Installing Slackware 11.0 on An HP Pavilion dv8000

Josh VanderLinden

Comments

First of all, I have to tell everyone how great of a distribution Slackware is. I have personally sampled (meaning that I downloaded, installed, and ran for a trial period) at least 50 different distributions. It seems that, no matter how fancy a new distribution is, I always find myself returning to Slackware. I have to admit, it doesn't have a lot of the eyecandy and user-friendly features of other mainstream distributions right off the bat, but you could add them if you wanted to. Among my reasons for liking Slackware so much are:

  • It's the fastest (by default) I've used
  • Stability
  • Security
  • Educational value

Now that we have a little background as to why I like Slackware so much, let's move on to the installation, shall we? To make it a little more simple, I'm just including the notes that I took while installing.

  • Insert disc 1

  • Boot Menu: Hit enter to boot with default options

  • Select keyboard map: Enter for default US

  • Login as root

  • Check partition scheme: # fdisk /dev/hda

    Here are some useful commands to get around in fdisk:

    • p to print partition table
    • d to delete, followed by parition number
    • c to create; primary/extended; start sector; end sector
    • a to toggle bootable flag
    • w to write parition table
    • q to quit

  • # setup

  • ADDSWAP to activate swap partition

    • select your swap partition and hit ok
    • choose whether you wish to check for bad blocks while preparing the swap partition [no]
    • hit ok when your swap partition has been configured

  • Choose your root (/) parition

    • Select the proper partition from the list and hit select
    • Choose your formatting type
      • Format: Quick format with no bad block checking
      • Check: Slow format that checks for bad blocks
      • No: No, do not format this partition
      • [ FORMAT ]
    • Choose filesystem
      • ext2: Standard Linux Ext2 Filesystem
      • ext3: Ext3 Journaling Filesystem
      • reiserfs: ReiserFS Journaling Filesystem
      • [ REISERFS ]
    • Add other paritions and follow the same process as above, specifying the mount point
    • Hit ok when the partitions have been setup successfully

  • Specify whether you'd like any existing FAT or NTFS partitions to be mounted in Linux

    • [ YES ]
    • Select the partition
    • Specify the mount point

  • Hit ok when the FAT and NTFS partitions have been setup

  • Choose your installation source

    • Install from a Slackware CD or DVD
    • Install from a hard drive partition
    • Install from NFS (Network File System)
    • Install from a pre-mounted directory
    • [ CD or DVD ]

  • Choose the CD/DVD device

    • auto: Scan for the CD or DVD drive (recommended)
    • manual: Manually specify CD or DVD by device name
    • [ AUTO ]

  • Select the package sets you'd like to install and hit ok

  • Select prompting mode

    • full Install everything (3+ GB of software, recommended)
    • expert Choose individual packages from interactive menus
    • menu Choose groups of packages from interactive menus
    • newbie Use verbose prompting (and follow tagfiles)
    • custom Use custom tagfiles in the package directories
    • tagpath Use tagfiles in the subdirectories of a custom path
    • [ FULL ]

  • Specify your kernel

    • bootdisk Use the kernel from the installation bootdisk
    • cdrom Use a kernel from the Slackware CD or NFS mount
    • floppy Install a zimage or bzimage from a DOS floppy
    • skip Skip this menu (use the default /boot/vmlinuz)
    • [ CDROM ]

  • Re-insert disc 1

    • Select your kernel
    • [ /cdrom/kernels/sata.i/bzImage ]

  • Make a bootdisk

    • Create Make a Linux bootdisk in /dev/fd0
    • Skip Skip making a bootdisk
    • [ SKIP ]

  • Modem configuration [ NO MODEM ]

  • Specify whether you'd like to start hotplug/udev at boot [ YES ]

  • Install the bootloader, LILO

    • simple Try to install LILO automatically
    • expert Use expert lilo.conf setup menu
    • skip Do not install LILO
    • [ SIMPLE ]

  • Choose your frame buffer mode for LILO [ standard ]

  • Pass the kernel a parameter if you have an IDE CD/DVD-RW drive

    • [ hdc=ide-scsi ]

  • Select LILO destination

    • Root Install to superblock (not for use with XFS)
    • Floppy Install to a formatted floppy in /dev/fd0 (A:)
    • MBR Install to Master Boot Record (possibly unsafe)
    • [ MBR ]

  • Select your mouse type [ IMPS2 ]

  • Specify whether you'd like to start GPM at boot [ NO ]

