Linux-Setup Digest #538, Volume #20 Tue, 30 Jan 01 14:13:09 EST
Contents:
Re: Flash disk / initrd problems *HELP PLEASE!* (Jem)
Re: XOSL + Promise Ultra 100 - OK? ("Keith Wheeler")
Re: Partitioning the hard disk for setup (H.Bruijn)
How to move a domain name? ("tito")
X Windows - help for visually impaired user (Dama)
Re: How to move a domain name? (H.Bruijn)
Restore Boot Sector After Windows Install ("Tommy")
Re: Restore Boot Sector After Windows Install (David)
Re: Is there a word for below novice - need help (John)
Re: Partitioning the hard disk for setup (Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku)
Re: First insatll-Newbie ("wilcock")
ide-tape problem (was solved: Promise IDE on Dell PowerEdge 1400) (Eric R. Jorgensen)
Re: Root is Invalid!! HELP!! (James Webb)
Re: Partitioning the hard disk for setup (Wesley)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.embedded
Subject: Re: Flash disk / initrd problems *HELP PLEASE!*
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:09:05 -0000
In article <956oo1$37j$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
says...
> In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Jem
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> *snip*
>
> >I was actually working from Paul Moodys embedded device howto:
>
> > http://www.linux-embedded.com/pmhowto.html
>
> >What he says is that you need to use initrd to load a root file system
> >which then expands a larger, say 40MB, ram disk from the flash disk and
> >continues the boot process.
>
> >However, what you are saying does make sense to me... I am going to have
> >to investigate this further. He (apparently) got everything to work (I
> >followed his howto step-by-step) but I can't get zcat to work at all and
> >am wondering how he did it.... And now I'm wondering WHY he did it ;-)
>
> I have used the Paul Moody method to build several such systems
> successfully. It's a bit tricky and tedious but it does work.
>
> You have to make sure all the details are right. I'm sure some of
> this should be obvious, but for example you need to compile your
> copies of zcat, mount, and any other programs you use in the
> boot phase as *static* executables. You cannot have any dynamically
> linked executables unless you are going to include the libs.
> I just downloaded the source rpm's and compiled static.
>
>
> --
> "Who needs horror movies when we have Microsoft"?
> -- Christine Comaford, PC Week, 27/9/95
>
Hmmm, I didn't static link but I did "ldd" the files and copied all the
dependent libraries into the /lib directory... could this be my problem?
Maybe it doesn't know about the /lib directory and I need to set some
form of path?
Jeremy
------------------------------
From: "Keith Wheeler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: XOSL + Promise Ultra 100 - OK?
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:20:19 -0700
Markus,
I used LILO on my Linux system and it's not in the first 2 disks. I
installed RH 7 on my onboard VIA ATA66 controler, then compiled the 2.2.18
kernel to support my onbaord Promise ATA100 controller, then moved my IBM
45GB ATA100 HDD over to the Promise controller, then modified my boot files
(lilo.conf, etc.), and re ran LILO to update my boot info. Boom! Life is
good.
My disks are now running as hde, boot is hde1, swap is hde5. Shouldn't be an
issue, but again I AM running LILO.
Good Luck,
KW
Markus Werle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> Hi!
>
> Before I install yet another boot-loader:
>
> Has anyone experience with xosl on a system
> where a UDMA-100 controller card is installed
> in such a way that its disk numbers start with
> /dev/hde (5th disk) ?
>
> Or has anyone an idea how to start linux or
> (e.g. a win98) on such a disk without linuxrc?
>
> Note that lilo is not appropriate because
> the system is *not* on the firts 2 disks.
>
> Markus
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (H.Bruijn)
Subject: Re: Partitioning the hard disk for setup
Date: 30 Jan 2001 17:20:33 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:43:00 +0000 (UTC), Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku
allegedly wrote:
>Hi all
>
>I am about to install Linux (Mandrake 7.1). I remember once
>being advised to have a small (how small?) swap partition,
>and separate ones for root, /usr, etc. Can someone please
>give me a brief lowdown on optimal partition numbers and
>sizes? My goal is to have the OS itself on a separate partition
>from the data and applications, so that I can upgrade the OS
>if necessary without doing anything to my data and application
>partitions. Thanks.
The reason to have separate partitions is that fi when the partition you have
your log files on is 100% full, the system will lock down. It can't write the
log files anymore and that's considered a bad thing [TM]. Second when the
partition where the home directory of the systemadministrator, /root, resides
gets filled, root won't be able to log on anymore, third when you
upgrade/reinstall the vendor software (your linux distribution) it shouldn't
overwrite/remove software you compiled yourself from source, nor the
directories with data, or the home directories.
