SWARET ( For Slackware )

Swaret is magical and an easy script designed to help keep your Slackware System up-to-date.
It downloads, upgrades and installs packages, patches, sources and much more!
Swaret includes dependency support, as well as it tracks and fixes missing libraries.
There is no better tool to keep your Slackware up to date and sane.

Get the latest Swaret:
http://swaret.sourceforge.net/index.php OR The 1.6.2-noarch-1.tgz is here

By mistake the file on the mirror is named swaret-1.6.2-noarch-1.tgz.tar so we have to rename the file in order to remove the last part ( .tar ):


Next you can install it:

( Adapt version number with the one you downloaded )

Configure it:


Edit the /etc/swaret.conf file, first set the version:

NOTE: Switching to current is experimental and is not advised for new users.
( Attention dial-up users, upgrading to “current” will download more then 800 MB packages. So my advice is keep the version you downloaded/installed. )


And next: "EXCLUDE=alsa"


And for resolving dependencies, replace these lines:
With:

Finally, here is how to update/upgrade:
( -a is for automatic . . . dial-up users prefer not to use this )


A few basic commands:
swaret --update ( updates list of packages )
swaret --list ( shows packages list )
swaret --upgrade -a ( upgrades system -a automatically )
swaret --remove xxxxx ( removes packages xxxxx )
swaret --install xxxxx ( installs package xxxxx )


Bruno


NOTE for dial-up up users: Dial-up users have to change another line in the /etc/swaret.conf as well: Change NIC=eth0 to NIC=ppp0



PS: The Swaret FAQ and the Swaret forum are here:
FAQ: http://swaret.sourceforge.net/index.php?name=FAQ
Forum: http://swaret.sourceforge.net/index.php?na...&file=index

Old Swaret HowTo: Old HowTo
Old Swaret FAQ: Old FAQ
Old Swaret Man: Old Man Pages

FILE SYSTEM COMMANDS:

Here is a list of all the filesystem management tools. It is only an overview. If you want to know more about a specific command and the parameters that can be used with it, see the man pages or help files of the commands.

( Example: "man badblocks" or "badblocks --help" )

badblocks . . . . . . Searches a device for bad blocks
cfdisk. . . . . . . . . . Creates or deletes partitions from the partition table
dosfsck . . . . . . . . Checks msdos filesystems
dumpe2fs. . . . . . . Lists superblock information for the specified device
e2fsck . . . . . . . . . Check and/or repair Linux filesystems Ext2/3
fdformat. . . . . . . . Performs s lowlevel format on a floppy
fdisk. . . . . . . . . . . Adds or removes partitions. Can also be used to view partition table information.
fsck. . . . . . . . . . . Check and/or repair Linux filesystems
hdparm . . . . . . . . Reads or sets hard disk parameters
mkdosfs. . . . . . . . Creates an msdos filesystem
mke2fs. . . . . . . . . Creates a native Linux filesystem
mkfs. . . . . . . . . . . Also creates native Linux filesystems
mkswap. . . . . . . . Creates a Linux swap partition
mount . . . . . . . . . Mounts a filesystem
stat . . . . . . . . . . . Prints inode information
swapoff . . . . . . . . Releases a swap partition
swapon . . . . . . . . Activates a swap partition
tune2fs . . . . . . . . Adjusts ext2 filesystem parameters
umount . . . . . . . . Unmounts a filesystem

With all the multibooters on the forum, all dividing their harddisks to a high amount of small partitions, a little tip on file system commands was not a luxury.
( Apparently on an IDE drive, 64 logical partitions is the max on an extended one . . . so: Have fun penguins and penguinettes ! )


Bruno

FILESYSTEMCHECK 2 ( fsck )

Here is one command of the previous Tip I would like to elaborate: fsck
If you have a corrupt file system ( Ext2/3 ) and you have to do a manual check and repair on it in "single user mode", here are 4 ways how to do it:

1). If you are booting from Mandrake's Lilo the story is simple: choose option "failsafe" from the menu, this will boot you automatically, without any hassle, in "single user mode" ( you get an odd looking prompt like "sh-2.05b#" ) and you can do: ( replace hdb1 with the partition you want to run the check on )

2). Other graphical Lilos allow you to do Ctrl+X to get a prompt where you type: it will than also boot in "single user mode"

3). Another option is to flip in any Linux CD ( Live or install ) and at the prompt type ( For knoppix it is "knoppix single" )

4). Now, in case you did already boot, but the boot failed half way before getting to X, and you are thrown back at the text screen with a prompt. Here is how to do it if you are in runlevel 3:
Put it in "single user mode", ( back to runlevel 1 ):

Then remount / in read only mode: ( replace hdb1 with the partition you want to run the check on )
Most of the times the -a, -A and -P options are not recommended, see "man fsck"

Then remount / in readwrite mode:

Last step, back to where you came from:


The chances are that your file system will be fixed, but there is no guarantee.
The chance that you will have to do this are much slimmer on an Ext3 file system then on Ext2. So there is one more reason you always choose an Ext3 format


Bruno

PS: Here is how to do it with Grub

FDISK ( Partition table manipulator for Linux )

Here is another command from the list "File System Commands". With fdisk we can get info on partitions and make new ones or delete them.
I took the info from a post made by Owyn.


