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- Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,news.answers,comp.answers
- Subject: Linux Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (Part 4 of 6)
- Followup-To: poster
- From: rkiesling@mainmatter.com
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU
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- Date: 11 May 2004 10:51:30 GMT
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- Archive-Name: linux/faq/part4
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- Last-modified: 12/04/2001
-
- 6.6. The Computer Has the Wrong Time.
-
- There are two clocks in your computer. The hardware (CMOS) clock runs
- even when the computer is turned off, and is used when the system
- starts up and by DOS (if you use DOS). The ordinary system time, shown
- and set by date, is maintained by the kernel while Linux is running.
-
- You can display the CMOS clock time, or set either clock from the
- other, with /sbin/clock (now called hwclock in many distributions).
- Refer to: man 8 clock or man 8 hwclock.
-
- There are various other programs that can correct either or both
- clocks for system drift or transfer time across the network. Some of
- them may already be installed on your system. Try looking for adjtimex
- (corrects for drift), Network Time Protocol clients like netdate,
- getdate, and xntp, or NTP client-server suite like chrony. Refer to:
- "How to Find a Particular Application.."
-
- 6.7. Setuid Scripts Don't Seem to Work.
-
- That's right. This feature has been disabled in the Linux kernel on
- purpose, because setuid scripts are almost always a security hole.
- Sudo and SuidPerl can provide more security than setuid scripts or
- binaries, especially if execute permissions are limited to a certain
- user ID or group ID.
-
- If you want to know why setuid scripts are a security hole, read the
- FAQ for comp.unix.questions.
-
- 6.8. Free Memory as Reported by free Keeps Shrinking.
-
- The "free" figure printed by free doesn't include memory used as a
- disk buffer cache--shown in the "buffers" column. If you want to know
- how much memory is really free add the "buffers" amount to "free."
- Newer versions of free print an extra line with this info.
-
- The disk buffer cache tends to grow soon after starting Linux up. As
- you load more programs and use more files, the contents get cached. It
- will stabilize after a while.
-
- 6.9. When Adding More Memory, the System Slows to a Crawl.
-
- This is a common symptom of a failure to cache the additional memory.
- The exact problem depends on your motherboard.
-
- Sometimes you have to enable caching of certain regions in your BIOS
- setup. Look in the CMOS setup and see if there is an option to cache
- the new memory area which is currently switched off. This is
- apparently most common on a '486.
-
- Sometimes the RAM has to be in certain sockets to be cached.
-
- Sometimes you have to set jumpers to enable caching.
-
- Some motherboards don't cache all of the RAM if you have more RAM per
- amount of cache than the hardware expects. Usually a full 256K cache
- will solve this problem.
-
- If in doubt, check the manual. If you still can't fix it because the
- documentation is inadequate, you might like to post a message to
- comp.os.linux.hardware giving all of the details--make, model number,
- date code, etc., so other Linux users can avoid it.
-
- 6.10. Some Programs (E.g. xdm) Won't Allow Logins.
-
- You are probably using non-shadow password programs and are using
- shadow passwords.
-
- If so, you have to get or compile a shadow password version of the
- programs in question. The shadow password suite can be found at
- ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/sources/usr.bin/shadow/. This is the
- source code. The binaries are probably in linux/binaries/usr.bin/.
-
- 6.11. Some Programs Allow Logins with No Password.
-
- You probably have the same problem as in ("Some Programs (E.g. xdm)
- Won't Allow Logins."), with an added wrinkle.
-
- If you are using shadow passwords, you should put a letter `x' or an
- asterisk in the password field of /etc/passwd for each account, so
- that if a program doesn't know about the shadow passwords it won't
- think it's a passwordless account and let anyone in.
-
- 6.12. The Machine Runs Very Slowly with GCC / X / ...
-
- You may have too little real memory. If you have less RAM than all the
- programs you're running at once, Linux will swap to your hard disk
- instead and thrash horribly. The solution in this case is to not run
- so many things at once or buy more memory. You can also reclaim some
- memory by compiling and using a kernel with less options configured.
