As usual, let's start Linux installation. Our Linux guru uses Fedora Core1 for desktop machines in our lab (I got a new desktop recently too!). However, he failed to install Fedora on laptop machines. So, I decided to install Redhat 9.0, which is old and should be stable enough.
I went to www.linux.iso.org, and downloaded three iso images (from Windows XP on my laptop). Also, I got MD5SUM files there.
Now I want to burn those iso images to CDs. I used the standard burning software in Window XP on my Inspiron, then miserably failed... The single iso image file just appeared on CD, this is not what I really want!
I got ISOBurn , then this free software worked perefectlly fine. Now I have three CDs for Redhat 9.0 installation.
I used to use "Partition Magic" to repartition the hard disk. Now, I am trying to use "parted" which comes from the Redhat 9 installatio disk. We'll see...
I am following the instruction at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/install-guide/s1-x86-dualboot-parted.html. Namely, I boot the machine using the Redhat disk1. At the boot prompt, enter "linux rescue". Skip several things, and at the command prompt, I enter "parted /dev/hda", then with the "p" command, I see the following:
Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags 1 0.031 54.909 primary fat16 2 54.910 72802.375 primary ntfs boot 3 72802.375 76316.594 primary fat32It seems like the third partition is for restore. Well, I tried to "resize", but I got the message "No Implementation: Support for opening ntfs file system is not implemented yet."
I need another software, but still I do not want to use Partition Magic. I found "nftsresize" (http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html). There is a very nice web-page, http://www.a-yu.com/system/ntfsresize.html, which I found very useful (of course, this is written in Japanese, the easiest language for me).
However.... I found ntfresize works only from Linux! Namely, to resize the disk partition before installing linux, I need linux. Oh my god... Finally I gave up, and decided to buy Partition Magic 8.0 from www.symantec.com at $49.95.
Partition Magic 8.0 tells as follows on my hard disk:
Partition Type Size MB Used MB Unused MB Status Pri/Log DELLUTILITY(*:) FAT 54.9 7.4 47.5 None Primary Local Disk (C:) NTFS 72747.5 12939.7 59807.8 Active Primary Local Disk (C:) CP/M, Concurrent DOS, CTOS 3514.2 3514.2 0.0 None PrimaryI decided to deleted the third partition (for data restore?), and reduced the second partition. After these two operations, here is my new partitions.
Partition Type Size MB Used MB Unused MB Status Pri/Log DELLUTILITY(*:) FAT 54.9 7.4 47.5 None Primary Local Disk (C:) NTFS 20175.4 12939.4 7236.0 Active Primary (*) Unallocated 56086.3 0.0 0.0 None PrimaryC'est parfait! Partition Magis is amaging... Paying $50 saved a lot of my time.
Let's start Redhat 9.0 installation. I chose "workstation" installation.
.... after spending and wasting some hours, I found a serious problem. The /boot directory should appear within the first 8 Gbytes of the hard disk, so under this configuration (the first ~20 Gbytes are occupied by Window), I cannot boot linux! As suggested in http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html, I decided to make a space for the /boot directory before the Window partition. I restart with Window XP, and run Partition Magic again (yes, it is worth $50). Now the new partition is as follows:
Partition Type Size MB Used MB Unused MB Status Pri/Log DELLUTILITY(*:) FAT 54.9 7.4 47.5 None Primary (*) Unallocated 102.0 0.0 0.0 None Primary Local Disk (C:) NTFS 20073.4 12941.0 7132.4 Active Primary (*) Unallocated 56086.3 0.0 0.0 None PrimaryOK, then I started installation again. I specified "Automatically partiion", then the Redhat installer made the following partition:
Device Mount point Type Size (Mb) Start End /dev/hda /dev/hda1 vfat 55 1 7 /dev/hda3 /boot ext3 102 8 20 /dev/hda2 ntfs 20073 21 2579 /dev/hda4 Extended 56086 2580 9729 /dev/hda5 / ext3 54094 2580 9475 /dev/hda6 swap 1992 9476 9729
I made four Fedora Core 3 CD-ROMs from the iso images at www.linuxiso.org. If I specify "upgrade", I got an error, "swap space was not initialized" or something like that. So I decided to install from scratch. I specified automatic partitioning, then I got the following:
Device Mount Point Type Size(MB) Start End LVM Volume Goups VolGroup00 56032 LogVol01 swap 1984 LogVol00 / ext3 54048 Hard Drives /dev/sda /dev/sda1 vfat 55 1 7 /dev/sda3 /boot ext3 102 8 20 /dev/sda2 ntfs 20073 21 2579 /dev/sda4 Extended 56086 2580 9729 /dev/sda5 VolGroup000 LVM PV 56086 2580 9729The installation seemed to be OK, and the system restarted. Then it hung at "Bringing up interface eth0:". Hmm, what can I do??? Anyway, this seems to be a common problem you can find here and there.
