hardware videolspci
lspcidrake
chkconfig --list xfs
rpm -q XFree86
ethernetlspci
lspcidrake
cat /etc/conf.modules
lsmod
cat /etc/resolv.conf
cat /etc/sysconfig/network
cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
route -n
ifconfig -a
chkconfig --list network
rpm -q dhcpcd
superuser1. Opening a terminal.
There are a few ways to do this. The easiest is in KDE of GNOME or Xfce, where a terminal icon is displayed on the panel bar at the bottom of the screen. Just click it.
Otherwise, open the menu and select "Terminals" and choose one. Eterm, Konsole,and rxvt are all OK as is Xterm. Eterm and Konsole have histories so one can backscroll and also use the up-arrow to call up previous commands.
2. Once the terminal is open, a prompt will show, like this:
[tester@v5 tester]$ _
The underscore doesn't show, but I used it to show where the cursor is.
3. Now to make this the superuser, or root user, we employ the su (setuser id) command.
[tester@v5 tester]$ su
Password: _
4. The system waits for you to type your root password. After you have completed this and hit , you should see:
[tester@v5 tester]$ su
Password:
[root@v5 tester]# _
In this case, I was logged in as the username 'tester' and now in this window only I am logged in as root, but still in the directory /home/tester.
If you see a screen like this, then you have opened a terminal window and logged in as superuser. If you see error messages, then you have proof that you are most likely not an alien to the planet Earth. Just keep trying and you will get there.
This procedure works even on systems where the security is set so high that it is impossible to login as root.
adaptecOne of the most common SCSI controllers is the Adaptec 29xx which in its many variations seems to use one unified driver.
Unfortunately there are two versions of this driver. Firmware on the controller card must be compatible with the driver chosen. An old card with a new driver is troublesome. On a pure SCSI system the trouble is often so severe that nothing is shown on the attempt to install--just a freeze.
There are several factors which will make a controller work or not work.
Some controllers are FLASHABLE. That is, the on-card BIOS for the SCSI interface is programmable. Many of the OEM-only Adaptec cards do not have this feature, however.
Some motherboards have a complex interaction with the Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC), the linux kernel, the Adaptec card and its firmware, snd the driver version which is a loadable module.
In version 8.2 the install kernel has the APIC enabled. Previous install kernels did not have APIC enabled, resulting in some freezes on install with multiple Off-board IDE controllers on certain motherboards.
This leaves us with a truth table of experiments to find a combination that will work.
Driver: Old Old Old Old New New New New
APIC: On On Off Off On On Off Off
Firmware: Old New Old New Old New Old New
Now if the card is OEM and the Firmware canot be updated, then you have only
the Old driver and the old firmware, so your choice is APIC on or APIC off. If you have a Multiprocessor System, then APIC will almost certainly need to be enabled.
To turn APIC on: No effort is required for 8.2
It requires a special install kernel for 8.1 which you must build yourself.
To turn APIC off
F1 at the splash screen and
linux noapic
At the following text screen will accomplish this.
Now 8.2 and 8.1 install kernels will use the NEW driver unless you boot from CD#2 and select one of the kernel 2.2 installs (and those have APIC off).
So we can try the instal in a number of ways; however, if we have old firmware and thus need to use the old driver, we run into a chicken-or-egg problem, because the old installer will still install kernel 2.4 with the NEW driver. There is a workaround.
To activate that workaround, do this:
1. Install using an alternate image with kernel2.2
2. Use alt-e to get to expert mode at package selection--choose individual package selection..
3. The two light arrows chasing each other (like a refresh symbol) at the bottom of the screen toggles from tree view to flat, alphabetical list for install packages. Get the flat list and scroll down to the k's.
4. Check the box that says kernel22 so you have an old boot setup with the old Adaptec driver. Note that this MEANS you MUST MAKE / an ext2 or 'Linux Native' filesystem.