  • Specify whether you'd like to configure your network

    • [ YES ]
    • Enter your hostname
    • Enter your domain name
    • Specify IP setup
      • static IP Use a static IP address to configure ethernet
      • DHCP Use a DHCP server to configure ethernet
      • loopback Set up a loopback connection (modem or no net)
      • [ DHCP ]
    • Specify DHCP parameters
    • Verify and accept network configuration

  • Specify services to start at boot time

    • rc.cups
    • rc.httpd
    • rc.mysqld
    • rc.pcmcia
    • rc.samba
    • rc.scanluns
    • rc.sendmail
    • rc.syslog
    • rc.sshd

  • Specify whether you'd like to try out some screen fonts [ NO ]

  • Specify whether your machine's clock is set to local time or UTC/GMT [ NO ]

  • Select timezone

  • Select your default desktop [ KDE ]

  • Set a root password

  • Reboot

  • Login as root

  • Add a new (normal) user: # adduser

  • Configure XWindows

    • # xorgcfg
    • save the configuration to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

  • Logout and back in as the new user

  • Bring up the GUI

    • $ startx

Begin using your system!!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Josh VanderLinden

Comments 

better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus < north pole > town

cat /etc/passwd > list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice > giftlist
santa claus < north pole > town

who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | grep bad || good
for (goodness sake) {
    be good
}

Wireless Networking With SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10

Josh VanderLinden

Comments

Note: This tutorial is a continuation of yesterday's tutorial about installing SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on my HP Pavilion dv8000. I may or may not refer to steps that I took during installation, so if you are confused, you might want to check out the previous article.

The process of installing and enabling a wireless adapter will vary greatly from machine to machine. Some lucky folks have wireless adapters that come with official Linux drivers. For the rest of us, we usually have a Broadcom-compatible adapter. In order to use a Broadcom device, I use a program called ndiswrapper, which basically takes the drivers for the devices to function with Windows and wraps them in such a manner that Linux can use. Since I have the 64-bit version of SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10, I need to get a 64-bit driver in order for my wireless to function properly. These 64-bit drivers took me a while to get ahold of the first time I got my wireless working (on SuSE Linux 10.1), but I still have them in my archives, so I should be fully prepared to get my wireless working. In this article I assume that you are going to use ndiswrapper to install drivers for a Broadcom device. So let's get started.

Install Ndiswrapper

First, make sure that you have ndiswrapper installed on your system. You can install it by entering YaST. In KDE, click the K menu (the little green chameleon in the bottom left), go to System > YaST (Administrator Settings). You will be asked to enter the root password, which you set during installation. Once you've done that, you will see the YaST Control Center, which is a very powerful set of tools and utilities that greatly ease the configuration and management of SLED. Click on the Software category on the left to show a list of software management options (if it's not already displayed). Click on the Software Management module.

Once loaded, you will see an interface which is very similar to what you would see during the expert package selection while installing SLED. Make sure your Filter (in the top left) is set to Search, and enter ndiswrapper in the search box. The search will return a few different results for ndiswrapper. The first result, ndiswrapper by itself, should be sufficient for most of us. When you check the box by ndiswrapper, you will see a warning informing you that ndiswrapper-based network are not officially supported by Novell. Just click OK to dismiss this warning.

Now you should be ready to install ndiswrapper. Click the Accept button in the bottom right. You will be asked to confirm the installation of ndiswrapper; click Continue. If your installation media is not still inserted, YaST will request the disc which contains the ndiswrapper packages. Insert the disc and click OK. In my case, two packages were installed. It may or may not differ for you.

As soon as the packages are done installing, your configuration settings are saved once again, and you will be asked if you want to install or remove more packages. Click No. At this point, ndiswrapper should be installed on your system, and you may dismiss the YaST Control Center.

Determine Your Wireless Adapter Make/Model

This step is absolutely necessary because if you install the wrong drivers, there is a chance (small as it may be) that your wireless adapter will be damaged. So let's ask Linux how our wireless adapter identifies itself. To do this, log into your SLED and open a Terminal or Konsole. On KDE, you can use the third button (a monitor with a black screen and > on it) on the menu panel at the bottom of the screen, or you can also click the "K" menu (same place as a regular start menu in Windows), go to System > Terminal > Konsole (Terminal Program). I am not exactly sure where this item is located with GNOME, but it might be under the System menu.