I escaped the eth0 set up with "alt-cntrl-del", then continued the normal set up. How impressive, the 1920x1200 resolution was configured automatically! Very nice!
However, I found Fedora Core 3 is v e r y v e r y S L O W. Something must be wrong, but this, too, seems to be not an uncommon problem. A job named "ksoftirqd" seems to be consuming a lot of CPU time. What is it?
It seems like Fedora Core 3 launches several daemons which are not really necessary. I tried to follow this direction to deactivate most the daemons. Still I have "ksoftirrqd/0" which consumes ~60% of CPU! "Top" indicates 99 % of the CPU is consumed by system.
Furthermore, it takes >10 minutes to start up, and does not shutdown properly (either it hangs or some strange error message repeats). Probably, it is time to say "good bye" to Fedora (and Redhat)...
OK, mandrake 10.1 DVD drive arrived in three days. I started installation, then alas, CD-ROM is not recognized! This seems to be a known prlblem and may be avoided by choosing an old version of the kernel from the "expert" mode.
The installtion seems fine, besides that b44 (Broadcom 440x10/100 integrated controller) installation failed. When I restarted, the machin hung up. This is really frustrating! Also, I know that mandrake 10.1 with x11.6.8.1 does not work with ATI Mobility Radeon X300, while Fedora Core 3 with xorg.x11.6.8.1-12 works fine. Hmmm, what shall I do? Shall I go back to Fedora Core 3 or stay with Mandrake 10.1??
So far, Fedor Core 3 is working fine, besides that I cannot use the innternal Ethernet card.
I install kernel 2.6.9-1.667 source according to the instruction at http://www.eece.maine.edu/~sheaff/module.html. The kernel source rpm is found at http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/SRPMS/kernel-2.6.9-1.667.src.rpm .
rpm -ivvh kernel-2.6.9-1.667.src.rpmNow I have many files including linux-2.6.9.tar.bz2 under /usr/src/redhat/SOURCE.
cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS rpmbuild -bp --target=i586 kernel-2.6.specNow, under /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9, we have kernel 2.6.9 tree.
Let's aplly the patch to b44.
cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9 wget "https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/attachment.cgi?id=100988" patch -p1 < attachment.cgi\?id\=100988Now, /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/drivers/net/b44.c and /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/drivers/net/b44.h are patched.
OK, let's rebuild b44.
cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9 make modules_prepare cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/drivers/net make -C /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9 M=$PWD modulesFinally, /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667//kernel//drivers/net/b44.ko has to be replaced with /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/drivers/net/b44.ko.
mv /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667//kernel//drivers/net/b44.ko /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667//kernel//drivers/net/b44.ko.original cp /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/drivers/net/b44.ko /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667//kernel//drivers/net chmod u+x /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.667//kernel//drivers/net/b44.koYahoo! Now I can connect to internet through internal ethernet card!! Fedora Core 3 is working fine now!!!
