BSchindler

I agree with what has been said above, except I don't. If you are really new to Linux, please find an old machine to play on OR pick up another 2-1/2" laptop hard drive and put that in your machine. CD distros are great for looking but pretty much useless for anything else when you are learning. Okay, guys don't rush to the keyboard to yell at me. I use these distros for rescue and repair of systems all the time. I also use them on customer's machines to debug problems with networks, etc. These distros are excellent tools for diagnosis and repair. But, when someone wants to learn Linux, run the real mccoy. You need to learn about filesystems, permissions resource configuration etc. The best way to do that is on a real distro which is booted from an alterable filesystem system. Also, for those just starting out. When you do an install, install everything in the distro. That is, when installing Fedora for example, pick the custom install option and later check the box for everything. Let the installer partition the disk for you. Then run it. In general, regardless of the distro, you will have a fully functional system to learn to drive on. You can screw it all up and later reinstall if you have to. But you also will have all the tools to recover as well. (Assuming you haven't totally trashed your system and rendered it unbootable.) Maybe I am just a bit conservative, and I will admit that I am. If you have the budget, pick up a cheap computer (new or used) and experiment on that first. Learning is priceless and the cost of the tools is minor compared to the value of what is learned. You should be able to put together a perfectly servicable machine for under $200.00. Anyway, that is my $0.02 worth. I give it freely, spend it wisely. LOL Bill

I can suggest another very good book for learning about linux and concepts. "Beginning Linux Programming" by Richard Stones and Neil Matthew. Published by Wrox ISBN: 1-861002-97-1. I have been writing C and running various flavors of Unix/Linux for nearly 20 years. I still pick up this book when I cannot remember some silly thing. The book has a good beginner's section on device drivers as well. I have given this book as a gift to new Linux users who aspire to really learn how to write "work" code for this platform. It has been a great success. One of the best things about the book is that it has plenty of examples which you can actually run on your machine. Good luck with learning C!

It would seem that some people are confused by locate. Locate is a facility to find programs, files, etc which are in locate's database. If you make substantial changes to your system, e.g., removing important libraries, daemons, etc., you should run locate again. This time in update mode. locate -u Then use locate to search. In the above instances, locate was giving you the "location" of the file "in the past". This is not what you wanted.

I have wanted to see what gmail is all about as well. If the offer is still open for an invite, I accept! Shall I bring the wine or the desert?

Building firewalls can be a big challenge. So rather than my trying to tell you how to do all of this I refer you to the internet where you can find great descriptions of how to set up a firewall AND how to have it be present when you reboot your machine. Do a google search for "using iptables". You will get lots of great info about how to do this. In the mean time, if you just want to see how to do this try: ** Note you must be root to modify iptables, so open a terminal window and become root (su). /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -j DROP What this really sais is: Add to the INPUT ruleset a rule that says that if protocol (-p icmp) is received, jump to the rule that says DROP (-j DROP). Note, icmp is the protocol used by ping. You can confirm that this works by typping: ping localhost you will get no responses. This partially cloaks your machine and makes you less vunerible to the "ping of death". As you may have no other rules setup (depends what you did on install) be especially careful if you enable services such as samba before you build your firewall. HTH

Justbill, I certainly thank you for responding. However, if you are looking for a "simpler" os for your family ... well much as I hate to say it perhaps linux is not for you. As I recall, you mentioned that the machine you are practicing on was "flakey" under windows. Not that that means anything particularly, windows is flakey anyway. That you say you have little experience at the command line level of windows (i.e., DOS) it explains a few things. Now, when you say you see /dev/floppy you always will. I think we created the symbolic link to it way back when? Even so, it will always be there. What you really want to look at is /mnt/floppy. When a disk is in the drive and after you have mounted the floppy you should be able to see it. Remember, as su you issue the mount command like so: mount -t msdos /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy You might want to then type: df this will show all filesystems mounted and should show you the /mnt/floppy with about 1.4 MB of space max and some used. See if that is what you get. Please, Please, pleeeeze use a floppy which is formatted on a windows machine and put at least one file on it. It will make helping you very much easier. Bill

There are some problems with the hpijs drivers. What distro of Linux are you running and where did you get the drivers? You may want to check these references: http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2003/04/25/0014.html http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/1501505/com/foomatic-db-hpijs-1.3.1.4-1.i486.rpm.html

Justbill I wrote you again with some suggestions how to get your floppy drive running. Did you try? You have to configure the cd burner before you can burn a cd. It would be better if you got the hang of how Linux works before you attempt that. Just going through the exercise of getting the floppy drive running will teach you a whole lot. Please don't get discouraged so soon. Without sounding condecending I was trying to get you aquainted with some concepts (like mount points) before going on. This, so that you would have a better idea what was happening when you configured other devices. If someone came in and just did it all for you you would not be able to do anything for yourself. Anyhow, did you try my last suggestion? If so, please write back with information about how you faired. Hang in there, it ain't all that bad