Once you have opened a terminal window of some sort, you must switch to a root user environment:

$ su -

You will then be asked for the root password, which you set during installation. Enter that password and type

# lspci

This command lists all of your PCI devices, according to the man pages, but you will see most if not all of your devices, PCI or otherwise, listed here. You'll notice that there is probably quite a list of devices. You may be interested in what your computer has in it, but since you're looking specifically for your wireless adapter, try one of the following commands

lspci | grep Broadcom
lspci | grep Wireless

The | after lspci will pipe the output of lspci to a useful and powerful program called grep. In this case, grep just looks for any lines that contain either the word Broadcom or Wireless. If you don't get any results from either of the two commands above, try to think of other keywords that might be used to identify a wireless adapter. My laptop returns the following:

# lspci | grep Broadcom
06:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Dell Wireless 1470 DualBand WLAN (rev 02)

When you find the wireless adapter, pay attention to the numbers in front of it (06:02.0 on my laptop). With those numbers, you can get the information you need to find the right drivers for your particular wireless adapter. Enter the following command, substituting my device numbers with yours:

# lspci -n | grep 06:02.0
06:02.0 Class 0280: 14e4:4319 (rev 02)

This command gives you the wireless adapter's numeric ID; mine is 14e4:4319.

Download Your Device Drivers

Now that you know your device's numeric ID, you can go to the ndiswrapper wiki, which has a list of numeric IDs and the drivers that are known to work with that device. Look for your wireless adapter on the list of devices. I would recommend using your browser's search or find on page function to locate your device by the numeric ID that you just found.

I'll leave the retrieval of your device drivers up to you.

Install The Wireless Drivers

Most device drivers will come in an archive of some sort. Mine came in a RAR file. Extract your drivers to the directory of your choice--maybe something like ~/wireless. You can use the archive utility provided by SLED to extract your files. It functions very similar to WinZip, WinRAR, and other popular archive clients. By the way, the ~ in a directory listing refers to the current user's home directory (/home/user, for example).

Now, go back to the root terminal that you used to determine what kind of adapter you have. Navigate to the directory where you extracted your drivers and list the contents of the directory, looking for any *.inf files:

# cd ~/wireless
# ls

Ndiswrapper will use an INF file to know how it is supposed to install the driver. My INF file is called bcmwl5.inf. Now for the actual installation of the drivers:

# ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
Installing bcmwl5
Forcing parameter IBSSGMode|0 to IBSSGMode|2

Now check to make sure that the driver is there and that it recognizes your hardware:

# ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
nbcmwl5          driver installed

Ooops!!! It doesn't recognize that my hardware is actually there. If you see 'driver installed, hardware present' then you should be good to go. You may proceed to the next step. However, if you have the same problem as me, you either have the wrong drivers or ndiswrapper installed the drivers improperly. This problem took forever to track down when I was first trying to get my wireless to work. Remember the numeric ID that you found earlier? Check this out:

# cd /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5
# ls
14E4:4318.5.conf  bcmwl5.inf  bcmwl564.sys

Wait a second! Remember how my numeric ID was 14E4:4319? Why is there a listing for 14E4:4318.5? To solve this problem, I am just going to make a symlink (a shortcut) to 14E4:4318.5.conf and call it 14E4:4319.5.conf:

# ln -s 14E4:4318.5.conf 14E4:4319.5.conf

Now when I run the command to see if my hardware is recognized, I get this:

# ndiswrapper -l
Installed drivers:
bcmwl5          driver installed, hardware present

Hurray!! It says 'hardware present' in there!!! That means that the drivers are working and that my device can be used!

Enable Your Wireless Device

With ndiswrapper recognizing your wireless adapter, you can now enable it and start wirelessing your life away:

# modprobe ndiswrapper

There have been times when this particular step will lock up my machine and I have to do a hard reset, but most times it will work fine.

Connect to a Wireless Network

This part also gave me issues for a long time when I first installed my wireless drivers on SuSE Linux 10.1. I was able to connect to the wireless access points provided by my apartment complex, but I could not for the life of me connect to my own wireless router. Hopefully you don't encounter the same problem.

To see what access points you have available to you, check out the KNetworkManager applet in your system tray (next to the clock). I have 7 possible access points listed in the menu, including my encrypted router. When I clicked on my network, it asked me for my passphrase and connected immediately. Nice! That's definitely one plus for SLED over SuSE Linux 10.1!!

I am actually amazed at how easy it was to get my wireless working the second time around. Hopefully your wireless adapter installation was as painless as mine with the help of this guide.

Installing SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10

Josh VanderLinden

Comments

This will be the second time for me putting SLED 10 on my laptop, but I've also put SLES 10, SuSE Linux 10.1, and various others on this laptop several times before. It _has_ been a few months since I last installed Linux on this laptop, so we'll see how well I remember how to do it. I will be installing the 64-bit DVD version, so as to take better advantage of the 64-bit capabilities of my processor. This shouldn't have a drastic effect on the overall procedure, compared to that of installing the 32-bit CD/DVD version.