More partitions make monitoring disc useage easier ("df -h" is a lot
quicker then doing" du -s /list /of /directories")
It depends a lot on the kind of system you run, for home use a separate
/home is more then enough, on real multi user environments you want a
better setup. The actual sizes of discs and partitions depend on what
you'll be doing, the number of users, the kind of software etc.
Linux used to have a problem with booting from large discs, so that's
why the recommendation still is to have a /boot partition within the first
1024 cylinders.
Usefull to have as separate partitions/discs:
/ the root partition.
/boot when you have to stay under the 1024 cyl. limit
/root (so root will always be able to log in even though other discs maybe
100% full)
/tmp (so when users dump complete cd's in there and completely fill the
device your system won't lock down)
/var/spool (again to prevent mailbombs, printqueues etc to completely fill
all avaialable disc space, resulting in system lockout)
/var/spool/news (tends to get very large, very quickly when you run a
newsserver)
/var/log (makes it easy to monitor with df, gives the least possibility of
users swamping it and locking the system)
/home (where the users have their data)
/usr/src (where I always keep to source to the stuff in /usr/local)
/usr/local (where you keep the binaries/libs/documentation and such of locally
compiled software, nad anything else that didn't come out of the box)
/data (when user accounts have fi quota on /home, but some of them have large
datasets as well)
/database/disc{#1..#n} professional databases require a full array of
discs for best performance.
/etc, /bin, /lib and /sbin should be on one and the same partition, the
root partition. Otherwise your system won't work.
<technical explanation>
The utilities in /(s)bin use dynimically linked libraries, which are
loaded when a program runs. when you run /bin/ls fi it needs
libc.so.6. To find out the location of that library it first consults
the index of libraries, /etc/ld.so.preload, etc/ld.so.cache where it
then learns to check /lib for libc.so.6. The same holds for instance
for /bin/mount.
Now when /lib were to be a separate partition, it would first need to be
mounted before the files on that partition could be read, but to be able
to mount it, /bin/mount would need to read it's libraries from /lib.
Hence the system would be broken if /(s)bin, /etc and/or /lib were to be
on a seperate partitions.
</technical explanation>
size of the swap partition is generally twice the amount of physical RAM
with a maximum of 128 MB. But it depends a lot on what you'll be doing. Some
applications will hardly cause the use of swap, but editing images of a 100 MB
will eat swap space.
most simple config :
25 MB /boot
128 MB swap
1000 MB /
everything else /home
--
If a trainstation is the place where trains stop, what is a workstation?
========================================================================
Herman Bruijn mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Netherlands website: http://hermanbruijn.com
------------------------------
From: "tito" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: How to move a domain name?
Date: 30 Jan 2001 17:43:20 GMT
Hi to all, well finaly I have my own box with static ip, and I can host my
own site, work with the ip, can someone point me to the righ direction to
find out how I can move my domain name to my box, right now is hosting for
an ISP.
Thank you.
------------------------------
Subject: X Windows - help for visually impaired user
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dama)
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 17:56:54 GMT
Hi
I have mandrake 7.2 running kde 2. I have mild visual impairment and
need help setting up X windows to make it easier to read. I don't need
a screen reader (I'm not blind) or a magnifier tool (I'm not that badly
off). I just need to make everything a bit bigger so I don't have to
squint painfully all the time.
I know that individual apps have options to make the font bigger (e.g.,
term), but I'm looking for a way to apply large fonts throughout the
system. Say what you will about windows, but it sure makes my life
easier as far as seeing the screen. I can apply a scaling factor for
the screen, which makes everything bigger. I can also change the font
style/size/color for various windows elements/widgets. What can I do
in X?
As it is, term is the easiest prog for me to use in kde. Which kind of
defeats the whole point of using linux as a desktop.
tia for any help.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (H.Bruijn)
Subject: Re: How to move a domain name?
Date: 30 Jan 2001 18:05:19 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 30 Jan 2001 17:43:20 GMT, tito allegedly wrote:
>Hi to all, well finaly I have my own box with static ip, and I can host my
>own site, work with the ip, can someone point me to the righ direction to
>find out how I can move my domain name to my box, right now is hosting for
>an ISP.
Go to wherever you got the domain and have them update the DNS records,
so that the A records show your ip-number as the www.domain.com,
mail.domain.com, ftp.domain.com, domain.com etc. Don't forget the MX
records.
Or make them set your own box as the primary DNS for your domain.
First set up bind (the latest version, just yesterday a major bug was
announced) with the correct records for your domain, then order the
transfer. For an example do "host -Zal hermanbruijn.com" which gives the
format used as in bind.
--
If a trainstation is the place where trains stop, what is a workstation?
========================================================================
Herman Bruijn mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Netherlands website: http://hermanbruijn.com
------------------------------
From: "Tommy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Restore Boot Sector After Windows Install
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:11:27 -0600
I had to re-install windows and I did not realize that it would wipe out my
LILO stuff on my boot sector. I don't have a good rescue disk but could
probably make one from another linux box. I am running RH 6.2.