Info about partitions:


Deleting partitions:

1)List the partitions and make sure you are on hda
Press "p"

2)Delete all the existing partitions on hda starting with partition 4 and working back to partition 1
Press "d"
Enter partition number when requested.

3)List the partitions again to make sure the problem is fixed.
Press "p"

4)Write table to disk and exit
Press "w"

And then run "fdisk -l /dev/hda" again to see the results.
Here is a full list of the commands you can use in fdisk:


Erase the complete harddrive:


CAUTION: MAKE SURE YOU ARE WORKING ON THE CORRECT HD !!!!

More on fdisk: http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Installation/...sing_fdisk.html


Bruno

APT-GET & SWARET ON DIAL-UP


Apt-Get:

These were the questions:
Can these downloads be broken up into smaller chunks and downloaded in groups?
What can one do to avoid a total reinstall, etc. in the event of a crash? That would be a tremendous task for someone on dialup?



A few handy commands if you use apt-get on the commandline:

"apt-get -d kde" would only download the KDE packages and not yet install them so you can burn them to CD first

"apt-get check" verifies that there are no broken dependencies . . .

"apt-get upgrade" will only get the regular updates . . ( you get to say Y or N )

"apt-get dist-upgrade" will totally upgrade your distro to the latest version

"apt-get --help" for more info on apt-get


Swaret:

For Swaret the packages get stored in /var/swaret/sources The command "swaret --get KDE" will only download the packages and save them to /var/swaret/sources. Interrupted downloads will be checked and downloaded again, swaret performs a checksum on the packages. So if you burn the packages in /var/swaret/sources to CD you can always recover them.

"swaret --get kde" will only download the kde pakages

"swaret --dep" will check dependencies

"swaret --resume" will resume broken downloads

See also the dial-up remarks in the Swaret Tip



Bruno



Original thread: http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.ph...f=14&t=6057

PCLOS TWEAKS ( Preview 5 and 7 )


Here is a quick few tips for fixing a couple of things after the HD install, and further down for after upgrading:

After HD install

1). The fancy icons in Open Office will be gone if you create a user account, do: ( Replace "bruno" )

2). The nice mouse pointerwill be gone after the creating of a user account, do:


After upgrade

1). The KDE startup sound will be changed to the default KDE tune . . . to get Texstars tune back ( what is the name of that track ? ) do boot from the CD and: ( Change the hda6 to the partition the PCLos HD install is on. Also this changes the name of the .wav to TEX_Startup.wav because KDE_Startup.wav already exists, so when you go in the "notify" section of KDE Control Center, that is the file to look for. )

2). The "/etc/apt/sources.list" will be replaced and set the default to the ibiblio mirrors . . . change it back to "nluug" for quick downloads.

3). Upgrading to Mozilla 1.6 will make that the plugins in the Konqueror browser not work anymore because it points to the Mozilla 1.5 directory.
Go to preferences of konqueror and in the plugins section add:

4). After the upgrade the entries in the KDE Control Center will be empty . . . . do this:

5). There is a very cool cursor theme chooser program for PCLos and Mandrake 9.2, including a bundle of different cursor themes.
You can get the program here: ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Man...1mdk.noarch.rpm

Once downloaded install it ( as root ) with:

Then run the program as normal user with: and you will get a small GUI window where you can choose from 45 different themes


Other language in PCLos

For KDE you need these packages: ( Example is Dutch=nl )
locales-nl-2.3.2-5mdk.i586.rpm ( From Mandrake 9.2 CD )
kde-i18n-nl-3.2.0-2mdk.noarch.rpm ( From Mandrake 10.0 CD, because it is KDE 3.2 )

For OpenOffice:
myspell-nl_NL-1.0.2-0.20030824.1mdk.i586.rpm ( From Mandrake 9.2 CD )
myspell-hyph-nl-1.0.2-0.20030824.1mdk.i586.rpm ( From Mandrake 9.2 CD )
OpenOffice.org-l10n-nl-1.1-2.92mdk.i586.rpm ( From Mandrake 9.2 CD )

PS: You can download them from ftp.nluug too
For 9.2: ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Man...6/Mandrake/RPMS
For 10.0: ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Man.../Mandrake/RPMS/


Have FUN with PCLos !


