sbin/shutdown -h now does the job nicely. It has to be issued at the root level. To get to the root from a user level it's su, enter, and password. So says Darnell and it all works. I have installed the new network card, and I'm in the middle of reinstalling. We'll see how that works.
It worked fine until it gave me "Starting sendmail"
That is, we got through disk partitions, all the data on the network card which it saw immediately, making a boot disk. Now it is starting sendmail and it is there. For ten minutes so far. OK, it finally got past that. Am I going to have to wait for that every time? But I am there.
OK, I have an intact system that understands my network card. I can create a jerryp user although it sure hates all my password selections. Incidentally, when you create a user name, it does not ask for a password to be assigned. You must explicitly tell it you want to assign a password to that user. No one can access the user account until you DO assign a password, you understand. I suspect that if you can understand that UNIX won't ask you to assign a password, but will not let you use that account until you do, you will understand the philosophy of UNIX. SO let's see what we can do.
--
Well, that took care of that. I have here a box from Red Hat called "Applixware" that purports to be software that runs on Red Hat Linux. I wouldn't know. Although there is an enormous book with it, there is NOT ONE WORD about INSTALLING this stuff. I suppose I could sort of muddle along, but how? Clearly the first thing one must learn is all about how to use UNIX. Then you will apparently know how to install Applixware.
Interestingly the Applixware book goes into near baby talk on using the stuff once you have it in your machine. Wonderful. But I haven't a suspicion of how to get it into there in the first place. Interesting philosophy: assume your customers are UNIX wizards, but not very familiar with spread sheets and word processors.
Meanwhile, I see I have a learning experience on TCP/IP and networking. While adding a new machine to a Microsoft network is simple -- it just sort of happens -- I'm still a long way from transferring files to or from the Linux machine.
When I first got into the computer game they kept telling me how wonderful UNIX was and how everyone ought to use it. Very few did. Very few could. A bunch of AT&;T people said they'd make it easier to use. That didn't happen. Then Microsoft began to eat the world. IBM brought out OS/2. There was a race to see who would become dominant. Meanwhile, lots of people just wanted to write documents, and maybe print them. Many of them got Macs. After all, for a while there Apple with VisiCalc was THE business machine.
The computer science people continued to tell us how wonderful UNIX is. "But there are so few useful applications," we all said. "And it's very hard to learn."
"Yes but look at the power you have, and as to applications, those are coming. You don't want to use DOS, do you?"
And time went on. And new applications came out. All for Windows. And Microsoft continued to eat the world. Apple turned inward and dispersed its activities everywhere, and Microsoft continued to eat the world because all the applications were for Microsoft. But X-Windows is coming! Quarterdeck tried. Hard. But most of the new applications were for Windows. And when Apple stumbled a bit, Microsoft handed them Office 2000. And here comes NT. And Microsoft continued to eat the world.
Now there's the new challenge. Microsoft made so many mistakes and so many enemies that a new UNIX has a chance. Linux is here to save the day. And Applixware comes out without one single word about how to install it. Learn UNIX first, then you will know, I guess.
One can either have the feeling of being part of an inner circle, an initiate, or one can be part of the larger user community. It’s pretty hard to be both. UNIX has always been a full employment act for wizards. Maybe it will stay that way. Meanwhile, I suppose somewhere I will learn how to install Applixware. Do I have to become an initiate first?
==
I have a LOT of new mail, all of considerable interest. I am not sure whether to put it here or on the solutions page; I guess over there and leave this as mostly my narrative.
One thing. Installing everything includes MIDNIGHT COMMANDER. Type nc at the command line, hit a function key, and wow! It looks like Norton Commander! THAT I understand. Most user-friendly thing I have seen in UNIX yet!
The box has sat there at the jerryp prompt for a week while I try to do something else. I had writing to do, but the longer it takes to get to UNIX stuff the less one wants to do it because all those commands fade like dreams. Now I don't even dare turn this thing off. It sits there in the middle of the room taking up prime real estate while I try to learn how to install applications…
Alas, after several days I have not heard from O'Reilly regarding their books (which are said to be what I need) and I haven't got up the nerve to continue very far. I'll have to, What I need to do is get Applixware going, and the Sound Card. I suspect I am going to need help configuring my Microsoft Network to be usable by Linux. I have pages and pages of hints, advice, and instructions on assigning TCP/IP addresses to everything here, but it's also pollen season and my head's not up to what it used to be.
With luck and some perseverance there ought to be a bit of progress today. Sorry to keep everyone waiting.
So: Email tells me to try going to the cdrom directory, then do ./install-applix which appears in the directory.
