My first Linux box(any suggestions)

[jtr1962]

I finally got around to installing Linux on one of my machines after talking about doing it for a long time. Appropriately enough, given the Linux mascot, I did this last night after the blizzard. The machine is the one that I found, which I talked about here. I put in a 200 MHz MMX processor that I bought on EBay(2 for $13.99), and plan to upgrade the RAM to 256 MB. I used the 2GB drive that I found with the machine. Since the bad sectors were confined to the first 100 MB, I just made a 100 MB DOS partition and then used the balance for Linux. About the only problem with the install was setting up the XF server to work with my video card. Eventually I got it to display something besides VGA.

I'm running Caldera Open Linux 1.3. I purchased this about a year or so ago in a surplus liquidation store, and it also comes with a book(Complete Idiot's Guide To Linux). The main reason I bought this particular version was that it required only a 386. I figured eventually I might be able to put some old equipment to good use, either for myself or a first-time computer user.

Naturally, I'm on a steep learning curve here, and think it might actually have been easier if I had no prior experience with DOS or Windows. KDE seems intuitive enough, and there are enough aps to get by for now.

A couple of suggestions in the following areas would be appreciated:

1)What are the best places to download software, and are there enough applications to pretty much do everything I can do in Windows?

2)Are most of the common Windows file types recognized and useable by Linux applications(i.e. Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, all image types)?

3)How can I tell if a Linux application is compatible with the version of Linux I'm running? There seem to be so many different flavors and no guarantee that a Linux program is as interchangeable as a Windows one.

4)Can I upgrade to a later version of Linux, and how hard would this be to do? Since I obviously can't download CD images on 56K, are there other low or no-cost options available?

5)Is there any documentation on the various settings in the myriad text files that seem to be used to configure Linux?

6)Can I run Windows programs under Linux if I can't find a suitable Linux replacement?

7)I have a 128 MB swap partition, and 32 MB of RAM currently. Should I bother changing the size of this after I upgrade to 256 MB, and if so, either up or down? With 256 MB of RAM, will I really even need a swap partition?

8)Can Linux be made to work with most or all CD-RW drives, and are there Linux versions of Nero or something close to it?

9)I've gotten Linux to work with most common DOS floppy formats(1.44 MB, 1.64MB, 1.72MB(DMF)). I can't get it to mount 2M formatted floppies, however, although I can look at them with mtools. Any suggestions to fix this? BTW, Windows can't work with these floppies, either, and it's a pity because I can put about 2MB on one, or 4MB if I have a 2.88 MB floppy drive.

10)Can Linux be made to read and write to UDF-formatted CD-RW disks in the same way that INCD allows me to do this under Windows?

11)My current ISP(Bluelight) only has Windows software. Would it be possible to set up my Linux machine to connect me to the Internet using my ISP's services?

12)What are some good web browsers for Linux?

13)What is the best way to go about making a backup assuming I want to back up the entire Linux partition?

14)If I ever set up a machine for a novice user is it a good idea to use Linux instead of Windows?

15)Is Linux really practically crash-proof?

16)What are some good image-editing applications?

As you can see, I'm getting my feet wet, and it will be a while, if ever, before I will feel comfortable enough to relegate my Windows boxes to just running games that won't run under Linux. So far I haven't had a crash, which is more than can be said for my main Windows 98 machine, which usually ungracefully crashes at least once a day, usually during Web browsing.

 

[blakerwry]

2)Are most of the common Windows file types recognized and useable by Linux applications(i.e. Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, all image types)?

Open Office is great for compatibility with MS office(much better than Abi Word)... but it's a little slow...

3)How can I tell if a Linux application is compatible with the version of Linux I'm running? There seem to be so many different flavors and no guarantee that a Linux program is as interchangeable as a Windows one.

one of the pitfalls/strength of Linux is that alot of software needs to be compiled in order for you to run it.... hence, if you compile the source on your machine, then you should be able to run it fine(no matter what distro you're using).