I found http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/3/i386/samba-common-3.0.10-1.fc3.i386.rpm , http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/3/i386/samba-3.0.10-1.fc3.i386.rpm and http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/3/i386/samba-client-3.0.10-1.fc3.i386.rpm. Install in this order, since the latter depends on the former.
Installation of samba was smooth. I kind of forgot how to set-up samba. Let's reflesh the memory. This Japanese page is very useful.
smbpasswd -a ebisawa/etc/init.d/smb restart If I do /sbin/ifconfig, I see vmnet1 (192.168.???.???) and vmnet8 (172.16.???.???) IP adresses, which are used by vmware internally. With my account (ebisawa),
smbclient -L 192.168.???.??? smbclient -L 172.16.???.???These give you the services provided by samba. OK, samba server is working fine. I do not know what this means, but make sure that the following works too:
nmblookup -B 192.168.???.??? __SAMBA__ nmblookup -B 172.16.???.??? __SAMBA__Using "bridged" network, I could not see the host (linux) from the guest (vmware). Namely, "ping 192.168.???.???" does not work from win98. I made the "Host-only" network enable in addition to "bridge". Then, on the vmware-window98, with "Winipcfg", I can see vmware has two ipaddresses, 10.0.17.XXX and 192.168.XXX.XXX. (By adding "Host-only" the second ip-address appeared.) Now from win98, "ping 192.168.???.???" works. From linux, both "ping 10.0.17.XXX" and "ping 192.168.XXX.XXX" work all right.You have to turn off "iptables" daemon temporarily on the linux side. On the vmware-win98 side, network computer does not appear automatically, but go to "Find" menu, search for computer, enther "\\192.168.???.???", the address of Linux side. Then you should see the linux machine from within vmware/win98.
Sound problem?
I do not hear any sound with Fedora Core 3. This seems to be a known problem, and there are many web pages regarding this issue. I haven't been able to solve this problem. We will see...Install xmms to listen to Audio CD
After some web-search, I found out that the "sound" problem is not really sound, but only cd-player problem. See for example, http://www.jennings.homelinux.net/audio_cd.html. Namely, my sound card and sound software on Fedora Core 3 is fine. In fact, if I choose Application --> Sytstem Setting --> Sound Card Detection, the sound comes out from the speaker (do not forget to adjust the volume with alsamixer). However, I cannot listen to the Audio CD in the CD-drive. This is most likely because the CD-drive does not have the analog cable on which most Linux CD-player depends. Actually, I "extracted" music digitally using "Rhythmbox", then it was played all right.Still I want to listen to the Analog CD directly. They say "xmms" can do that, so I install xmms-1.2.10-9.i386.rpm and xmms-skins-1.2.10-9.i386.rpm from the Fedora Core3 Second disk. Follow the insruction at http://www.xmms.org/docs/readme.php. Note, instruction explained in http://www.jennings.homelinux.net/audio_cd.html (disable "CD Audio Player" and enable "Audio CD Reader") was not necessary.
Yahoo! Now I can listen to crispy CD sound! I am happy!
Configure wireless network
Next thing I will try is to configure the wireless network on linux. It already works fine on Win XP. My wireless card is Dell Wireless 1350 WLAN Mini PCI Card, which they say difficult to configure.I got ndiswrapper and installed. Look at the installation page at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/Installation. Also, I got the Windows XP driver package named "R94827.EXE" from the DELL support site. On Linux, "unzip R94827.EXE" unpacks the package. Now I have the window driver file bcmwl5a.inf.