Bruno

CPU INFO ( and other information on your system )


We can get a lot of info from the /proc directory ( The /proc is a direct reflection of the system kept in memory )

An example of the info we can get from /proc is "CPU info":
That is pretty good info isn't it ? . . But that is not all, there is a lot of other real-time information on your system in /proc, try:


So you see there is a wealth of info you can retrieve from /proc . . . go off and explore, even if you do not understand all the info, it is good to know where you can get it


Bruno



PS: Brian wrote us that with "lshw" ( if installed on your distro ) you can query all that /proc info and print it to your screen.
Try "lshw -html >lshw.html" and you will get a nice html file in your home directory for easy viewing.

IMAGEMAGICK

ImageMagick is an ultra versatile tool that can manipulate images on the commandline.
You will find it installed by default in most distros. Just to give you an idea what it can do, here is a few examples:

import - Take a screenshot of the full desktop:
( When the command is typed in a 'run-box' and you click on the desktop it will take the full desktop too and you won't see the open terminal where you typed the command )

Takes screenshot of an open window:
Then click on a window.

Take a screenshot of any ( detail ) part of the desktop:
Then make a selection with your right mouse button.


A simple way to display the screenshot: ( or any other image )



Now comes the real 'magic':

mogrify - To transform a .png image to .jepg:


To transform a whole series of .png images to .jpeg:


NOTE: Imagemagic can handle and transform all possible image formats ! ( See below )

And to make a series of thumbnails:

( Don't worry about disfiguring the image, it will take the first number and adapt the second one to it to make sure the proportions stay the same )

WARNING: "mogrify" overwrites the original image, so make a backup before you start !


What else can it do?
- Resize, rotate, sharpen, color reduce, or add special effects to an image
- Create a montage of image thumbnails
- Create a transparent image suitable for use on the Web
- Turn a group of images into a GIF animation sequence
- Create a composite image by combining several separate images
- Draw shapes or text on an image
- Decorate an image with a border or frame
- Describe the format and characteristics of an image

Here are the commands you can use in Imagemagic:



The formats ImageMagick can handle:

8BIM - Photoshop resource format
AFM - TrueType font
APP1 - Photoshop resource format
ART - PF1: 1st Publisher
AVI - Audio/Visual Interleaved
AVS - AVS X image
BIE - Joint Bi-level Image experts Group interchange format
BMP - Microsoft Windows bitmap image
CAPTION - Caption (requires separate size info)
CMYK - Raw cyan, magenta, yellow, and black samples
CMYKA - Raw cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and matte samples
CUT - Dr Halo
DCM - Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine image
DCX - ZSoft IBM PC multi-page Paintbrush
DIB - Microsoft Windows bitmap image
DPS - Display PostScript
DPX - Digital Moving Picture Exchange
EPDF - Encapsulated Portable Document Format
EPI - Adobe Encapsulated PostScript Interchange format
EPS - Adobe Encapsulated PostScript
EPS2 - Adobe Level II Encapsulated PostScript
EPS3 - Adobe Level III Encapsulated PostScript
EPSF - Adobe Encapsulated PostScript
EPSI - Adobe Encapsulated PostScript Interchange format
EPT - Adobe Encapsulated PostScript with TIFF preview
FAX - Group 3 FAX
FILE - Uniform Resource Locator
FITS - Flexible Image Transport System
FPX - FlashPix Format
FTP - Uniform Resource Locator
G3 - Group 3 FAX
GIF - CompuServe graphics interchange format
GIF87 - CompuServe graphics interchange format (version 87a)
GRADIENT - Gradual passing from one shade to another
GRANITE - Granite texture
GRAY - Raw gray samples
H - Internal format
HDF - Hierarchical Data Format
HISTOGRAM - Histogram of the image
HTM - Hypertext Markup Language and a client-side image map
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language and a client-side image map
HTTP - Uniform Resource Locator
ICB - Truevision Targa image
ICM - ICC Color Profile
ICO - Microsoft icon
ICON - Microsoft icon
IPTC - IPTC Newsphoto
JBG - Joint Bi-level Image experts Group interchange format
JBIG - Joint Bi-level Image experts Group interchange format
JP2 - JPEG-2000 JP2 File Format Syntax
JPC - JPEG-2000 Code Stream Syntax
JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format
JPG - Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format
LABEL - Text image format
LOGO - ImageMagick Logo
M2V - MPEG-2 Video Stream
MAP - Colormap intensities
MAT - MATLAB image format
MATTE - MATTE format
MIFF - Magick image format
MNG - Multiple-image Network Graphics
MONO - Bi-level bitmap in least-significant-byte-first order
MPC - Magick Persistent Cache image format
MPEG - MPEG-1 Video Stream
MPG - MPEG-1 Video Stream
MPR - Magick Persistent Registry
MSL - Magick Scripting Language
MTV - MTV Raytracing image format
MVG - Magick Vector Graphics
NETSCAPE - Netscape 216 color cube
NULL - Constant image of uniform color
OTB - On-the-air bitmap
P7 - Xv thumbnail format
PAL - 16bit/pixel interleaved YUV
PALM - Palm Pixmap format
PBM - Portable bitmap format (black and white)
PCD - Photo CD
PCDS - Photo CD
PCL - Page Control Language
PCT - Apple Macintosh QuickDraw/PICT
PCX - ZSoft IBM PC Paintbrush
PDB - Pilot Image Format
PDF - Portable Document Format
PFA - TrueType font
PFB - TrueType font
PFM - TrueType font
PGM - Portable graymap format (gray scale)
PICON - Personal Icon
PICT - Apple Macintosh QuickDraw/PICT
PIX - Alias/Wavefront RLE image format
PLASMA - Plasma fractal image
PM - X Windows system pixmap (color)
PNG - Portable Network Graphics
PNM - Portable anymap
PPM - Portable pixmap format (color)
PREVIEW - Show a preview an image enhancement, effect, or f/x
PS - Adobe PostScript
PS2 - Adobe Level II PostScript
PS3 - Adobe Level III PostScript
PSD - Adobe Photoshop bitmap
PTIF - Pyramid encoded TIFF
PWP - Seattle Film Works
RAS - SUN Rasterfile
RGB - Raw red, green, and blue samples
RGBA - Raw red, green, blue, and matte samples
RLA - Alias/Wavefront image
RLE - Utah Run length encoded image
ROSE - 70x46 Truecolor test image
SCT - Scitex HandShake
SFW - Seattle Film Works
SGI - Irix RGB image
SHTML - Hypertext Markup Language and a client-side image map
STEGANO - Steganographic image
SUN - SUN Rasterfile
SVG - Scalable Vector Gaphics
TEXT - Raw text
TGA - Truevision Targa image
TIF - Tagged Image File Format
TIFF - Tagged Image File Format
TILE - Tile image with a texture
TIM - PSX TIM
TTF - TrueType font
TXT - Raw text
UIL - X-Motif UIL table
UYVY - 16bit/pixel interleaved YUV
VDA - Truevision Targa image
VICAR - VICAR rasterfile format
VID - Visual Image Directory
VIFF - Khoros Visualization image
VST - Truevision Targa image
WBMP - Wireless Bitmap (level 0) image
WMF - Windows Metafile
WPG - Word Perfect Graphics
X - X Image
XBM - X Windows system bitmap (black and white)
XC - Constant image uniform color
XCF - GIMP image
XML - Scalable Vector Gaphics
XPM - X Windows system pixmap (color)
XV - Khoros Visualization image
XWD - X Windows system window dump (color)
YUV - CCIR 601 4:1:1

Now you know why it is called "ImageMagick"


Bruno

More info: http://www.imagemagick.org
More commandline tricks: ImageMagick: A graphics wizard for the command line
Also: Advanced image editing from the command line with ImageMagick
And Command-line animations using ImageMagick
And for the GUI version: Display

SECURITY: SERVICES STARTED AT BOOT


Surely you are aware that at boot a good number of services are started, most of them you will see in the bootmessages.
The story is that you do not need all those that are being started, you do need most of them but you can do some weeding out of the ones you do not need and are possibly a security risk.
( It can even reduce the time it takes to boot . . however, do not expect too much here, this will only be a few seconds )

Let me first list a few services you DO need and therefore should NOT deactivate:


Now, I will take as an example, Mandrake and PCLos, because they are very similar. Most other distros have equivalent tools to shut services down and stop them from starting at boot. In Slackware it is a bit more complicated but real Slackers will find a way to get the job done anyway.

So, in Drake & PCLos . . . . in the menu under "Configuration" you will find "Configure your Computer" this brings up the Master Control Center ( same as MCC in Drake ) and there under "System" you have "DrakXServices" . . this brings up a GUI with all the services running ( or not ) and there is an info button at every item . . also there is a stop-button for every service where you can temporary stop the service and see if it affects the smooth running of your system ( on a reboot it will start again if you leave the checkmark . . the trick is: Note down every change you make ! Only if you are 100% sure you take away the checkmark !