Is there a way to restore my boot sector so my machine will dual boot again
or do I have to reinstall 6.2 from scratch again?
--
Thanks...
Tommy Martin
------------------------------
From: David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Restore Boot Sector After Windows Install
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:18:48 GMT
Tommy wrote:
>
> I had to re-install windows and I did not realize that it would wipe out my
> LILO stuff on my boot sector. I don't have a good rescue disk but could
> probably make one from another linux box. I am running RH 6.2.
>
> Is there a way to restore my boot sector so my machine will dual boot again
> or do I have to reinstall 6.2 from scratch again?
You can use the install CD to boot into rescue and get back into the
system. Then just re-run lilo to fix the MBR back to the way it was. You
shouldn't need to reinstall to fix it.
--
Confucius say: He who play in root, eventually kill tree.
Registered with the Linux Counter. http://counter.li.org
ID # 123538
Completed more W/U's than 99.023% of seti users. +/- 0.01%
------------------------------
From: John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Is there a word for below novice - need help
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:05:12 GMT
Don't be scared of Apache - beats the heck out of IIS. Modify one
file, re-start httpd, and "Bob's your uncle."
BTW, I'm running RH 7.0, and I'd recommend you use it instead of
6.2 or earlier. Red Hat switched their network configurations from
inetd to xinetd in 7.0, and if you're going to learn something, go
ahead and learn the newest stuff. Just avoid one of my
headaches: go ahead and install wu-ftpd so you can FTP to the
server in addition to the Samba. For some reason, 7.0 didn't install
FTP for me (a minor inconvenience :-) ).
I just replaced an NT server running IIS and Mac services with a
RH 7.0 server running Apache and Netatalk. Works great. Oh, I'm
running Samba, too - only one of my Windows PC's can't see the
server (the rest do). No problems with the Macs. Go figure.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku)
Subject: Re: Partitioning the hard disk for setup
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 18:17:14 +0000 (UTC)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (H.Bruijn) wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:43:00 +0000 (UTC), Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku
> allegedly wrote:
>
>>Hi all
>>
>>I am about to install Linux (Mandrake 7.1). I remember once
>>being advised to have a small (how small?) swap partition,
>>and separate ones for root, /usr, etc. Can someone please
>>give me a brief lowdown on optimal partition numbers and
>>sizes? My goal is to have the OS itself on a separate partition
>>from the data and applications, so that I can upgrade the OS
>>if necessary without doing anything to my data and application
>>partitions. Thanks.
>
> The reason to have separate partitions is that fi when the partition you have
> your log files on is 100% full, the system will lock down. It can't write the
> log files anymore and that's considered a bad thing [TM]. Second when the
> partition where the home directory of the systemadministrator, /root, resides
> gets filled, root won't be able to log on anymore, third when you
> upgrade/reinstall the vendor software (your linux distribution) it shouldn't
> overwrite/remove software you compiled yourself from source, nor the
> directories with data, or the home directories.
> More partitions make monitoring disc useage easier ("df -h" is a lot
> quicker then doing" du -s /list /of /directories")
>
> It depends a lot on the kind of system you run, for home use a separate
> /home is more then enough, on real multi user environments you want a
> better setup.
[...]
It is just for home use. Thanks for the full and clear explanation!
Best regards, The Chief
=======================
Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku (The African Chief)
(Author of Chief's Installer Pro for Win32)
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: http://www.bigfoot.com/~african_chief/
------------------------------
From: "wilcock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: First insatll-Newbie
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 02:35:27 +0800
soz about my last post :)
spent awhile searching the net and foud the page
with all the relevent info....
thanks for all your replys :)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Eric R. Jorgensen)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: ide-tape problem (was solved: Promise IDE on Dell PowerEdge 1400)
Date: 30 Jan 2001 18:43:28 GMT
Hi all,
Thanks to everyone who responded. To get the promise card working, I
downloaded the 2.2.18 kernel along with Hedrick's
ide.2.2.18.1221.patch.gz file. It turns out that even though I was
getting the "Ultra100 BIOS not installed" during boot, Linux would
still find the controller and configure it. Subsequent reboots showed
that the promise controller found the devices and displayed them and
configured the BIOS.
Next problem. :-)
I have an Travan NS20 IDE tape drive that I can't seem to get going.