5. Now when the installation finishes, select the kernel22 boot from the boot choices, but use the escape key and the name of the kernel22 image to boot like this
linux22 single
6. You will come up in maintenance mode. Run these instructions
# vi /etc/modules.conf
[Scroll down to the line that begins 'alias" and ends with 'aic7xxx']
[Put the cursor at the end of that line]
i
[Forward arrow once]
_old
[escape key]
:wq
# mkinitrd initrd-2.4.18-6mdk.img 2.4.18-6mdk
============================================
Of course for 8.1 it is
# mkinitrd initrd-2.4.8-26mdk.img 2.4.8-26mdk
============================================
# reboot
Allow a normal boot. If that freezes then use escape and
linux noapic
and if that works, then go to Mandrake Control Center=>Boot=>Boot Configuration and assure that noapic is in the append line of each linux boot, separated from other append messages by a single blank.
Now if you have attempted to install journaling filesystems on other partitions, even this will not work. Instead use CD#1 and type F1 at the splash screen and then
rescue
then select mounting / in rescue mode and proceed with the same keystrokes.
usbmouseIf one has a USB wheelmouse, it is usually recognized and configured properly during install. This is not always the case when the mouse is a regular two-button USB mouse.
The trick with this sort of mouse is to load the nodule so it won't unload, not depending on hotplug to keep it in.
This is fairly simple, but since the usual symptom is NO WORKING MOUSE, then it becomes more complicated
At the boot screen, hit the escape key then type
linux single
to get up in maintenance mode.
Now use
# vi /etc/rc.local
[scroll down to the next to the last line]
i
[move the cursor past the end of the line, then hit enter]
modprobe usbmouse
[escape key to get out of insert mode]
:wq
# reboot
This will assure a driver is loaded for the usbmouse and is superior to the alternative of
alias mouse usbmouse
in /etc/modules.conf and
# ln -s /dev/mouse /dev/usbmouse
Which fails for the case where one has a notebook with a builtin PS/2 mouse on /dev/psaux and also plugs in a USB mouse or a WACOM tablet from time to time.
The converse problem occurs sometimes. The install kernel has a limited USB facility compared to the boot kernel, and some older motherboards do not communicate with it. The result is mouse and or keyboard failure during install. This has been observed only on Super Socket 7 Boards. The solution is a couple of PS/2 adapters during install, then switching to USB plugins afterward.
This problem and solution (both of the dodges to load the usbmouse module) was observed and tested on a Mattel BARBIE computer with the Intel BP810 Chipset and a Celeron 466.
starofficeStarOffice6 is easy to install on the computer using rpms but can be tricky to complete. The usual symptoms of an incorrect configuration are that StarOffice won't save files, or won't open Office files or simply dies after showing a splash screen.
Since the configuration is incorrect, an uninstall/reinstall using urpme and urpmi is not totally adequate. Here are the steps to making StarOffice6 work [properly.
The following procedure assumes you are in KDE logged in as the user where you were using StarOffice. (Let's hope it is NOT root).
1. Uninstall SO6 using a terminal window in root mode
urpme staroffice-common
2. Open a Konqueror window and set the View to show hidden files
locate and delete these files:
.sversionrc
.user60.rdb
Yes the leading dots indicate hidden files
3. Now that the old installation has been cleaned, go back to your terminal window as superuser.
urpmi staroffice-en
Of course the last two characters could be de, es, it, or fr depending on the language you want with StarOffice, but it will cause the staroffice-common package to load as well.
4. In your terminal window as superuser you can do this:
/usr/lib/office60_en/setup
5. Select the local installation (more than 270Mb) CHANGE THE PATH to
/opt/staroffice6.0 when prompted for the path.
6. If you already have Java, it should detect. If not, the INSTALL button on the JRE screen will bring it in.
7. After the installation completes, type
exit
to go to normal user mode.
8. Now, execute the setup script again
/usr/lib/office60_en/setup
9. This time select a workstation install. Leave everything default.
10. If you have more users which will use StarOffice (up to 4 more for a total of 5), then login as each of those users and do the workstation install.
After this work, you will have a running StarOffice which will import Office files and save properly.
soundThere are many variables which affect why sound will or will not work. They dall into the following major categories:
1. ISA sound card unrecognized.
2. ALSA loaded for a sound card that works only with OSS.
3. Inappropriate use of harddrake and sndconfig which overloads sound with two or more drivers.
4. Use of gdm as a login manager which has a tendency to forget to transfer ownership of the sound devices to the logged-in user.
5. A change of user number which causes the same effect, non-ownership of sound device files until the files that control this are initialized with the new user number.