Here are some specs of my laptop:

  • Make/Model: HP Pavilion dv8000
  • CPU: AMD Turion 64 ML-40 (2.2Ghz)
  • RAM: 1.25GB PC2700 DDR333 SODIMM
  • HDD: 5400RPM 80GB
  • Video: ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (128MB dedicated RAM, up to an additional 128MB shared RAM)

Note: I make a few assumptions in the writing of this article. One is that you are on a machine running Windows XP. If your computer can't handle Windows XP, you probably don't want to be running SLED 10. Another assumption is that you don't yet have your hard drive partitioned into more than one partition. I also assume that you already have the installation media in good working condition. For those of you in the BYU-I Linux Users Group (LUG), I am willing to make copies of the discs if you provide the media or discuss some sort of compensation if you want me to provide the media.

BACKUP ALL IMPORTANT DATA BEFORE PROCEEDING

We all hate losing the projects that we've slaved over for weeks and months. Take the proper precautions to backup anything you wouldn't like to lose before installing any flavor of Linux. That's not to say that you will lose everything, but it's not unheard of to wipe out all data from your drive while attempting to install Linux. With that warning out of the way, let's get started!!!

Defragment Your Hard Drive

If you have a secondary drive which you plan to dedicate to Linux, this step is not necessary. However, if you plan to install Linux on the same drive as your Windows installation, I would suggest defragmenting your drive prior to repartitioning your drive. In order to defragment your hard drive in Windows XP, open your Start menu and open the Control Panel. Once here, descend into Administrative Tools and run Computer Management. This utility is quite handy. On the left side of the Computer Management window, you should see a tree of options. Under Storage you will see the Disk Defragmenter. Simply click the Defragment button, and the program will begin optimizing your files. Defragmenting your hard drive basically puts each of your files into one piece instead of scattered across the drive (as they tend to be written). Defragmentation is a good process to run on a regular basis. Once again, this step is not necessary to the installation of Linux, but it is a good practice.

Begin The Installation

Once you're done backing up your files and defragmenting your hard drive, insert the first SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 CD/DVD into your CD/DVD drive and reboot your computer. You should be presented with a fancy blue welcome screen, but if you see the Windows boot screen, you'll have to change the settings in your BIOS to enable you to boot from your CD/DVD drive. That process will vary from machine to machine, so I won't even try to explain how to do it. Once you see the welcome screen, you are presented with several boot options:

  • Boot from Hard Disk
  • Installation
  • Installation--ACPI Disabled
  • Installation--Local APIC Disabled
  • Installation--Safe Settings
  • Rescue System
  • Memory Test

We're going to go with the first Installation option. In my experience, starting with SuSE Linux 10.1, I haven't had any issues at all getting Linux installed. Most people shouldn't have problems booting into the installation program, but if you do, try the other Installation options. Once we begin the installation process, the bootloader will load the Linux kernel into memory and begin booting the SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop installation utility. It will probe several devices to make the installation usable, after which you are presented with a language selection menu. Choose the language of your preference. Next you will be asked to accept the License Agreement, which I would recommend reading (with any product, not just SLED). If you accept, check the "Yes, I Agree to the License Agreement" option box and hit "Next." If you don't accept the agreement, this is the end of the road--your installation process will end.

Once we accept the License Agreement, a few more devices are probed and we're asked what kind of installation we'll be doing. With the assumptions I've made for this tutorial, we will proceed with a New Installation. If you have the "extras" CD, you can check the "Include Add-On Products from Separate Media" checkbox. You'll then be asked to insert the disc so that a catalog of available applications can be made. However, I'll assume that we all just have the required media. Click "Next" to create a catalog of the software available.

Now we're presented with a Clock and Time Zone screen. Choose the appropriate options for your situation and click next.

Installation Settings

Once we have set our clock and time zone, we are shown an overview of the current installation settings. I personally prefer to see all of the details, so I am going to click on the Expert tab. I don't like the predefined partitioning scheme, so I am going to change that.

Partition Your Drive

Partitioning a hard drive basically allows you to split up that brand new 500GB SATA-II drive you bought into smaller "virtual hard drives." I like to partition my hard drive because it allows me to manage my files easier, and I don't have to worry about losing ALL of my data if one of the partitions needs to be reformatted. Each partition can have a different file system on it, which allows us to run a Windows file system (NTFS) and a linux file system (ext2/3 and reiserfs are the two main ones, at least for workstations) on the same physical hard drive.

