Newbie help installing drivers

[HighLife]

Hey all, I decide to give linux a try on a second box and im wondering something.

 

Im using Mandrake 9.2 currently and can install programs that the Control Center find ( all of them *.*mdk ).

 

Like i said im extremely new to this and just messing around, but i cant seem to get the Control Center to find my newly downloaded drivers and software. I DL them to my home/name/documents. I try to add it and point it to the directory, but then the pop up comes and says nothing found.

 

Please take it easy on me =) im trying to learn =)

[HighLife]

anyone got any ideas at all?

[pmpatrick]

What drivers and what software have you downloaded and what form are they in? Mandrake uses the rpm package management system. These packages have a ".rpm" file extension. Drivers frequently do not come in this format and you have to do some different things to install them. Post back with more details and I will try to give you more specific help.

 

If you have a software package that is in rpm form that you downloaded, that's not too hard to install. Typically, you just click on the package and you'll be prompted for your root password afterwhich the install will proceed or you'll get an error message if there is some problem with the package. Downloaded packages like that are not seen in mcc.

[gem-in-eyez]

I too am interested in trying to understand how drivers work.

 

Where as with windows, when you download them you get an auto installer or you can down the files in to a directory and then just point to that folder to have the install setup grab them.

 

Of course that is windows, so with Linux does it work in the same fashion? Can I grab a driver from the net and untar...well let's say dump the files to a folder that I create and then tell the system that for the particular device I am trying to install that the drivers are located here and voila...it does its job, or is there more to it.

 

If you guys need an example, let's say I want to install drivers for my lexmark z515 inkjet printer.

So I go to http://www.mandriva.com/hardware/results and find from their lists a set of drivers for various printers. mine of course is not listed there, but was told that I can use another models drivers and it would work fine. So I find these drivers here:

http://www.mepis.org/node/7320

and I download them.... fortunately for these drivers someone has taken the liberty to tell us how to do the install but let's say for example there was no instructions, just a file.

What would I do? Hope this is a bit more in depth for you guys to help us out.

[tyme]

this topic covers the most common package types.

 

drivers, in linux, are called modules.

[Crashdamage]

As tyme said, 'drivers' are called 'modules' in Linux terms. Most modules are included in tthe kernel, but some must be loaded separately. How to do that will vary depending on the module, but generally it's just a matter of following instructions carefully, same as you would installing drivers in Windoze.

 

Software installation is actually easier in Linux than in Win. For a general overview of installing software, read this:

 

**Basic urpmi setup and usage**

 

Urpmi will easily and automagically take care of finding, downloading

and installing software and its dependencies, if any. The "Software

Management" utility in Mandriva Control Center is a simple to use GUI

frontend for urpmi, the software management utility. Think of the

Software Management utility in Mandriva as roughly the equivilent to the

"Add/Remove Software" utility in Windows Control Center. But it's also

very easy and more powerful to use urpmi from the command line.

 

Of course you can install software from your CDs, but to best use either

the GUI installer or urpmi manually, particularly if you have a

broadband connection, it's best to first set up online sources for

downloading, installing and updating software. To do this you need to

know how to 'su' to become the 'root' adminstrator, which is very

simple. Just open a terminal and at the '$' prompt do this:

 

$ su

Password: <type.your.root.password>

#

 

Note that the cursor changed from '$' to '#' indicating you now have

'root' administrator rights, so be careful! Think of this as similar

to the difference between being a 'user' or an 'administrator' in

Win2k/XP. If you don't fully understand the 'su' process or what root

permissions mean some simple Googling will explain it.

 

Now to setup your online software sources. Go here:

 

http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

 

Follow the directions to setup your online package sources. Choose

them carefully, staying with sources for your particular version of

Mandriva. You'll want to add the main sources for your distro version,

updates, Contrib, PLF free and non-free, and maybe the Seer of Souls

and/or Thac's rpms.

Warning!! Add the Cooker sources at your own risk. Cooker is beta

stuff still in testing for the next release and may or may not cause

you serious problems.

 

When you've finished setting up your source mirrors you can start using

the real power of urpmi. You can now install/uninstall a package using

your newly-setup online sources either by using the Software Manager GUI

in Mandriva Control Center, or better, by using urpmi manually from the

ommand line.

 

To install manually with urpmi open a terminal, 'su' to root, then type:

 

# urpmi -v <packagename> ('-v' for verbose output is optional, but I

like the extra info it provides and always use it)

 

Note that usually <packagename> can be just the 'simple' version. Using

the text email client Mutt for an example, instead of typing the full

package name:

 

# urpmi -v mutt-1.5.9i-8mdk.i586.rpm

 

Use:

 

# urpmi -v mutt

 

That's it! That's all you have to do do install! With that simple

command urpmi will automagically go to the 'Net sources you choose, find

and download the latest available Mutt rpm for your version of Mandriva,

grab any other packages needed to resolve all dependencies and install

everything in the correct order. If urpmi cannot complete the

installation, either because all the required software isn't available

on the source mirrors you choose or possibly some other conflict(s), it

will stop the install process before any actual changes are made to the

system and give you some info about the problem.