Probably not. You should have /etc/hosts.deny set to ALL:ALL Then make sure your /etc/hosts.allow file contains either NOTHING or only the services you want to have xinetd check. Again, if you have the box connected directly to the internet (via DLS or cable modem) you may want to check your firewall rules. Personally, I tend to err on the side of caution when connecting to the internet. RH9 has a pretty good tool for setting up firewalls and there is alot of info on the net about basic configuration(s). Personally, I screw down and padlock everything. And, I believe, for good reason. When I look at security logs for my firewalls I see maybe 200-500 attempts to hack per day. If your box is on the internet and not behind a firewall, consider at least dropping ICMP packets (ping) response to make you a bit less obvious (cloaked). Live long and prosper HTH - Bill

Jarves, What you ask would require a lot of space to really address fully. Might I suggest that you go to Google. They have a great index of definitions of terms. You access definitions quickly by typing (for example) define:freeware. I am not trying to be evasive, I just cannot type that much Good luch in your research. Bill

Hi Justbill, As to the lightning bolts we'll save that for another problem, perhaps your printer ... Okay, lets make sure we're on the same page. When you logged in, did you log in as a regular user (The one you created after you first installed FC)? DO NOT MAKE A HABBIT OF LOGGING IN AS ROOT. So, lets see what is going on ... Step 1. On a windows machine, copy a couple of text files onto a floppy disk. Make sure they are text files, we will want to view them on FC later. Step 2. Log onto your machine as a regular user. Then type: su <enter password> mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy ls /mnt/floppy Can you see the filenames of the files you put onto the disk (from step 1). If so, skip to Step 3. We need to see what FC thinks is going on, so type: cat /etc/fstab You should see a few lines printed out. We are interested in the one that starts out "/dev/fd0". What exactly is printed there? Send that with your reply and stop (for now). Step 3. This is a good sign, now let's see if we can read the files, so type: cat /mnt/floppy/<filename> where <filename> is the name of one of the files as shown on Step 1. By the way, Linux, unlike dos/windows, is case sensitive. You MUST pay attention to this. If you get an error "no such file or directory" you are not typing the filename as shown on Step 1. Now, can you see the file contents? If so, proceed to Step 4, otherwise STOP and let me know what is happening. Step 4. Now we know that we can read the directory and contents of the floppy. So we will try to write something to the disk. So type: echo "this is data" > /mnt/floppy/simplecho cat /mnt/floppy/simplecho You should see one line printed --- you guessed it "this is data" printed. If not, STOP and let me know what happened Step 5. Lets see if we can read the file on a Win/Dos computer so type: unmount /mnt/floppy Eject the disk and take it to another machine. Examine it. You should see a file simplecho, verify you can read it's contents and see the "this is data" as contents. Let me know how this is going. [Edited by BSchindler on 2005-01-25 01:02:10]

Evansj, If both the modems you have are relatively new and came with Windows computers, you probably have what I refer to as (No)WinModems. That is, modems which rely on the processor and Windows to do a lot of the work -- these are not compatible with Linux -- hence NoWin :x Modems are not expensive anymore. You may even have a suitable one in your "junk" box of computer stuff. If not, you can get a 56K fax/modem (linux compatible) for less than US $40. Hope this helps. Bill

Kevorocker, You didn't mention what distro of Linux you are using. Of all the hardware sound can be one of the most frustrating to configure. You might want to go to the alsa site. Alsa is an abstraction layer for sound and I have found I can usually get generic sound running with it. As for your USB keyboard, it would really help if you would say what distro you are using. I have them working, but in different ways. It really does depend on the Linux you are running. HTH Bill

Thanks Martouf, Oops, as one cannot view the orig thread when writing a reply, I did, as you suggest, get the names bass akwards. I should have paid better attention. Agreed, you can try smbclient -L localhost -U <netbiosname> however, this is not as good as using the netbios name. The connection mechanism is not quite the same and you really need to verify that smb is listening on the ethernet interface (socket) and correctly mapping the the netbios name of the samba server. In any event, I agree, as I said earlier. You should verify that samba is running correctly on the local box before going to the Windows machine which in this case is a client not a host.

I just joined this site with the understanding that this was an open forum to help people with problems and further understanding and use of Linux as an OS. On other threads I found people who had problems and were seeking help. I was happy to try to assist them when I felt I could. I have been running Unix/Linux for 30 years. I am fortunate? to manage a few hundred sites' servers in locations around the world. I run mostly RH as I started with it many hears ago and I guess I just stick with what I know. Heck, I just gave up on WordPerfect a couple of years ago. But, I did not think this site was for blanket condenmation of a particular distro. In any event, may I suggest that the site would better serve the community without blanket condemnation of a particular distro without providing, to the extent possible, detailed information as to the problem (including snapshots of appropriate configuration files and logs, etc.). If someone has fixed the problem, they can post the solution. If someone has a problem they may ask for help. I personally run over a dozen computers in my home on a network connected to the world. Some machines are very old (Pentium MMX 200 Mhz) which work very well as cvs repositories and mail servers to 3.6 Ghz P4 with tons of memory. I have RH, Debian, WindowsXPro, VMWARE running all over the place. NOT ONE OF THESE MACHINES came online without my having to configure services and "tweek" settings. When someone sends me a problem report (in my job) I want something better than "it sucks, is slow and I hate it". I want information and details about the problem. Then, maybe, I can fix it. If I cannot, at least I can pass information to someone else who may. Wouldn't that be a good way to use this forum?