5)Is there any documentation on the various settings in the myriad text files that seem to be used to configure Linux?

Each program seems to have its own format for config files... but the general config files that are present on most systems will probably be well documented in either the maker's website or by 3rd party howto's.

6)Can I run Windows programs under Linux if I can't find a suitable Linux replacement?

I believe you can run WineX and it will act as a virtual machine, or you can run something like win4lin and you can actually run win98 inside of linux.

7)I have a 128 MB swap partition, and 32 MB of RAM currently. Should I bother changing the size of this after I upgrade to 256 MB, and if so, either up or down? With 256 MB of RAM, will I really even need a swap partition?

Just keep it.. 256MB is about right for desktop linux use... you'll probably hit the swap once in awhile, but no need to change it.

 

[blakerwry]

8)Can Linux be made to work with most or all CD-RW drives, and are there Linux versions of Nero or something close to it?

Never tried. But I hear this is somewhat of a sore spot becasue there are only a few burning programs and then there are a bunch of front-ends for these programs... Problem is that functionality doesnt seem to be increasing.

9)I've gotten Linux to work with most common DOS floppy formats(1.44 MB, 1.64MB, 1.72MB(DMF)). I can't get it to mount 2M formatted floppies, however, although I can look at them with mtools. Any suggestions to fix this? BTW, Windows can't work with these floppies, either, and it's a pity because I can put about 2MB on one, or 4MB if I have a 2.88 MB floppy drive.

LoL

10)Can Linux be made to read and write to UDF-formatted CD-RW disks in the same way that INCD allows me to do this under Windows?

Dunno... Don't think so

11)My current ISP(Bluelight) only has Windows software. Would it be possible to set up my Linux machine to connect me to the Internet using my ISP's services?

Almost certainly... most(all) dialup accounts use PPP which was designed before windows existed... you will need to know your username, password, dialup server phone number, and (maybe) your DNS server addresses.

12)What are some good web browsers for Linux?

Mozilla of course!

13)What is the best way to go about making a backup assuming I want to back up the entire Linux partition?

Not sure on this... mandrake had built in tools to make backups...

14)If I ever set up a machine for a novice user is it a good idea to use Linux instead of Windows?

I sometimes wonder this myself.. for someone w/ no experience it seems like a good enough plan.. but where would they get help if they need it?

15)Is Linux really practically crash-proof?

As crash proof as winNT based OS's

16)What are some good image-editing applications?

the Gimp is free... but its interface scares me away.. I want to get photoshop working in linux....

 

[SteveC]

1)What are the best places to download software, and are there enough applications to pretty much do everything I can do in Windows?

Freshmeat and Sourceforge are good places to start.

4)Can I upgrade to a later version of Linux, and how hard would this be to do? Since I obviously can't download CD images on 56K, are there other low or no-cost options available?

Cheapbytes, or you could tell me which one you want, and I'll download it and send the CD to you. Go to Distrowatch to compare the many different ones.

12)What are some good web browsers for Linux?

If you want a browser without an e-mail client built-in, go for Phoenix.

14)If I ever set up a machine for a novice user is it a good idea to use Linux instead of Windows?

Not yet.

15)Is Linux really practically crash-proof?

Many of the smaller programs that come with distros seem to be crash prone, but they shouldn't take down the whole OS.

16)What are some good image-editing applications?

The Gimp, but it can't replace Photoshop.

 

[CougTek]

[thread hijack]

one of the pitfalls/strength of Linux is that alot of software needs to be compiled in order for you to run it.... hence, if you compile the source on your machine, then you should be able to run it fine(no matter what distro you're using).

You see, that's my problem when I try to upgrade my Galeon 1.3.1 to the recently released 1.3.2. They say I just have to compile it. Fine. How? I downloaded the tarball into my /home/Coug (that's me)/tmp/ and I uncompressed it, which has created another sub-directory called galeon-blablabla/.

When I go there with Xterminal and type "./compile" or "./configure", I get error messages. Questions are :

1)where should I save/move the tarball? Is it ok to have it into my /home directory or should it be elsewhere, like in the /usr/?