This is the first time I will entrust all of the data on my hard drive to a Linux installation partitioning utility in a very long time. We're talking about 7 years... However, for the sake of others, I am willing to put it to the test to see if SuSE will not wipe my drive when I try to resize the Windows partition. I usually use a utility such as Partition Magic to resize and create new partitions.

To change my partitioning scheme, I click on the "Partitioning" subtitle on the Expert tab in the Installation Settings section. I want to base my partition setup on the default proposal, so I select the second option "Base Partition Setup on This Proposal" and hit next. This part could be a bit hairy if you've never partitioned a drive before. I want to be able to share files between Windows and Linux, so I am going to create a small ~20GB partition which I will format to be FAT32, a format readable and writable in both Windows and Linux.

First, I must resize my Linux partitions. I don't need my home partition to be 22GB, so I'm going to resize that one to be 5GB. To do that, I select the partition with /home listed as it's Mount point and click the "Resize" button at the bottom of the screen. The window that appears shows a graphical representation of the changes we make. All I need do is enter "5" into the "Space Free (GB)" box or move the slider to the right spot and click "OK". Now I'm left with 17GB to share between Windows and Linux. To create this new partition, I click on the "Create" button at the bottom.

The new partition window asks me what type of format I wish to have on the new partition--I want to select FAT. I want to have this partition listed in a place that makes sense to me, so I'm going to change the "Mount Point" field to /windows/share and click OK. I think I'm now satisfied with the partitioning scheme, so I click "Finish" to return back to the Installation Settings screen.

Partitioning Pointers

Let me share some pointers for partitioning schemes. Traditional Linux installations would ask for a partition twice as big as the amount of RAM you have in your machine. This is for the swap, which is synonymous with virtual memory in Windows lingo. That means that if you have 512MB of RAM, your swap partition should be at least 1024MB (1GB). Likewise, if you have 1GB of RAM, your swap partition should be at least 2048MB (2GB). In my opinion, the average Linux desktop does not require more than 512MB for a swap partition. I may be mistaken, but I think the "double your RAM" rule became somewhat obsolete for desktop workstations with the advent of 2Ghz+ processors with 1GB+ of RAM. It could just be me, but I've never even filled 256MB of swap. Just something to consider while partitioning your drive.

If you plan on experimenting with several distros of Linux without wiping other installations of Linux, I would recommend a partition dedicated to your /home folder. This way, you are able to keep your personal settings across most if not all distros. I've found it useful on countless occasions.

Software Selection

One thing I really like about SLED is the ease of package selection. Their default package selection will suit most people just fine. However, I have developed my own tastes for how I like my Linux, so I am going to customize the package selection a bit. To do that, I click on the "Software" heading in the Expert tab of Installation Settings.

I personally prefer KDE to GNOME as my window manager. So I am going to deselect GNOME from the Desktops category, but not so the "Do Not Enter" symbol shows up where there once was a check. I want to click the checkbox until I see a white box (no checkmark). I'm not sure if this is required, but usually different environments will require libraries from other environments in order for certain programs to run. I suspect that the Do Not Enter sign means that nothing for GNOME will be installed, but this is not fact--it's simply a notion of mine. Now I want to put a check in the checkbox next to KDE. Being a nerd, I want to have my compilers around, so I will also select that option.

According to the disk usage graphs in the bottom right of the screen, I'm only going to be installing about 1.9GB of software. That's interesting because I downloaded a whole DVD... If anyone wants to see what other software is available, you can click the Details button below the software category list. This might scare a few off, but it's all quite simple. If you want to see more categories to choose from, select "Package Groups" from the Filter list in the top left. This is where you can explore all of your software options available on your installation media. I am going to leave that sort of customization until after I'm all installed and running.

Once you're done selecting the packages you wish to have installed, click Accept from the bottom right. You will probably encounter a few more license agreements at this point. These are for non-open-source applications (Adobe Acrobat Reader, Macromedia Flash plug-in, etc) included with SLED. I recommend reading and accepting each license agreement. Now I am presented with the same Expert tab in the Installation Settings stage. Now we're ready to proceed, so click Accept in the bottom right again. We're asked to confirm that we want to install Linux, with a warning that certain parts of your hard drive will be formatted, thus erasing any data that were there before. If you're ready, click Install, sit back, and enjoy.