Then install the driver:
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.infMake sure the installation is OK:/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l Installed ndis drivers: bcmwl5a driver present, hardware presentAlso, now I have /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5a, under which there many files which I do not understand. Load the ndiswrapper load module:modprobe ndiswrapperIn /var/log/messages, I see the following message:Apr 24 19:42:55 localhost kernel: ndiswrapper version 1.1 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no) Apr 24 19:42:55 localhost kernel: ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5a (Broadcom,02/10/2005, 3.100.35.1) loaded Apr 24 19:42:55 localhost kernel: ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:03:03.0[A] -> GSI 7 (level, low) -> IRQ 7 Apr 24 19:42:55 localhost kernel: ndiswrapper: using irq 7 Apr 24 19:42:59 localhost kernel: wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:0b:7d:1a:a6:22 using driver bcmwl5a, configuration file 14E4:4320.5.conf Apr 24 19:42:59 localhost kernel: wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP, WPA with TKIP, WPA with AES/CCMPI found /sbin/iwconfig is already included in the Fecora Core 3 package. Then I did "/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up".
I found a potentially a big trobule withd Fedora Core3?
So far, so good. But I found a problem which could be a serious bug. I am a bit uneasy to start with Xwindow since from time to time I encounter problem in X11, and test mode is more reliable. So, customarily, I edited /etc/inittab, such that "id:3:initdefault:" instead of "id:5:initdefault:". This always worked in any linux system I used besides Fedora Core 3! In Fedora Core 3, I got an error in the booting process (the error seems to be related to "hplip" HP printer server, which I installed manually in order to use hp psc1350). I do not see this error when "id:5:initdefault". Anyway, in the text mode, the screen freezes, and I have to "kill" the machine by removing the battery.This is really scary, and I do not like it. I am not sure if this is Fedora Core 3 problem or hplip problem. Anyway, when I got this problem, I insert the Fedora Core 3 disk 1, start "linux rescue" then edit /etc/inittab. For the time being, I am using the machine with "id:5:initdefault". As long as the Xwindow login mode, the system is working all right. This is the end of Inspiron 6000 and Fedora Core3 section written in 2005. The following was written in or earliar than 2002 on other machines.
Redhat 9.0
written in 2002
I installed large USB external disks on my desktop PC, but suddenly these disks start freezing! This may be because my Redhat 7.3 system is too old with >200 Gbytes hard disks?I want to upgrade to Redhat 9.0. I bought a book named "Red Hat Linux 9 for Dummies". The boot failed from the installation CD1! Then I downloaded bootdisk.img from the Redhat web-site, ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/9/en/os/i386/images/, and made a boot floppy disk with the following command:
dd if=bootdisk.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440kThe boot was fine, but still the CD-ROM is not recognized! This is really DUMMY CD-ROMs!!I decided dump this Dummy book. Return money, please...
I went to Redhat official page at http://www.redhat.com/download/howto_download.html. Following the instruction, I download the files from ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/9/en/iso/i386.
Oh, well, this ftp site is so busy, and I cannot access! In fact, I am not sure what is going on Redhat recently. I went to a technical book shop in downtown Geneva, trying to purchase Redhat 9.0 box, but they do not sell it (so I bought that DUMMY book). Since Redhat 9.0, the project is merged with an open "Fedora" project? Personally, I liked the convinience being able to "buy" a Redhat (or whaever) CD-ROM box at a book store with a reasonable price.
Anyway, meanwhile, I found a nice web-site at http://www.linuxiso.org, from which I downloaded the CD-ROM images.
I tell you, I subscribed Redhat Network, paying $60 or so per year, but this is completely useless... Of course, I will quit subscription.
Now I have downloaded the following three files:
shrike-i386-disc1.iso shrike-i386-disc1.iso shrike-i386-disc1.isoReboot from the boot floppy, disk, and start installing Redhat 9.0 from the hard disk.
nvidia video driver
Redhat 9.0 installation seems to be successful. Now, I am going to have a (usual) problem of nvidia video driver and vmware.Got NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4349.run from the Nvidia web-site, and executed. Update seems to be fine (Nvidia, you made a good job!), but I got the error message, "libImlib.so.1 cannot open". But this seems to be error from "enlightenment".
enlightenment
I found enlightenment-0.16.6-1.rh9.i386.rpm and installed. No, still I get the same error...I found this guy had the same problem. Hmm, sounds a bit difficult to solve... I got Imlib from the enlightenment web site, built imlib and enlightment from the source. The Imlibs are created under /usr/local/lib, while original imlibs are found under /usr/lib. Remove /usr/bin/enlightenment, and make a symbolic link to /usr/local/enlightenment/bin/enlightenment.
