Frequently Asked Questions on Caldera Open Linux by Klaus Singvogel and Lonni Friedman Version: 3.4.1 Date: 25-May-2000 This document gives answers to the most frequently asked questions of the newsgroup alt.os.linux.caldera regarding the product Caldera Open Linux. It is posted to the usenet newsgroup, alt.os.linux.caldera, once a week. The latest release of Caldera Open Linux is version: 2.4 (eDesktop) and was released on: 03/23/00 The latest version of this FAQ can always be found at http://wwwcip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~kssingvo/COL_FAQ.html and http://netllama.ipfox.com/COL_FAQ.html Feedback, Corrections, and suggestions for additions are always welcome. Send them to: kssingvo@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Klaus) beemer@earthling.net (Lonni) Table of contents 1. Documentation & Other sources of Linux help 1.1. The Linux HOWTOs 1.2. package dependent documentation (/usr/doc/) 1.3. Manuals 1.4 Info Pages 1.5. www.deja.com & www.searchlinux.com 1.6. The pink (or red) errata sheet 1.7. The Caldera Support website 1.8. Recommended Linux books 1.8.1. "Running Linux" 1.8.2. "Using Linux" 1.9. Step-by-Step solutions website 1.10. News 2. Where and/or how to get COL 2.x 2.1. Downloads 2.2. Purchasing full/cheap versions 2.3. Updates & Upgrades 2.3.1. Minor & security software updates 2.3.2. Upgrading COL2.x to COL2.4 2.3.3. KDE upgrades 2.3.4. Linux kernel upgrades 3. Hardware 3.1. Supported hardware 3.2. Supported graphic cards 3.3. Problems with modems 3.3.1. Too fast for some ISPs 3.3.2. Modem is busy 3.3.3. Cable Modems 3.3.4. Misc 3.3.5. WinModems 3.4. USB Hardware 3.5. Printers 3.6. AMD Athlon processors 3.7. A Caldera request 4. Partitioning needs for installation. 4.1. As COL only 4.2. as a dual/triple etc boot 5. Installation tips 5.1. GRUB 5.1.1. Windows 2000 & GRUB 5.2. Common LIZARD install problems & solutions 5.3. LISA installation tips 5.4. LILO/BootMagic installation: DOs & DON'Ts 5.5. Alternative boot managers & partitioning tools 5.6. Installation Options Recommendation 6. Post-install setup issues 6.1. Fine tuning XF86Config 6.2. Sound cards 6.3. Printers 6.4. Mouse 6.5. DHCP 6.6. StarOffice setup/registration 6.7. IP forwarding / IP chains / IP masquerading 6.8. Configuring ksaferppp for multiple ISP's in COLeD2.4 7. Known Bugs, Problems & Solutions 7.1. The swap space problem under COL 2.3 7.2. The fsck bug under 2.2 7.3. The Netscape problems 7.3.1 Ugly fonts 7.3.2 Upgrading to newer versions 7.3.3 Giving Netscape 128 bit encryption 7.3.4 Netscape crashes so often under eDesktop 2.4 7.4. Caldera eServer2.3 incompatibility 7.5. No icons for commercial software in KDE 8. Daily Tasks 8.1. Audio CD's 8.2. Accessing windows partitions 8.3. Running dos / windows commands 9. System maintenance 9.1. RPM maintenance 9.2. gz & tgz installs 9.3. Compiling and installing new software 9.4. Cleaning out temp space DOs & DON'Ts 9.5. Libraries 9.6. Converting the Debian package format to RPM 10. How COL is different from other distro's. 10.1. Packages 10.2. Directory structure 10.3. Kernel enhancements (and booting) 11. Kernel 11.1. Compiling & modules 11.2. Sound 11.3. ZIP- / LS-120 / ... drives 11.4. APM / ACPI support 1. Documentation & Other sources of Linux help ================================================= This section gives a hint where to find other sources of information about your Caldera Open Linux (COL). Use them before you post to alt.os.linux.caldera. If you post, you be told to have a look at these first. So why not save time and read here first? 1.1. The Linux HOWTOs --------------------- Your COL (Caldera Open Linux) comes along with a lot of documentation about installing and administrating Linux and other Software. These are the HOWTO files. They can be found in two places on your Linux box: in the directory /usr/doc/HOWTO and /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini But only if the package howto-<>-<>.rpm and howto-en-ascii-<>-<>.rpm is installed. For more information about package installing see "8.1. RPM maintenance". The difference between full and mini HOWTOs is that mini HOWTOs do not have the format that a full HOWTO requires, or still misses one or the other point. Some of the HOWTOs are translated into national languages, so you might find them in German, Italian, French, etc. This requires the national packages of the HOWTOs to be installed, such as howto-de-ascii-19990802-1.i386.rpm The files are compressed and have to be uncompressed before reading. But if you leave them uncompressed then the next update of your COL might fail. So the best thing is to read them without uncompressing them. This can be done when opening a command line window, such as xterm or kvt (they're in the KDE menu), and run the command zless . Example: zless /usr/doc/HOWTO/NET-3-HOWTO.gz 1.2. package dependent documentation (/usr/doc/) --------------------------------------------------------- Some programmers add information in the a README file (plain text files) and put it along with the source code. This information is not lost, as Caldera keeps it in a subdirectory, whose name depends on the program name. These can be found in the directory /usr/doc/ and continues with program name and the version number of the program. Example: If you are looking for some information about LILO, then have a look into the directory /usr/doc/lilo-0.21 1.3. Manuals ------------ In the good old days for every tool existed a fine manual. Therefore the typical answer of Unix guru on any question was "RTFM" ("read the _fine_ manual" :-). But nowadays the tools are more graphical and so the art of writing manuals was lost. Nevertheless information about some tools can still be found in the manual section. If you are unfamiliar with the "man" command (requires a command line window), use the graphical tool "xman". It can be found in the menus of KDE. 1.4. Info Pages --------------- Information to some programs, like tar, gcal and especially grub are only available in info page format. You can get them either with emacs (do: "M-x info <>") or in a command line window like xterm by just using "info <>" (E.g. "info grub"). Use the , Keys to scroll, to go to a subtopic (aka follow a link) and to return from such a subtopic. Quit the info program with the keys followed by a . 1.5. www.deja.com & www.searchlinux.com ------------------------------------------- A lot of question have already been answered online already. Nearly every article is stored at dejanews.com. If you search for old articles use the PowerSearch section and restrict your search to the Forum: alt.os.linux.caldera and provide some keywords. In addition, a newer, yet just as helpful tool has come into being. Taking a trip to C|NET's Search-Linux site is extremely informative. The primary feature is a search engine which will allow you to search through most Linux newsgroups and many Linux mailing lists. 1.6. The pink (or red) errata sheet ----------------------------------- Contains a lot of answers about really frequently asked questions. Compiling the kernel, installing StarOffice, and getting your X server running are just a few examples of issues covered. 1.7. The Caldera Support website -------------------------------- Can be found at http://www.calderasystems.com/support. Two sections that are notably helpful are the knowledge base and the user to user forums. The knowledge base contains official solutions to known bugs, as well as tips to common problems. Check out the user to user forums to subscribe to the users mailing list and to search the archive of content that has been covered on Caldera's mailing lists. 1.8. Recommended Linux books ---------------------------- Many people commonly ask which book is best to help them learn more about linux. While no one book is perfect, there are some that the authors find very useful. Both can be found at bn.com as well as many local bookstores. 1.8.1. "Running Linux, 3ed." By Matt Welsh, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runux3/ ---------------------------------------------- This book takes a non-partison (not focusing on any linux distro) approach to learning & running every aspect of linux from the ground up. Since it does not focus on a particular distribution, it relies on teaching how to do things via the command line. It also includes a chapter on KDE. This book is considered by many to be the unofficial definitive reference on linux. 