Hi Kenneth Stephen. et all.
Here are a few comments about the newbie faq, i hope i am not being to
picky, but i belive that such a document should give the correct
information.
The message is unquoted as you can see, my comments are between [ ].
1.1 Help! I can't remember my root password!
What you will need to do, is a re-boot. If you are the administrator it
would be prudent to warn users that are logged in. Say something like you
have to do an emergency maintenance.
[
You do not even need to reboot, if you do the System will automaticly send
a message to all connecties/users that "The System is going down".
Even using 'init 1' will still send other users the same message.
Ok, Now how do you do it.
1: first think up a new password.
2: reboot the machine
No dont reboot, just use 'init 1' which has the same effect but does not
reboot the machine.
]
1.4 I've put in my cdrom, but when I do an 'ls' in the /cdrom directory, I
dont see any files.
Cdrom drives are not mounted automatically by Linux (this is the default
setting for most Linux distributions). So, you need to mount the cdrom drive
at at appropriate 'mount point'. For example, if your bootup messages
detected your cdrom on hdc, you need to say 'mount /dev/hdc /cdrom'.
Note that mounts can only be done by the superuser. Once you do the mount,
your files on the cdrom will be visible.
If you didnt know the answer to this question, you need to read the manpage
for 'mount' very thoroughly.
[
Not exactly true, mounts can be done by users, its up to the sysadmin to
edit /etc/fstab to allow users to use mount on certain devices.
Futher more it would be a good idea to re word the whole paragraph, as you
say at the beginning, "but when I do an 'ls' in the /cdrom directory," this
will prompt some unknowing fellow to go into the /cdrom dir, and issue the
mount command, which will lead to failure, you cant mount a device when you
are in the directory it's to be mounted in, it will result in something
like;
mount: /dev/cdrom already mounted or /cdrom busy
]
1.6
If you are still at the initial login prompt, <Shift + PgUp> and
<Shift+PgDn>
should allow you to scroll through the bootup messages. If you have already
logged in, you can try using the 'dmesg' command.
[
There are a lot of Distributions which clear the screen just before the
login prompt, thus renering the <Shift+PgUp> idea unusable.
]
1.7
do a 'ps aux' to and look through the output to see which line corresponds
to the process you are trying to kill. The second column on the relevant
line is the process id. Now do a 'kill -9 <process id>'.
[
do 'ps ax | grep command' Where command is the name typed which caused the
problem. (Saves having to sift thro' all those prosecces).
Doing a kill -9 PID could possably leave child processes running and cause
more havoc, use kill -9 ONLY as a last ditch effort.
]
3.7
[
Contradictory, in 1.4 you state it can only be done by the superuser.
]
4.4
[
Your explanation that there are 6 ttys is not correct, you can define more
or indeed less ttys in /etc/inittab;
7:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty7
8:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty8
OR just comment out what you dont need/want.
]
5.4
5.4 Sendmail sometimes stalls for a long time. Why?
--- To Do ----- Please send me the answer. - It should have something
-- to do with no fqdn in /etc/hosts -- Will the person who told me -- about
also give me an answer please?
[
Sendmail stalls because it cant map hostnames to ipaddresses via a DNS
server.
The need for a defined dnsserver in /etc/resolv.conf and a valid route for
dns lookups.
Same goes for the SMB server.
]
5.7 What does "kernel symbols not found!..." message at boot up mean?
That you have no System.map
You get that file when you compile the kernel, and you must put it as
System.map or System.map-kernel version in either '/' or '/boot'.
[
No you are wrong here, must be a typo, as you explane about System.map in
section 8.17.
The System.map is for debugging kernel funtions and programs, it contains
the addresses of kernel funtions and is used in conjuntion with GDB, the GNU
debugger and also decijfering a Kernel Oops when running it tho' a small
script called ksymoops.
What you possably mean is /boot/map which is normaly defined in
/etc/lilo.conf That contains information for booting.
Or do you mean the Error messages about Unresolved Symbols caused by stale
modules being found.??
]
There is no mention of "modules" anywhere or am i missing that one.
I cannot express the importance of having some sort of text about modules,
as when a system is installed the accompanying kernel is modular, which has
just about all drivers and filesystems anyone could need, just think about
how many mails are posted to linux-newbie about compiling a new kernel, when
realy 95% of the time its absolutly unnessasacry.
Possably bringing the line lenth into line with other Linux-faq docs would
be a good idea, normaly they are 74 cols long.
I hope i am not offending you in anyway, just trying to help in getting
things strait.
--
Regards Richard.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
