Linux questions


  #1  
Old 11-16-03, 08:10 AM
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Linux questions

(question #2 is the most important to me at the moment, but would like to figure the first one out as well)

#1 server

I'm not sure how to do this. I don't want to literally be a server but would like to run some programs on my computer as though I am a server and have them accessible only to this computer. My idea of what a server actually is may be way off for what I am wanting to do.

I found some business software (handles small inventories and invoicing) that I would love to run but it runs off Apache. That means server, correct? I can't seem to install it up on my website to try to use it from there. My website handles Apache, but maybe I don't have it configured or something. I seem to be able to purchase any and every book about Linux that is too high-tech for me. I think they're for seasoned Linux users even though some have the title "Linux for Dummies". Guess that means I'm an idiot LOL

#2 Where to put LILO/grub or not use.

I have gotten rid of the 4g hard drive. I got tired of messing with it. I understand what happened though. Somehow I managed to make the 80g the master and the 4g the slave. This is why windows wouldn't load on to it, no boot sector. I didn't know how to resolve this after researching so I got rid of it LOL. Now I have the 80g in two partitions. I have loaded Windows into the first partition. Now, I did this the other day and messed it up somehow, but would like to load Linux back on the other partition of the drive. When I do this somehow Linux will no longer load Windows. When I try to reboot into windows I ended up with some crazy little symbols and my computer sending a constant tone, not a beep or beeps. The system then is unresponsive to the keyboard so I end up hard re-booting.

When I reinstall Linux, do I need LILO in the master boot record (this is where I keep putting it) or somewhere else. Or would it be best to just have no boot record for it and boot from a floppy for Linux?

**please note

I am sure that it would be best if I had a second computer and networked the two together. I don't have that option right now since the laptop isn't stable enough and I can't afford a router right now. I am also wondering if a 'paid' copy of Linux - either Mdk or RH - would have the software I need included for some of the things I have to switch to Windows to run.

I'm sure I could build my own databases and queries for Linux, but at the rate it took me to figure out how to create 1 (yes one) simple database I will be 100 before I get a useful one running for my needs. GnuCash is great for keeping up with basic accounting, just need access to inventory. I may just have to do those two separately until I can create a workable, calculating database system.

I am going through Linux withdrawals at the moment. I can't seem to get email programs to behave the way I want, or the browsers. Even Netscape and Mozilla for Windows doesn't have the capabilities that I am use to with Linux.

Kay
 
  #2  
Old 11-16-03, 04:57 PM
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I put LILO in the mbr. If you have Win and Linux and cannot boot. Insert CD1and boot, and at the prompt type rescue. Select the option to reinstall LILO. That usually fixes it.

If Linux is not in the second partition and Windows runs properly in the first, install Linux to the second, hdb, and proceed from there. It should set up fine.

I did not like MDK 9.2 and took it off. Went back to 9.1

You can install Apache and allow connections only from localhost, your computer. Setting up programs to run on the Apache at your webserver offsite may require setting up CGI scripts to do what you want.

Hope this helps.
 
  #3  
Old 11-16-03, 05:30 PM
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The last time I did this I did as you said, put Windows in the first partition, then loaded Linux in the second with LILO in the MBR. I couldn't get into Windows after that, even using a boot floppy for Windows.

What is EZ-BIOS by Western Digital? I'm thinking that when I installed the new drive months ago that I used that on the new drive, but didn't do a thing to the old drive - leaving Windows in tact. Then I installed Linux on the new drive alone.

Now that I've gotten things all messed up I tried several ways to get things going again. I tried putting Windows and linux on the same drive, leaving the 4 g alone. No boot into Windows. Then I tried reinstalling Windows on the 4 g, but by this time the computer natural bios saw the 80g as the master. I'm sure that is from my fiddling with fdisk. The last time I tried putting Windows and Linux on the same drive I used the Western Digital and installed EZ-bios on both drives, even though I didn't use the second drive.

What I did this afternoon was to reinstall Linux behind Windows on the 80g, 4g unhooked period. I didn't, however, install the bootloader. I installed, rebooted to Linux with a boot floppy. I haven't shut down and let her boot up normally to see if she'll go into Windows or not.

Oh, I tried what you said about unplugging the 4 g, but after seeing that I didn't even have a boot sector on the drive anymore I said to heck with it and left it undone and will work with the 80g only. Got the inside all cleaned out while I was in there so it wasn't wasted time.

I'll try booting up into Windows and see what happens. I'll post back. May just keep it this way if it works.

Then, we can start on the server deal you mentioned. I've been reading up on being an intranet using Linux - is that basically what it will end up being since I'm one computer?

Thanks for the help Chris, as usual you are very patient and clear on instructions for me.

