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- Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.iastate.edu!pv141b.vincent.iastate.edu!sheldon
- From: sheldon@iastate.edu (Steve Sheldon)
- Subject: New Install - Comments and Questions
- Message-ID: <sheldon.712259366@pv141b.vincent.iastate.edu>
- Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
- Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
- Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 17:49:26 GMT
- Lines: 62
-
- Well, I've so far gotten everything to work. It's been quite an
- experience, lot's of fun anyway.
-
- I ended up doing the installation using the MCC-Interim release which
- I ftp'ed from tsx-11.mit.edu's mirrors. This worked great. I was
- able to easily set up my harddrive, and now can boot into the Linux
- partition using shoelace, and everything.
-
- I also tried using the MJ distribution which I found on banjo.concert.net,
- but things didn't go as smoothly. For some reason I encountered two
- problems with it. Not major, as I was able to get around them.
- 1. It keeps giving an error something like 'setutent - utmp file does not
- exist'. I'm not sure what this means, otherwise things work.
- 2. There is a bug in the install script. I don't have it handy, but when
- copying the devices it changes directories to /mnt, and then does not
- change back to the / root, so when it does the tar to copy over the
- bin's and such, it can't find the directories, and fails. Easy to fix,
- I just had to add a 'CD /' in the script, fortunately there was an
- editor on the disk so I could do this.
-
- I like the MJ distribution install scripts, it makes things a lot more
- "user friendly". At least until you get to the harddrive installation,
- as this distribution does not provide for a way to automatically do this,
- and refers you to use a DOS disk editor and manually do it, which is
- definately not user friendly.
-
- So I'd have to say the MCC release was much friendlier, in that it
- allowed me to setup everything from within Linux.
-
- However, the MJ distribution is has a more complete utilities package. It
- contains reboot and shutdown, and not to mention a better /etc/termcap,
- and some other things. So I like that about it.
-
- Each has it's positive points. Merge the two together and you've got a
- winner. I just don't like having to do things manually, although it does
- help in understanding.
-
- Now I have a couple of questions.
-
- 1. Upon booting Linux it asks for SVGA modes. I get 6 or 7 options.
- Well I can get the 80 column modes to work, but not the 132 column.
- When I select a 132 column mode, the screen stays the same (i.e. 80x25),
- but internally it things it's right. So if I selected something like
- 132x50, it thinks there is 50 lines, but I only see the top 25.
- I'm using a Trident 8900 video card, with 256K of memory onboard, with
- an Everex monochrome VGA monitor. I get 132 column modes just fine using
- DOS. Has anyone else had this problem?
-
- 2. Is there some documentation for bash? I was having some trouble
- setting the path, as the defaults are missing the current directory.
- I tried SET, and this did not work. But I found a profile script
- in /etc, and it used EXPORT. Upon trying this, it did work.
- I don't play with shells too much, but this is different from the
- shell's I'm used to. (csh I think) So what else that I might use has
- changed?
-
- Well thanks for any answers. This looks great, and I really want to
- thank everybody who's worked on this.
-
- Steve
- .sig file still under construction
-
-