1.8.2. "Special Edition Using Linux, 5ed." By Jack Tackett, Que Publishing ---------- Also available is an edition focussing specifically on COL, by Eric Ratcliffe. This book assumes that you know alot about MS-Windows, but virtually nothing about linux, and works from there. It starts off at the beginner topics and works up to the more advanced. It does not go into terribly much depth on all the topics, as "Running Linux" does. 1.9. Step-by-Step solutions website ----------------------------------- A recently created website for unofficial COL support is the Step-by-Step website at http://members.xoom.com/netllama/stepbystep.htm. This contains content that is provided solely by normal users, such as yourself. As the title suggests, there are numerous sections which contain step by step instructions on how to perform complex or difficult tasks. Categories include configuring CD burners, changing/installing window managers, installing better fonts, installing java support, getting an internet connection setup, vmware, fixing S3 & SiS videocard support and many other well detailed categories. The writers of this FAQ have contributed to several sections, and many members of the Caldera user-to-user mailing list (see section 1.6) contribute as well. 1.10. News --------- If you think your question about COL has not been answered in the above locations and not even by this document, then try to post it to alt.os.linux.caldera. There is still some information the hackers there need to know, to give you a fast and competent answer to your question/problem: - What version of COL do you have? - If it is or might be a hardware question, detail your hardware configuration and your partitioning scheme. - Which software caused the problem? Which Version? 2. Where and/or how to get COL 2.x ===================================== 2.1. Download ------------- Caldera Open Linux can be downloaded for free either in parts, or as an ISO image (which can then be burnt to a CD) from numerous places online. The first place to look is Caldera's official ftp site, ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/eDesktop . It is also available from several mirror sites. Be aware that the download of the distribution is well over 600MB, and will take a very long amount of time over a standard 56k modem. An alternative site for getting ISO images is: http://www.linuxiso.org/ 2.2. Purchasing full/cheap versions ----------------------------------- For those not wishing to download COL, it can also be purchased either in its full commercial version or in a relatively inexpensive version, which does not include a few copyrighted commercial packages (Partition Magic, & Boot Magic are two). The commercial version currently runs roughly US$49 and can be purchased from Caldera directly at their website, or from many other computer software retailers, both online and in stores. This version includes a user manual, some commercial software and limited technical support from Caldera. Cheaper versions can be purchased online from several retailers for roughly US$2 per copy (plus S+H), and only contains the non-commercial packages, with no reference materials or technical support. Its generally advised that new Linux users stick with purchasing the full version, since it is much easier to install. More seasoned Linux users who have past experience running and/or installing Linux can probably get by with just the inexpensive stand-alone CD. 2.3. Updates & Upgrades ----------------------- 2.3.1 Minor & security software updates --------------------------------------- Updates for every version of COL can be found at Caldera's ftp server: ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/updates/ Continue with directory name equal to your COL version. Every updated package is located in a distinct directories (001 ...). The summary of all packages can be found in the directory "current", so continue there. If you want only the binaries, download everything you need from the directory "RPMS", if want the sources too, download them from "SRPMS". 2.3.2 Upgrading COL2.x to COL2.4 -------------------------------- If you wish to upgrade your COL2.2 or COL2.3 system to COL2.4 non-destructively, then you will need to have all the RPM packages of COL2.4 available either on CD or on your system. In order to perform this upgrade, you will need the COL upgrade script which can be found at: ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/eDesktop/ Look for a file similar in name to update-2.4.000.7.tgz . See section 7.2 of this FAQ for info on how to unpack this file on your system. Once the file is unpacked, be sure to read the README that comes with it for specific instructions on how to run it. 2.3.3. KDE 1.1.2 ---------------- The most current stable version of KDE is 1.1.2 This is a minor upgrade from the latest standard installed version that comes with COL2.3 (v. 1.1.1). If you update KDE from version 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 (you have to have COL 2.3). After downloading the rpm packages, you have to switch to "Console Mode" (selectable in the login screen). Login as root and do, as mentioned in the README file from the KDE update directory. Here are the special packages, which needs additional parameters to update: rpm -U --nodeps kdelibs-1.1.2-1.i386.rpm rpm -U --nodeps kdesupport-1.1.2-1.i386.rpm rpm -U --nodeps kdesupport-devel-1.1.2-1.i386.rpm rpm -U --force kdegraphics-1.1.2-1.i386.rpm rpm -U kdebase-1.1.2-2.i386.rpm rpm -U kdebase-opengl-1.1.2-2.i386.rpm There is conflict between kdegraphics-1.1.2 and kdeapps-1.1.1 If you update the one or the other file afterwards, you need the option --force rpm -U --force kdeapps-1.1.1-8.i386.rpm 2.3.4. Linux kernel upgrades ---------------------------- If you update the kernel, check the file /etc/lilo.conf, if there exists the new linux kernel as an boot-image. If not check out for a file like /etc/lilo.conf.old and copy the boot entries from there. Afterwards you have to run in a command line window, like xterm: /sbin/lilo -v for the changes to take affect. 3. Hardware ============== 3.1. Supported hardware ----------------------- Lists of known working hardware is located at Caldera's WWW Server http://www.calderasystems.com/support/hardware/ But COL supports more hardware, which is not listed there: such as nearly all SCSI CDROM's, IDE CDROM's, and other hardware. But there is no guarantee that it works. 3.2. Supported graphic cards ---------------------------- Linux in general uses an X server called XFree86 (XFree86.org) which supports many video graphics cards. The latest version of XFree86 is 4.0.0, and was released on March 9, 2000. There are not yet any known RPM's of this version available specifically for Caldera Open Linux. However, there are some that are not yet supported, either because they are too new to have made it into the current release, or they have compatibility issues with Linux. Its best advised to go to XFree86's website and read through their compatibility list. If your card is on the list, then you should be able to get it configured in Linux. This does not mean that it is guaranteed to work right out of the box in all cases. There are times when the card may be supported, but also requires additional configuration measures such as manually adding some lines to the configuration file. This process is covered in greater depth in section 6.1. Since the latest version of COL (2.4) only has XFree86-3.3.6, the easiest method for adding support for newer videocards is to install RPM's of XFree86 which are built for Caldera. Version 3.3.6 can be found at either of these locations: ftp://ftp.iron-bridge.net/pub/Caldera/AfterSHoCK2.3/X-3.3.6/ ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/eDesktop/Packages/RPMS/ Run the command: rpm -Uvh --nodeps to upgrade to the newest server. Then run XF86Setup or lizardx to configure X. See section 9.1 of this FAQ for more information on how to work with RPM archives. If your card is not on the list, then you might still be able to get it working in Linux, but not with the standard XFree86 X server. There are some commercial (not free) X servers available which support some videocards which are not yet supported under XFree86. Other commercial servers take advantage of special features of the more advanced videocards, that XFree86 does not yet fully support. One well known commercial X server is Metro-X. There are others. 