- See ("How To Upgrade/Recompile a Kernel.")
-
- You can tell how much memory and swap you're using with the free
- command, or by typing:
-
- $ cat /proc/meminfo
-
- If your kernel is configured with a RAM disk, this is probably wasted
- space and will cause things to go slowly. Use LILO or rdev to tell the
- kernel not to allocate a RAM disk (see the LILO documentation or type
- "man rdev").
-
- 6.13. System Only Allows Root Logins.
-
- You probably have some permission problems, or you have a file
- /etc/nologin.
-
- In the latter case, put "rm -f /etc/nologin" in your /etc/rc.local or
- /etc/rc.d/* scripts.
-
- Otherwise, check the permissions on your shell, and any file names
- that appear in error messages, and also the directories that contain
- these files, up to and including the root directory.
-
- 6.14. The Screen Is All Full of Weird Characters Instead of Letters.
-
- You probably sent some binary data to your screen by mistake. Type
- echo '\033c' to fix it. Many Linux distributions have a command,
- reset, that does this.
-
- If that doesn't help, try a direct screen escape command.
-
- $ echo 'Ctrl-V Ctrl-O'
-
- This resets the default font of a Linux console. Remember to hold down
- the Control key and type the letter, instead of, for example, Ctrl,
- then V. The sequence
-
- $ echo 'Ctrl-V Esc C'
-
- causes a full screen reset. If there's data left on the shell command
- line after typing a binary file, press Ctrl-C a few times to restore
- the shell command line.
-
- Another possible command is an alias, "sane," that can work with
- generic terminals:
-
- $ alias sane='echo -e "\\033c";tput is2; \
- > stty sane line 1 rows $LINES columns $COLUMNS'
-
- The alias is enclosed with open quotes (backticks), not single quotes.
- The line break is included here for clarity, and is not required.
-
- Make sure that $LINES and $COLUMNS are defined in the environment with
- a command similar to this in ~/.cshrc or ~/.bashrc,
-
- $ LINES=25; export $LINES; $COLUMNS=80; export $COLUMNS
-
- using the correct numbers of $LINES and $COLUMNS for the terminal.
-
- Finally, the output of "stty -g" can be used to create a shell script
- that will reset the terminal:
-
- 1. Save the output of "stty -g" to a file. In this example, the file
- is named "termset.":
-
- $ stty -g >termset
-
- The output of "stty -g" (the contents of "termset") will look
- something like:
-
- 500:5:bd:8a3b:3:1c:7f:15:4:0:1:0:11:13:1a:0:12:f:17:16:0:0:73
-
- 2. Edit "termset" to become a shell script; adding an interpreter and
- "stty" command:
-
- #!/bin/bash
- stty 500:5:bd:8a3b:3:1c:7f:15:4:0:1:0:11:13:1a:0:12:f:17:16:0:0:73
-
- 3. Add executable permissions to "termset" and use as a shell script:
-
- $ chmod +x termset
- $ ./termset
-
- [Floyd L. Davidson, Bernhard Gabler]
-
- 6.15. I Screwed Up the System and Can't Log In to Fix It.
-
- Reboot from an emergency floppy or floppy pair. For example, the
- Slackware boot and root disk pair in the install subdirectory of the
- Slackware distribution.
-
- There are also two, do-it-yourself rescue disk creation packages in
- ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/recovery/. These are better
- because they have your own kernel on them, so you don't run the risk
- of missing devices and file systems.
-
- Get to a shell prompt and mount your hard disk with something like
-
- $ mount -t ext2 /dev/hda1 /mnt
-
- Then your file system is available under the directory /mnt and you
- can fix the problem. Remember to unmount your hard disk before
- rebooting (cd somewhere else first, or it will say it's busy).
-
- 6.16. I Forgot the root Password.
-
- Note: Incorrectly editing any of the files in the /etc/ directory can
- severely screw up a system. Please keep a spare copy of any files in
- case you make a mistake.
