willisoften

Quick Description Writing script which prompts user for directory in which a number of txt files are stored. The script then parses them for a particular heading and writes names of those files to another record file. The Script actually works Hooray! One Small problem: If you don't enter a directory and just hit Enter then you are in your home directory. The script recognises this as valid and continues. I'd like to stop this from happening if I can. I've tried a number of solutions like read $DIRECTORY if [ -d $DIRECTORY ] && [ $DIRECTORY != $HOME ] continue... but none of these work not even if you type /home/whatever $HOME expands to for the read $DIRECTORY Any ideas? Can I stop the script from continuing if someone just hits enter at this point?

This technology is changing rapidly and there are now a number of variations on ADSl even within europe there are also a greater number of ADSL routers gateways modems wireless routers etc and forever. I imagine that Mandrake have a hard time prioritizing. Even so: I find it a bit strange that you've had so much bother with Mandrake. Perhaps something has changed significantly? Or it might be a hardware specific issue. I remember we had a hell of a time getting people connected with Thompsons first purple speedtouch when they first took over Alcatel. Largely the damn thing seemed to make it's own decisions. It's been fairly easy for me since 8.1 (USB speedtouch known as the frog - unloved by everyone!) I used to have a howto on the previous mandrake users site. Or maybe the one before that. <G> I'm old.... It was involved but not actually all that difficult. You had to create a number of config files yourself and save them in appropriate directories. A lot of it was just copy and paste - I wonder if it would still work........ should do I would think. I wonder where it is? There were a number of other steps too, download install some rpm, download extract something and save it to such and such directory. Tedious but not difficult. It did however work for a number of people when all else failed. There was a guy in the states who worked out all the real technical stuff but I'm damned if I can remember his handle. I just did some pppOa stuff and UK specific settings. Got to go train to catch. Have fun on the internet.

I'd be inclined to leave it alone if it's working. The rpm certainly used to work for older alcatel speedtouch models but AFAIK you'll still have to get the Microde from Thompson / Alcatel and copy it to wherever it has to go. (I'm using Debian at the moment so my memory is a bit sketchy). The kernel-space driver for the older Alcatel usb speedtouch is now part of the kernel tree so I'm not sure if the rpm does anything useful if you've got a later 2.4 or newer 2.6 kernel. It's good to know that you searched for a solution found it and applied it yourself and got your stuff working successfully. Congratulations! It'll give others confidence too.

More info please. Did you upgrade a Mandrake installation or Install 10 from the beginnning. Type of speedtouch? 330 is this USB? Who is your provider? You are from Turkey and your are now in Switzerland? Was it working in Turkey for instance? But n not in Switzerland. = Differenet VCI VPI numbers. Have you changed username with your provider but not in /etc/ppp/peers/adsl (May be different location on your system) In /etc/resolv.conf or /etc/ppp/resolv.conf do you have any values set for name servers? Have you changed your password with your provider but not in /etc/ppp/chap-secrets or pap-secrets? If everything seems right try as root pppd call adsl and take note of any error messages. If you have tried to set it up to start at boot try as root /etc/init.d/ speedtouch start Take a note of any error messages. If you get the message that failed xxxx module could not be found it's because kernel 2.6 does things differently! run lsmod to find out what modules you are loading. Your looking for usbcore theres a list usb comes in several flavours ohci uhci ehci what you need depends on where your speedtouch is plugged in I have all three types running on this machine! Find /etc/speedtouch.conf edit the line DEFAULT_USBINTERFACE="usb-xxxx" to read DEFAULT_USBINTERFACE="xxxx-hcd" Be careful backup the file before you start. Try as root /etc/init.d/ speedtouch start see if anything happens. If you aren't specific I can't help.

What sort of speedtouch? USB? 330? Anyway I'm not using Mandrake at the moment but the connection process is fairly simple. Not so simple if you haven't done it before. I don't thing you need to put anything specific into that field just a name for the connection. BT will do. You can enter a couple of ip (nameserver) numbers too if I remember correctly. Phone and ask BT for them - you shouldn't actually need them. I'm using these: BT nameservers. 194.72.9.39 194.74.65.87 Username is the full thing user@hgxx.btinternet.com Password: uknowthisnotme VCI 0 VPI 38 Do you have the mgmt.o file copied to the appropriate folder? I'm not sure what it is anymore! Used to be /usr/share/speedtouch/ I use an old USB Speedtouch which was easily connected using my Debian install. Setup in Mandrake was even simpler. It does take a few minutes and used to tell you you weren't connected and couldn't connect and then you would be. I'll be away for a couple of weeks mail me at wcopelan@ie.ibm.com if your stuck and I'll try to be of help. My time is limited at the moment though - Patience! You will get it working.