3.3. Problems with modems ------------------------- 3.3.1. Too fast for some ISPs ----------------------------- There are several problems reported that the Linux ppp is too fast for some Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The solution is to set a delay if you connect. Do it in the following way (in kppp): Setup-->Modem-->Modem Commands-->Post-Init Delay 3.3.2. Modem is busy -------------------- > I followed the KPPP internet 'log on' procedure and when I hit > 'connect' the Logon window appears with the message "modem is busy". > Hit the 'logon' button and nothing happens. The default answer is: I had this problem until I disabled Plug n' Play in my BIOS Thank you "Peter A. Stavrakoglou" for this tip. 3.3.3. Cable Modem ------------------ Have a look at the mini-HOWTO. This can be read when opening a command line window, such as xterm or kvt (they're in the KDE menu), and the command zless is run. Example: zless /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini/Cable-Modem.gz 3.3.4. Misc ----------- Some good tips on kppp can be found in the kppp documentation. You get it with the "Help" button in kppp. The given connection speed doesn't say very much, because modems automatically fall back to slower speeds in noisy line conditions, and improve to faster speeds as conditions improve. You see only the speed at the instant that you connect. 3.3.5. WinModems ---------------- Modems are currently a very touchy issue in the Linux community. This is due to the fact that communications devices which are not truly modems are currently flooding the market, simply because they are rather inexpensive when compared to full hardware modems. The key problem is that these soft-modems require special software and/or drivers to function. Currently modem companies are only writing these drivers for windows, and not for Linux compatibility. Thus, these modems are commonly known as winmodems, but are also known as HCF or HSP modems. These modems have either little or virtually none of the necessary hardware that would allow them to function independently of an operating system. The manufacturers of such modems have refused to release the design specifications on their modems to the Linux community thus far, and that is the primary reason why drivers cannot be developed for Linux. Originally, all PCI modems were found to be winmodems. However, lately both internal ISA & PCI modems have been recognized as linux incompatible modems. As such, there are few guarantees that a modem will work with linux. A very common indicator that a modem will ONLY work in MS-Windows is a message on the box to the effect of "Requires Windows95 or better" or "Requires Pentium 120 or greater". True hardware modems do not require a specific OS, or a minimum processor to operate. Over the past month or so, some manufacturers have started to release PCI modems which will work under both Linux & Windows. The Lucent Technologies "Venus" chipset based modems is one example, however there are others. Read more about it at http://www.o2.net/~gromitkc/winmodem.html to identify the status of your modem. 3.4. USB Hardware ----------------- Only USB mice might work COL. No printers, scanners nor any other USB devices. The 2.4.x series of kernels (release date is slated for 6/00) are supposed to have much broader USB hardware support. 3.5. Printers ------------ As of COL2.4, some printers can only be setup during installation (last minute changes) and some only in the running system with COAS. The later are so called Windows GDI printers, like HP DeskJet 710C or Lexmark 2030. In general for all COL versions, the following still holds true; No USB printer work, and parallel printers with a GDI won't work either. GDI is Windows special way to reduce the electronics in the printer (similar to a winmodem) and compensate it with a Windows driver. There is project up, which tries to make GDI printers runable under Linux too, but only a few HP deskjet currently do: 710, 720, 820, 1000. Look at http://www.httptech.com/ppa/index.html for more information. So keep in mind not to buy USB nor GDI printers. GDI might be determined by the fact that they don't run under DOS or Macintoshes. 3.6. Athlon processors ----------------------- Athlon processors are now fully supported in COL2.4. No special effort must be made to use them. Due to some design & instruction set issues related to AMD's Athlon line of processors, they require a special procedure to both install & boot COL2.3. In short, the LIZARD canNOT be used to install COL2.3, but rather LISA must be used instead. Once COL2.3 has been installed, you must either continue to use the special boot floppy to boot into COL2.3, or recompile your linux kernel to include support for MTRR (memory type range registers). If you wish to go ahead and recompile the kernel (which is not terribly difficult), then see sections 11.1 (kernel recompile) & 1.8 (the Step- by-step website) for instructions on how to recompile. See ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/updates/2.3/extras/Athlon/ for more information, and the disk images needed to create the install, boot, and modules diskettes. In addition, see section 5.2 for LISA install tips and information on how to create the install, boot & modules diskettes. 3.7. A request from Caldera Caldera wants to make the next product more stable and requests therefore for your hardware configuration and if it failed or was a successful installation. So please send your hwinfo files to hwinfo@caldera.de . Please mention also, if you have successfully installed COL 2.4 (then run program "/bin/hwinfo --nopropmt" and attach the file "/tmp/hwinfo.txt") or if it failed (then insert an empty MS- DOS floppy and attach file hwinfo.txt) with a note where it failed. 4. Partitioning needs for installation. ========================================== Installing COL on a computer with no other operating systems is both easier and slightly more difficult than installing it on a system that already has windows9x. This is due primarily, to the installation utility that Caldera has developed, the LIZARD (Linux Installation wiZARD). This utility allows one to start the installation from windows itself (or booting it from CD-ROM). Installation on a system with one or more other operating systems requires you to first defragment the other OS's so that they consume the least amount of hard-drive space possible, so that the remainder of the hard-drive can be used for Linux. Currently COL comes with two different partitioning utilities. Partition Magic-LE and fips. PM is a commercial (not freely distributable) Windows/DOS based package which allows you to graphically manipulate & create different partition types. It is rather easy to use, however its ease of use can be a burden later on if you do not fully understand the changes that you are making. Only the full commercial version of COL comes with PM. The PM-LE version which comes along with COL 2.2 cannot defrag HDs with size more than 8 Gig, but the PM-LE version since COL 2.3 can, as well as the full version. Fips is a free text based utility that can do just about everything that PM does, however it does not have a graphical interface, and therefore can be more difficult to figure out, especially for the long time windows user. In addition, it does not have any built in security to prevent you from destroying the partition tables on your hard-drive. Use fips with care. It can do everything you need, and it can also do everything that you don't want. Also see section 5.4 for additional alternatives for partitioning. 4.1. As COL only ---------------- For a complete installation on a spare harddisk, no pre-formatting with PM or fips is required. During setup choose either "Complete harddisk" or if you want more than 3 partitions (bootable root, usr partition and swap partition) choose "Custom (Expert Only)" Hints for the custom setup: - Create the root-filesystem "/" as a primary and as Linux Ext2 type and don't let it start or *end* beyond the 1023 cylinder of the harddisk. - Choose the swap partition more than 2.5 times of your memory (type: Linux Swap). - "Add logicals" for "/usr" and "/home" partition (both as Ext2 type). After the installation you don't need to install/configure BootMagic. COL 2.2: Edit (as user root) the file /etc/lilo.conf and run (also as user root) the command line program "lilo" COL 2.3: Choose "Linux Modular" during setup (it's recommend to choose the "PC97" version of Linux Modular, but if your hardware is not PC97 compliant, choose the one without the "PC97"). 