-
- If your Linux distribution permits, try booting into single-user mode
- by typing "single" at the BOOT lilo: prompt. With more recent
- distributions, you can boot into single-user mode when prompted by
- typing "linux 1," "linux single," or "init=/bin/bash."
-
- If the above doesn't work for you, boot from the installation or
- rescue floppy, and switch to another virtual console with Alt-F1 --
- Alt-F8, and then mount the root file system on /mnt. Then proceed with
- the steps below to determine if your system has standard or shadow
- passwords, and how to remove the password.
-
- Using your favorite text editor, edit the root entry of the
- /etc/passwd file to remove the password, which is located between the
- first and second colons. Do this only if the password field does not
- contain an "x," in which case see below.
-
- root:Yhgew13xs:0:0: ...
-
- Change that to:
-
- root::0:0: ...
-
- If the password field contains an "x," then you must remove the
- password from the /etc/shadow file, which is in a similar format.
- Refer to the manual pages: "man passwd," and "man 5 shadow."
-
- [Paul Colquhuon, Robert Kiesling, Tom Plunket]
-
- 6.17. There's a Huge Security Hole in rm!
-
- No there isn't. You are obviously new to unices and need to read a
- good book to find out how things work. Clue: the ability to delete
- files depends on permission to write in that directory.
-
- 6.18. lpr and/or lpd Don't Work.
-
- First make sure that your /dev/lp* port is correctly configured. Its
- IRQ (if any) and port address need to match the settings on the
- printer card. You should be able to dump a file directly to the
- printer:
-
- $ cat the_file >/dev/lp1
-
- If lpr gives you a message like myname@host: host not found" it may
- mean that the TCP/IP loopback interface, lo, isn't working properly.
- Loopback support is compiled into most distribution kernels. Check
- that the interface is configured with the ifconfig command. By
- Internet convention, the network number is 127.0.0.0, and the local
- host address is 127.0.0.1. If everything is configured correctly, you
- should be able to telnet to your own machine and get a login prompt.
-
- Make sure that /etc/hosts.lpd contains the machine's host name.
-
- If your machine has a network-aware lpd, like the one that comes with
- LPRng, make sure that /etc/lpd.perms is configured correctly. Also
- look at the Printing HOWTO. "Where can I get the HOWTO's and other
- documentation? ".
-
- 6.19. Timestamps on Files on MS-DOS Partitions Are Set Incorrectly
-
- There is a bug in the program clock (often found in /sbin). It
- miscounts a time zone offset, confusing seconds with minutes or
- something like that. Get a recent version.
-
- 6.20. How To Get LILO to Boot the Kernel Image.
-
- From kernel versions 1.1.80 on, the compressed kernel image, which is
- what LILO needs to find, is in arch/i386/boot/zImage, or
- arch/i386/boot/bzImage when it is built, and is normally stored in the
- /boot/ directory. The /etc/lilo.conf file should refer to the vmlinuz
- symbolic link, not the actual kernel image.
-
- This was changed to make it easier to build kernel versions for
- several different processors from one source tree.
-
- 6.21. How To Make Sure the System Boots after Re-Installing the Operating
- System.
-
- This should work whether you're re-installing Linux or some other,
- commercial, operating system:
-
- * Insert a blank, formatted floppy in drive A:
- * Save a copy of the boot hard drive's Master Boot Record to the
- floppy, by executing the command:
-
- #dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/fd0 count=1
-
- dd is a standard program on Linux systems. A MS-Windows compatible
- version is available from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/, as well as many MS
- software archives.
- * Test that the floppy boots the system by rebooting with the floppy
- in the A: drive.
- * Then you should be able to install the other operating system (on
- a different hard drive and/or partition, if you don't want to
- uninstall Linux).
- * After installation, boot Linux again from the floppy, and
- re-install the MBR with the command: /sbin/lilo.
-
- [Jacques Guy]
-
- 6.22. The PCMCIA Card Doesn't Work after Upgrading the Kernel.