-- A few services that are running by default in PCLos and that you can safely disable are:

hpoj ( If you do NOT have a HP printer )
nfs ( to comunicate with other Linux computers on a network )
nfslock ( idem )
portmap ( server stuff )
postfix
smb ( if you do not run samba to comunicate with a Windows computer on the network )
swat ( also samba related, admin tool for samba )
wlan ( wireless lan config/activate etc. )


-- You DO need:
alsa
anacron
atd
crond
cups
devfsd
dm
fam
gmp
internet
iptables ( for the firewall to work )
keytable
kheader
pcscd
random
rawdevices
services
slpd
sound
tmdns
xfs
xinetd

That is all for today ! . . Next time we will look at Servers/services.


Okay, to give a little hint to you Slackware users: to disable a service from starting at boot look in the /etc/rc.d/ directory . . they will be there, as an example, to safely prevent sendmail from starting at boot ( you do not need sendmail to send mail ) and be sure that you can put it back on if you find that you made a mistake disabling it, do:
To restore to the previous situation you simply do


Have FUN securing your system !


Bruno

SECURITY: SERVERS & SERVICES


You may not be aware of it but there are often running servers or sevices that listen to ports on your system that are unsafe.

The SANS top 20 http://www.sans.org/top20/




So let us do some real work now to secure our system:

There is this command ( as root ) That will show you the active servers on your system and what port they listen to . . . . but this needs far more information . . . . let us say that in general only the services you allowed running above should be seen in there . . .

Example:
( This one is okay, the cups printer deamon, and needs to be running ! )

Another command is: It shows you the same servers, but now with the port numbers they listen to.

So, like I said, the cupsserver is okay, but if any of the following servers are active and in LISTEN mode, it would be safer to shut them down:

finger
ftpd
kdessh
lockd
mountd
named or BIND
nfsd
rpc
rlogin
rsh
sendmail ( Only needed if you run a mailserver )
snmp
ssl
ssh
statd
ruser
telnetd
X ( the part that listens to tcp )

And, if you're not running a web server, you should also shut down any running httpd process.


You can shut down the processes for the current session with "kill PID" ( where PID is the number you see just before the name of the service . . in our example it would be: 1662 )
To prevent those services from starting up at boot permanently ( and they are not in the MCC "services" tool ) you will have to edit the /etc/inetd.conf file.
A radical way to do this is back up the old /etc/inetd.conf file: and replace it by an empty file: . . This will eliminate most of the ones listed above that can not be found in the MCC.

Then to stop X from listening to a certain port:
In Mandrake and PCLos: add the bold part to the last line in the "/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers" file:

In Slackware: add the bold part to the last line in the "/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers" file:


After this exercise the two commands I gave you above ( netstat and nmap ) should return no entries then only "cupsd". And maybe the samba, mail or webserver you absolutely want running.

Have FUN securing your system . . . next time we look at rootkits

A last one for our Slackware users . . to disable sshd:



Bruno

SECURITY: ROOTKIT CHECKERS

A far bigger danger to your Linux system then viruses are rootkits. Most of them will be stopped entering your system by a decent firewall, but still a regular check is strongly recommended.
Rootkits are self-hiding toolkits used by blackhats/crackers/scriptkiddies to avoid the eye of the sysadmin.

A rootkit scanner is scanning tool to ensure you are about 99.9% clean of nasty tools. This tool scans for rootkits, backdoors and local exploits.

There are two tools I recommend:

chkrootkit ( http://www.chkrootkit.org ) is an easy to use tool, included in many distro's either installed by default or on the install CDs.
Simply, as root, running will do the job.

rkhunter ( http://www.rootkit.nl ) is a tool that just does a bit more than only looking for rootkits, it performs a system-wide check for vunerable files and dependencies on your system:
- MD5 hash compare
- Look for default files used by rootkits
- Wrong file permissions for binaries
- Look for suspected strings in LKM and KLD modules
- Look for hidden files
- Optional scan within plaintext and binary files

The install file is available as tarball and rpm and will be installed in /usr/local/bin . . . . on some distro's you additionally need "Perl-Digest-SHA1" for a succesful install.

Running the program:

Making rkhunter a cron job to run daily and report by mail to root is ultra simple, all you have to do is:

More info ? See the thread on the forum: http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.ph...=ST&f=14&t=6506


Have FUN securing your system


Bruno

SECURITY: AV SOFTWARE ( And why we don't need it )


Because on several occasions Nathan ( nlinecomputers ) has written some very good and clear posts about viruses in Linux on the forum, I have asked him to make a compilation out of several threads he contributed.

Well, he did not let us down ! . . . . . Here it is:




Great ! Thanks Nathan for this excellent explanation !