Kay
 
  #4  
Old 11-16-03, 05:55 PM
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update:

yea! I removed the boot disk and she booted into windows. I restarted with the boot disk in, and she booted up into Linux!

LILO is more convenient and takes less time but this will work for now.

I will check into the CGI setup on my server. I know I have it, but not sure how to get in there and do anything.

If I totally mess up my webspace up there, I wonder if they can just wipe it clean for me and restart it? Probably charge me for that, though.

Oh well, I will do some more reading and see what questions I will have about trying to set things up here locally.

My son is selling his computer. So far he's sold the monitor and speakers. Should I try to score the tower and use that? Not sure how to go about all this.

Kay
 
  #5  
Old 11-16-03, 06:01 PM
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If you still have Win on the 4G drive, you can recover it by a:\>fdisk /mbr with a W98 boot floppy in the floppy drive having used it to boot. This will repair the mbr on the small drive.

You can edit lilo with lilo or edit the lilo.conf file to boot windows and anything else you want.

Despite the popularity of using cable select on drives, I prefer to set the jumpers to slave and master so that I know for sure what will happen. I still put the master at the end of the cable as well.

When you use cable select settings on the harddrives, the computer assigns master - slave status based upon the location on the IDE cable. The one at the end is the master and the one in the middle is the slave. That may be where you messed up. Fdisk has nothing to do with master and slave.

With what you have done today, the computer should boot into windows. You can still install a bootloader to manage the boot process, if you like.

Hope this helps.
 
  #6  
Old 11-16-03, 06:04 PM
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You should be able to manage your offsite server files yourself through a control panel of some sort or just FTP them off.

If the price is right, score another box to play with. I have several here. Apache will run on anything later than a 486.
 
  #7  
Old 11-16-03, 06:21 PM
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The boy just owes us a ton of money. I was hoping he would just give me the system as partial payment. I'll check with him to see what he says.

I think I'm not setting permissions correctly on my site to run the install programs. I follow the instructions, but when I type in numbers in the change permission box to 666 then it ends up giving the permission of 333. Not sure why. I have to play around with the check boxes it has above the numbered boxes to get it to read 666 but then it still doesn't let me do anything. Is this where the CGI settings come into play? That's a different area in my control panel.

I'll keep goofing around with it and see what happens.

Kay
 
  #8  
Old 11-16-03, 08:54 PM
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Linux files permissions

Permissions are 4,2,1
Read, write, execute
abbreviated rwx
listed as user, group, others
so rwxrwxr-- would be user r,w,x; group r,w,x; others r,-,-; numerically 774

Click on the home directory in your task bar, view in details, look to the right columns and see how the permissions are set. The owner and group are even farther to the right.

e. g., Desktop rwxrwxr-x owner group

So a file that is 666 is rw-rw-rw-; that is the user, group, and others can read and write but no one can execute it.
read only 4
write only 2
execute only 1
read, write = 6
read, execute = 5
execute only = 1
read, write, execute = 7

To set permissions so only the user could write and execute and the owner read, write, execute, and others read, it would be 374

You could set permissions on a file to 755 so that the owner could read, write, execute; and the group and others could read and execute, but not write to the file.

chmod is the command to change the permissions of a file.

http://www.mkssoftware.com/docs/man1/chmod.1.asp

CGI (common gateway interface) scripts are generally in a CGI directory and called by a routine in something else on the server. For instance, someone clicks on a link on a page that calls a script to launch a bulletin board. The called script might run a perl routine to bring the bulletin board up and get it running.

That is how this bulletin board runs. I have one like this and that is how it works. I don't have it up for any purpose now. You might Google for YABB (yet another bulletin board) and read about how it works. It can give you a feel for how perl scripting works to launch another application.

There are many canned CGI scripts, so you don't have to try to make your own. Just get the ones you need, knowing that they work, and put them to work. You may have to get your host to enable CGI scripts on your site. Many of them make this available at no added cost.

There will be a test later.
 
  #9  
Old 11-16-03, 09:04 PM
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I feel a zero coming on LOL.

I tried to install something up on the web and change the permissions. Okay, so that wasn't good. Then I tried to delete the whole thing now the trash can't be emptied or whats in it restored. Hmmm. I've already broken something on my website.

Maybe I better just stay here (local) and destroy things. What do you think?

I get to go pick up my son's computer this week. No monitor - is that a problem?

I did set up a bulletin board (forum board deal) on my site once just to see how one of these works. Its nice, very similar to this one. It comes with my webspace if I want to use it. I didn't have to install it, just click a button saying I wanted one and it installed it. I just had to make forums, etc.