That works in that it starts a program. That program takes me to a bunch of screens. One of them offers to install in English, French, or German. Clicking the mouse on any of those produces no results, nor can you use the mouse to do "OK". You must select one or another with the space bar, then hit TAB (and ONLY tab) to get to the OK then RETURN. Any other action produces nothing. Not even the Adventure game's offer of a hint for a point cost.
So I did that, and it wants to put things in a directory that doesn't exist. It doesn't seem to want to offer to create that directory, but perhaps I misunderstand. We'll try that now. Yep. By default it installs with a prefix of opt, but hitting return gets me the message that opt doesn't exist. Presumably you can now exit the silly installation program, create the directories you wanted, and come back. It also asks about other directories. Since I have no notion of what I want for a directory, I will try the various instructions, but I have the feeling that if I do not WRITE OUT the options it is offering now, I will find myself here again: that I have to be like a little computer with pencil and paper, and keep track of all the things UNIX wants to do, and go do them for it. This is known as using a computer to do the tedious work. And I am known as King Carol of Rumania.
Well, it is doing something. I should have written down what I did, since it wasn't obvious what choices I made. I seem to be in usr/lib somewhere.
It installed the applixware. Unfortunately I Cannot FIND it. Ls in the bin directory scrolls off screen. More ls gets me an error message.
I presumably have applixware installed. I can't find it, but it's installed. I can't find x windows either. More Adventure game. Doubtless someone will tell me. Meanwhile I have the O'Reilly LINUX books so perhaps I can find out that way. This is more fun than I wanted.
Well, progress of sorts. If I type ./applix I get a message: before running this product you must set your environment DISPLAY variable. Maybe I'll figure out how to do that and what to set it to. But at least I have found how to invoke it. More or less. What fun.
Jerry,
I had the same problems that you did in figuring out how to install Applix, and then running it. I believe your problem is that Applix installed itself in a directory which is not in your "path". My solution was to create a symbolic link to it from a directory which WAS in my path.
First, X-Windows. What happens when you type "startx" and hit <ENTER>? That should suffice to start up X-Windows. Applix may have installed a link to itself in the Start menu for X-Windows. If that link is present AND it works then you’re set.
If the link is there but doesn’t work then try this:
On my system Applix installed itself in /usr/local/lib/applix/bin (real intuitive, huh?). I figured /usr/local/bin was a good place for a link (it seemed an appropriate spot, and typing the "set" command showed it was on my path). So I typed "ln -s /usr/local/lib/applix/bin/applix /usr/local/bin/applix", and then the Applix selection in the start menu worked.
Yes, I know it’s rather obscure. So, I’ll make you this offer. I’m home, and will be up until at least 10:30 tonight (9:30 your time). If you want to call me, I’ll be happy to call you on my dime (rather, 9 cents per minute, which is cheap enough). I’ll try to talk you through your installation difficulties (except for printing - I haven’t needed it, so I haven’t tried setting it up. I may do so tonight). It would be easier if your computer was on the Internet - then I could poke around in it via telnet. But I do get paid to do tech support (among other things) at work, so there’s a good chance I can help you out.
BTW, when this is all installed, check out KDE (currently the most advanced GUI for Linux). I run in that all the time, using a terminal window if I really need a command line interface.
Sincerely,
Calvin Dodge
Startx certainly starts X Windows. Alas, there is no sign of Applixware in there. Zero. Thanks for the offer, but unfortunately the machine isn't very near the telephone; but perhaps another time. I'm still trying to muddle through. But I will probably get to the point where I need an expert and a short circuit of this learning process.
As you say, it's all so really truly intuitive…
Moshe Bar sent instructions on finding applixware in xwindows. Alas, it didn't work quite as expected. I had xwindows running (as root not as jerryp, but I can't think that caused this problem). I did the right mouse click on desktop, and a menu came up. I didn't see the "terminal" or "console" but there was an "applications" bar on the menu. That produced a side menu of "applixware" and I thought how silly of me not to have looked for that! I mean "Start" didn't seem to have given me that choice, but this does, and surely this is what is needed.
I used the mouse to select applixware (which has a big * on the button). I clicked. Now the machine is totally locked up. NOTHING I do will produce ANY RESULT at all. Eventually I am going to have to pull the plug. Aargh! I think Linux, or at least Applixware, hates me.
Today I got Fedex a Corel Word Perfect 7 for Linux. I am a bit afraid to try installing it but I suppose I had better. SOMETHING has to work; others are getting things to work. Why shouldn't I?
I have pulled the plug. After two hours it is clear that nothing is going to happen: the system is utterly locked up, nothing I do had any effect. So I shut down the power and restarted. We will see what THAT does.
With fun like this who needs TV? The good news is that after trundling for a long time the system came back up unharmed from the lockup.