2)What's the damn voodo ritual I have to do in order to actually compile it? I already have Mozilla 1.3b and Gnome 2.2 on this box, so give me a break with those damn dependencies problems. I have what it needs to be installed. Now what?

Galeon's website can be found here, but I found nothing intelligent and obvious on it to help me install their browser.

[/thread hijack]

 

[blakerwry]

1) I usually save things in /tmp (note that is tmp off of root.. not your home)

1 b) make sure you are SU'ed to root (type SU in the console, then enter root password when prompted) when trying to compile


2) typically, they've made things easy for you so you can just do a ./configure;make;make install or some such business... if not look for a readme included in the tarball


I also see ethey have an i386 RPM... so you might want to go that route... "rpm -U galeon.rpm" is the syntax you need to upgrade an existing application.


lol... i just tried and I can't get galeon to compile either... and they really dont ahve a good installation howto.... maybe someone else is having the same problem and has found a solution...

 

[Mercutio]

Caldera is a really, really evil company. Evil like Real. Evil like Microsoft. Evil Evil Evil. They deserve the crash and burn they'll be experiencing shortly.
cheapbytes.com sells pressed Linux CDs for essentially cost of media. $2 copies of RedHat or Debian are pretty cool.

Downloading: Mostly I go look at Freshmeat.net first, and that's just about as far as I need to go, usually. I hit happypenguin.org for games every once in awhile.

Common file types are common file types. JPG, MPG, Zip... those are things that can be opened by just about anything. Office file formats can be problematic. Generally the more complex the features used in the file, the less chance it'll come out right. Excel pivot tables seem to be a kiss of death. Someone with a little smarts can handle most of this stuff without a problem.
The fact that Word and Excel docs can be renamed to .HTML and opened in... lots of stuff is very helpful. Also Linux has free tools to make PDFs out of just about everything, so that makes document interchange pretty easy.

Applications are, um, fun. In general, a Linux program is a linux program. The problem is, some applications need certain library files (like needing DLL files on a Windows machine) in order to function. And maybe the new version of the library needs another, newer library... and this is why Cougtek's Linux box has a bootprint on it.

Upgrading can be an adventure. The easiest thing to do is make sure your /home is on its own partition, so that you don't lose personal files. Depending on the upgrade in question, things could be painless or not. Point upgrades seem be easiest, or just upgrading everything by hand as you see fit. My "homebrew" box has been going for YEARS like this, and one of my college buddies (most brilliant programmer I ever met, now works at a Burger King because he hates the idea of commercial software) has managed to upgrade and optimize current Linux software such that he can run it on the same 8MB 486/50 he used in college.

Documentation: At this point I use google or google groups for anything I need. This is a good starting place, though.

You need swap space. You don't need tons of it. Usually I set a 256MB swap partition on each disk I install and don't worry about it ever again.

Nero is far and away the easiest way to burn a CD IMO. xroastCD isn't bad, though. Certainly usable.

Floppy and CD-RW? No clue. My feelings on the subjects of each have been made clear.

Bluelight looks iffy. The fact that they stopped supporting Macs suggest to me that their client software does something non-standard.

Browsers? Mozilla or Konq, probably, or Opera, if you feel like paying money.

Backup? You can use tar to do recursive copies. Quite handy, that tar. you can tar straight into a gzip file, too, for a compressed archive.

Yes, linux is practically crashproof. xfree dies every once in awhile, but it's really, really hard to bring down the whole OS.

For image editing, the standard is probably the Gimp, which has some capabilities similar to photoshop.

Hope that helps.

 

[CougTek]

1 b) make sure you are SU'ed to root (type SU in the console, then enter root password when prompted) when trying to compile

Of course I always su me before installing something in the Xterminal.

2) typically, they've made things easy for you so you can just do a ./configure;make;make install or some such business... if not look for a readme included in the tarball

Well, you've seen how helpful the Install and readme files were.