-
- The PCMCIA Card Services modules, which are located in
- /lib/modules/version/pcmcia, where version is the version number of
- the kernel, use configuration information that is specific to that
- kernel image only. The PCMCIA modules on your system will not work
- with a different kernel image. You need to upgrade the PCMCIA card
- modules when you upgrade the kernel.
-
- When upgrading from older kernels, make sure that you have the most
- recent version of the run-time libraries, the modutils package, and so
- on. Refer to the file Documentation/Changes in the kernel source tree
- for details.
-
- Important: If you use the PCMCIA Card Services, do not enable the
- Network device support/Pocket and portable adapters option of the
- kernel configuration menu, as this conflicts with the modules in Card
- Services.
-
- Knowing the PCMCIA module dependencies of the old kernel is useful.
- You need to keep track of them. For example, if your PCMCIA card
- depends on the serial port character device being installed as a
- module for the old kernel, then you need to ensure that the serial
- module is available for the new kernel and PCMCIA modules as well.
-
- The procedure described here is somewhat kludgey, but it is much
- easier than re-calculating module dependencies from scratch, and
- making sure the upgrade modules get loaded so that both the non-PCMCIA
- and PCMCIA are happy. Recent kernel releases contain a myriad of
- module options, too many to keep track of easily. These steps use the
- existing module dependencies as much as possible, instead of requiring
- you to calculate new ones.
-
- However, this procedure does not take into account instances where
- module dependencies are incompatible from one kernel version to
- another. In these cases, you'll need to load the modules yourself with
- insmod, or adjust the module dependencies in the /etc/conf.modules
- file. The Documentation/modules.txt file in the kernel source tree
- contains a good description of how to use the kernel loadable modules
- and the module utilities like insmod, modprobe, and depmod.
- Modules.txt also contains a recommended procedure for determining
- which features to include in a resident kernel, and which to build as
- modules.
-
- Essentially, you need to follow these steps when you install a new
- kernel.
-
- * Before building the new kernel, make a record with the lsmod
- command of the module dependencies that your system currently
- uses. For example, part of the lsmod output might look like this:
-
- Module Pages Used by
- memory_cs 2 0
- ds 2 [memory_cs] 3
- i82365 4 2
- pcmcia_core 8 [memory_cs ds i82365] 3
- sg 1 0
- bsd_comp 1 0
- ppp 5 [bsd_comp] 0
- slhc 2 [ppp] 0
- serial 8 0
- psaux 1 0
- lp 2 0
-
- This tells you for example that the memory_cs module needs the ds
- and pcmcia_core modules loaded first. What it doesn't say is that,
- in order to avoid recalculating the module dependencies, you may
- also need to have the serial, lp, psaux, and other standard
- modules available to prevent errors when installing the pcmcia
- routines at boot time with insmod. A glance at the /etc/modules
- file will tell you what modules the system currently loads, and in
- what order. Save a copy of this file for future reference, until
- you have successfully installed the new kernel's modules. Also
- save the lsmod output to a file, for example, with the command:
- lsmod >lsmod.old-kernel.output.
- * Build the new kernel, and install the boot image, either zImage or
- bzImage, to a floppy diskette. To do this, change to the
- arch/i386/boot directory (substitute the correct architecture
- directory if you don't have an Intel machine), and, with a floppy
- in the diskette drive, execute the command:
-
- $ dd if=bzImage of=/dev/fd0 bs=512
-
- if you built the kernel with the make bzImage command, and if your
- floppy drive is /dev/fd0. This results in a bootable kernel image
- being written to the floppy, and allows you to try out the new
- kernel without replacing the existing one that LILO boots on the
- hard drive.
- * Boot the new kernel from the floppy to make sure that it works.
