banjo

There is, indeed a firewall in the router. Unfortunately, it is blocking access to the email accounts at my hosting service unless I set it at the lowest level of security. It is enabled (it was disabled by default), but at the lowest level, which is defined as: I don't know enough about firewalls yet to figure out what is being blocked or how to get around it, so I am hitting the books. Thanks for the pointer to shorewall, I will read up on it. Banjo (_)=='=~

I thought that I would post a final followup on this topic even though it has been dormant a while. I finally got my DSL connection going today, and my Mandy 9.1 came up runnin'. I had to use my fnWindoze computer to install the DSL service because that is the only thing that will run Verizon's setup program. But once I had the service started, all I had to do for the Linux box was to plug the computer into the modem/router and boot it, and it came up online. Now I need to go research some firewall software. Any suggestions? Linux rocks! Banjo (_)=='=~

It did offer the first time. I said "OK go ahead" and it posted an error that the web site was not available. So maybe the network was glitchy. I am on dialup (for now.... DSL soon). I will try again later to see if I can get it to work. Right now I am using it to chat in clear air. It works great now that I am using it correctly LOL. Thanks for the help. I'll let the board know how it turns out. Banjo (_)=='=~

OK. Boy is my face red........ I just ran aMSN again and tried logging into my hotmail in clear air...... and the previous problem was that I had not entered my whole logon name. I had left off the "@hotmail" part. So, now that I have entered the proper account name it comes right up. I knew it was something stupid that I was doing. RTFM I still don't have the "tcl TLS" think that it says it needs. Anybody know if this is something in addition to the system TLS code that is already here? I don't want to clobber my working email by installing anything on top of it. Thanks to the fine folks on this board for the help. Linux rocks! Banjo (_)=='=~

I don't have it here in front of me at work. I will have to look it up when I get home. I downloaded the source tarball from http://amsn.sourceforge.net/ I think it is version 0.93 Maybe I should try the Mandy rpm? Banjo (_)=='=~

I downloaded the tarball of amsn and unzipped it. Following the directions, it runs OK out of the box. However, when I try to connect, it tells me that TLS is not installed. I know for a fact that it is installed because my KMail uses it. I pointed aMsn to /usr/lib, where the SSL stuff resides, but it still tells me that TLS is not installed. The error box says that "tcl TLS" is not installed, whatever that is. Is that a tcl plugin required to use TLS? Or is it looking for TLS itself? Isn't TLS included in SSL? I finally told it to go ahead and install what it wanted, and it popped up an error saying that the web site it needs is not available. Anybody know what it is looking for and where it might be? I am running a standard Mandy 9.1 install. Anyway, I told it to connect without using SSL (ok, so somebody can get in and steal my Hotmail SPAM, the horror!) and then it sends a blip out the network and sits there doing nothing but blinking the "Logging On" icon. Nothing more goes out the net or comes back in. It sits there blinking until I ctl-C. aMsn is getting good reviews on this board, but I cannot get it to do anything for me but err out. I must be missing something simple. Thanks for the help Banjo (_)=='=~

Just as a followup note to this fiasco......... For any other noobs out there............. Go here: http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/linux/index.php and get knoppix on a CD. It absolutely saved my bacon today. It will cost you $0.99 plus $1.50 postage for a total of $2.49. Don't wait until the crash to order it. I have no financial interest in edmunds, but I can recognize when my bacon has been saved. Banjo (_)=='=~

Never mind............. I actually found the answer in the topic: "Mandrakelinux is destroyed!!!! - SOLVED, unbelievable ..... i" and should not have asked this question again. Sorry sorry sorry .............. I did not search long enough to find the answer. The Nvidia README says that it may be necessary to edit /etc/security/console.perms and delete the line with <dri> in it................ if the permissions on the nvidia files were reported too restictive.....which it did.............. and which I did....... After that I could run Doom3 ok, but the reboot failed. And then I couldn't run anything any more. So I went back into the file using knoppix and put the line back and changed the permissions for <dri> from 0600 to 0666 and it boots........ and the graphics programs run. Whew! This is the best board ever. Linux rocks. Now, if you will excuse me................ I am going to go do a backup............. Banjo (_)=='=~