I also see ethey have an i386 RPM... so you might want to go that route... "rpm -U galeon.rpm" is the syntax you need to upgrade an existing application.

I tried rpm -Uhv blablabla.rpm and it failed.

lol... i just tried and I can't get galeon to compile either

No kidding. I'm so surprised. Wonderful program isn't it. Many new features...like an rpm/installer that cannot let you install it.

and this is why Cougtek's Linux box has a bootprint on it.

Actually, I can count five, plus the blown up fan grill on the face plate, which has no sole mark.

 

[blakerwry]

hey coug, mandrake 9.1 RC1 has the new version of galeon already on it, I believe.... doesn't it just make you want to upgrade?

 

[CougTek]

Great! I already have the ISOs on CDs since early this morning and I was about to install it. Thanks for the news, it'll make my life easier.

 

[jtr1962]

Here's couple more for all the Linux gurus around here:

The disk I have Linux on has the small DOS partition I mentioned, and the rest is Linux. I configured LILO to give me a choice of booting into DOS or Linux just to see how to do it. I have absolutely nothing in the DOS partition. I just made it to lock off the part of the disk with bad sectors(not the kind that can be marked bad in the FAT but the kind that just plain lock the machine whenever you try to write anything to them).

Anyway, this drive is my primary master. Prior to this, I did an install of Win98Lite on a 425 MB drive. Sometimes I need to use Windows on this machine because I test Taxicam controllers with it and the software is Windows only. This drive is now my primary slave. I haven't been able to configure LILO to let me boot from this drive if I want to, even by editing the lilo.cnfg file. Is it possible to use LILO to load another OS if it's not on the primary master? The machine has no settings in the BIOS to allow me to choose which drive to boot from, so this isn't an option.

Another minor issue is that I can get Linux to mount the two DOS/Win98 partitions that I mentioned on bootup, but when I view them in KFM all I see are the DOS 8.3 filenames. I also get the message when loading Linux right after each drive is mounted: Unable to load nls charset cp427. I'm guessing this is somehow related to the problem. Any ideas to fix it?

Another question-what is the Linux equivalent of a batch file in DOS? I've been playing around with several programs using command line parameters. So far mostly I'm using superformat to format various capacity floppies, and I want to be able to write something that I can call or link to rather than typing the same thing over and over again. Still no luck either mounting or formatting 2m floppies. Superformat can supposedly format such floppies, and has loads of options, but it just plain doesn't work on my machine. Not that big a deal, but it's something that's fun to play around with.

I still want to get Linux to work with UDF CD-RW for backup purposes. I have no idea what else I could use to back up the machine.

Anyway, Linux is alot of fun to play around with, and in the next weeks/months I'll probably return to this thread periodically with more questions as I get more into the nuts and bolts of how it works.

 

[blakerwry]

Here's couple more for all the Linux gurus around here:

The disk I have Linux on has the small DOS partition I mentioned, and the rest is Linux. I configured LILO to give me a choice of booting into DOS or Linux just to see how to do it. I have absolutely nothing in the DOS partition. I just made it to lock off the part of the disk with bad sectors(not the kind that can be marked bad in the FAT but the kind that just plain lock the machine whenever you try to write anything to them).

Anyway, this drive is my primary master. Prior to this, I did an install of Win98Lite on a 425 MB drive. Sometimes I need to use Windows on this machine because I test Taxicam controllers with it and the software is Windows only. This drive is now my primary slave. I haven't been able to configure LILO to let me boot from this drive if I want to, even by editing the lilo.cnfg file. Is it possible to use LILO to load another OS if it's not on the primary master?

If you edit the lilo.conf file you need to goto console and type in lilo to make the apply the changes you made to the .conf file... I hope this helps... i dont really have any experience mucking with LILO or GRUB, but im sure you can find more info on the web.

The machine has no settings in the BIOS to allow me to choose which drive to boot from, so this isn't an option.