4.2. as a dual/triple etc boot ------------------------------ These instructions assume that you are running some version of MS- Windows. If you are running OS/2 or some other lesser known OS on an Intel based PC, please contact the authors of the FAQ so that we may add OS specific instructions for your platform. The first step necessary is to defragment your windows partitions. Most likely you'll just use the default MS defrag'er for this process. Once this step is completed, you need to decide how much space (that remains, excluding windows) you want to devote to Linux on your hard-drive(s). If you plan to run Linux with its graphical user interface, X, then you will need at least several hundred megabytes, and one gigabyte or more is not a bad idea, if at all possible. Linux requires at least two partitions to operate. One partition is the swap partition, which is what Linux uses to swap out memory and files that are not currently being used. The 'golden rule' for determining swap space is roughly 2 - 2.5 times your total memory. For example, if you have 32MB of RAM, then a minimum 64MB swap partition would be setup. PM-LE can only create swap partitions up to 128 MB, but Linux can handle larger swap partitions since version 2.2.x (equal to COL 2.x). 5. Installation tips ======================= 5.1. GRUB --------- This bootloader has several key features: - Most important: It can boot partitions above the 1024 cylinder / 8GB limit, which are found on very large disks which get increasingly more common. Even BootMagic has problems with such disks. GRUB does not. - There is no need to 'reinstall' it like LILO when you compile a new kernel. - It is more comfortable when editing the boot commandline. GRUB is installed and configured by Lizard. It has two base config files, /etc/grub.conf This file is only used for installing GRUB, this name is Caldera-specific BTW. It installs parts of the GRUB loader into the bootrecord of the selected partition within the config file. Lizard has written this file. If you change that file, you need to reinstall grub. Usually, you do not need to touch this. /boot/grub/menu.lst This configuration file lists the Operating Systems you want to boot and creates the menu displayed at boot time. The syntax is easy and almost like lilo.conf. If you edit this file you do not need to reinstall GRUB, since GRUB knows how to find this file within the ext2 partition and re- reads it upon each boot. This is where you should add other Linux partitions, other operating systems or pointers to other bootloaders. Disks are specified as (hdN) where N is the number of the disk starting at 0. Your first disk is (hd0). In general, N matches BIOS device 0x8N (0x80, 0x81, ...). /boot/grub/device.map reflects the assumed mapping to Linux devices and can be tuned by hand if necessary. Partitions are specified with (hdN,Y) where 'N' is the (N+1)th harddisk and Y is the partition starting with 0. The first partition on the first disk is specified by (hd0,0). Common Operations: - Booting Windows with GRUB. If you have not added your Windows partition with GRUB, you add the following to /boot/grub/menu.lst: title = Windows chainloader = (hd0,0)+1 (assuming Windows is on the first partition of the first disk, /dev/hda1) +1 means the bootblock. - Editing the boot commandline. Just press 'e' in the bootmenu. You will get 2 or 3 lines to edit. Choose the line you want to edit, and press 'e' again. You will get a standard line editor. Press return when you are finished, Escape to discard your changes to the current line and 'b' to boot the whole entry. So, e.g. to boot in single user mode: Press 'e', select the 'kernel = ' line, press 'e' again, add an 's' to that line, press and 'b'. - Booting in single user mode Switch to command line editing (press 'e'). Go to the "kernel" line. Press again 'e' and append to the end "1". Now boot the system: -Key and 'b'. 5.1.1. Windows 2000 & GRUB --------------------------- Submitted by Frank Jacobberger Here is a tip for GRUB users. I had originally set up my 6 gig partition (hd0) with eDesktop 2.4 leaving my other seperate 2 gig drive disabled in CMOS. I had blown Win2000 Server off a my 6 gig initially to thoroughly use it for Linux. Since my current job pushes continuing support for WINDOZE OS's, I was put upon to finally back off my moritorium on Gates and Co. and put a copy of Win2k Professional on this second drive. Then came my dilemma since I had dedicated drive hd0 for Caldera's 2.4. Anyway. I was looking through the Grub supporting docs and found that using the "map" command under GRUB would trick this second drive (hd1) to think that it owned the first partiition, thereby allowing it to dual boot. Anyway for your reading enjoyment I include with this email two file attachments that GRUB relies on; "grub.conf" and "menu.lst". Specifically check out the menu.lst file to see how I implemented this map command: ################################# # /boot/grub/menu.lst - generated by Lizard # # options timeout = 20 splashscreen = (hd0,0)/boot/message.col24 default = 0 # for booting Linux title = Linux eDesktop 2.4 by Caldera Systems root = (hd0,0) kernel = /boot/vmlinuz-pc97-2.2.14-modular vga=274 noapic nosmp debug=2 root=/dev/hda1 # for booting Windows 2000 title = Win2k Professional 2195 (Evaluation) root = (hd1,0) makeactive map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) chainloader +1 # # /etc/grub.conf - generated by Lizard # root (hd0,0) install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,0) /boot/grub/stage2 0x8000 (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst quit ################################## 5.2. Common LIZARD install problems & solutions ----------------------------------------------- The most common problem encountered when attempting to install using the LIZARD is a full screen that is all gray, except for a black box at the side. This normally indicates that your video card is not supported and that you will need to run the LISA install method. See section 5.2 for additional information on this method, and its tips. Under COL 2.2 the keyboard selection with 104 keys is broken. Choose 102 keys and edit the file /etc/XF86config (as user root) after the installation. Replace the 102 type with 104 and restart your X window system (in the login screen) or reboot (even in the reboot screen too). Another recently discovered bug in COL2.3 is that the LIZARD does not always create and/or activate your swap partition. This is commonly encountered when trying to run KDE, where the hard drive will seem to thrash about, and everything will run excessively slowly. Currently the only fix is the following from a command line: lisa --swap and then run through steps that it presents. Make certain that you understand where your swap partition should be, and how large it should be beforehand. See section 6.7 for additional information on this bug. 5.3. LISA installation tips --------------------------- The LISA installation method can be found on the CD at /col/launch/lisa. Brief instructions are found in that directory, as well as the necessary files for creating a LISA install/boot diskette. The LISA installation method requires you use fips for hard drive partitioning. If you do not want to use fips, you must partition your hard drive for linux before starting the LISA installation. Before attempting to use fips, make certain that you know how you want to partition your hard drive for Linux. If your videocard is not fully supported in COL (or failed in the LIZARD), then you should most likely ignore the majority of the X server configuration process in LISA. You will be able to configure your X server later on in console mode, once COL has been installed. 5.4. LILO/BootMagic installation: DOs & DON'Ts ---------------------------------------------- BootMagic requires a (V)Fat partition to reside in. So, if you install COL on anything besides a pure Win/NT or a pure Win/98 machine, BootMagic can't be installed. If you want a boot floppy: - edit the file /etc/lilo.conf o Change the line beginning with "boot" to "boot=/dev/fd0" o make sure that the Linux label is the first block (lower in the file) - insert a writable floppy - run the command line program "lilo" as user root. Open a command line window, such as kvt, to get a command line. 5.5. Alternative boot managers and partitioning tools ---------------------------------------------------- If you do not have BootMagic, or feel uneasy about installing LILO in the MBR of your hard drive, there are other options which will still allow you to boot into multiple OS's. The internet has many free & shareware bootloaders available, but three that the authors recommend are: Ranish Partition Manager http://members.xoom.com/ranish/part/ Master Booter http://www.masterboot.com XOSL http://www.xosl.org/ These provide a semi-graphical booting interface that is easily configurable to your needs. Bare in mind that if you choose not to place LILO in the MBR, you MUST place LILO in the root partition of linux. Without LILO, you cannot boot into linux. 