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/lib\:$LD_LIBRARY_PATHThis is not the end of the story though. We need DEFAULT theme, otherwise enlightment complains... We need to get "etheme" from the enlightenment website, and install one by one... Then, finally, enlightenment is OK (best window manager!), and I am happy...vmware
vmware is OK jut re-running vmware-config.pl. Samba runs fine after running the following commands as root:/etc/init.d/smb start service ipchains stopformat or not format???
I am still wondering if I needed "/sbin/mke2fs" on those external drives. It seems like "mount -t vfat" works without re-partitioning... Still thinking...Anyway, I decided to re-reformat the IOMEGA USB 250 Gbyte disk which I had trouble with my old Red hat 7.3. Now mke2fs 1.32 in Redhat 9.0 seems much faster than mke2fs 1.27. You will see if I can use those USB and Fire disk without problems on Red hat 9.0...
Boot problem!
Already I got a new problem... When reboot, if the external disks are powered-on, the systems hangs when "Checking for new hardware". Related to "ohci1394" driver? Found this page which suggests to disable the BIOS Legacy USB support. I tried, but did not help....This seems to be a known problem, and found several pages to suggest solutions: here and there and there. Following these authors (thanks!), I added "nofirewire" on the command line in my /etc/grub.conf, which looks as follows:
# grub.conf generated by anaconda # # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file # NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that # all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg. # root (hd0,1) # kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3 # initrd /initrd-version.img #boot=/dev/hda default=0 timeout=10 splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi nofirewire initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img title Windows XP root (hd0,0) makeactive chainloader +1Still, if USB drives are on when booting, system hangs. I turn off USB hard disks, and turn them on after booting.Since ohci1394 is not loaded during boot, I need to do "modprobe ohci1394" before mounting firewire disk. So, here is my procedure to mount one external firewire disk and three USB disks:
#To recognize firedisk drive modprobe ohci1394 #Make sure it is recognized (tail -f /var/log/messages) #mount the firewire drive mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /local2 #Then switch-on the USB disks one by one #The first on, wait for a while (check /var/log/messages), then mount it! mount -t ext2 /dev/sdb1 /local3 #second one, on, then mount it! mount -t ext2 /dev/sdc1 /local4 #third one, on, then mount it! mount -t ext2 /dev/sdd1 /local5USB printer problem
Now I cannot use the HP deskjet 940C USB printer... There were no problems with Redhat 7.3. I am going to find a solution.
Redhat 7.3, vmware 3.2, Samba
On my desktop machine, which has Redhat 7.3 and kernel version 2.4.18-3, I installed vmware 3.2. Yes, this works with kernel 2.4.18-3 (almost) perfectly! Somehow it was very slow on KDE. I switched the window manager to gnome, then it seems fine.A good news is upgrade from vmware 3.1 to 3.2 was free! Well, actually I purchased version 2.0 (just $150 or so), and already versioned up to 3.1.1 for free. This is a very good buy, compared to the products of Microsoft! In any case, I do not dislike Microsoft products (and difficult to avoid), that is the reason I am running Windows on vmware.
Anyway, Redhat 7.3 includes samba. So, when I installed vmware, I did not choose the option "enable to share with host computer". There are a few tricks to run samba included in Redhat 7.3 and make host computer visible from virtual machine.
NAT enable you to see the outside network "borrowing" the host's IP address. The host only network is used to communicate between the host and virtual machine (as I understand).
- As root, configure vmware with vmware-config.pl, choose hostonly and NAT for network setting. Disable "enable to share with host computer" (disable samba which came with vmware).