If after these statements you still think you need AV software: A free AV for Linux is F-Prot. You can get it here:
http://www.f-prot.com/products/home_use/linux/


Bruno



Links on security:

Basic Slackware Security: http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/hack/...k/slack_sec.txt

More on Nmap: http://software.newsforge.com/software/04/...l?tid=78&tid=82

Nessus: http://www.nessus.org/demo/first.html

For the more advanced, here is a series of articles on Linux security.These articles were written by Mike Peters and posted on Linux.com:
Part 1: http://docs.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/04...5/1913248&tid=2
Part 2: http://docs.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/04...5/1918219&tid=2
Part 3: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/04/15/1923224

USER RELATED CRON JOBS

If you want to set up some tasks yourself ( as user ) to run every so many hours/days, here is how to do that:

Make a text file and let's say we call it "test-cron". In the file we will put the following lines:
( Sure you need those sound files in the places indicated above ) See this link for the time settings: Cron Jobs

Then give the command: And from then on, every hour the "Hour.wav" will play and every half hour the "HalfHour.wav" will . . just like grandma's clock
( Your personal cron-settings are then saved in /var/spool/cron/bruno )


Sure you can do this as root as well so it will run independently from whichever user is logged in at that moment


Bruno

BACKING UP THE MBR

Here is a clever trick that John Locke sent us for backing up and restoring the MBR . . . :



Thanks John, nice one !


Bruno


PS: Also, Striker shows us a way to write lilo to floppy:

CDRECORD and KERNEL 2.6

( If you want you can skip the intro and go to the "nutshell" at the bottom )






So in a nutshell:
In Mandrake 10, and probably soon in other distro's with the 2.6 kernel, first do

to see what /dev/hd?? your burner is located . . and then:

That is all . . . . ( So no more "--scanbus" !! )

K3b and other GUI burning tools will already be adapted to the new kernel and cdrecord software.


Bruno

ALTERNATIVE MANDRIVA 2006 INSTALL

( NOTE: For Mandriva 2005 there are instructions Here )

There are two alternative ways to download and install Mandrake 2006 ( As long as there are no ISOs available yet )

First get this file and burn it to CD: boot.iso
( For other versions: you need the "boot.iso" located in the "images" directory )


FTP install
Burn the boot.iso to CD and boot from it . . then:

- Press Enter
- At the screen: "Please choose your install method" choose FTP server
- DHCP
- "Please fill entries" I filled in: "uranus" on first line ( name of my system ) and "lan" on second line.
- Wait until the connection is made and dialog shows up ( takes a while !!! )
- Question about proxy: leave blank
- When choosing the sources, tell it that you will select the source yourself "Specify the mirror manually"
- On the first line: "ftp.nluug.nl" and on the second line: "/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrakelinux/official/2006.0/i586" and press OK

Then the program will load into memory and proceed to go on as a normal install.



HD install
- Copy all the files from to a directory ( /home/bruno/i586 ) on a partition on your HD
Use Kget's integration in Konqueror and use the filemanager,
OR
The next command You DO need the dot at the end of that command !!!

- Boot from the boot-CD we made above
- It will give you a dialog where you want to install from: choose "hard disk"
- The next dialog will ask you from which HD ( if you have 2 )
- After that a dialog will ask you on what partition the files are located
- And the next dialog asks "Directory or ISO image _________" type "/home/bruno/i586" and press OK

Then the program will load into memory and proceed to go on as a normal install.


Bruno

URPMI SOURCES MANDRAKE 10.0 Official

There are a few sources you can add to the package manager of Mandrake to get extra software. Some of them everybody can add, but a few ( the last two ) are only for Club Members.

See, here how it's done:

Here they are: ( Don't click on the links but paste them in a root-console ) YOU HAVE TO BE ON LINE !

Source PLF


Source Thacs:


Source Contrib


Source Club contributions ( open to all )


Source Eslrahc ( Link )


Source Norlug ( Link )


More small ones: http://www.thebrix.org.uk/



Only for Club members:
Source Club Commercial
( replace "NICKNAME" and "PASSWORD" )

Source Club Testing ( Be Careful With These !! )
( replace "NICKNAME" and "PASSWORD" )



Bruno

NOTE 1: If you add the sources today . . and you want to use them, let us say next week, you first have to update them because new packages might have been added, and old packages might have been removed . . . so each time before using them do "urpmi.update -a" as root in a console !!

NOTE 2: So again the warning: Mainly I only have the CD and Contrib source active all the time . . and only make all others active if I can not find the package I look for in those two ( CD and Contrib ) . . . . also you will get just too many different versions of the same package if you use all the sources at the same time, and sticking to the native Mandrake ones is recommended !

RESTORING THE XP MBR

Here is a Tip that I hope you will never use . . but still it has to be posted in this thread . . how do you restore the MBR to the state it was with only Windows XP.
The info comes from Jodef ( Johann )



Thanks Johann !!