5.6. Installation Options Recommendation ---------------------------------------- It is highly recommended that you select a full installation of all available packages. This is due to the fact that the other install options (such as HOME) do not install the C code compiler, which is commonly needed to build linux software. You can install the C compiler (which is part of the "egcs" series of packages) once the install is completed, however you may very well need additional packages at that time as well. See the following URL for all development packages that are commonly needed to build new software in linux: ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/OpenLinux/2.3/development-RPMS/ See section 9.1 for additional information on how to install these packages if you have already installed and are missing them. 6. Post-install setup issues =============================== 6.1. Fine tuning XF86Config --------------------------- Your XF86Config file resides in /etc , and controls all aspects of your video display. Sometimes, the configuration process does not do a perfect job in setting things up, and additional changes need to be made manually to this file. To do so, open up the file in the editor vi or any text editor of your choice. Your XF86Config file has many sections, but the key section is the very last one, Screens. The two key items here are the resolution and color depth. In this section, the order is the key to what is used. The color depth and resolution that are listed first (from top to bottom) is the one that is used by default on your system. If you wish to use a different resolution and/or color depth, then all you need to do is re-arrange the listing so that the desired mode is listed first. Another issue is a display that looks fine overall, however is a little too small/large or appears to be shifted up/down/left/right on the monitor. This can be easily resolved by running the "xvidtune" utility. xvidtune will allow you to make minor adjustments, test them out, and then apply them if they are to your liking. 6.2. Sound cards ---------------- COL2.3 & COL2.4 does the sound installation during install process when using the LIZARD. For post-installing the sound card and for COL 2.2 users, look at section "11.2. Sound". Good choices of sound cards are those with a PCI interface since the ISA interface slows the PCI bus down. Recommended are cards from Ensoniq, and CreativeLabs. CreativeLabs has announced that they are making the source code for its driver open source. Expect to see much greater support for this card in linux in the near future. See the following links for more information on the status of SB Live! linux drivers: Unofficial SB Live! Linux Page http://www.euronet.nl/~mailme/ Official CreativeLabs SB Live! drivers http://opensource.creative.com 6.3. Printers ------------- As of COL2.4, printers can be configured & installed during the LIZARD install process. For previous versions of COL do the following: Open a command line window, such as kvt, and make yourself root: su root Run the command line program "lisa" for configuring printers. lisa --printers Another way to configure printers is to use COAS. Start in your KDE menu, open the container of COAS and run Peripherals->Printers. After giving the root password, you can add/remove/configure printers in a graphical way. There are still no network printers with their own ethernet device supported, such as the HP Laserjet 4000N or a QMS 1725 has. These require an additional software package, the ifhp filters. They can be found at the LPRng website: http://www.astart.com/lprng.html 6.4. Mouse ---------- Mouse installation is part of the X Server installation. So look at section "6.1. Fine tuning XF86Config". Wheel mice are not fully supported under Linux. There are approaches to make it work. Check out http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/mouse-wheel-scroll/ KDE tools do not have WheelMouse support. This is delayed for version 2.0 which is currently slated to be released by the end of 1999. Other tools like xterm, xemacs, netscape can handle the wheel after a modification of your startup files. 6.5. DHCP --------- In KDE goto COAS-->Network-->"Ehternet Interfaces" - Choose as "Network Device" the value "eth0". - Look at "PNP Configuration" for" DHCP". - Then "disable" the "default route" and make sure "Init at boot time" is "enabled". 6.6. StarOffice setup/registration ---------------------------------- Open a command line window, such as kvt, and run "soffice" . Do the smallest possible installation, the 2 MB version. Enter the key from the back cover of your manual book (the backside of the cover). For a step by step, detailed explanation of how to install Star Office see the following link: http://x27.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=556180433&CONTEXT=944528743.1623195690&hitnum=0 Eventually you may want to register StarOffice. It's free and there are several ways to do this: by fax, by phone or by WWW. The URL is http://www.sun.com/staroffice/ . Note that this is a single user license and not a single machine license. If you register as "root", you have to register as an ordinary user as well. The new version of StarOffice 5.1a doesn't require a media key or a registration key any more. COL2.4 comes standard with version 5.1a. 6.7. IP forwarding / IP chains / IP masquerading ------------------------------------------------ Linux firewalls can be set up with this feature. It requires more knowledge to configure this, but ipchains is one possible solution. More information about this subject can be found at the Ipchains HOWTO: http://www.rustcorp.com/linux/ipchains/ In the following you get only some tips, but not how to configure a COL box, setup a working environment, or especially not for all the clients in your subnet. This is done in the HOWTO (including a good picture and example). You do not need to recompile the kernel to get CONFIG_FIREWALL=y and CONFIG_IP_FIREWALL=y set, because Caldera already did. But you have to make your COL box a router of IP packets. This is done in the configuration of one of your ethernet cards. Add the line IP_FORWARD=yes to the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 so on every reboot the forwarding is enabled. The forwarding/masquerading rules should be added to one of the boot scripts, like /etc/rc.d/init.d/ipfw and add to the directories /etc/rc.d/rc3.d and /etc/rc.d/rc5.d a link called S95ipfw which points to the ipfw script: ln -s /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S95ipfw ../init.d/ipfw ln -s /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S95ipfw ../init.d/ipfw If you misconfigure rules with the script, you can only log in through the console. Please keep this in mind. A good article regarding this was posted in alt.os.linux.caldera. Search for it at http://www.dejanews.com/ Author: Jeffrey J. Hallman Date: 1999/10/19 Subject: IP Masquerading in Caldera 2.3 Forum: alt.os.linux.caldera 6.8. Configuring ksaferppp for multiple ISP's in COLeD2.4 --------------------------------------------------------- There seem to be problems with the ks(afer)ppp tool in COL 2.4, especially how to setup more than one ISP. The answer can be found the ksppp help, which is file /opt/kde/share/doc/HTML/en/ksppp/index.html and then look into chapter 3.5 ISP Accounts. URL: file:/opt/kde/share/doc/HTML/en/ksppp/kppp-3.html#ss3.5 7. Known Bugs, Problems & Solutions ====================================== 7.1. The swap space problem under COL 2.3 ----------------------------------------- Some people report that their Linux system gets very slow after awhile, especially when the system begins to swap. In the Caldera Knowledge Base you will find a page regarding this problem. The Lizard install for COL 2.3 fails to setup your swap file properly. The /etc/fstab file requires the addition of a line in order to initialize the swap file properly. If you have installed COL2.3, you need to run the "free" command to determine if your swap file is actually working. If free shows 0MB you have to correct it. Look at http://www.calderasystems.com/support To create such a line execute the command line program (as user root) fdisk -l Search for the System type "Linux swap" and write down the device, such as "/dev/hda6". Now add a line to the file /etc/fstab, like: /dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0 You must also format this partition for use as swap with this command: mkswap /dev/hda6 Replace the "/dev/hda6" of the given example with the device of your configuration. 