I'm running a heavily updated RH6.2 system with a 2.2.18 and Hedrick's
1221 patch for it. When I do an insmod ide-tape, I get a divide
error:
ide-tape: hdb <-> ht0: TECMAR TRAVAN NS20 rev A245
divide error: 0000
CPU: 0
EIP: 0010:[<d0089848>]
EFLAGS: 00010206
eax: 01312d00 ebx: 00000000 ecx: 01312d00 edx: 00000000
esi: c02756b8 edi: ccd52000 ebp: ccd5336c esp: ccd81ef0
ds: 0018 es: 0018 ss: 0018
Process modprobe (pid: 796, process nr: 41, stackpage=ccd81000)
Stack: ccd52000 d008c1c0 cfcfa6e0 c022d8dc 00000000 0003d090 cffd4c06 ccd52000
000081c0 d0089c0f c02756b8 ccd52000 00000000 d0083000 00000000 d0083051
00000000 00000000 00000001 d0089c9d c011868b ccd80000 080836f8 08074148
Call Trace: [<d008c1c0>] [<d0089c0f>] [<d0083000>] [<d0083051>] [<d0089c9d>] [<c
011868b>] [<d008bfc4>]
[<d008c210>] [<d007c000>] [<d0083048>] [<c0109394>] [<c01e002b>]
Code: f7 7c 24 18 89 c3 89 9f b4 13 00 00 89 9f b8 13 00 00 89 d8
- The version of the ide-tape module that I'm using is ide-tape version 1.16f
- This happens regardless if I have the tape drive on the promise
controller or the on-board IDE controller
- the drive shows up on boot: "hdb: TRAVAN NS20, ATAPI TAPE drive"
- if I cat /proc/modules, it looks like "ide-tape 37448 (initializing)"
Can anyone provide me with some insight on how to track this error
down?
Thanks!
Eric
--
Eric R. Jorgensen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of Colorado, Boulder http://spot.colorado.edu/~jorgy
"A lot of people may not know this, but I'm pretty famous." -- Sam on Cheers
------------------------------
From: James Webb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Root is Invalid!! HELP!!
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:13:45 -0700
Damn Them Typos :)
I'm trying to get the exact error messages so i can repost.
James
Eric wrote:
> > Do you know that kernel 2.3 is the development version?
> > If the kernel number 2.x and the x is an odd number (like 1, 3, 5,
> > etc.) it means you installed the development version. If you aren't a
> > Linux crack and just want to use it, make sure the x is an even
> > number, like 2.2.x or the latest 2.4.0 (I know Suse ships this the
> > 12th of february) you can use it, because it is the stable release.
> >
>
> No doubt, but he uses mandrake 7.2
> this ships with 2.2.x (2.2.16 or something like that)
>
> I suspect a typo.
>
> Eric
------------------------------
From: Wesley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Partitioning the hard disk for setup
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:06:24 -0500
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku" wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (H.Bruijn) wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:43:00 +0000 (UTC), Prof. Abimbola Olowofoyeku
> > allegedly wrote:
> >
> >>Hi all
> >>
> >>I am about to install Linux (Mandrake 7.1). I remember once
> >>being advised to have a small (how small?) swap partition,
> >>and separate ones for root, /usr, etc. Can someone please
> >>give me a brief lowdown on optimal partition numbers and
> >>sizes? My goal is to have the OS itself on a separate partition
> >>from the data and applications, so that I can upgrade the OS
> >>if necessary without doing anything to my data and application
> >>partitions. Thanks.
> >
> > The reason to have separate partitions is that fi when the partition you have
> > your log files on is 100% full, the system will lock down. It can't write the
> > log files anymore and that's considered a bad thing [TM]. Second when the
> > partition where the home directory of the systemadministrator, /root, resides
> > gets filled, root won't be able to log on anymore, third when you
> > upgrade/reinstall the vendor software (your linux distribution) it shouldn't
> > overwrite/remove software you compiled yourself from source, nor the
> > directories with data, or the home directories.
> > More partitions make monitoring disc useage easier ("df -h" is a lot
> > quicker then doing" du -s /list /of /directories")
> >
> > It depends a lot on the kind of system you run, for home use a separate
> > /home is more then enough, on real multi user environments you want a
> > better setup.
>
> [...]
>
> It is just for home use. Thanks for the full and clear explanation!
>
> Best regards, The Chief
I would suggest putting the following directories on their own
partitions for the sake of preserving data between upgrades or changes
from one distribution to another:
/home
/usr/local
To keep logs and temporary files from filling up the entire drive, keep
these separate:
/tmp
/var
An extra step I've taken when changing distributions is to tar up my
/home directory and ftp it to a friend's computer, just to have an
off-site backup. Haven't needed it yet, but it's nice to know there's
no way to lose data should I hit the wrong button during an install.
As to swap file size, it depends on your RAM and how many and which
applications you like to keep open. With just 96MB of RAM, my swap
almost never reaches 5MB, although I set aside a little over 20MB.
Memory is cheap, but so is disk space, so I suppose too much is better
than too little.
--
Wes Sheldahl
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Setup Digest
******************************