Bruno

PS: Depending on what drive you have XP installed you might have to give an additional command: "fixboot x:" where "x:" represents the drive XP is installed.
See: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documen...r.mspx?mfr=true
And: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documen...t.mspx?mfr=true

Other usefull links:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/s...xp/install.mspx
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_home_install_-_graphic.htm
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_pro_install_-_graphic.htm

PRINTING MAN PAGES

There are four ways to print out a man page, just see which one suits you best.
As an example we take the "mount" man pages


1). In a terminal/console, type After that, from the menu bar: "Session" --> "Print Screen"

OR:

2).In a terminal/console type As a result, you will find the mount.txt file in home. Open it and send the text file to your printer.

OR: ( also for easy reading )

3).In Konqueror: type "#mount" in the address bar and press the "print" button from the menu bar.

AND:

4). The super man pages: ( for the ones you can not find on your system ) http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/linuxcommand.org/su...erman_pages.php
Search for "mount" and print it from your browser.


Sure, you do know that there is a man page for every command . . . reading about them can sometimes show you surprising extra options for each command.


Bruno

TWEAK THE COMMAND "ls -l"

Sure, we all know the command "ls -l" . . . but that we can adapt the command to change the date & time output is something Doryforos will try to explain to us:




Thanks to Doryforos


Bruno

RSYNC

We all know how to download from FTP, but there is an other way: rsync ! When ftp servers are really busy you might have a better/faster download with rsync.

To use rsync you need to know a few tricks:

To get a full list of what is available with rsync on nluug:
( full list of modules )
Or directly the distributions directory:

Or Ibiblio:


Then if you want to know what is in Mandrakelinux:


The listing of i586:


Download the full "images" directory:
!! Do not forget the dot at the end !!! ( It puts the file in your /home or replace the dot with the path to the directory you use to save the download. The file will be a hidden till the download is 100% )

The -P argument is to resume a download of a partially downloaded file.

Only the boot.iso:
!! Do not forget the dot at the end !!!

The ISO of the first CD of Mandrake 10 Official:
( One line ) !! Do not forget the dot at the end !!!


I know it does not seem easy at first sight, but once you are familiar with it you will learn to appreciate rsync


Bruno

TRANSPARENT CONSOLE

Here is a nice tweak to suit any desktop theme you have: a fully transparent, borderless, scrollbarless terminal/console !!

Okay this is what you need: "Eterm" . . . for you Mandrakers install it with:

( other distros use your software installer )

After the install press Alt+F2 . . . . . you will get the "run-command" dialog . . paste the following command in the box:



or if you want it 100% transparent:



You can tweak the size with the --geometry= numbers . . or add more shade by making shade=30 . . . ( the -x is for borderless, the foreground-color is the color of the text )

To close the console press Alt+F4 or Ctrl+D or just type "exit"


The second part of the tweak: Here is how to incorporate the new command into your menu:

Make a script:


( In scripts you do need the # signs !! )


Then make it executable:


Test the script:


If it all works like you expected: change the command for eterm in your menu-editor to "eterm-tweak"



Bruno


PS: For Slackware ( 10/Current ) you need these packages:

eterm-0.9.2-i486-1jim.tgz
libast-0.5-i486-1jim.tgz
imlib2-1.1.0-i486-1jim.tgz

You can get them at: http://www.linuxpackages.net/ . . and install them with installpkg . . after that it works like a dream !

MYDSL

Here is an interesting thing for D Small Linux users: myDSL !!



Now, how to do this . . and what are the extensions available . .

Here are the extensions: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distribut...amnsmall/mydsl/

What you do is make a directory in your /home and call it "optional" : Then you download the extensions to that directory. ( let us say for the example we take Gimp )

After that you start emelfm: And navigate to /home/dsl/optional . . . . you select the package ( Gimp ) you just downloaded and then: in the middle of emelfm there are buttons, the top botton is called "myDSL" . . press that button ! . . . . . Now close emelfm and you will see that at the top of your fluxbox-desktop-menu an item is added: "myDSL" and it unfolds to see "Gimp" !!

You can add as many items as you want the same way to that myDSL sub-menu !!!


Have FUN !!!