7.2. The fsck bug under 2.2 --------------------------- After a crash or after switching (resetting) the power off, a so called file system check is required. It seems that this was not tested in the laboratories of Caldera for COL 2.2 . It is fixed in COL 2.3! So you have to fix this problem by hand. It's a bit tricky, but solvable. Do the following: During boot, when you see the prompt "boot: " hit any character such as an 'l' (be fast, because this disables the timer). Delete this character and hit the 'Tab' key. Now you get a listing of all possible bootlabels. The first is the default label. Boot it together with the option "single", eg. "linux single" (do not type the "). When the kernel boots, it will not start the graphical interface, even more, you see a command line prompt with a few error messages before (ignore them, because the system is not full running). Now run the file system check: fsck -A When the fsck is after a few minutes through, reboot the system: /sbin/reboot Everything should work fine till the next power off. :-) 7.3. The Netscape problems -------------------------- 7.3.1 Ugly fonts ---------------- COL2.4 comes with XFree86-3.3.6 which has the TrueType Fontserver build in. Thus, you don't have to setup xfstt any longer. Previous versions of COL should consider the following: While Netscape has lost much ground in the MS-Windows side of things, it is still the most widely used browser in linux, for a number of reasons. Even with this prominent status, it has some flaws. The most commonly encountered problem is some rather poor fonts. Many linux users tend to find that websites viewed in Netscape always have rather small or ugly fonts. Currently there are two suggestions that can be implemented to improve things, although neither is 100% successful for everyone. 1) Go into the settings of Netscape on the main menu, Edit->Preferences->Appearance->Use_my_fonts, and override document specified fonts. 2) Install a true-type font server for linux. True type fonts tend to display much better in Netscape, however they are only standard under MS-Windows and not X. So, you need to get a true-type font server. The following links provide an excellent set of instructions on how to find, download, and then install a true type font server: http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU-4.html http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU-6.html#ss6.1 It is highly recommended that you read the entire webpage, as there is a wealth of information on how to improve the appearance of fonts throughout linux. Starting with XFree86 version 3.3.6 (released January 2000), xfstt is included with the full package. Unfortunately, the latest version of COL does not come with XFree86-3.3.6 (only 3.3.4) so a manual upgrade would need to be performed for those wishing to use 3.3.6. Go to their website at http://www.xfree86.org for more information. The following instructions were graciously provided by Christopher Aiken on how to properly configure xfstt (a true- type font server) in COL so that it runs automatically on a COL2.2 system. Instructions that are much better suited to COL2.3 can be found at: http://members.xoom.com/netllama/col2.htm > Setting up xfstt is a piece of cake, running it is also a piece of > cake. Loading and running it at boot time was a pain in the backside. > The error that was produced was that "port 7101" was in use and not > available. After the boot process was finished you could login, but > would have to start the xfstt font server by hand. > > Most of us put the two startup commands > ( "xfstt --sync" and "xfstt &") in our rc.local files. This will work > in SuSE, RH, and Mandrake, but not in Caldera 2.3. Here is what I did > to get it up and running automatically at boot time. > > As root, go to the /etc/rc.d directory. Create a small bash script > file called rc.font like this: > > #!/bin/bash > /etc/X11R6/bin/xfstt --sync > /etc/X11R6/bin/xfstt & > exit 0 > > Now edit the rc.boot script and go the the bottom. At the bottom you > will see the execution of the rc.modules script. Just above this you > will see a if--endif check on a unXXX.sh file (sorry I don't remember > the exact name, but you will see what file I am refering too). Do a > copy/paste operation of that if--endif (just three lines). Paste it > right after the original lines. Now change the pasted lines to > reference our newly created rc.font file. Save your changes. > > Next edit your /etc/XF86Config file. Add the font path there by > adding a FontPath "unix/:7101" to the existing FontPath lists. Save > your changes. > > Reboot and see if the changes work. Once you are logged in do a > "pstree" from a term window and see if the xfstt process is located > at the bottom. > > If you did everything correctly you should have the xfstt font server > up and running without any problems. 7.3.2 Upgrading to newer versions --------------------------------- When upgrading to a newer version of Netscape, it appears to be necessary to remove the older version before installing the newer version. 7.3.3 Giving Netscape 128 bit encryption outside the USA -------------------------------------------------------- As of the release of COL2.4, a 128 bit encryption version of Netscape is available internationally. To get the Caldera prebuilt RPM of Netscape 4.72 go here: ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/eDesktop/Packages/RPMS/communicator-4.72-1.i386.rpm 7.3.4 Netscape crashes so often under eDesktop 2.4 -------------------------------------------------- Known, but the problem seems to come from netscape self and not from Caldera. You can step back to a more stable version (like 4.61), but on the other hand you will loose 128 Bit encryption and the preconfigured plugins. The only advice: Look often to the download section at http://www.netscape.com/ for a newer, more stable version. Netscape-6-pre2 is out, but it is in alpha state. It crashes more often then netscape-4.72. 7.4. Caldera eServer incompatibility ------------------------------------- You cannot install RPM packages made for the Caldera eServer 2.3 under COL 2.3, because the eServer has newer libraries than COL 2.3. This problem was detected when installing the latest version kdevelop-*.i386.rpm. It cannot be installed under COL 2.3, because it requires libjpeg.so.62, which is part of the package libjpeg-6b-3.i386.rpm and this is included with the eServer. Installing this package doesn't solve the problem, because you need a newer version of the glibc package and a newer version of other libraries. In addition, COAS stops working due to package conflicts with python. A possible fix is to remove all eServer RPM's and then remove both the python & COAS RPM's and reinstall just them. 7.5. No icons for commercial software in KDE -------------------------------------------- It seems that StarOffice isn't automatically generating an icon into your KDE menu in eDesktop 2.4 too. To do this, open a command line window, such as kvt, and do the following commands: su root /opt/Office51/bin/setup exit 7.6. AF_INET error on system shutdown ------------------------------------- Many people are finding that they get the following error when performing a system shutdown in COL eDesktop2.4: Calserver forgot to set AF_INET in udp sendmsg. Fix it! The solution is to open up COAS -> System-Daemon and uncheck Cameleo Servers. 8. Daily Tasks ================= 8.1. Audio CD's --------------- Listening to audio CD's in linux is a very simple task. You do NOT need to mount an audio CD, simply because linux only mounts file systems. Audio CD's do not have file systems. All that is necessary is to put the CD into your drive, and play it. The default KDE CD player is kscd. Even more, you cannot see any files, if you put in an audio CD and check the directory /auto/cdrom. That's not a bug, it is done intentionally. 