- Set up the samba password with smbpasswd. At least once I had trouble with password mixing upper and lower case letters. Maybe better to use all lower case password.
- Start samba daemon on the host. Enter "/etc/init.d/smb start" as root. (I had a trouble to find the location of this command.)
- As a user, when start vmware, in the configuration editor, enable hostonly and NAT.
- Login to the Windows in the virtual machine with the samba username and password. From second time, you do not need to enter password.
- You may have to disable firewall temprarily. Enter service ipchains stop. Once host is seen from the virtual machine, you may restart with service ipchains start.
- If the host does not appaer in the "Network computer" in the virtual machine, go to "search for another computer" menu on the Windows, enter \\hostcomputername.
In case of trouble with samba, I always refer to the very nice page at http://www.samba.gr.jp/doc/diag.html by Odagiri-san. Of course this page is written in Japanese, and you do not have any troubles to read it, don't you?
August 5, 2002After installing Redhat 7.3 (kernel version 2.4.18-3), I found vmware doest not work with this kernel version (sigh...). So I had to downgrade the kernel to the one in Redhat 7.2 (2.4.7-10). It turned out this is not as difficult as I was afraid of.
By the way, this is my XF86Config-4 on Insprion 8200. The 1600x1200 resolution is crisp. (I do not see many desktop machines which can display 1600x1200...) Note the InputDevice section, where the mouse Protocol is IMPS/2. I am using an optical wireless 3 wheel mouse. I can scroll with the middle scrolling button in several applications such as gnome-terminal, galeon. In enlightenment desktop, scrolling the middle-button switches Desktops! This is so convenient!
- Go to ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/7.2/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/, and obtain kernel-2.4.7-10.i386.rpm.
- As root, "rpm -ivvh --force kernel-2.4.7-10.i386.rpm"
- Now you have the following:
/lib/modules/2.4.7-10 /boot//initrd-2.4.7-10.img /boot//System.map-2.4.7-10 /boot//module-info-2.4.7-10 /boot//vmlinuz-2.4.7-1- To my surprise, rpm takes care of updating /boot/grub/menu.lst (symbolic link to ./grub.conf). The following entry was automatically added:
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.7-10) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/hda3 initrd /initrd-2.4.7-10.img- Reboot, from the grub menu, choose "Red Hat Linux (2.4.7-10)".
- Everything works fine with the old version of kernel, besides that firewire is unstable (my external disk was not recognized) and Nvidia video driver does not work (another sigh...).
- From http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux, obtain the driver for Redhat 7.2, NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-2960.rh72up.i386.rpm.
- Install this one. Be careful that it overwrites /usr/X11R6//lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.o, which may not be a problem in the end though (see below).
- Then xwindow is ok with 2.4.7-10. To my surprise, the same nvidia video driver seems to be working fine with 2.4.18-3, so I keep using this driver.
- Install vmware 3.1.1. Working ok...
August 2, 2002I bought my fourth DELL computer... Any reward from DELL? That is Dimension 8200 desktop model. Pentium 4, 2.53 GHz, 2 Gbytes of memory, 120 Gbytes of internal hard disk. It came with DVD, CD-RW, and zip-drive. USB and Firewire connections are available.
Windows XP was installed already. It took me while to set up the Windows XP/Linux Dual boot system. After some trial, the procedure I finally took is the following:
Redhat 7.3 with Kernel 2.4.18-3 is great. I had no troubles to use a USB printer and firewire external hard disk. Firewire support seems to be more stable than Redhat 7.2
- Use the XP install disk, completely erase the hard disk, format with NTFS, and install XP.
- Use Partition magic, and create a blank partition after the NTFS partition.
- Install Redhat 7.3 on the blank partition, which will be formated as ext3 with Redhat installer. Specify "grub" boot loader, and install it on Master Boot Record.