What's a SCI wrapper? I enabled it and now I can access cgis that I put in a certain spot with my user name and password. What the heck?!? I am obviously clueless as to what I'm doing. I can't even get java loaded on this machine. I have never been able to run jAlbum for that reason. Go figure. I think Java is installed, but not in the correct path. Totally clueless here. LOL Now I'm enabling things on my website that I have no idea what they do.

Okay, am going to read some more.

Kay
 
  #10  
Old 11-16-03, 09:24 PM
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What's a SCI wrapper
CGI wrapper?

Definition: http://www.1sthostwebtutorials.com/CGI%20Wrap.htm

Info: http://cgiwrap.unixtools.org/

Here is a page you've seen before for installing plugins.

http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/linux.html

Take a look at installing JRE. The keys are finding the version of moz that you are using. It is in lots of places. In this version of MDK 9.1, I put it in /usr/local/. Install JRE from the rpm and carefully follow the instructions about creating a symbolic link to the plugin through your moz plugin directory. Copying the *.oij.so file will not work. Make sure you have the right version of JRE and link to the gcc-322 compilation subdirectory. The instructions will walk you through it, but you have to read them a couple of times to understand how to do it. The best way is to do it from the command line.

I am running moz 1.5, and the plugins work fine. Realplayer, java, shockwave, acrobat reader. The page above for installing plugins is a great help.

Hope this helps.
 
  #11  
Old 11-16-03, 11:03 PM
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kay says: nldslkf,mnxvnsfhwefj'j'peldlheshfwi;fhnxvcvz;

chfite says: bkjsdbkjsdksdk;jsjk;sdhksh;sdh;h;dfhgdfhgd

Glad i use windows! lol
 
  #12  
Old 11-17-03, 04:50 AM
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  #13  
Old 11-17-03, 05:50 AM
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Tae,

Sometimes I say other things - then I get my mouth washed out with soap.

link to the gcc-322 compilation subdirectory.
You do realize that me in the / or /root directory is the equivelant of a drunk bull in a glass shop? I get lost easily and have a tendency to break things by accident.

I did find the kernel last night. I did manage out of there without touching anything. This reminds me of Matrix Reloaded. All those doors in the hallway, some lead off to where you need to be, others are distractions/problems and there's always that one that destroys life as we know it...

Kay
 
  #14  
Old 11-20-03, 04:42 PM
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Got the computer from my son. Not sure what's in it though. He mentioned something about a motherboard designed for a server? I'll break into it tomorrow and see what we have and post back. It was running Win 98 before he sold the monitor.

How do I use it without a monitor? Do I just swap my monitor between the two depending on which one I want to see at the moment?

Kay
 
  #15  
Old 11-20-03, 04:55 PM
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motherboard designed for a server?
May have a slot or socket for an additional CPU making it a SMP board. Not much value unless you have applications that are set for SMP. (Symmetrical Multi-Processor) Or it may have added slots for RAM. Who knows?

How do I use it without a monitor?
You can hot plug a monitor cable. You could network them together and SSH into the other one. You could run the other desktop remotely with:

http://www.eax.com/umlug/display/

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/857/1/

http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/Ja...ticle222.shtml

Hope this helps.
 
  #16  
Old 11-20-03, 05:15 PM
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Okay, lots of good reading. Give me a few days on that, please LOL.

I'll check to see what's in here, clean it up etc and then get back on the hot plugging deal. Then we can go from there.

Kay
 
  #17  
Old 11-20-03, 05:34 PM
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You can get a KVM switch from trendnet and switch monitors on the fly.
 
  #18  
Old 11-27-03, 06:41 AM
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I haven't had a chance to get into the other comptuer to see what it has in it. Right now I've got a strange thing going on with my current box.

I can't seem to figure out the time zone for where I am. I know that sounds strange, but according to the little maps they let you choose from in Linux there aren't any people in the middle of the US.

If I get the time correct on Linux, then boot into Windows its off again. By yes, 6 hours. I am central time, but live near Memphis TN (GMT -6 hours). I've tried using North Dakota time but that doesn't keep the two clocks correct.

Just a silly wack problem that wouldn't bug me but since I use my clock on the computer to keep up with the time its a bother. Most of the time I lose the clock on my desk under paperwork and have to dig for it to find the time. It also looks pretty weird when my email is time-stamped 6 hours off.

Any hope?

Kay
 
  #19  
Old 11-27-03, 07:13 AM
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I found that Windows 98 and Linux could not use the same time settings. Since I installed XP, I don't have that problem anymore. I think that it is because W98 sets the clock to your local time, but Linux calculates local time from GMT and displays it accordingly. Perhaps, XP does it the same way.

I used to have a utility for windows that checked the time server when it booted and alerted me if the time settings were off by more than 3 - 4 minutes.

Here is a link to such a utility:

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/service/its.htm

Hope this helps.
 
 

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