OK This is personal experience: Theres no guarantee that any of the ideas below will work flawlessly for you but they did for me! Just some ideas to kick around. I take no responsibility for people who wander around playing in the bios, overwriting mbrs, or carrying boot disks in public. Whatever happens is the sole responibility of headlessspider. I blame the parents......... I have two disks one with Linux (Debian at the moment) and one with XP pro <boooo!!>. I have used Mandrake in the recent past (9.2) I have done it both ways lilo on the mbr and lilo on the / or first linux-disk partition. The first is usually safe - I have had no problems. For the second: I'll presume your talking about a Windows disk. IF it's 98 I've never heard of a problem installing the bootloader on the MBR. It's easily restored anyway . But as you don't want to do it that way: Set Linux up as master on it's ide channel . Set the other OS as Master on a different ide channel. Load grub or lilo to the first partiton of your linux drive. Not to the MBR. Select whichever device you want to boot in the Bios. 1st Boot device Floppy 2nd Boot Device ide0 or whatever you want to boot. NB Windows of all flavours is often only happy as master on ide0. (Mine is master on ide3 - so go figure it's an old raid m'board) From my shaky memory - doing it this way you'll get the option to boot Windows using Lilo /grub when you switch to boot linux in the bios - and it'll probably work too! Nice. Alternatively: Set linux up as your boot drive. Install grub / lilo on first partion of your linux disk set other os up as master on a seperate ide channel. And let lilo boot it . You can sometimes move a full XP install to a new channel and it will remain happy. I don't guarantee it though. Might be worth trying. Don't drop the damn hard drive. Alternatively : Install the boot loader on a floppy. As for your original HDD Back everything up again just for the hell of it. It's your insurance policy against making a mistake, misinterpreting instructions during an install, dropping your computer spilling coke on it etc.. I'll be happy to answer any more questions but I'm actually working in Dublin at the moment and won't be back home for a few weeks maybe a month. Keep posting here other peole will be along. Many / most ? of them have more experience than me.

Pretty much everything has been said but : They are both good workstation distros = if you want to get down to doing useful stuff. I seem to spend more time fiddling with other distros than working with them. For comparison you should also throw RedHat / Fedora into the equation. For me Mandrake is consistently the most efficient / responsive / fastest / useful. But servers are a different ballgame.

Doesn't quite cut it, as it still doesn't write to NTFS (although it can if you make it). I'm doing this at work so I'm prepared get someone else to pay! It would do 90% of the machines thoug Does partimage back up the mbr as part of the image or is it still something that has to be done seperately? If seperately it's not something I could rely on users to look after. There seems to be a suggestion that it does - but the documentation still mentions backing it up seperately.

Open Source Disk Imaging? What I want: Create an image of any partition Fat 32 / Reiser FS / NTFS / EXT3 etc Boot from and works from a couple of floppies or a single CD. No installation on specific hardware required(This is one of the things that really annoys me about Ghost. you got to install the Windows version to create the DOS boot disc containing Ghost.exe I've seen a few when I Googled but I'd like a reccomendation or two. Sorry Mr/Mrs/Miss Moderator - move this for me please. [moved from Offtopic by spinynorman]

Calm down guys! I'd guess that we're talking about what a new user probably an ex Windows user expects or needs to see on his desktop. My Computer equivalent. Network Places / Connections If you have a Windows partiition that should turn up as well. Label the Kmenue button as Menu or Start. Reusability and familiarity are important marketing concepts! From a personal perspective I like it. It's clean, tidy, fairly attractive and easy to manipulate.

OK the reason for doing this the awkward way is awkward people. Some don't want to pay for broadband so the dial up will stay. Some want broadband but don't want to pay for a wireless network card. Some want broadband wirelessly. All these combinations in a group of just 9 people! I'm trying to satisfy all of the people all of the time!! I'm guessing that software to access both the WAP and the settings for internet access will need to be installed set on each wireless client.

OK I'm in Dublin. A group of people in my building would like to club together to buy broadband. There is a small LAN already in place. (Sort of) Basically the PC's on the LAN all connect to a switch the switch connects to a 56K modem. I'd like to connect to the internet without doing any cabling. I need to plug a wireless access point into the switch. BUT I don't want to have to install any software on any computer except my own. There is no server. It's not even a peer to peer network in the sense that none of the PC's are actually meant connect to each other - they supposedly just share the modem. I'm not sure what sort of hardware to look at. I think that all I need is a simple Wireless Access Point which will plug into the switch. This should allow wireless and wired people to access the internet via a broadband router. Is there anything wrong with this scenario - anything I need to consider when purchasing a wireless access point?

The Irish government is supposedly now the most corrupt in Europe. So if this decision was "bought" it wouldn't surprise me. Secondly: Microsoft, is now one of the biggest employers in Ireland along withIntel and Symantec. The only bigger employer is the Irish government itself. Basically the entire Celtic Tiger economy is dependant on these companies. So while it may seem that the decision is "bent" it may simply be a good pragmatic political decision. Probably an over simplification -but that's my take on it.