Installing Everything

At this point your partitions will be resized/formatted and the appropriate files will be installed. This process can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours or more, depending on the packages you selected and the speed of your system. You might be interested in seeing what exactly is being installed on your system at this point. If so, you can click the Details tab and see each package being installed. Apparently I chose some other packages along the way or something, because now it says that I'm installing about 2.5GB of software and that this segment should take about 30 minutes.

Once all of the files are copied, the installation settings will be saved to the hard drive and your system will reboot for the first time in your brand new SLED. At this point, you shouldn't remove your installation media, as it is required in the following steps.

The Initial Boot And Final Settings

When we boot up our SLED for the first time after installation, we are asked to provide a hostname to identify our machine on the network. When you have set the hostname and domain name as you want them, click next. Now we're asked to set the root password. Make sure this password is one that you'll not forget, but at the same time make sure that it's not easy to guess. If someone gets root access to your machine, there's no end to what they can do.

Network Configuration

This is another section that is mostly correct, but a few settings are not the way I would like them to be. For example, my ssh port is listed as disabled under the Firewall heading. To enable it, just click the word "blocked"--it will change to "open". The rest of the settings look fine for now. If you have any customizations to be made, go ahead and make them. I'll wait.

When we're ready to move on, click next. At this point, our network configuration is saved. Next we're asked if we wish to try out our Internet connection. Do as you please. I usually skip this step, but for your sake, I will try out my connection. When we test, it tries to download the latest changelogs. If your connection works, you will see "Success" in the Result field. Click next.

User Authentication Method

Most home users won't have their own LDAP server or Windows Domain setup, so I won't go into how these are to be set up. Let's just go with Local authentication for now, the default option. Click next.

New Local User

This is when we create our very own user account. This set is essential. DO NOT EVER RUN EVERYDAY APPLICATIONS AS ROOT. There are serious security implications involved if you choose to login and perform your daily tasks as the root, or all-powerful administrator, user in Linux. It's much easier to just create an "unprivileged" user and do your regular business with that account. Only login as root when you need to perform system maintenance or install something. When you're done with those tasks, logout of the root environment immediately. Trust me.

Anyway, back to our installation. Go ahead and create your user. You may or may not want to check the checkbox to receive system mail. System mail includes certain security breaches on most distributions. If you don't wish to have to enter your password in order to use your computer, click the automatic login checkbox. If you wish to add more than one user at this time, you can click on the User Management button. The process is pretty much the same as it is to add the first unprivileged user. Click next when you're ready to proceed.

Now our system configuration is saved again (this seems to happen all the time in SuSE... it gets rather annoying in my opinion). After our settings are saved, we are presented with the release notes (which may have been more useful had they been displayed during the file copy process, but whatever). Read them if you wish. Click next when you're ready to proceed.

Hardware Configuration

Now this is one of the selling points for me with SuSE. I have a 17" widescreen (1680x1050 max resolution) for my laptop. There weren't many distros for a while that could handle the resolution out of the box. Fedora Core 5 was the first that I tried that handled it without any manual configuration, and SuSE was the second. I'm pretty happy with the configuration listed here, so click next when you are too. Once again, the settings will be saved (seems like saving settings in SuSE is as bad as rebooting in Windows...).

If you have several similar machines, you can save your installation configuration by checking the "Clone This System for Autoyast" checkbox. If you choose this, the system will determine what settings exactly were used for installation and create a file somewhere that you can use in later installations. When this is done, or when you click finish if you don't want to clone, a login screen will appear.

First Login

When you see this login screen, enter the username and password that you created for the unprivileged user. You'll see a fancy loading screen while your profile is being created for the first time.

Now, you may or may not have noticed, but I wrote this article as I installed SLED. I want to watch a movie now, so subsequent configuration (wireless, 3D acceleration, etc) will take place later. I hope this is good enough for the time being.

How To Create A Subversion Repository

Josh VanderLinden

Comments

In this tutorial, I assume that you have access to a Linux machine on which you plan to create the repository. I have never tried to create a repository on Windows or Mac, but perhaps in the future I will. I am doing this on a Slackware 10.2 machine with subversion 1.3.2. Version differences shouldn't have a great effect on the validity of the steps outlined here.

Install Subversion

If you haven't already installed subversion, you can download it from http://subversion.tigris.org/. You can download the svn package for a variety of platforms. If you download the source package, you should simply have to do the following as root:

  • unpack the archive and enter that folder
  • configure the application for your system by typing ./configure on the command line
  • compile the source code by typing make
  • install the package by typing make install

Note: these are the general steps for installing a package from the source; they may be slightly different with svn.