HELP! I installed a new nvidia driver and everything seemed to be OK. I rebooted several times and all was well. I ran doom3 and now when I reboot, Linux tells me that it cannot mount /dev/hda1 because the file system is not recognizable. It says perhaps the superblock is corrupt. I booted the install CD in rescue mode and told it to mount the drives. It did so successfully. It all looks OK. I booted to knoppix and ran fsck on /dev/hda1 and it tells me that it is clean. When I mount /dev/hda1 in knoppix all of the data is there. Any ideas why Linux cannot mount my drive? Is there anything I can do? Can anybody help? I am over my head. I would post /etc files etc, but I cannot get at them because I am on another computer. Thanks in advance Banjo (_)=='=~

Thanks for the info. I will give that a try and see if it helps. Banjo (_)=='=~

I am trying to run Doom3 on my Mandy 9.1 and it will not run. The problem looks like a driver problem so I downloaded a newer Nvidia driver. The graphics card that I'm using is the GeForce 3 Ti200. When I installed the latest version of nVidia's unified graphics driver for Linux IA32 (version 6111) and restarted the computer, X11 wouldn't start. I got the error that the nVidia kernel was unable to initialize and that it aborted. So I removed the new driver and reinstalled the older one to get the system back up. The drivers that I had working before (that came with the Mandrake 9.1 distro) were version 4321 and were comprised of two rpms, the kernel and the GLX packages. When the 6111 driver was being installed, it asked if I wanted to delete the GLX rpm, and I said yes, though it didn't ask about the kernel rpm. Anybody know what I did wrong? The new driver is supposed to work with our kernel, which is 2.4.21-0.13mdk. What is necessary to install the newest nVidia drivers on Mandrake 9.1? Do I need to uninstall the two driver 4321 rpms first? Thanks in advance. Banjo (_)=='=~

Having this board certainly helps discover the answers. I also found some answers at this link: www.linux-mag.com/2001-05/routing_01.html which discusses how Linux routers operate. So I guess that for the dialup the ISP DHCP server is sending the info. When I finally hook up my lan the router DHCP server will do the same. Linux is so kewl. Banjo (_)=='=~

I made some more discoveries about what my Linux system is doing for networking. and I thought that I would post them here in case anybody else is wondering about these questions. I dialed up my ISP and logged on. Then I did a route command to see what my routing table looks like. Here is the output: [root@localhost proc]# route -n Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 208.200.159.28 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 ppp0 127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo 0.0.0.0 208.200.159.28 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 ppp0 [root@localhost proc]# Then, I hung up the phone and executed the route command again and got: [root@localhost proc]# route -n Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo [root@localhost proc]# Nothing left but the loopback. So, I guess the system knows where to go for internet through the routing table (makes sense) and some nice daemon somewhere has changed it based on my connection to the ISP. But here is a more confusing result...... I also dumped out the /etc/resolv.conf file in those two situations, and here is what I got. While online: and after hanging up: That explains where the system is getting the DNS addresses. Something is changing the system setup files automatically. Is that the way resolv.conf is supposed to work? Shades of fnWindoze! What is it that changes the resolv.conf file on the fly? I looked for routed: and got nothing but the grep command, so it looks like routed is not running...? Anyway, it looks like the internet locations just happen automatically by updating the routing tables. So I am assuming that once I hook up a valid eth0 to a hardware router running DHCP the routing tables will be fixed up to send the TCP/IP requests out to the proper place...... unless I confuse it by trying to use the dialup at the same time.... :D We shall see. But I would still like to know what is keeping the information updated. Any gurus out there? If I find out any more info I will post it 'cause I'm having fun. Linux rocks! Banjo (_)=='=~ [formatted by spinynorman]

Thanks for the tip. I will look into it. I don't have the hardware yet. I am studying the issues before I actually go in and mess it all up LOL. Looks like they have a Windowesque wizard. But I always wonder what the wizards are doing to my system..... Banjo (_)=='=~

I think I just found an answer to one of my own questions. It appears that when going through a hardware router, the ISP DNS addresses are entered into the router during setup. That makes sense. Name resolution is then handled by the router. Now if I can figure out how Linux knows where to look for the network, i.e. eth0 or the dialup connection, I will be on my way to grokking this system better. Banjo (_)=='=~