Thanks aru. How are Valencia doing this season? Haven't heard much about them on British television.

JFTR I never actually bought a tape drive though if I'd owned one I'd have been happy using it. I currently have a DVD burner so I tar.gzip everything I need and save it on a fat32 partiton and back it up under windows :woops: Hopefully someday soon I'll get DVD burning working under linux. My favoured solution would actually be an external hard drive - just because they are very convenient - I find I tend to put stuff off if it's not dead easy. I think you could actually link your home directory to it and write to it every time you write to your home directory. On the other hand look out for Mount Rainier (MRW) being supported in the 2.6 kernel. Packet writing supported in linux... a dream come true.

Actually he's one of the best lecturer's we have - truly entertaining, interested, enthusiastic and easy to talk to. I guess you just can't be good at all things all the time. He actually teaches operating system theory, but he was timetabled for a practical slot once a week. He decided we should all get some practical OS experience with a different operating system. (RedHat) It's actually extra work for him as it's not really part of his module. We get course work credit for it too. How good can you get? I've tried the script you wrote aru and it works like a charm. Wish I could thought of it at the time! Not enough experience- more practice required.

I've done the test and there was no foreach question on it. Everything was OK but there was one question I couldn't do (posted it elswhere) We were expected to use the cshell. the syntax I have goes foreach colour (red green blue yellow) echo a colour $colour end You type the first statement at the $ prompt after you hit enter then each succeeding statement at a special foreach ? prompt it executes at end <enter> According to the student demonstrator you use the foreach in live terminal sessions not in scripts. He could be right. though that wasn't what the original tutorial sheet suggested. Is there a good book on bash scripting? Web tutorials abound, but I'd like something that would lie on a desk. thanks to all Will

Unfortunately no. That's all it says and it happens intermitently. Not on every boot. I have moved bash history as suggested and so far so good. Maybe I'll look into clearing the history on shutdown or creating a new history file on boot. Should be possible. At the weekend I'll run memtest all night and see what happens.

Downloaded memtest86 made the floppy and booted it. No errors reported. it took a couple of hours to run all the tests not too bad I thought it might take longer. So anymore suggestions? It doesn't really look like the memory - I did add another memory module just before this 9.2 install but Windows and 9.1 ran without problems. (If I could satisfy myself it was the memory I could get a replacement or refund.) Could it be that with so much bash scripting done on this machine that bash history is causing a problem? Is there a limit to the size of a text file or is that just M$ Notepad ? The modules seem to be solidly seated and not dusty - I blast with compressed air in a can. I'd never vacumn them!

Thanks aru I've a felling the lecturer meant us to use the at command and that the question might have been badly worded. I can't see any way to do what he asked with the things we've learned in previous weeks - thanks for your solution though, it's good to look at new stuff as well.

I had a scripting test today which went well but there was one question I didn't get Write a script Without using the sleep command which will cause the message "One hour has now elapsed!" to be written to your terminal 1 hour later. Sounds simple but I just couldn't do it. The at command which we have been using in tutorials mails a message an hour later. That's the only idea I had. Scripting guru required so I can sleep tonight. (Obsessive personality)

The BIOS checks the memory at every boot and it looks ok / The KDE tool Configuration / KDE / Information / Memory looks good too. So I'm at a loss. Physical memory is 1024MB there's swap partition 392MB created automatically with this installation of 9.2 - maybe this should be bigger? Though it seems to me that physical memory is plenty big enough without worrying about the swap partition.

This could be an installation or hardware problem or maybe even a programming shell problem which is why I've stuck it in off topic. Problem machine keeps freezing up solid. Things I've done recently: Installed 9.2 (OK I'm behind 9.1 wasn't broke so why fix it - then I fixed it anyway) installed a DVD burner - not yet running under mandrake. Installed a UPS seems to work perfectly how could it be connected to freezing? Lots of bash scripting mostly using vi Worked for a solid 16 hours (revision <G>) Machine freezes does not respond to mouse or keyboard. Occasionally getting a message on boot something like crc failed cyclic redundancy check? Any of the above possibly connected? Always seems to happen when I'm working in the terminal but then I've been doing little else recently. I can reinstall if I have too I haven't much stored on home except a few downloads and I never format it anyway. So if anyone has an idea where I should start let me know.

Theres a foreach in the c shell I can now make it work at the prompt but it won't work, as yet, when written into a script. A little annoying but not the ned of the world it's only one excercies out of about 50. ned ? I think I meant end but the ned of the world sounds pretty good! :D

OK some more information: apparently there is no foreach in korn / bash only in the cshell foreach? is the prompt to type the next instruction on typing end at the foreach? prompt the loop should execute. Why it's not working I have no idea.