I would think so... what you might be able to do is hist esc while the machine is counting RAM... on my last 4 mobos this brings up a boot menu asking which device to boot from... this menu usually apears right before the machine actually decides what device it's going to use to boot...

Another minor issue is that I can get Linux to mount the two DOS/Win98 partitions that I mentioned on bootup, but when I view them in KFM all I see are the DOS 8.3 filenames. I also get the message when loading Linux right after each drive is mounted: Unable to load nls charset cp427. I'm guessing this is somehow related to the problem. Any ideas to fix it?

Are you mounting as fat16 or fat32? i dont have any clue how to fix this... lol

Another question-what is the Linux equivalent of a batch file in DOS? I've been playing around with several programs using command line parameters. So far mostly I'm using superformat to format various capacity floppies, and I want to be able to write something that I can call or link to rather than typing the same thing over and over again.

any file in linux is executable...

Here's a file I made called cs_run it's a script to start my Counter Strike server...

./hlds_run -game cstrike -noipx -port 27020 -pingboost 2 +map de_dust +maxplayers 13

to execute it I simply goto the appropriate folder and type "./cs_run"

I still want to get Linux to work with UDF CD-RW for backup purposes. I have no idea what else I could use to back up the machine.

in webmin, there are easy to use built-in interfaces to use the tools taht come with linux... just today I made an .ISO file backup of my home directories... you could put the .iso on a different computer devoted to backup or you could burn it to CD-RW and erase the RW whenever you make another backup.

Anyway, Linux is alot of fun to play around with, and in the next weeks/months I'll probably return to this thread periodically with more questions as I get more into the nuts and bolts of how it works.

I agree.

I found out that my KVM would not work properly with my SB51G in linux (the mouse had to be set to 2 button... no wheel... in order to work... this behavior was only exhibited in linux with the sb51g; the mouse worked fine in winXP w/ the sb51g and worked fine in linux with an AK32L)


I weighed the cost vs benefit if using linux and decided that it would be easier and more efficient to use winNT/2k/XP... but where's the fun in that??? so i stuck with linux and hooked up another mouse dedicated to the sb51g... lol...

 

[jtr1962]

Another minor issue is that I can get Linux to mount the two DOS/Win98 partitions that I mentioned on bootup, but when I view them in KFM all I see are the DOS 8.3 filenames. I also get the message when loading Linux right after each drive is mounted: Unable to load nls charset cp427. I'm guessing this is somehow related to the problem. Any ideas to fix it?

Are you mounting as fat16 or fat32? i dont have any clue how to fix this... lol

I figured this one out. They're both FAT16 partitions, but the solution should work with FAT32 as well. What I had to do was edit the /etc/fstab file(which I had already changed to get the drives to mount on startup) and change the file system type from msdos to vfat. I also had to make sure that the vfat module loaded on bootup. I did this by adding a line to another file in the /etc/module/2.0.35 folder that controls what modules load(equivalent to a dos config.sys or autoexec.bat). The name of the file is actually the time and date that the kernal was created on, with a default extension. The nice thing about Linux is that each kernel has to have a differently named .default file, so you can set up each kernal to load only what's needed.

Regarding some of my other questions:

I did a little searching and CD-RW UDF is still in it's infancy as far as Linux is concerned, so for now I'll just back up onto a removable hard drive and then burn the backup CDs on one of my Windows machine.

As far the boot options go, still no luck with booting Windows on my primary slave. LILO can load Linux off a drive other than the primary master, so may I'll just switch the jumpers on the Linux and Windows drives and put LILO on the Windows one. My machine just plain won't offer me any boot options, even by hitting various keys on startup.

 

[jtr1962]

I just want to thank everyone for their help so far. It's greatly appreciated.

I passed what might be some sort of right of passage in Linux yesterday-I compiled my own kernel. As I mentioned above, I needed to load the vfat module on startup, so I figured why not just make a new kernel while I'm at it and add a few other things I'll be needing as well, plus get rid of the stuff I know I'll never use on that machine(SCSI drivers, drivers for various types of graphincs and sound cards, etc.). I also decided to compile the kernel for a Pentium processor instead of the default 386 so it wolud be a bit faster as well.

