Scott:
I suppose you're right. I am a Linux newbie and am trying to accelerate
my learning experience. Ubuntu has been helpful with that. Some of the
stuff I guessed I had to do to try and "fix" zLinux show me that I'm
actually learning the command line interface <gasp>.
My long-term objective is getting zLinux running in an LPAR on a zSeries
box at my current client's. I'm using Hercules to give me some
experience with zLinux's capabilities before I try to start it there.
Since I have been using Ubuntu to get my "Introduction to Linux", I was
kind of thinking that I might be able to offer a similar environment to
the main-framers I am working with when I presented them with zLinux.
I guess the best strategy is to get them some experience with Ubuntu or
an equivalent distro (in what I'll call "mixed mode" - using both
commands and a GUI) and then show zLinux to the server folks when I get
it going.
Mike Myers
Scott Rohling wrote:
Mike - In this case, it's more the platform and the purpose that encourages
command line. There are things that can resemble ISPF and text driven
displays (yast on SUSE comes to mind -- you can run it from the command line
and get a fullscreen interaction). Since everything is going to be
network driven in terms of displaying data on a z -- text is much preferred
to graphics in terms of performance and resource usage. And as a server,
you want cycles spent on your services (web, file/print, database, whatever)
rather than processing graphics for a monitor that probably doesn't even
exist (servers racks, blades, whatever).
If you're just playing with this on Hercules, not really working to
implement it on z, etc ... go ahead and install a desktop environment and
get comfortable. Just don't carry this over to z if you implement there.
It's all about resource usage and how many servers you can run on one box
when talking 'real' virtualization.
Scott
On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Mike Myers <[email protected]> wrote:
Scott:
Thanks for the reply.
I agree that I am learning more about Linux using the command line
interface than I would from a graphical interface. But, the perfectly
awful command language in Linux (my "Linux in a Nutshell" manual has
about 700 pages describing the various commands) is driving a LOT of
research and, I believe, is probably the primary reason that it has
taken so long for Linux to catch on as a ubiquitous user system as it has.
I'm a mainframer from the mid-'60s, and the VM/CP, CMS and TSO command
languages, bad as they are/were are far simpler. As such, I have been a
user of TSO and CMS since their inception, but even with years of
experience using TSO commands and CLIST, I still appreciated the arrival
of menu-driven ISPF and full-screen editors.
So, given that I'll have to use line commands on zLinux, I'll try to
accelerate my Linux learning experience by using the graphical interface
where I can (as in Ubuntu) and the line command interface where I have
to <sigh>.
Mike Myers
Scott Rohling wrote:
If you want to install a whole desktop environment - you can.. but it
isn't
really advisable.. All of those things you want require a lot of
graphics
which end up being network traffic rather than a write to your video card.
(I see you are running under Hercules -- everything I'm saying really
applies to running under z and not a local emulator)
You should be able to start up some graphical thing if you like from that
command line.. Hopefully, that's only a select few things you might do
for
maintenance, etc. (try 'xclock' which should bring up a graphical clock
window -- not maintenance, but the typical 'see - it works' command)
But if you really want - sure -- yum install kde or something..
I think of Linux on z as more like the Ubuntu server edition... by
default
- you're just going to get a terminal login window, because a 'server'
doesn't really need more than that. But - you can install Ubuntu server
edition and then start adding on all the graphical stuff you want with
apt-get or aptitude or synaptic -- same here.
There's probably an install option you can use during the RH install that
you might have bypassed? Some Advanced option or something where you can
pick the type of install and maybe pick desktop? Not sure...
If you're serious about running Linux on z -- I would use the command line
rather than graphical interfaces. Reliance on GUI isn't in your best
interest (imho). And not just on z -- any server implementation.. you
learn more using the command line, and you can readily automate when you
know the commands behind the gui/menus/etc.
Scott
On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Mike Myers <[email protected]>
wrote:
Justin:
OK, I got vnc installed and it's sort of working. I say "sort of" since
it gives me a window, but the window doesn't offer much more than what I
got when I used ssh to access the zlinux system. The window contains a
normal prompt and lets me enter commands, but it just acts like a
terminal window. What I am looking for is a desktop environment like I
get when I login to my Ubuntu linux system, one with an action bar thet
gives me pull-downs from which I can open applications that will also
run in windows. Am I expecting too much when I am looking for one
Linux's "worksation" interface (like zLinux's) to look roughly like
another's (Ubuntu Linux, Knoppix Linux, or any of the other Linux
distros I have used)?
Is there some way that you can get such a desktop as a zLinux logged-in
user?
Mike Myers
using Justin Payne wrote:
On 11/27/2009 10:54 AM, Mike Myers wrote:
Hi all:
I have recently gotten RedHat's zLinux installed and running under
Hercules, and a trying to gain some experience with it prior to
attempting to install it in an LPAR on a client's system.
I'm looking for some information on how to get started. All I have
found
so far is the ability to login using SSH. I have created a couple of
users and was hoping that i could make use of a graphic environment,
but
haven't been able to get much more than a rudimentary terminal
environment. How would I go about accessing zLinuz from a windowed
environment and where would I find documentation?
Mike Myers
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If your goal is to have remote access to an entire desktop
environment,
then the following articles is very helpful and still applicable to
RHEL-5.
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/006apr05/features/vnc/
Be sure to open the necessary ports in your firewall (if iptables is
running) that Mauro pointed out. For your Windows clients, you will need
a vnc client (a google search for "windows vnc client" turns up quite a
few).
If an entire desktop environment is not your goal, then go with Jay
Brenneman's suggestions.
-Justin
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