 

Similarly, for packages you've downloaded and saved, just use the 'cd'

command to navigate to the directory where you saved them:

 

# cd /mysaved/rpm/is.here

 

Then (for this, you will need to use the full packagename):

 

# urpmi -v <packagename>

 

Uninstalling a package is simply 'urpme' instead of 'urpmi'.

 

Be aware that while using rpms compiled for other versions of Mandriva

or for other distros can sometimes be done, mixing up rpm packages

between versions or distros is NOT recommended or the faint of heart.

It is very possible to trash your system unless you really know what

you're doing. Always try to use correct rpms for your distro and

version whenever possible. In the case of Mandriva so many packages are

available it's almost always possible to find what you need in a correct

rpm.

Think of mixing up rpm packages as similar to installing Windows

software where installing something on Win98 but meant for WinXP (or

vice-versa) may not work and may even break things.

 

But unlike Windows, Linux and urpmi allows you to first do a 'test'

installation in such cases instead of having to just try installing and

see what happens. To do a test install, do this:

 

# urpmi -v --test <packagename>

 

This does a 'dry run' to check if the package(s) can be sucessfully

installed but without actually changing anything on the system. If all

is well, the test will end with "Installation is possible" and you can

remove the '--test' switch and install normally.

 

It's important to always install rpms, not from tarballs (.targz,

.tar.gz, which are often raw source code) when using any rpm-based

distro like RedHat, Suse or Mandriva, at least until you have a good

understanding of just what you're doing. This is also true of '.deb'

package based distros such as Debian or Ubuntu.

Why?

Because if you always install rpms (or .debs), then Mandriva's urpmi (or

Suse's YAST, Debian's apt or whatever package manager) is able to

properly keep track of everything installed on your system and so keep

everything correctly configured, updated and avoid conflicts. But if

you install any packages from source tarballs no information about that

package or the files it installed are entered into the urpmi database.

You then have a situation where urpmi may not properly keep things

straight since it has no info about the installed tarballs or their

contents. The chances of installing from tarballs breaking anything is

fairly slight, but it can happen, so why risk it if you don't have to?

Also, software installed from a rpm package is often easier to uninstall

than that installed from a tarball.

 

Sometimes a particular piece or a newer version of software may only be

available as a source tarball. No problem. It's very easy make your

own rpms from source tarballs with a handy utility called checkinstall,

included on the Mandriva CDs. In a nutshell, checkinstall makes a

simple .rpm package by replacing the traditional compile and install

commands:

 

./configure

make

make install

 

With:

 

./configure

make

checkinstall

 

I won't go into more detail about checkinstall here. Google for more

info about it or install the checkinstall package and type

'man checkinstall' in a terminal.

 

This should be enough to get you going. For more info, open a terminal

and type 'man urpmi" or do some Googling, particularly 'easy urpmi'.

Lotsa info available.

[gem-in-eyez]

yeah I had read the topic before and found it really interesting. that I can use a simple command "urpmi" and be able to install and update my system with ease. No longer searching for the app on line and downing it and then installing. As long as the file is hosted in the sources then I can get it and install it. and with webmin, it allows me to search for the appz beforehand.

 

What I also saw and found interesting was that different distros have different commands for getting updates and doing installs. Like ubuntu, it uses the sudo apt-get install "filename" in order to install the application . For this reason I found Webmin very handy. for a newb like me it allows me to search for files or files similar to what I want for my particular distro. for example in ubuntu.... the updated apache is called apache2.

 

seems like webmin is one of the best tools a newb has till he learns his distro.

 

 

So to make sure I got this straight then, my module (driver) can be in the format of a tar, rpm, and so forth fileformat and thus depending on what it is, is how I will be installing it? And most of the times the file does come with instructions on how to install. Am I correct in this?

[ianw1974]

Yes, they usually do come with instructions, at least for source. With rpm, you'd just be downloading the rpm, so the install instructions would probably be on the webpage where you got it from. With rpm though, it's really just a case of:

 

rpm -Uvh filename.rpm

 

The U is for upgrade, you can use I for install instead, but U would do an install if it wasn't already there to upgrade anyhow. Depending where you got the rpm from, you could do a search for more info on the app just in case there is an install guide for rpm somewhere.

 

The rpm should tell you about dependencies if it needs them, and the documentation would probably mention these too.

 

With source, you'd need your kernel source for drivers/modules because you would be compiling them into the kernel. There may be other dependencies too, ATI drivers are common one for these, such as expat and others that need to be installed first. Normally when installing ati rpm's, it would tell you of what is required and list accordingly for install. Source usually has instructions in it somewhere.

[gem-in-eyez]

Awesome, pretty straightforward then. I guess the source part is what would give me problems then. Being as, I don't know much about compiling and such just yet. But I assume that when I get to that point I would have a real grasp on the other types of installation ways. & of course the phenominal help and support tat guys offer!

 

Thanks, much appreciated.

 

Oh btw, just to note: When I went to add the sources to my system for upgrades and downloads, I noticed that for my drakebox 9.0, I cannot get any support for a majority of the packages. What I had to do was state that I had a version 9.2 (I believe) and then use the sources that it provided for me. So far things run smoothe and I haven't had any issues as yet. So in case there are other newbs reading this and are at the same point give it a try. It helped me.

Edited May 11, 2006 by gem-in-eyez