Browsing the internet

[The Pom 0]

Recently I successfully installed (on my laptop), Red Hat 9.0 to dual boot with XP. I cannot browse the internet with Red Hat. I am connected via an on-board NIC, ethernet cable and adsl modem. There is a desktop box on the workgroup network and under Red Hat I can browse to that and connect as a guest to a shared drive.

 

I have used the terminal window to issue the <su root> command. This works ok, as does my password. No other command will work. So, if I type <ifonfig>, I get a message saying this command is not found. I get this for anything I type, for instance <adsl –start>. The exact result would be like this…..

 

bash : adsl : command not found

 

What the heck is ‘bash’ ?

 

I am COMPLETE newbie and have not a clue how to find out if I have an ip address or to ping anywhere.[ I do know how to do so under Windows ]. The Linux command line is as good as Japanese to me so any Linux-speak is going to go over my head unless you break it down (like I’m a 10yr old) please.

 

BTW, I would also like the dual boot interface to say ‘Windows XP’ instead of ‘DOS’, at boot-up and I would appreciate being advised how to configure this too please.

 

All help will be appreciated - thank you.

 

[taeuler 0]

The first step to checking your connection to the internet is to do

Quote:

ping -c 3 www.pick-a-website.com

.

If it returns unknown host you have no connection. If it gives the time packets take you do this is the first step. For naything else on you RH9 someone with some RH experience can probably help.

 

The resaon that you get command not found is that root access with su stips environment variable (for security I think), which requires that you use absolute pathnames such as /usr/bin/adsl, instead of just typing adsl. Bash is the program that's actualy behind the terminal window. The terminals of all the distros/desktop environments have terminals to implement various shell consoles, bash is most common. If you booted into a text mode instead of the standard graphical interface you would be using bash.

 

To get you boot loader to say windows XP you will ahve to you bootloader config. It not very hard. From a terminal window with root access do this

mount /boot

then do one of the following depending on whether you are using kde gnome

Quote:

kwrite /boot/grub/grub.conf

gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

If you are using lilo it would be lilo.conf instead of grub.

 

I hope that helps.

 

 

 

[danleff 0]

Originally posted by the pom:

Quote:

I have used the terminal window to issue the <su root> command. This works ok, as does my password. No other command will work. So, if I type <ifonfig>, I get a message saying this command is not found. I get this for anything I type, for instance <adsl –start>. The exact result would be like this…..

 

 

Actually, you may just be having syntax errors.

 

Did you mean ipconfig as the command?

 

Also, no space between adsl and start, so it should be adsl-start.

 

Do other commands work, like lsmod as root?

[The Pom 0]

I'm good - ON LINE - and a happy chappy.

 

Seemed there was both a problem with my router plus user rights with my log-in. Sorted :-)

 

Danleff - no errors. I did that 'cos that's what I read I had to do. Mind you, I keep on reading conflicting things so I don't know what to believe. ifconfig is what I have seen and not the Windows ipconfig (under Linux). Does ipconfig work same as ifconfig?

 

taeuler - no joy mate. I don't seem to have kwrite [did a search on my hd0] but do have gedit. Anyway, useless as when I type the command I still get the 'command is not found' message.

 

 

Another odd this is that in my home directory I have two folders; one of which I can cd to and the other which I cannot. Now I have tried every way of putting slashes and upper/lower case all to no avail. What's the story with that?

 

So, back to the DOS thing too. I already knew to change the grub.conf and can open it with a text editor but cannot edit a thing in there. It seems to be protected but I cannot see how.

 

Help appreciated please

[Dapper Dan 0]

When you try to edit grub.conf, did you become root first? Become root:

 

su [enter]

 

password [enter]

 

Then:

 

gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf [enter]

 

which will open grub.conf in Gedit as root. Then you should be able to edit the file.

 

On the ifconfig/ipconfig thing, taeuler is correct in that you must provide the entire path in Red Hat/Fedora.

 

As root go:

 

/sbin/ifconfig [enter]

 

And that will bring it up.

 

If you don't have gedit installed, just do the same command as above, only type kedit instead of gedit. then /boot/grub/grub.conf

 

[The Pom 0]

Sorted

 

I have changed the grub.conf using vi.

 

I have 1001 other things I don't understand but as a newbie I can accept this at this stage. I have to thank those in this post for helping me through getting started.

 

No doubt I'll be back.

 

Cheers all

[jimf43 0]

Originally posted by the pom:

Quote:

What the heck is bash ?

Bash is the command interpreter for the Linux kernel interface. Similar to the DOS shell or the Window$ command line.

[martouf 0]

it's a real knee slapper, 'bash' is:

 

bash == Bourne again shell

 

you see, there once was only 'sh' (Bourne shell) and 'csh' (C shell)

and the code for 'sh' was under copyright....

 

eeaaww, I guess you had to be there. 8)