Choose A Home For The Repository

Next, choose a place for your server to keep track of all of the changes to your project. Try a place like /var/svn or /home/[your_username]/svn. I would recommend creating a folder specifically for the repository.

Create The Repository

Once you're in the directory in which you wish for your svn repository to reside, type the command svnadmin create repo or you can type the full path to be certain svnadmin create /var/svn/repo. This will create the repository.

Import Your Project

I do most of my development on my local area network, so I haven't created a repository that can be used over the Internet. I would imagine that it's pretty similar to what we do to create a repository for your LAN. Choose a project to import into your repository and navigate to the folder that the project is in. For example, if I have a project called Foo in /var/www/htdocs/foo, I would go to /var/www/htdocs. Next, use the command svn import to pull your project into the repository. For our Foo project, we would use the command svn import foo svn://localhost/var/svn/repo/foo -m "Initial Import". This will create a new folder in our repository at /var/svn/repo called foo (/var/svn/repo/foo). Our project files will put crammed into that directory for tracking.

Checkout Your Project

In order to be able to save your changes to our repository, we have to checkout the project again from the server. This is a pretty simple step, but it is critical. Even though we imported our project already, that folder remains untouched. SVN will not know how to handle the updates unless we checkout the project from the svn server. So, we proceed to checkout by removing or renaming /var/www/htdocs/foo and typing svn checkout svn://localhost/var/svn/repo/foo /var/www/htdocs/foo. This will place some hidden folders in each of the directories in your project. These hidden folders keep track of your local changes so that svn will know how to merge your changes with those of other developers.

Update The Repository

When you've made some changes that you want to save, you can send them out by typing svn commit /var/www/htdocs/foo. This command knows how to get to the server to save the changes, since the project was checked out from the repository.

Update Your Files

Sometimes you'll need to get changes that other developers have made, or revert back to a version of your project that didn't have as many problems. You can do this using the svn update command. If you're already in /var/www/htdocs/foo, you can type svn update and it will update files that have been changed in the repository since you last updated. If you're looking to get an older version of your project, you can type svn update -r PREV or a revision number in place of PREV.

Remember, these are just the basics of using SVN. You can do many amazing things with this utility. I actually did all of this as I was writing this article, so I'm sure that it works.

Enabling Mouse Scroll in Linux

Josh VanderLinden

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Ok, just so everyone knows, I will not go into much depth about how to get your scroll button working, but I will cover the basics:

  • Open your xorg.conf file (it's likely to be hanging around /etc/X11/xorg.conf)
  • Find the section related to your mouse (search for the text "mouse" or "pointer")
  • Set your protocol to IMPS/2
  • Add the line below the protocol: Option "Buttons" "5"
  • Add the line below the buttons option: Option "zAxisMapping" "4 5"
  • Save the xorg.conf
  • Restart the X windowing system. If you did you editing from within X (using KDE, GNOME, or other environment) you should be able to hit CTRL-ALT-Backspace to restart X.

These instructions will likely vary depending on your distribution. Some distributions (like Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, etc) don't seem to play well with manually-edited files and prefer that you use their graphical interfaces to change settings like this. But you should also not have issues using the scroll button on your mouse with the distributions listed above.

Good luck!

Reinstalling SuSE 10.1

Josh VanderLinden

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Ported From Blogger

The following post was ported from my old blogger account.

Welp, I was getting somewhat bored with my computer, so I decided that I would reinstall SuSE today. I finally got my dual-layer 32-bit/64-bit SuSE 10.1 DVD, so now I don't need to switch CDs every few minutes. That will be nice. Anyway, this time I plan to document the quirks that I run into as I attempt to get my laptop back to the state it was in before all of this mumbo jumbo.

First off, I was able to install SuSE earlier today.. Everything seemed to be going well up until I should have logged in the first time. The login screen never came--it just showed the 'busy' cursor for a few minutes. Then I restarted the computer and it did the same thing. Then I decided to reinstall again... just because I could. The same thing happened, even though I chose the GNOME setup that time (whereas I chose to use KDE the first time). Eventually it dawned on me that the 3D acceleration drivers I used before required that I share some of my real RAM with my video card. I thought it might be a good idea to try disabling that business and seeing how things went on only the dedicated video RAM. It worked. I logged into a great-looking GNOME setup and played around for a bit. I noticed that my synaptics touch pad thinger (mouse) wasn't responding too well, and I'm not really a big fan of GNOME to begin with. So I'm in the process of reinstalling SuSE for the third time today--this time with KDE. We'll see how things go this time.

