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177 lines
8.4 KiB
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<title>Clueless at the Prompt Issue 18</title>
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#A000A0"
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ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<center><H2>Clueless at the Prompt</H2>
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<H4>By Mike List,
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<a href="mailto:troll@net-link.net">troll@net-link.net</a></H4>
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</center>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center><IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE SRC = "../gx/list/gnub.jpg" ></center><p>
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<h4>Welcome to installment 11 of Clueless at the Prompt:</h4>
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<p>
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How's it goin'? This month I'm going to go into some basic admin
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ideas that you can use to make your home linux box a little
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easier to deal with, especially in an emergency.
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<p>
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I'm also going to hit xdm on a couple of points, although I've got
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the merest understanding of all the differences between it and
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running from "startx"
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<hr><p><h4>
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*Boot/Rescue Disks:</h4> If you make a mockery of your filesystem
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by typing for instance a space between "/" and the file you were
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trying to rm as root, or your extraordinarily gifted child
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discovers how to cold boot your computer while you're in X and have
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a dozen windows open, or you accidentally kick the power strip
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while you're stretching, or geez, need I go on? You may discover
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one of the handiest things (two, actually) is a Boot/rescue/root
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disk combo.
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<p>
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To use these , you simply reboot or cycle offthe computer as
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"gracefully" as possible. Insert the boot disk, which can be your
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install boot disk and start the bootup. instead of using your
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install root disk, you drop a rescue disk in when prompted.
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These disks can be gotten from your distribution's ftp site or
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more conveniently, if you have linux on CDROM, guess where you
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might get it, most likely wherever you got your boot image. You can
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also roll your own, or use Yard to make a custom rescue disk. As a
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side note, you can use this method to make a usable, if not very
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flexible, minilinux system, something like xdenu.<p>
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To use your rescue disk, boot up with your installation bootdisk,
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and when you are prompted to insert root disk, just pop it in and
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hold tight a second. when you get a prompt, you are almost ready to
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fix your problems.You can run fsck on a disk partition without
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mounting it, in fact that's the safest way to use it. If you
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bollixed any init files, you can mount the /dev/?partition to "/mnt"
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cd /mnt and using vi, edit the mistaken lines or even recreate them
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if need be. One important note; your hard drive will be mounted
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below /mnt, so don't do anything to "/" or you risk hosing your rescue
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disk, not a nice thng to do when it's all that stands between you
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and your linux system.There is even a defrag utility that you can
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use after you fsck your filesystems, but you must make sure that
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you only run it on UNMOUNTED filesystems or you'll be subject to a
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REAL LEARNING EXPERIENCE!, as in learning to reinstall your box
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from scratch, or practice on your backup routine.
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<hr><p><h4>
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*Xdm:</h4> If you ever thought it would be cool to be able to
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start your linux box in X mode and logging in from an X screen, it
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isn't too hard to do, using xdm, the X Display Manager. You can
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easily start it by simply typing:
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<pre>
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xdm
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</pre>
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if you have X configured. It should start with a login screen, and
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look like the twm window manager, tweed background and all, and
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when you login for the first time, it probably will be twm,
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particularly if you got your XFree86 distribution from xfree86.org,
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although I'm really only accustomed to Slackware so another window
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manager might come as default in say, RedHat or SuSe, or Debian
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distributions. that can be changed, as can the tweed root window,
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and the login message, and a great many other small details.
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You should be aware that because of the way xdm invokes X, the path
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will not be the same as if you run startx. That means that you must
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either specify the full pathnames for executables or change your
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path in the" " file.Your access to remote xhosts will be different
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as well, a problem I haven't licked yet but by the time you finish
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reading this I might(or you might, or we both might or ...).
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<p>
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Better yet break out your favorite editor, save your /etc/inittab file in
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case of disaster and find the line that starts with id?:default
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runlevel? and read the file down a few lines to where it describes
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the runlevels and change to the one that describes X11R6 in Slackware
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it would be runlevel 4, so change the id and the runlevel description
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if you are a slacker, it may be different on other distributions,
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since they mostly use BSD style init and have their rc.files directly
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in /etc. That's enough to start Linux in a login screen.You could run
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<pre>
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locate xdm</pre>
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to find the xdm files, and give them a good lookover. The files
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you'll want to look at are the Xresources, Xsession, and Xsetup_0.
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There are other files to work over but let's start with our local
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desktop.
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<p>
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If you look at your Xsession file you'll see you need
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these files in your home directory:.xinitrc and .Xresources. The
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.xinitrc you may have in your home directory is a reasonable
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default, and you can copy the system Xresources to your home
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.Xresources. If you would like to use other files as your startup
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and resources file, you'll need to specify them in the Xsession
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file, at the lines that read:
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<pre> startup=$HOME/.xinitrc
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resources=$HOME/.Xresources
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</pre>
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you might use .openwin, instead of .xinitrc and .Xdefaults instead
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of .Xresources, you'll have to lok at what X related dotfiles are
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present in your home directory.
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<p> Your Xsetup_0 fle can be used to start a background image in
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the login screen using a command like:
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<pre>
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xv -root -quit /your/image/here
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</pre>
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assuming that you have xv installed on your system. You can use
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other viewers to start the image, but you will have to read up on
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the appropriate command line options for them. You can also enable
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or disable the xconsole log, which can be used to notify you of
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errors in execution, etc, by piping the xdm-errors file to it in
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this file, although I haven't done it and am not real familiar with the
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the specifics.
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<hr><p><h4>
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If you have any starting out type questions, or any tips you you
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think would be handy for the newbie reader, please email me
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at:</h4>
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<center><a href="mailto:troll@net-link.net">troll@net-link.net</a><p>
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<b>See you next month!</b></center>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H4>Previous "Clueless at the Prompt" Columns</H4></center>
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<p>
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<A HREF="../issue14/clueless.html">Clueless at the Prompt #1 - February 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue15/clueless.html">Clueless at the Prompt #2 - March 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue16/clueless.html">Clueless at the Prompt #3 - April 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue17/clueless.html">Clueless at the Prompt #4 - May 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue18/clueless.html">Clueless at the Prompt #5 - June 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue19/clue.html">Clueless at the Prompt #6 - July 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue21/clue.html">Clueless at the Prompt #7 - September 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue23/clue.html">Clueless at the Prompt #8 - December 1997</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue25/clueless.html">Clueless at the Prompt #9 - February 1998</A><br>
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<A HREF="../issue26/clueless.html">Clueless at the Prompt #10 - March 1998</A>
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<P><HR><P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Mike List<BR>
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Published in Issue 30 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997</H5></center>
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