- Redhat 7.3 is installed. When the machine is started, "grub" screen appears, but Windows XP is gone!! Start Redhat, and edit /bootd/grub/menu.list. It looks like as follows:
# grub.conf generated by anaconda # # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file # NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that # all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg. # root (hd0,1) # kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3 # initrd /initrd-version.img #boot=/dev/hda default=0 timeout=10 splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-3) root (hd0,1) kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-3 ro root=/dev/hda3 hdd=ide-scsi initrd /initrd-2.4.18-3.imgAppend the following:title Windows XP root (hd0,0) makeactive chainloader +1- Then the dual boot system is completed! However, I found NTFS partition, unlike FAT32 partition which was used by Windows 95/98, may not be seen from Linux. This is inconvenient, and I wanted to add a new FAT32 partition which may be seen both from Windows XP and Linux. I tried to create a new FAT32 partition with Partition Magic, but I Partition Magic did not allow me to create that between NTFS and Linux partition. If a new partition is made after Linux partition, Windows XP did not start. Presumably, in the procedure 2 above, I should have created a FAT32 partition after the NTFS partition, but before the blank partition where Linux will be installed.
July 1, 2002.I am using Insprion 8000 with Redhat 7.1.
Configuration
My Inspiron 8000 laptop has the following configuration:
That is a dual boot system, so you choose either linux or Window ME when you boot. From Linux, you can mount the dos partition, and read/ write from/to the dos partition. Within linux, I have vmware, and I have Window 98 (Japanese) under vmware. The Window 98 and Linux communicate using Samba, so I can share the same files between Linux and Window 98.
Powerpoint presentation
I do most of work under Linux, but I want to use Powerpoint for presentation. So, this is what I do: I make figures under linux (usually postscript files), and convert them to jpg with 'xv'. Often I use the xv 'grab' command to grab part of the figure. This way, for example, you can get figures from publication and save as jpg files. You save them under linux. From Window98, you can see those jpg files through Samba, so you can insert them into Powerpoint easily. I save the Powerpoint file under linux. When I am finished, I copy the file from linux to the dos partition (under Window Me). When I do the presentation, I boot the machine with Window Me, and use that Powerpoint file. This is so convenient, once you get use to it. Of course, I have Powerpoint both Window Me and Window 98.You may want to ask "Why don't you use Mac OS X?" Yes, I love to! I am waiting for FTOOLS, CIAO and ISDC software to work under Mac OS X. Then I would buy one.
kernel update
I needed to update to kernel 2.4.7-10 to use firewire drives.
video
The nvidia video chip requires a special driver from the nvidia web site. Please take a look at http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux. NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-2313.rh72up.i386.rpm is working fine with me.winmodem
My winmodem is usable with the ltmodem-6.00b14.tar.gz package which I obtained from http://www.heby.de/ltmodem. I use 'wvdial' to call. My '/etc/wvdial.conf' looks like as follows:[winmodem] Modem = /dev/ttyLT0 Baud = 57600 Init1 = ATZ SetVolume = 0 Dial Command = ATDT [Dialer Defaults] Username = my_user_name Password = my_password Phone = 8401111 Area Code = 0840 Inherits = winmodem Stupid mode = 0 Modem = /dev/ttyLT0 Baud = 57600 Init1 = ATZ SetVolume = 1 Dial Command = ATDT Init4 = ATM1L1My ISP is www.bluewin.ch. I have an ISDN connection, but not been able to connect linux with ISDN. I will see...