The installation has finished, and now I'm working on getting my wireless to function. I had previously acquired the appropriate 64-bit drivers, so those weren't hard to get back. I installed the ndiswrapper package that came with SuSE 10.1, extracted the drivers, and installed them. My laptop locked up the first time I tried to modprobe the ndiswrapper system, but it works ok now. I can see the wireless network here on campus but I can't do anything with it yet.

I suppose my time is up for now, but I will continue this post later.

Google AdSense

Josh VanderLinden

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Ported From Blogger

The following post was ported from my old blogger account.

So, I recently started this blog thing, right? To my surprise, the "dashboard" or control panel has a special spot for one to add Google Ads to their blog with great ease! I, after having heard of others' successes with Google Ads, decided to give it a go. My very first post (which has been removed already) mentioned how I would be joining the c h a o s of bloggerdom. Google Ads saw the 'C' word in the previous sentence and put ads about hurricanes and natural disasters all over my page!! It wasn't until I removed that post that the ads changed to something about blogs.

Over in my links you'll notice that I have one to a blog called "Rug Burns." All of the Google Ads on his page are about burns and first aid. It doesn't matter what he posts on his blog--the ads always seem to talk about the title of his blog.

Very strange. Let's see if my ads change now that I've mentioned his title in this post. :D

SuSE 10.1 x86_64

Josh VanderLinden

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Ported From Blogger

The following post was ported from my old blogger account.

I've been using SuSE Linux 10.1 on my laptop ever since the day it was released, and I have to say that I'm quite satisfied with it. I'm usually a Slackware man, myself, but SuSE has become one of my new favorites.

Ever since I first started using Linux some 7 years ago, I've kept an eye on SuSE. I came really close to actually purchasing a boxed copy back around version 7.3 I think. This was mostly because SuSE is so visually appealing. Once openSuSE came about, I was super excited and downloaded the 5 CD set for version 10.0 immediately. To my disappointment, this version didn't play well with my brand new laptop. I didn't feel like finding out why, so I just gently tucked the CDs away in the drawer with all of my other Linux CDs. As soon as the 10.1 CD set was publicly released on May 11th, I grabbed a torrent to get all of the 5 CDs plus the non-OSS add-on CD.

The same day, I popped the first CD in and began the installation. To my surprise, SuSE 10.1 had no qualms with my Radeon 200M, whereas almost all distros that I had tried on this laptop up to this point would lockup once they did anything outside of the wonderful console (besides Fedora Core 5). SuSE 10.1 was 1 up on all the others, especially after seeing the splash screen. Absolutely beautiful. The installation went really smoothly. I opted for the KDE install, as I'm not a big fan of GNOME. And this is despite the fact that the folks at SuSE spent a lot of time and effort making GNOME mesh well with their distro.

Once the installation finished, I began tinkering around in my menus just to see what there was to see. I have to say that things are set up pretty intuitively in KDE to begin with (or maybe I've just been using it for a long time), but SuSE makes it even better. Device recognition is actually beyond my expectations for Linux. Just about anything I pop into a USB port will be recognized within seconds and I will be asked what I want to do with it. Even my HP All-In-One printer/scanner/copier works without a hitch!! This is the first scanner that I've had function in Linux! Excellent. My media reader doesn't seem to be compatible with Linux yet, but that's fine since I rarely use it anyway. I was able to get my Radeon to play well with the proprietary drivers from ATI, and my FPS jumped from around 100 to 1100 when running glxgears. Nice improvement.

One thing that did take a long time to figure out was my wireless. I had only played with wireless one other time in Linux and that was on some generic PCMCIA wireless card in a past roommate's laptop. That seemed to be simple enough to setup, with the help ndiswrapper. However, finding the correct drivers for my internal wireless adapter, and finding them in the 64-bit edition proved to be quite the runaround. Eventually, I was able to get in touch with someone who graciously emailed them to me as an attachment. To my disappointment, however, ndiswrapper didn't seem to do wireless with these drivers either!! Wow. I put wireless tinkering away for a while, but came back to it amidst my boredom. I came across some forum that had the answer to my quest: a file link. The drivers I had received through email were the correct drivers, only they were linked up to some other device identifier. All I needed to do was essentially make an alias of my device identifier and make it point to the identifier used by the drivers. As soon as I did this, ndiswrapper worked like a charm. I was able to see several wireless networks in my area. I did (and still do) have a problem connecting to certain access points, however. For some strange reason, I cannot figure out how to connect to my own wireless router, nor the university wireless. It's rather frustrating, but I can live with an ethernet cable.

Ahh, yes. Linux.