OK, I became jerryp. I set the display to 0.0 and did xstart, to follow the suggestions of Moshe Bar. Right click and started a new terminal although there was already one up. Locate applix. A thousand entries, mostly on the cdrom. Scrolled past anything useful. Locate applix | more. Now I scroll one a time through hundreds. Get LINUX in a NUTSHELL (O'Reilly) and look up more. Use d which scrolls more than one line. Eventually find applix
/usr/bin/applix
/usr/lib/applix
/usr/lib/applix/applix
try /usr/lib/applix and "bash" tells me that applix is a directory.
Try /usr/bin/applix and get
Bind: address already in use
/usr/lib/applix/axdata/axnet address already in use
try usr/lib/applix/applix
bind tells me the address is already in use
Close one of the terminals and try again. Same thing.
Right click, bring up the program menu, try selecting applixware (which locked up the system). It didn't lock up but nothing happened. Nothing. Shut down both terminals. Try again. Nothing. Close startx.
I get bind telling me the address is already in use. I have no more clues for the moment. There appears to be a program called applix, but the menu window that is supposed to appear doesn't, and I have no notion of what I should do now. I presume this is all worth the effort?
Taking stock:
So: I have to go out now. Let's take stock for a moment. Although I have done things in fits and starts, I have in essence followed exactly the path I was supposed to follow in installing applix, which came in a Red Hat box and might reasonably be supposed to have some computability with Red Hat Linux, since both were sold as a package at Fry's. After many adventures I got the system to believe it had installed applixware.
I now cannot find it. One attempt locked up the system. The second either produces no results, or gives me the mysterious message that it's already in use, which I don't believe is the case. I do see an applixware line on the menu: once that got me locked up, the second time it merely does nothing.
I suppose I can now shut down the system (to get rid of that DISPLAY variable I set up), be jerryp and xstart without it and see if THAT gives me anything. And finally gulp hard and be root and try it again, and see if it still locks up or if that was a fluke.
This really is not a lot of fun.
Well, with a Sudafed non-drying sinus gel working on my headache I restarted the machine, and logged in as root rather than as jerryp. I then did
/usr/bin/applix
which got the message that I had to set my DISPLAY variable. So I did
Export DISPLAY=0.0
Set
I got several lines I didn't copy in answer. I then did
/usr/bin/applix
which produced the messages:
Could not open X display
Your X server does not seem to recognize this
Start process: connect : connection refused
So I did
Startx
And found myself in X windows. Then I clicked in the already open terminal window, and did
/usr/bin/applix
and Lo! The Light is Risen! Sursum Corda! Dignum et justum est!
There, just like in the thick Applixware book, was the windowed Applixware screen. Click on the paper icon, and it looks a bit like Microsoft Word. There are fonts and stuff. It will of course take a while to learn how to use it (if I bother to do that) but I can now say that it looks to be as sophisticated as the early Word for Windows programs, and perhaps it is more so. I can change the font size (default is tiny), and I can type. I haven't done a lot more with it, but if I can get Linette set up as a server, perhaps I will try doing some of this log with the Applix word processor.
Now to take stock: I got to it by being on as root, setting the display variable, starting xwindows, clicking in the terminal window, and typing in /usr/bin/applix. I have not yet managed to get it started in any other way, including with the applixware item on the START menu in Xwindows, but perhaps I can as USER? Let's see. This is UNIX, will it allow me multiple word processing windows in multiple places? I'll go try, by using the mouse to click on the applixware item in the xwindows START menu. Maybe I'll lock up again, maybe something else. Here goes:
It works. I now have two WORD like windows, and I can move them around, and go from one to the other. The mouse is squirrelly and needs some settings. I am using an older Microsoft Dove Soap Bar two-button mouse; I'll buy a new Logitech First Mouse in honor of the occasion, next time I am out at Fry's. Then I will have to search about to find out where and how I changed mouse settings, but I suspect I can find that somewhere. I think there is a control panel.
When I restart the machine and log on as root I am told I have new mail. Since there's nobody to send new mail I suppose it must be something sent by the system although Red Hat is I suppose capable of sending me mail from inside their applications program as an advertisement. I don't know how to READ that mail yet.
The Applixware screen looks fine, and types fine, and is crisp and fast. The mouse as I said is a bit squirrelly. I am used to Windows where the mouse movements are controlled a bit better. I will try with a better mouse on Linette.
Anyone reading this who knows just what the devil is going on and why I can get in there now when I could not before is invited to explain it all…
Anyway it's a lot more fun now. At least something works!
Tuesday was used on other things, but I have RUNNING LINUX by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman from O'Reilly; this looks like the book I should have started with. I haven't got far into it, but the index looks good as does the table of contents. I expect it will be the book of the month; more after I've read on it. This is the intro I probably ought to have started with.