vmware
vmware is great. I needed to upgrade to version 3.0 to work with kernel 2.4.7-10.samba
Samba which came from vmware 3.0 did not work appropriately. I had to install samba 2.2.3 indenpendently. I have set up the /usr/local/samba//lib//smb.conf file so that only vmware can see my linux machine. Here it is:[global] interfaces = vmnet1 coding system = euc client code page = 932 encrypt passwords = Yes workgroup = WORKGROUP map to guest = Bad User [tmp] path = /tmp [msdos] path = /mnt/msdos writable = yes [homes] comment = Home directories browseable = no writable = yes [printers] comment = All printers path = /var/spool/lpd browseable = no guest ok = yes writable = no printable = yesfirewire external disk
I have a script /sbin/fireup, that is:insmod ieee1394 insmod raw1394 insmod ohci1394 # insmod sbp2 mount -t ext2 /dev/sda1 /mnt/fireThere is /mnt/fire directory, where the fire-wire disk is mounted. Watch out for insmod sbp2. That was required for kernel 2.4.7-10 (Redhat 7.2). On the other hand, on 2.4.18-3 (Redhat 7.3), it has made the system freeze so I removed it. I am not sure what is going on... My 80 Gbytes and 120 Gbytes external hard disks are working perfectly.(On July 1, 2002)
I have bought a new 160 Gbytes external firewire drive (Maxtor) in USA. It was $400 at Comp USA.I started "fdisk" and removed the DOS partition, which was originally "start cylinder=1 and end cylinder= 19928, blocks=160071628+)". I tried to create a new Linux partition, but it says the upper-limit of the cylinder is 14593 (1 cylinder = 16065 *512 bytes), that means only 14593x16065x512 bytes = 120 Gbytes is available (does fdisk v2.11n have a 120 Gbytes upper-limit?). I went to the fdisk "expert menu" and increased number of cylinders from 14593 to 19928. Then I created the linux partition, which seems to be OK. After that, I reformatted the disk with "/sbin/mke2fs /dev/sda1".
[root@isdcprv7 ebisawa]# /sbin/fdisk /dev/sda1 The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 19927. There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with: 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO) 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK) Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sda1: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 19927 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1p1 1 19928 160071628+ 83 Linux Command (m for help):[root@isdcprv7 ebisawa]# df Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/hda3 34985476 8327520 24880768 26% / /dev/hda2 46668 8851 35408 20% /boot none 257180 0 257180 0% /dev/shm /dev/sda1 157558536 20 149554936 1% /mnt/fire
Enlightenment
After updating kernel, the default sawfish window manage is not working properly. I installed Enlightenmetn, which I came to like much better.ISDC software
Reference Platform 3.0 was complied ok, except that the ISDCroot is not compatible with the latest root (3.02.07). You will need isdcroot.3.3.2. To compile isdcroot.3.3.2, I needed to upgrade to ril 3.1.3 and common 1.3.12.Osm is working fine with root 3.00.06, besides two modules which I could not compile.
You need the following packages seperately (I acknowledge Reiner Rohlfs for the information), from http://isdc.unige.ch/~isdc_lib/delivery/sorted_projects_list.html.
tools_lib (has to be the first to be installed) iosm_library (has to be the second to be installed) osm_spi_display osm_operational_data osm_omc_display <-- I could not compile this on my environment. osm_oem_display osm_mode_display osm_jemx_display osm_irem_count_rates <-- I could not compile this on my environment. osm_ibis_display osm_hk_values osm_hk_list osm_hk_display osm_gti_display osm_desktop osm_alert_displayPrinter
I am using both postscript printers connected to the network and a local inkjet printer. To set up printer, use /usr/bin/printtool with root account. As a local printer, I use HP deskjet 940c with USB connection. Choose /dev/usb/lp0 for the printer device. On Redhat 7.1 I could not find a driver for this printer, so I chose Deskjet 950C for the printer driver, which is working fine. I can print color postscript files on the inkjet printer.From VMware, I can see the local USB printer directly. To use the USB printer from VMware/Window98, you have to quit using the USB printer from linux first, by removing the printer module with "rmmod printer". Then on VMware configuration and device manu, grab the local USB printer. After that, you can see the USB local printer as if it is directly connected to Window98. Set up the printer as it is a "local printer" (not the network printer).
Also, from VMware/Window98, I can use the network printer connected to linux through Samba. Set up the printer as a "network printer".