8.2. Accessing windows partitions --------------------------------- Windows FAT and FAT32 partitions can be read or written to from COL2.x In order to do this, you must first create an empty directory and then mount the partition, which is how Linux can 'see' the partition. The command for mounting any file system is: mount -t /dev/hdXY /mnt/ would be fat or vfat for windows partitions, and iso9660 for most CD-ROM's. hdXY is the partition location on your computer, with X being a letter, and Y being a number (SCSI-disks are called sdXY ). is whatever you chose to call the partition in COL. So, for a windows98 partition you could issue the following command: mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win98 To get the partition automatically mounted after a reboot, you can add it to the file /etc/fstab. For the above example add to /etc/fstab the line: /dev/hda1 /mnt/win98 vfat defaults 0 0 Or use COAS (found in the KDE menu) to mount the windows partitions using: COAS->System->Filesystem You may need to load and install the modules for fat and vfat before mounting if you get an error about unknown partition types. Do this with the graphical interface COAS->kernel (found in the KDE menu), or from the command line with: insmod fat insmod vfat If you want to have the modules loaded on every boot, use COAS for editing (the checkbox for "insert on boot" is default on) or edit the file - COL2.2: /etc/modules/2.2.5/.default - COL2.3: /etc/modules/2.2.10/default COL 2.2 users notice the dot "." before "default". 8.3. Running dos / windows commands ----------------------------------- Running dos commands is explained in the Caldera manual (which comes along with your box), but you can access it in the Web too: http://www.calderasystems.com/doc/workstation/gsg/Admin.html#916588 Running windows (9x) commands requires the windows emulator wine, which is not available in COL2.2. Wine has had a lot of improvements since COL2.3. It is in the default software selection tree. So it is no longer required to install it in an additional step (at least not at the "All Software" machines). But still not all programs will run. If you are interested in running all programs look out for version 2.0 of the commercial program vmware: http://www.vmware.com/ For installation you've got to install the mesa package before the wine package. Under COL2.4 you would need to install the following: rpm -Uvh mesa-3.0-2.i386.rpm rpm -Uvh wine-20000119-2.i386.rpm Then mount the old windows partitions using: COAS->System->Filesystem and just run "wine sol.exe" or whatever. The WINE package should autodetect your directory setup. 9. System maintenance ======================== 9.1. RPM maintenance -------------------- RPM (developed by Red Hat as the Red Hat Package Manager), is a very useful too for installing, removing and upgrading software packages in COL. Any file that ends with ".rpm" is in the RPM format and can be managed in COL with kpackage. This tool will allow you to graphically manage RPM's. If you'd rather deal with RPM's from the command line, that is also possible. Some basic commands: - To install a new package or upgrade an existing one: rpm -Uvh - To remove a package (note that this does not include the ".rpm"): rpm -e - To check to see if a package is installed and/or the version #: rpm -q - To check which package a file contains: rpm -qf There are many other options, which can be investigated by reading the rpm manual page (man rpm). One very common issue with RPM's is that they are commonly built for one specific distribution, rather than generically. This can cause mis- leading dependency errors. The most common of which are for RPM's that were built for the Red Hat linux distribution. Such dependencies often refer to missing "(GLIBC_2.1)" or "(GLIBC_2.0)". When adding a RPM package sometimes the people receive the problem of a required library, which is already in the system, the GLIBC_2.1 or GLIBC_2.0. You can detect this problem by the following error message: failed dependencies: libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) is needed by <> libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1) is needed by <> The problem is not that the GLIBC_2.1 is missing (COL 2.3 includes GLIBC_2.1!), the problem is that the new version 3.0 of rpm was used to build the package and the old version 2.5.x was used to extract the package. So anyone could install the package when calling the command rpm with parameter "--nodeps": rpm --nodeps -Uhv <> This entire issue has been resolved with the inclusion of rpm version 3.0.3 in COL2.4 . 9.2. gz & tgz installs ---------------------- Long before RPM came into existence the gz & tgz file formats existed. These formats are similar to the popular windows "ZIP" file format, in that they allow you to create archives with files in them. A few years ago no one used ".tgz" to tar'ed and compressed file, only .tar.gz The reason: There existed more tools besides tar to archive files: ar, cpio, tar, bar and there existed more compression forms: z, Z, gz (nowadays bz too). So the trailing filename was build with the used archive type and the compression type: .tar.bz or .cpio.Z But as Windows came up and the 3 letter extensions were required some said .tgz instead of .tar.gz and today .tgz is an accepted extension. Most tar.gz & tgz archives will automatically create a subdirectory of their contents in whatever directory that you extract them from, so plan accordingly. In order to extract the contents of a tar.gz or tgz file type: tar -xzvf 9.3. Compiling and installing new software ------------------------------------------ Most of the time, gz files contain the source code of a software package, and will therefore need to be compiled and installed once you extract them. The first thing that you'll want to do is look for either a README or INSTALL file. They normally tell you about any special steps needed to get the software compiled and installed. If they do not exist, then three simple commands are normally all that is necessary to configure, compile and then install the software. They are: ./configure (yes, you need the "./" in front) make make install You may occasionally see some warnings during the process, but as long as there are no errors, all is fine, and the software will have installed properly. If you do get errors where it has been unable to find some specific file, usually its a failed dependency for a library package. See section 9.5, Libraries, for additional information. 9.4. Cleaning out temp space DOs & DON'Ts ----------------------------------------- Unlike MS-Windows, the temp space of Linux is a volatile environment, which cannot be cleared out at random times. Many of the files are being used by currently running applications. In general, if you are unsure of what the file is for and when it is being used, do not delete it. One specific example is KDE, which makes use of several files in temp space while it is running. These files can be safely deleted as long as KDE is not running (you are in console mode). 9.5. Libraries -------------- One of the biggest differences between Linux and MS-Windows is how libraries are handled. For the most part, Windows requires each software application to have its own libraries, with are often in the form of "DLL" files. Linux, on the other hand has several different universal libraries which get installed, essentially to the system, rather than to a specific software package. In general, any software package that has "devel" in its name contains libraries that will be needed either for the rest of the package to operate, or for other software packages to operate. Quite often, when a software package will not install due to a missing dependency, a library is what is missing. 9.6. Converting the Debian package format to RPM ------------------------------------------------ In order to extract & install the contents of Debian packages, they must be converted into RPM format first. This can be accomplished with an application known as alien. Alien can be found here: http://kitenet.net/programs/alien/ Alien can also be used to convert between the Stampeded & Slackware distrobution archive formats. 10. How COL is different from other distro's. =============================================== 10.1. Packages -------------- Version 2.x of COL comes with one desktop environment, known as KDE. This is the default. COL is installed from many of the RPM packages developed by Red Hat but have been extended and/or changed in many places by Caldera. Debian Linux consists of the lsm packages, SuSE and Red Hat use also the RPM package mechanism. The tgz or .tar.gz packages are distribution independent and can be accessed even from very old Unix machines, as they are actually a vestige of the UNIX OS, and are now usable in Linux as well. On the 3rd CD (additional Packages), in the directory col/contrib/RPMS a first impression of KDE 2 is found, including koffice (= KDE Office). Also have a look at section "9.1. RPM maintenance" for more information. 