- * With the system running the new kernel, compile and install a
- current version of the PCMCIA Card Services package, available
- from metalab.unc.edu as well as other Linux archives. Before
- installing the Card Services utilities, change the names of
- /sbin/cardmgr and /sbin/cardctl to /sbin/cardmgr.old and
- /sbin/cardctl.old. The old versions of these utilities are not
- compatible with the replacement utilities that Card Services
- installs. In case something goes awry with the installation, the
- old utilities won't be overwritten, and you can revert to the
- older versions if necessary. When configuring Card Services with
- the "make config" command, make sure that the build scripts know
- where to locate the kernel configuration, either by using
- information from the running kernel, or telling the build process
- where the source tree of the new kernel is. The "make config" step
- should complete without errors. Installing the modules from the
- Card Services package places them in the directory
- /lib/modules/version/pcmcia, where version is the version number
- of the new kernel.
- * Reboot the system, and note which, if any, of the PCMCIA devices
- work. Also make sure that the non-PCMCIA hardware devices are
- working. It's likely that some or all of them won't work. Use
- lsmod to determine which modules the kernel loaded at boot time,
- and compare it with the module listing that the old kernel loaded,
- which you saved from the first step of the procedure. (If you
- didn't save a listing of the lsmod output, go back and reboot the
- old kernel, and make the listing now.)
- * When all modules are properly loaded, you can replace the old
- kernel image on the hard drive. This will most likely be the file
- pointed to by the /vmlinuz symlink. Remember to update the boot
- sector by running the lilo command after installing the new kernel
- image on the hard drive.
-
- Also look at the questions, How do I upgrade/recompile my kernel? and
- Modprobe can't locate module, "XXX," and similar messages.
-
- 6.23. How To Remove (or Change) the Colors in the ls Display.
-
- The shell command, "unalias ls," should completely unset the
- configuration that some distributions provide as standard. To change
- the colors, refer to the ls man page ("man ls").
-
- 6.24. Why Won't a Program Work in the Current Directory?
-
- Because the current directory (i.e., ".") is not in the search path,
- for security reasons, as well as to insure that the correct program
- versions are used. If an intruder is able to write a file to a
- world-writable directory, like /tmp, presumably he or she would be
- able to execute it if the directory were in the search path. The
- solution to this is to include the directory in the command; e.g.,
- "./myprog," instead of "myprog." Or add the current directory to your
- PATH environment variable; e.g., "export PATH=".:"$PATH" using bash,
- although this is discouraged for the reasons mentioned above.
-
- 7. How To Do This or Find Out That...
-
- 7.1. How To Find Out If a Notebook Runs Linux.
-
- There's no fixed answer to this question, because notebook hardware is
- constantly updated, and getting the X display, sound, PCMCIA, modem,
- and so forth, working, can take a good deal of effort.
-
- Most notebooks currently on the market, for example, use "Winmodems,"
- which often do not work with Linux because of their proprietary
- hardware interfaces. Even notebooks which are certified as "Linux
- compatible," may not be completely compatible.
-
- Information about installing Winmodems in general is contained in the
- Winmodems-and-Linux HOWTO. (Refer to "Where Is the Documentation?")
-
- You can find the most current information, or ask other users about
- their notebook experiences, on the linux-laptop mailing list, which is
- hosted by the vger.redhat.com server. (Refer to "What Mailing Lists
- Are There?")
-
- A mailing list for Linux on IBM Thinkpads has its home page at
- http://www.topica.com/lists/linux-thinkpad/.
-
- Another Thinkpad mailing list is hosted by http://www.bm-soft.com/.
- Send email with the word "help" in the body of the message to
- majordomo@www.bm-soft.com.
-
- There is a Web page about Linux on IBM Thinkpads at
- http://peipa.essex.ac.uk/tp-linux/.
-
- The Linux Laptop home page is at
- http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/.
-
- For information about interfacing peripherals like Zip and CD-ROM
- drives through parallel ports, refer to the Linux Parallel Port Home
- Page, at http://www.torque.net/linux-pp.html.