Once I finished configuring the kernel with menuconfig, it was few simple command lines to compile it, and then just go get a cup of coffee while I'm waiting. The whole process took about half an hour, give or take. After it was done, I had to load the kernel modules and do a little command line file housekeeping to make sure I didn't overwrite anything in my original kernel. After a bit of configuring, everything works. I initially had some trouble where the new kernel was trying to load SCSI driver modules on startup, and then when it shutdown the non-existent SCSI bus the system hung. Eventually I found the file that controls which modules load on startup(actually I had created it with a command), and removed the extraneous items. There was also a bit of trouble getting the new kernel to load proper mouse drivers, so KDE initially wouldn't load. I took about two hours, but I now have the new kernel loading by default and working very well. It does seem a bit faster than the old one.

 

[blakerwry]

good to hear... I have yet to compile my own kernel. I don't find loading modules all that bad.

 

[SteveC]

I plan on testing and writing a review of Gentoo Linux in 2-3 weeks, depending on how much time I have. It should appeal to you, JTR, since it can be completely optimized for your hardware, but I'm not sure what the install process would be like with a modem.

 

[jtr1962]

I figured out how to boot Windows off my primary slave, In case it's of any use to anybody just add the following lines to the lilo.conf file:

other=/dev/hdb1
label=Windows
table=/dev/hdb
map-drive=0x80
to=0x81
map-drive=0x81
to=0x80

The last four lines fool Windows into thinking it's booting off the primary master instead of the primary slave.

 

[blakerwry]

wow, i just burned my 1st CD in linux.. using k3b... I ahve to say it was pretty painless...

 

[jtr1962]

A few more....

1)Do Linux partitions need to be defragmented? If so, what do you use? I've found no references in the documentation so far.

2)I'm using the ext2 file system. Is there any good reason to change to something else later on? What are the good/bad points of the more common Linux file systems?

3)Is it a fairly simple procedure to recompile some simple DOS programs that I've written to run in Linux? None of my programs do disk access or anything DOS specific. All they do is input and output to the console. Of course, I can redirect input and output to files using command line switches, but this is built into the OS, not my source code. If so, what is a general outline of the procedure?

4)Any good dual pane file managers similar to NC, preferably for a graphical environment? I'm lost without this when managing my files.

 

[CougTek]

2)I'm using the ext2 file system. Is there any good reason to change to something else later on?

IIRC, ext2 isn't a journalized file system, while ext3, ReiserFS and XFS (the one from SGI) are.

I would also be interested to know about a tool to defrag under Linux, since I know none.

 

[Mercutio]

ext2 isn't "supposed" to fragment to the sort of extent that an active defragger is needed.
If you REALLY feel the need, there's a defragger at ibiblio

 

[blakerwry]

A few more....

1)Do Linux partitions need to be defragmented? If so, what do you use? I've found no references in the documentation so far.

2)I'm using the ext2 file system. Is there any good reason to change to something else later on? What are the good/bad points of the more common Linux file systems?

3)Is it a fairly simple procedure to recompile some simple DOS programs that I've written to run in Linux? None of my programs do disk access or anything DOS specific. All they do is input and output to the console. Of course, I can redirect input and output to files using command line switches, but this is built into the OS, not my source code. If so, what is a general outline of the procedure?

4)Any good dual pane file managers similar to NC, preferably for a graphical environment? I'm lost without this when managing my files.

3 and 4...


is it c/c++ there are many turorials on using emacs and g++ to compile your programs... try google.. or i can give you some links later.

4) I've always used the KDE file manager or nautilus... i dont have any better suggestions for you, unfortunately

 

[CityK]

I have seen Sivar make mention that "Linux" doesn't need defragmenters, and have occasionally pondered why... google and I have to sit down one day and figure this one out.

ext2 isn't "supposed" to fragment to the sort of extent that an active defragger is needed.