ISA
It is usually easy to detect an ISA soundcard if you are a user. If the card fits in the black slots rather than the white or brown ones on your motherboard, then it is ISA. There are specifics for this configuration which are documented if you happen to have one. It will not be detailed here. Please note that new motherboards have one or no ISA slots now and they call the ISA slot "Legacy". No cases of on-board sound have been shown to use ISA.
PCI
Sound cards and on-board audio are usually this interface today. The question becomes,
ALSA, OSS, or proprietary?
ALSA is default set up unless no ALSA drivers exist. ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) is an effort to take a kernel not really designed for sound editing and to add a huge repository of options. Multiple sound cards are possible and many cards run in an OSS-compatibility mode.
OSS (Open Sound Systems) is a combination of proprietary support from www.opensound.com and drivers they have released openly after paying the cost of development.
Some sound cards now come with linux drivers. Generally speaking, there should be at least a source wrapper for the sound driver so that it can be compiled as a kernel module. Some sound drivers are provided along with video drivers for special boards, such as those based on the NForce chipset.
WHAT TO DO IF SOUND DOESN'T WORK.
We are not covering digital Dolby sound or USB headphone issues here, but what happens if the KDE start theme doesn't play when KDE comes up for the first time? GNOME won't play sound events until the user logs in to Sawfish and selects Configuration=>sound from the menu and check both boxes on the window that pops up, then logs out and logs into GNOME.
First
run
lspcidrake
does a sound facility show?
If so, you can proceed. If not, you probably have ISA sound.
Now run
cat /etc/modules.conf
likely this will show sound modules being loaded like this:
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-i8x0_audio
above ... pcm-snd-oss
That is an actual non-working setup for the SiS 735 chipset which sndconfig will tell you is the SiS 7012 sound card which is unsupported.
To make it work, we edit /etc/modules.conf
alias sound i810_audio
replaces the two former lines and then everything works.
And for the SiS 630,
alias sound trident
will work just fine while the setup from install will rarely work.
The SiS 620 and 530 may require the Yamaha YMF or the ESSSolo1 drivers, again in an OSS configuration (single sound card).
So what happens if the ALSA driver is loaded and someone uses sndconfig to load the OSS driver?
Variable results occur. Sound may die after 10 minutes, or sound very scratchy, or just not work at all or work very well indeed. If you have sound and
chkconfig --del alsa
leaves you with sound still running, it is likely you had both drivers loaded.
SCENARIOS
#1 NO SOUND and KDE souns server gives error message, but lspcidrake shows a sound facility and /etc/modules.conf has one or more sound aliases, AND volume controls are set high enough to hear sound if it is playing.
Use lspcidrake and the modules information to hunt down a driver for the sound at
file:/lib/modules/2.4.18-6mdk/kernel/drivers/sound
Try taking out the sound configuration shown in /etc/modules.conf and substituting
alias sound (modulename)
stripping the .o.gz from the name of the file you want to try.
It is best to first try (in a superuser terminal window)
# chkconfig --del alsa
# modprobe (modulename)
If you get error messages, then your driver choice is incorrect and you move on to the next on your list of candidates, until you find one that installs or run out of modules.
Once tha alias is found, save /etc/modules.conf and reboot. You should now hear something.
SCENARIO
#2 I HAVE SOUND BUT THE CD DOESN'T PLAY AUDIO...
There are several reasons why this may happen:
a. You have a cheapie computer built windows ME time or later which omitted the 3-wire audio cable between the CD drive and the sound card. (This fix costs $2.00) NOT CHECKING for it may cost days.
b. You have a CDRW and /dev/cdrom doesn't point to /dev/scd0
Superuser terminal window
# ln -fs /dev/scd0 /dev/cdrom
Note that since sound plays off of /dev/cdrom by default, if you have TWO CD type devices (as in a DVD and a CDRW) ONE of them will play and the other will not.
Often the DVD will provide sound for movies even though it will not play audio CDs because movie sound is usually drawn from /dev/dvd.
c. You have a DVD drive and it doesn't play audio and it is your only CD type device, let's say for example it is /dev/hdc (you can check the output of dmesg to discover which one it is).
Terminal window as superuser
# ln -fs /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom
# ln -fs /dev/hdc /dev/dvd
Yes unfortunately, many install scenarios leave the /dev/dvd link hanging without a referent.
OK I think I have covered the major techniques and their pitfalls.