-
- If you need the latest version of the PCMCIA Card Services package, it
- is (or was) located at ftp://cb-iris.stanford.edu/pub/pcmcia/, but
- that host no longer seems to be available. Recent distributions are on
- ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/pcmcia/. You will also need to
- have the kernel source code installed as well. Be sure to read the
- PCMCIA-HOWTO, which is included in the distribution.
-
- 7.2. Installing Linux Using FTP.
-
- Most distributions are too large and complex to make FTP installation
- practical. Installing a basic Linux system that doesn't have a GUI or
- major applications is possible with FTP, however. The main
- non-commercial distribution in use is Debian GNU/Linux, and this
- answer describes an installation of a basic Debian system, to which
- you can add other Linux applications and commercial software as
- necessary.
-
- This answer describes installation on IBM-compatible machines with an
- Intel x86 or Pentium processor. You will need a machine with at least
- a 80386 processor, 8 Mb of memory, and about 100 Mb of disk space.
- More memory and a larger disk is necessary however, for practical
- everyday use.
-
- For other hardware, substitute "-arm," "-ppc," "-m68k," or other
- abbreviation in directory names for "-i386."
-
- For detailed and hardware-specific information refer to:
- http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/.
-
- * Connect using anonymous FTP to ftp.debian.org and cd to the
- pub/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current/ subdirectory.
- * Retrieve the binary image files for the rescue disk, and the
- drivers disk. Depending on the floppy drive installed on your
- machine, retrieve either the diskette images with "1200" in the
- names if you have a 1.2 Mb, 5.25-in. floppy, or the disks with
- "1440" in the name if the computer has a 3.25-in., 1.44 Mb floppy.
- Then retrieve the base system diskettes. Note that there are 7
- base system images in the 1.44-Mb set (which have a "14" in their
- names) , and 9 in the 1.2-Mb set of images (which have a "12" in
- their names). You will use these to create the basic installation
- diskettes. If you have a Linux machine, you can use dd to write
- the images to the diskettes. If you are creating the installation
- diskettes on a MS-DOS machine, also download the RAWRITE.EXE
- MS-DOS utility, which will copy the raw binary images to floppy
- disks. Also download the install.en.txt document, which contains
- the detailed installation instructions.
- * Create the installation disk set on floppies using either dd under
- Linux (e.g.: "dd if=resc1440.bin of=/dev/fd0"), or the RAWRITE.EXE
- utility under MS-DOS. Be sure to label each installation diskette.
- * Insert the rescue diskette into the floppy drive and reboot the
- computer. If all goes well, the Linux kernel will boot, and you
- will be able start the installation program by pressing Enter at
- the boot: prompt.
- * Follow the on-screen instructions for partitioning the hard disk,
- installing device drivers, the basic system software, and the
- Linux kernel. If the machine is connected to a local network,
- enter the network information when the system asks for it.
- * To install additional software over the Internet, be sure that you
- have installed the ppp module during the installation process, and
- run (as root) the /usr/sbin/pppconfig utility. You will need to
- provide your user name with your ISP, your password, the ISP's
- dial-up phone number, the address(es) of the ISP's Domain Name
- Service, and the serial port that your modem is connected to,
- /dev/ttyS0-/dev/ttyS3. Be sure also to specify the defaultroute
- option to the PPP system, so the computer knows to use the PPP
- connection for remote Internet addresses.
- * You may have to perform additional configuration on the PPP
- scripts in the /etc/ppp subdirectory, and in particular, the
- ISP-specific script in the /etc/ppp/peers subdirectory. There are
- basic instructions in each script. For detailed information, refer
- to the Debian/GNU Linux installation instructions that you
- downloaded, the pppd manual page (type man pppd), and the PPP
- HOWTO from the Linux Documentation project,
- http://www.linuxdoc.org/.
- * Once you have a PPP connection established with your ISP (it will
- be displayed in the output of ifconfig), use the dselect program
- to specify which additional software you want to install. Use the
- apt [A]ccess option to retrieve packages via anonymous FTP, and
- make sure to use the [U]pdate option to retrieve a current list of
- packages from the FTP archive.