I take it that this applies to ext3, ReiserFS and XFS too?

CK

 

[Mercutio]

Filesystem design. Journaling FSes (NTFS, ReiserFS etc) should have even less need for such things.

 

[blakerwry]

here's some stuff from my school....

http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~jgauch/teaching/168.f02/

lab 1: (How to create a C++ file and then run and execute it)
http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~jgauch/teaching/168.f02/labs/lab1.html

Although emacs/xemacs is used in the lab, you are free to use any text editor and compile seperately.

 

[CityK]

Journaling FSes ...should have even less need for such things.

Ahhh....I guess then this is why, when W2K first came out, some sort of myth developed that it didn't need defragging - "should have less need" got wrongly equated with no need, as opposed to non journalling FS (9x wise) which needs more defragging?

So it would appear, only in regards to this one particular aspect (as I have no interest in a MSvsLinux war developing), that the journalling Linux FS' designs have some sort of advantage over NT. Is this a fair assessment?

CK

 

[timwhit]

Journaling FSes ...should have even less need for such things.

Ahhh....I guess then this is why, when W2K first came out, some sort of myth developed that it didn't need defragging - "should have less need" got wrongly equated with no need, as opposed to non journalling FS (9x wise) which needs more defragging?

So it would appear, only in regards to this one particular aspect (as I have no interest in a MSvsLinux war developing), that the journalling Linux FS' designs have some sort of advantage over NT. Is this a fair assessment?

CK

No as far as FS go NTFS is about the best journalling FS out there. Some of the Linux FS have tried to copy the features in NTFS but none are it's equal.

 

[blakerwry]

DOWN WITH AMIGA!

 

[James]

Hey now. Amiga was good.

All the Unix purists will turn over in their graves - I just reformatted the last Unix box in my house (a FreeBSD one) and installed Win2K Server instead. (I finally got competely sick of all the workarounds in order to get Samba network shares to attach automatically under XP.)

For anything that I absolutely need Unix for, I run FreeBSD under VMWare Professional. Great product.

 

[blakerwry]

I finally got competely sick of all the workarounds in order to get Samba network shares to attach automatically under XP.

can you explain this to me? what are you talking about?

 

[Mercutio]

XP wants a level of encryption in authenticating connections to file shares. Some of these things can be fixed by prodding local security policy on XP, some by recompiling samba with additional support for encryption. Neither I nor James has found a way to make it "just work" like it does with earlier versions of windows.

In this case, Microsoft won the war. It became more convienent for James to have XP + 2000 Server than other Windows + SAMBA.

Me? I just don't let XP in my apartment. Solves a lot of problems, and the Samba guys will eventually work out whatever the issues are and then XP will suck slightly less.

 

[blakerwry]

am i missing something... using winXP defaults and using samba defaults (shares set to share level access) I can connect to my samba servers using encrypted OR un-encrypted passwords....

 

[blakerwry]

or am I wrong?

 

[blakerwry]

cool, reading your post prmopted me to play with Samba, now I have encrypted user level access setup to the server... winXp accesses things fine...

I did have some trouble accessing without encrypted passwords.. but this is really the only computer I use to access samba from so no biggie.

 

[blakerwry]

wow, i didnt think i'd be able to, but im completely able to access samba through both win9x and XP when encrypted user/pass is enabled...

 

[jtr1962]

here's some stuff from my school....

http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~jgauch/teaching/168.f02/

lab 1: (How to create a C++ file and then run and execute it)
http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~jgauch/teaching/168.f02/labs/lab1.html

Although emacs/xemacs is used in the lab, you are free to use any text editor and compile seperately.

Thanks for the links. I program in C, so I gather that the gcc compiler will take care of compiling my code to run on Linux instead of DOS. As I said, there are no DOS specific disk accesses, just reading and writing to the console, which I assume is programmed the same under Linux.

 

[blakerwry]

cout and cin for me... i dont even remember the commands for c input and output... printf???

oh well... give it a try.