Bruno

NOTE: Recent versions of D*** Small Linux ( 2.0 ) have a GUI frontend for MyDSL downloads. You still need Emelfm to install the extentions, but it then even creates a desktop icon for the installed applications

INSTALLING MANDRAKE 10.0 OFFICIAL
( General instructions )


- Preparation:

If this is your first Linux install, check out Basic Rules for Install

If you are replacing a previous Mandrake Install back up:
- Your browser plugins located in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and /usr/lib/mozilla-1.4/plugins ( or 1.6 )
- The ~/evolution directory ( When I restore it, I chown it back to "chown -R bruno:bruno evolution" )
- The ~/.galeon/bookmarks.xbel ( or other bookmarks )
- Personal things in your /home directory
- Your /etc/lilo.conf ( if you are booting mutiple distro's )
- Your /etc/hosts, /etc/modules.conf, /etc/aliases, /etc/rc.d/rc.local, ~/.bashrc, ~/.exrc if you made any modification to these files.


- Set your BIOS to boot from CD and disable PNP aware OS.

- There are no errata available yet. -

- Put the first CD in the CD-ROM drive and boot your computer.


1st screen: The welcome screen. Press Enter


Before the GUI comes back the installer is loading into memory and devices are configured


2nd screen: Language selection, default is US English, Press Next



3rd screen: License agreement, select "yes" and Press Next



4th screen: Is this an install or an upgrade ? ( Click to enlarge )

Tick the box of "install" and Press Next ( Advice: NEVER use Upgrade !!! )



5th screen: Security level, fill in "root" or your email address and Press Next



6th screen: The DrakX Partitioning wizard found etc. etc.

- If you have your partitions already made: tick the box "use existing partitions" and Press Next
- If you still have to make partitions, or want to change the size of the existing ones: tick te box "Custom Disk Partitioning" and Press Next You will be taken to the very intuitive and easy partitioning tool.
Make a 4G partition for / and a 2G for /home.



7th screen: Choose file Mount points

Chose the partitons where you want / and /home and Press Next
( Everybody using partitions for /tmp and /usr too . . you know what to do )



8th screen: Choose the partitions you want to format

. . .all boxes have to be ticked and Press Next



9th screen: Packages

Do like in screenshot, tick all the boxes on the left, and only the last 3 on the right and Press Next
NOTE: Including Gnome will also give you all the gnome programs you can also use in KDE . . so even if you intent to never use Gnome it is better to install it anyway.

NOTE: in some cases, additionally checking the box "individual packages" and adding: kdegraphics-kdvi, koffice, xpdf, gimp data-extras, mplayer-ui, xine-ui, xmms, xmms-alsa, kdeadons, kget, xterm, bash-completion, kedit, usbview, kdeedu and nmap-frontend somehow corrects some little bug in the installer



Now the install really starts it takes about 16 minutes and you have to change CDs twice



10th screen: Root password, Fill in your rootpassword twice and Press Next



11th screen: Adding User, fill in name twice and password twice and Press Accept



12th screen: Adding another user, Press Next



13th screen: Auto login, . . de-select the box, you do not want this, and Press Next
NOTE: It is safer to not use this feature, and it makes that you can choose at boot what windowmanager to start. Also if you ever get a corrupted /home directory the non-autologin makes fixing a lot easier.



14th screen: Boot loader,

Select "First sector of drive ( MBR )" and Press Next
NOTE: It will automatically include your Windows partition for dual boot



15th screen: Summary, . . . . This is very important . . check all the settings, look at the difference I have in the two screenshots:

Before configuring


After configuring



16th screen:Updates . . . say yes and Press Next
NOTE: This feature rarely works, but still it is worth trying . . you will still have to do the updates in the MCC after the first reboot



18th screen:Complete . . remove your CD and Press Reboot


After reboot install Anacron and get the updates see this thread and subscribe to it and get notified as there are new updates posted.



Bruno


PS: There are more Tips for after the install in This Thread

LM-SENSORS

This is one of the more difficult/critical tweaks: LM-Sensors are for monitoring the temperatures, voltages, and fans of Linux systems with hardware monitoring devices.

Now, before we start you have to know that on some systems it is a piece of cake . . . and on other systems with badly supported motherboards, it is a real pain.

In most distros you can install LM-Sensors with the package management and they will be on the install CDs . . . if not get them here: http://www2.lm-sensors.nu/~lm78/ ( Do read there if your sensor chips and I2C are supported )

After installing the package, first do
Then you have to configure it by running "sensors-detect" as root . . . here is an example, with additional notes of how "sensors-detect" ran on my system:



Next step is running the test of the modules ( see warning above in RED. . we take info from the BLUE section above:

As you can see from the last command the sensors do work !! So now we can make the edits in the "modules.conf" and the "rc.local" files according to the BLUE sections in the output above:


After this you will have to reboot your system to see if the sensors load okay . . and then you can tweak Gkrellm to show the temperatures in the system-monitors on your desktop.

( Have a look here: http://web.wt.net/~billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.png )


Bruno


PS: Next time we will show you how to set up the temps in Gkrellm