10.2. Directory structure ------------------------- /etc contains all the files to configure and maintenance the system /opt or /usr/opt contains additional packages of Caldera, such as KDE, WordPerfect, StarOffice, Netscape, ... /usr/src contains the extracted sources from your source CD. /var/spool/log contains the logfiles. They increase in size only, if your computer is rebooted often. 10.3. Kernel enhancements (and booting) --------------------------------------- Caldera enhanced the booting in a more graphical interface. So if you choose to install a different kernel, you will loose this. Many people think that there is nothing running, if they install their own kernel. COL2.4 comes with the graphical bootloader grub. See section 5.1 for more details on how GRUB works. In COL2.4, using GRUB, he option can be found in /boot/grub/menu.lst. All you have to do is comment out the 'splashscreen' option and possibly change the 'vga=274' to 'vga=normal' for the kernel that you are booting. To disable the nothing-is-seen dilemma in COL 2.2 or 2.3, the booting has to be switched back to the standard way. Therefore you have make sure that in the file /etc/lilo.conf the line "vga=274" and the option "debug=2" in the "append=" part is removed for your kernel. You loose the color and the graphic for this kernel, but you win the possibility to see again what is going on. After the modifications are done, you have to run the command line program "lilo" for the changes to take affect. This can be done (as ordinary user) by opening a command line window, such as kvt, switching to root with the command "su" and running then "lilo". A detailed way how to recompile the distributed kernel with all the extensions of Caldera can be found in the Knowledge Database of the Support section at http://www.calderasystems.com/support 11. Kernel ============ 11.1. Compiling & modules ------------------------- The kernel source is not included on the Source CD, it is on the installation CD. The reason is that the development tools are on this CD and the kernel source, especially the include files, are required when compiling. You have to install the packages linux-source-i386 linux-kernel-include linux-source-common linux-kernel-doc to have all required Linux source files for a PC (Alpha or SUN-Sparc architecture is also available). But you require more tools to compile the kernel, such as the compiler egcs, the tool make, etc. COL 2.2 users have a look at the pink errata sheet and install the mentioned package (linux-source-common, linux-source-i386, glibc-devel, ncurses-devel). The COL kernel comes along with as many feature as possible. It is pre-compiled as a so called modularized kernel and any required driver can usually be loaded. This means a compilation is usually NOT required. If you build your own kernel, keep in mind that you lose the graphical booting extension of Caldera (see section "8.3. Kernel enhancements (and booting)"). - Compiling is made in the following steps (see /usr/src/linux/README) and without getting and unpacking a newer source. cd /usr/src/linux make mrproper make config or: make xconfig make dep make zImage if it fails because your kernel got to large, do: make bzImage make modules - Now install the kernel (found in /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage) and the modules. - Edit the file /etc/lilo.conf (if required) and run (in any case) the lilo, to get the new kernel at next boot. Please do not delete the old, original kernel, but keep it for emergency cases. Give it its own label in lilo.conf, such as "orig" or "col", so that you can boot up with it in the future. 11.2. Sound ----------- A lot of documentation can be found in the directory /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sound If these are missing, install the package linux-kernel-doc-<>-<>.rpm from the first CD. If you have an ISA PnP card (and not PCI PnP), you have to initialize the card during booting. Therefore you've to create the file /etc/isapnp.conf Do this in opening a command line, such as xterm, switch to user=root with the command "su root" , run the program "pnpdump > /etc/isapnp.conf", edit the file /etc/isapnp.conf and remove all leading comment signs '#' for your configuration. Example (but adapt it for your configuration, especially IRQs, DMA, ...): -------------- snip -------------- snip -------------- snip ------------ (READPORT 0x0203) (ISOLATE PRESERVE) (IDENTIFY *) (VERBOSITY 2) (CONFLICT (IO FATAL)(IRQ FATAL)(DMA FATAL)(MEM FATAL)) # or WARNING # SB 16 and OPL3 devices (CONFIGURE CTL00f0/-1 (LD 0 (INT 0 (IRQ 7 (MODE +E))) (DMA 0 (CHANNEL 1)) (DMA 1 (CHANNEL 3)) (IO 0 (SIZE 16) (BASE 0x0220)) (IO 1 (SIZE 2) (BASE 0x0330)) (IO 2 (SIZE 4) (BASE 0x0388)) (NAME "CTL00f0/-1[0]{Audio }") (ACT Y) )) -------------- snip -------------- snip -------------- snip ------------ Again: If you have a PCI card, you don't need the above file. Even more, your sound system might not run if you have such a file. Now the next step depends on if you have COL2.2, COL2.3 or COL2.4, and is the same for PCI and ISA cards. COL2.2: Now you have to insert the modules of your soundchip (depends on your soundcard). If you have a SoundBlaster PCI64, use the es1370 module, if you have a SoundBlaster PCI64V use the es1371 module, etc. For a SoundBlaster VIBRA16 you need the modules opl3, uart401, sb Use the graphical administration tool COAS-->kernel and add the modules. If you require additional parameters, such as io_base for the VIBRA16, add them in a file called /etc/modules/options/<> For the VIBRA16 it's the file /etc/modules/options/sb and the values have to be in only one line. Example for above ISA example io=0x220 mpu_io=0x330 irq=7 dma=1 dma16=3 COL2.3 & 2.4: Under COL2.3 or 2.4 this is alot easier. Do in a command line window, such as xterm or konsole, the commands: su root modprobe isapnp /sbin/hwprobe (You only need to this _ONCE_ after installing new hardware.) After reboot your soundcard modules hopefully will be loaded and working. (You don't need to reboot, you can also just do a "modprobe" for all modules listed in /etc/modules/default or add them with COAS-->kernel, but make sure to "disable" "load at boot time"). 11.3. ZIP- / LS-120 / ... drives -------------------------------- Have a look at the file /usr/src/linux/Documentation/paride.txt and the URL http://www.torque.net/parport/ If the file is missing, install the package linux-kernel-doc-* For more information about installing packages see section "7.1. RPM maintenance". Another good source of information is /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini/ZIP-Drive.gz One tip: The COL kernel comes with as many modules as possible. So you don't have to recompile the kernel, just to insert the mentioned modules. Use the graphical tool COAS-->kernel to insert modules. A typical way is this: For Setup: - Add the required modules with COAS-->kernel. o You need the modules for the ZIP-device (like ppa) o and maybe the modules for accessing vfat file system (like vfat and fat) - Create an empty directory to "mount" the filesystem on (only once, like /mnt/zip) - Test-mount the ZIP-device as root (like: mount -t vfat /dev/sda4 /mnt/zip) and unmount it, if it works. - Add the working mountpoint to the file /etc/fstab (like: /dev/sda4 /mnt/zip vfat rw,user,noauto 0 0) For Working: - Now you can mount/unmount it with the short version (mount /mnt/zip) access the files in directory /mnt/zip But you can only eject/replace disks, if the filesystem is unmounted. 11.4. APM / ACPI support ------------------------ APM is the abbreviation for "Advanced Power Management", the feature to handle the power of the computer. This can be done by software, or keyboard or anything else. ACPI is another abbreviation in the Power Management and stands for the power-off feature at shutdown. COL does not support APM or ACPI because the technical specification is not clearly defined. As Alan Cox (a famous Linux source maintainer) says: "APM can do anything". So it was more or less a matter of time that APM kernels cannot run on particular computers. This problem (fail to boot) is known for a particular SNI (Siemens/Nixdorf) model. This might be the reason why Caldera cannot support APM. If you are interested in APM, you have to compile your own kernel, which supports this. Look at section "10.1. Compiling & modules" for more about this. You will lose the graphical boot extensions, which Caldera uses (see "10.3. Kernel enhancements (and booting)").