-
- 7.3. Resuming an Interrupted Download.
-
- You can use the "reget" command of the standard ftp client program
- after reconnecting to pick up where you left off.
-
- Clients like ncftp support resumed FTP downloads, and wget supports
- resumed FTP and HTTP downloads.
-
- 7.4. Boot-Time Configuration.
-
- You can configure Linux at the lilo: prompt either by typing the
- kernel arguments at the BOOT lilo: prompt, or by adding an "append="
- directive to the /etc/lilo.conf file; for example:
-
- # At the LILO prompt (example only):
- BOOT lilo: parport=0x3bc,7 parport=0x3bc,none serial=0x3f8,4 serial=0x2f8,3
-
- # Example statement for /etc/lilo.conf:
- append="parport=0x3bc,none serial=0x3f8,4 serial=0x2f8,3"
-
- If you modify the /etc/lilo.conf file, be sure to run the lilo command
- to install the new configuration.
-
- Configuration notes for specific hardware devices are in the
- documentation of the kernel source distribution,
- /usr/src/linux/Documentation in most distributions.
-
- Refer to the lilo and /etc/lilo.conf manual pages, as well as the LDP
- BootPrompt-HowTo ("Where Is the Documentation?"), and the
- documentation in /usr/doc/lilo.
-
- 7.5. Formatting Man Pages without man or groff.
-
- The man2html program translates groff text to HTML, which you can view
- with a Web browser. The man2html program, and many like it, are
- availble on the Web. Look for them with your favorite search engine.
-
- The unformatted manual pages are stored in subdirectories of /usr/man,
- /usr/local/man, and elsewhere.
-
- If you want to view text, use nroff and less. Both of these programs
- have MSDOS versions with an implementation of the man macro package
- available as well. An example would be:
-
- $ nroff -man /usr/man/man1/ls.1 | less
-
- If you know where to find a good implementation of the man macros
- without installing groff, please let the FAQ maintainer know.
-
- If the manual page filename ends in ".gz," then you'll need to
- uncompress it before formatting it, using gzip -d or gunzip. A
- one-line example would be:
- $ gzip -dc /usr/man/man1/ls.1.gz | nroff -man | less
-
- 7.6. How To Scroll Backwards in Text Mode.
-
- With the default US keymap, you can use Shift with the PgUp and PgDn
- keys. (The gray ones, not the ones on the numeric keypad.) With other
- keymaps, look in /usr/lib/keytables. You can remap the ScrollUp and
- ScrollDown keys to be whatever you like.
-
- The screen program,
- http://vector.co.jp/vpack/browse/person/an010455.html provides a
- searchable scrollback buffer and the ability to take "snapshots" of
- text-mode screens.
-
- Recent kernels that have the VGA Console driver can use dramatically
- more memory for scrollback, provided that the video card can actually
- handle 64 kb of video memory. Add the line:
-
- #define VGA_CAN_DO_64B
-
- to the start of the file drivers/video/vgacon.c. This feature may
- become a standard setting in future kernels. If the video frame buffer
- is also enabled in the kernel, this setting may not affect buffering.
-
- In older kernels, the amount of scrollback is fixed, because it is
- implemented using the video memory to store the scrollback text. You
- may be able to get more scrollback in each virtual console by reducing
- the total number of VC's. See linux/tty.h.
-
- [Chris Karakas]
-
- 7.7. How To Get Email to Work.
-
- For sending mail via SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and
- receiving mail from an ISP's POP (Post Office Protocol) server, you
- can use a desktop client like Netscape Communicator or KDE kmail. You
- will need to enter the names of the SMTP and POP servers in the
- preferences of the respective application, as well as your E-mail
- address (username@isp's-domain-name), and your dial-up password. The
- same applies to Usenet News. Enter the name of the NNTP (Network News
- Transfer Protocol) server in your News client's preferences section.
- You may also have to provide the IP addresses of the ISP's primary and
- secondary name servers.