Are U still using RH 6? I hope not. But to answer your question about hosts.deny and ALL:ALL the real answer is YES and NO. Linux uses a daemon called inetd (or xinetd) in newer systems. It's job is to check service connection requests and source ip addresses for acceptance and spoofing. It first sets up the rules by looking at hosts.deny and then looking at hosts.allow. RH 6 has a number of ways where people can still get into your system. I do not recomend that you put this machine directly on the internet, at least not without setting up iptables or ipchains (firewall stuff) hosts.allow has a specific format like: service: ipaddress/netmask where service is the english service found in the file /etc/services. I suggest that you upgrade to RH9 or Fedora Core.

Samba can be a bit tricky to configure. You should examine your /etc/samba/smb.conf file, it should look something like this: [global] workgroup = <Your workgroup name> netbios name = CYNICAL server string = <Some text description> printcap name = /etc/printcap load printers = yes printing = lprng socket options = TCP_NODELAY dns proxy = no browseable = yes [homes] comment = Home Directories path = /home/%u browseable = no writeable = yes create mask = 0750 follow symlinks = no ***** WindowsXP workgroup defaults to MYGROUP. Make sure your computer workgroup (not the same as domain) is set to whatever value you put in <Your workgroup name>. Become the superuser. Restart your samba server with something like: /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb restart You should now check that you can connect as a valid user. But, you must tell samba the username. The samba username does not have to be the same as the Linux user name. And samba does not automatically add usernames from the Linux password file. So, depending upon the release of Linux/Samba you are running type: smbadduser <netbiosname>:<netbiosname> (This is older ... If you get an error "command not found" then you have newer samba. So type: smbpasswd -a <netbiosname> You will be prompted for passwords. Enter them. Check that you can connect, type: smbclient -L CYNICAL -U <netbiosname> You should get a response showing the resources defined in your smb.conf file. BTW: You cannot connect to a samba server as root. You MUST connect as a samba defined user. If you get a good answer, exit superuser mode. Now, from the Windows machine, Search => Computers and look for CYNICAL. You should get a response if the <Your workgroup name> is the same for both machines. When you connect from Windows to the samba server you will use the samba name you created above. Hope this helps.

Justbill, I have been Unix/Linux for over 20 years. It did take some time to get used to the different platform. So, I suggest you give yourself some. Fedora is a great OS! I have a question though, is the floppy disk you are trying to write formatted with an MSDOS FAT filesystem? You can format floppies with Linux in MSDOS format, but I suggest you leave that for later. So start with a formatted disk, even better put a disk in which has at least one file on it. Now, log onto your system and using the mouse click on: RH => SystemTools => Terminal You will open a command window much like the MSDOS command prompt. At the command prompt type: ls /mnt/floppy This is equivalent to: DIR A: You should see the file(s) on your disk. If not, you may need to mount the floppy. You are going to change to the superuser now, so be very careful what you type. At the prompt type: su You will be prompted for a password, this is the one you used when you installed FC3. CAREFUL YOU ARE NOW GOD ON YOUR COMPUTER AND YOU CAN DO SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE. 1. Lets check that FC knows about your floppy, so type: ls /dev/floppy You should see something like "/dev/floppy" and a new command prompt. Or you will get a message: "ls: /dev/floppy: No such file or device". If so, it means that FC did not find a floppy it knew about when you installed. So, we will tell Linux about it. Type the following commands: cd /dev ln -s /dev/fd0 floppy ls /dev/floppy You should not see the above error anymore. 2. Now, we have to tell Linux how to make the floppy available so we will create a mount point for it (if it does not have one). Thpe the following: ls /mnt/floppy If you do not get an error like described in step 1, GO TO STEP 3, otherwise type the following: mkdir /mnt/floppy 3. Now we are going to make the floppy accessible so we type: mount -t msdos /dev/floppy /mnt/floppy 4. Now type: ls /mnt/floppy You should see your file(s) on the disk and the disk should be ready to read/write. 5. Now, lets make copy your file (the one you say you wanted) to the floppy. I assume that your file is in your home directory, so lets go there, type: cd /home/justbill (I used justbill but it is your username) 6. Now, just as in DOS, copy the file you want to the floppy: cp <filename> /mnt/floppy This is just an example, but you get the idea. Just as in DOS you can use the cd (change directory) command to move to different "folders" The "cp" above is just like DOS "copy". The difference is that in Unix/Linux you do not have drive letters, you have "mount points" -- the equivalent DOS command would look like: copy <filename> A: 7. Now we need to unmount the floppy so you can safely remove the disk from the drive. Type: umount /mnt/floppy 8. Get out of superuser mode. So type: exit Type exit again to close the terminal window. Remove the floppy and immediately take it to another DOS computer and examine the disk. Hope this helps. If you get stuck, post back, I will try to help. Bill