Hello, This is a very basic question, but I have not been able to dig the information out of all the details that I am finding in the HOWTO's and other docs. I guess it is just so obvious that it isn't written down anywhere. But I can't figure it out. I must still be a noob. Here is my situation: My Mandy 9.1 currently uses dialup. It works fine. If I try to access the net without a connection it says that the net is not accessible, which is also fine because the net is truly not available. Once I dial up, everything is found OK. All is well. I grok. However..... I plan on moving to broadband soon through a router (the hardware isn't set up yet) which means that all my net traffic will have to go through eth0 instead of through the modem. That is fine too, but..... How does Linux know not to look at the modem for the net access? How does it know to look at eth0 for the net? Will I have to manually configure the system to switch it to the ethernet? If so, where is that information stored? Right now it just somehow knows to look at the modem, but I have no idea how. For example, my DNS servers are configured in the dialup. That is fine while I am using dialup. But if I switch over to ethernet, where do the DNS addresses come from? All the information I have found about the route tables etc. assume that it has an IP address? I need a DNS to get the first IP address. Where does the DNS address come from if not from the dialup? Once it has a DNS IP, how does it know to look to eth0 instead of the modem for net access? This question is more of a "How does it work?" question rather than a "Please solve my problem" question. I want to know how this works before I attempt to set it up. Anybody have any pointers to some very high level docs about how all this network stuff hangs tegether in the Linux box? I am interested in the high level flow, not the details of protocols and routing tricks. Thanks in advance Banjo Linux rocks!

However, you should be aware that people have built entire careers on Unix shell scripting......... It can be a huge topic, but much much more powerful than DOS batch files. Banjo (_)=='=~

After bootup, my Mandy 9.1 shows the normal box with a list of users for login. The box shows four user names by default. Since there are five of us, a scrollbar is displayed to get down to the fifth user name. I would prefer to show all five user names just for aesthetic reasons and be rid of that annoying scrollbar. Is there any way to set the number of users that can be shown in the box? If not, is there any way that I can specify the order of the names in the list so that I can put the least used user at the bottom? Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~

Well, I am running Firefox now to give it a whirl. It does boot faster than my old Moz. While setting this up I found out about the "about:config" command. I also now know about the "about:plugins" command. Can anybody give me a pointer to the complete set of "secret about" commands in the browser? These look to be very useful for getting into the skivvies of the thing to make it crank. Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~

Ah, yes. I did the upgrades to the configuration. I can't tell if it makes it faster or not because my 56 K is obviously a bottleneck. I'm not complaining. Firefox seems to work just fine. It does, indeed boot considerably faster than Mozilla on both platforms...... and I only use the browser. I use Quanta for composing web sites and Kmail for mail. I will go look for the plugins. Thanx for the pointers. Banjo (_)=='=~

I installed Firefox here at work on Win 2000 and it looks good. Very fast. So I installed it on my Mandy 9.1 at home. It seems to run OK, but it is not substantially faster than my old Mozilla. In fact, even though it boots up faster, the page rendering is pretty much the same as Moz. That is probably due to the fact that my home system talks over a 56 K modem (we have broadband here at work). I am not seeing a major improvement by moving from Mozilla 1.3 to Firefox 9.1 and I wonder if I am missing something. Firefox looks like Moz and acts like Moz and appears to be Moz in a different skin. So what is it about Firefox that is supposed to make it superior to my old Moz? I am not taking a cheap shot at Firefox or trying to be snide. I reallly am wondering if I have missed a main feature or benefit of Firefox that would make it worthwhile to go over to it. What are the other benefits of using Firefox? Anybody want to provide any illumination? Thanks Banjo (_)=='=~

Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. I guess that is the fastest way to do it. I would probably use the CLI instead of Konqueror to do the copy. I come from the old Unix days of iron men and wooden boats, so it just feels right to do those operations with a command. But I am gettin' kinda lazy with all this GUI stuff. This Linux ain't yer granpa's Unix no siree. Thanks for the hint. Banjo (_)=='=~

I have created a user account on my Mandy 9.1 and now I am unhappy with the name. Just another tragic mouse accident! I would like to change the name of the user to something else. Is it possible to change the name of an existing user account without mucking up the whole thing.? Other than renaming the home directory and correcting /etc/passwd, what else needs to be done? Can the control panel do this for me? (I am not sitting at my Linux box right at the moment or I would look that one up). The only thing wrong with the account is the name, so I would rather not have to start all over again creating a new user and deleting the old one. Thanks in advance Banjo (_)=='=~

Thanks for the info. I will see about downloading Firefox at work tomorrow where we have broadband........... I run on a 56K here at home, and that can be painful for large downloads. I will post back later with the results. Banjo (_)=='=~

Thanks. Maybe I will give it a try here at work (on fnWindoze) tomorrow to see how it looks. If I like it I can try it on my Mandy at home. Any idea if it will run on my old Mandy 9.1? Banjo (_)=='=~