-
- If you have a traditional MTA (Mail Transport Agent) like Sendmail,
- Smail, qmail, or Exim, you'll need to follow the instructions in each
- package. Basically, configuration entails determining which host
- machine, either on your local LAN or via dial-up Internet, is the
- "Smart Host," if you're using SMTP. If you're using the older UUCP
- protocol, then you'll need to consult the directions for configuring
- UUCP, and also make sure that your ISP's system is configured to relay
- mail to you.
-
- Information about Internet hosting, and News and E-mail in general, is
- available on the Usenet News group news.announce.newusers, and those
- FAQ's are also archived at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/.
-
- 7.8. Sendmail Pauses for Up to a Minute at Each Command.
-
- Make sure that Sendmail can resolve your hostname to a valid (i.e.,
- parsable) domain address. If you are not connected to the Internet, or
- have a dial-up connection with dynamic IP addressing, add the fully
- qualified domain name to the /etc/hosts file, in addition to the base
- host name; e.g., if the host name is "bilbo" and the domain is
- "bag-end.com:"
-
- 192.168.0.1 bilbo.bag-end.com bilbo
-
- And make sure that either the /etc/host.conf or /etc/resolv.conf file
- contains the line:
-
- order hosts,bind
-
- Caution: Do not change the "localhost" entry in /etc/hosts, because
- many programs depend on it for internal message-passing.
-
- Sendmail takes many factors into account when resolving domain
- addresses. These factors, collectively, are known as, "rulesets," in
- sendmail jargon. The program does not require that a domain address be
- canonical, or even appear to be canonical. In the example above,
- "bilbo." (note the period) would work just as well as
- "bilbo.bag-end.com." This and other modifications apply mainly to
- recent versions.
-
- Prior to version 8.7, sendmail required that the FQDN appear first in
- the /etc/hosts entry. This is due to changes in the envelope address
- masquerade options. Consult the sendmail documents.
-
- If you have a domain name server for only a local subnet, make sure
- that "." refers to a SOA record on the server machine, and that
- reverse lookups (check by using nslookup) work for all machines on the
- subnet.
-
- Finally, FEATURE configuration macro options like nodns,
- always_add_domain, and nocanonify, control how sendmail interprets
- host names.
-
- The document, Sendmail: Installation and Operation Guide, included in
- the doc/ subdirectory of Sendmail source code distributions, discusses
- briefly how Sendmail resolves Internet addresses. Sendmail source code
- archives are listed at: http://www.sendmail.org/
-
- [Chris Karakas]
-
- 7.9. How To Enable and Select Virtual Consoles.
-
- In text mode, press the left Alt-F1 to Alt-F12 to select the consoles
- tty1 to tty12; Right Alt-F1 gives tty13 and so on. To switch out of X
- you must press Ctrl-Alt-F1, etc; Alt-F5 or whatever will switch back.
-
- However, If you have a non-PC compatible system, please see the note
- below.
-
- If you want to use a VC for ordinary login, it must be listed in
- /etc/inittab, which controls which terminals and virtual consoles have
- login prompts. The X Window System needs at least one free VC in order
- to start.
-
- [Note: The key sequence is actually Ctrl--Meta-- FN. On PC compatible
- systems, the right and left Alt keys are really synonymous with the
- keysymbols Meta_L and Meta_R. If the binding is different, you can
- determine what keys produce Meta_L and Meta_R with xkeycaps or a
- similar application.]
-
- [David Charlap]
-
- 7.10. How To Set the Time Zone.
-
- Change directory to /usr/lib/zoneinfo/. Get the time zone package if
- you don't have this directory. The source is available in
- ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/admin/time/.
-
- Then make a symbolic link named localtime pointing to one of the files
- in this directory (or a subdirectory), and one called posixrules
- pointing to localtime. For example:
-
- $ ln -sf US/Mountain localtime
- $ ln -sf localtime posixrules
-
- This change will take effect immediately--try date.
-
-