aru Posted January 15, 2003 Report Share Posted January 15, 2003 ambrandt Newbie Joined: 01 Dec 2002 Posts: 5 Location: USA Post Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2002 9:40 am Post subject: Various things _________________________________________________________________ Hey all! I'm still a very much newbie to linux (I did manage to get Mandrake 8.0 installed on my IBM Aptiva which now dualboots Mandrake 8.0 and Win98). I still can't figure out how to install anything on my laptop (That's a long story)... but I am definitely satisfied with the whole Linux environment and usability! Here is the system layout if that'll help any: IBM Aptiva E2N-2153 4 gig HDD 8x internal CD-ROM 2 USB1.1 ports 500 MHz processor (which runs at a max of 290 due ot motherboard limit) 160 Megs RAM Crystal PNP audio chipset (soldered to motherboard) ATI Rage Pro Turbo AGP 1X (soldered to motherboard) 2 Megs video RAM And, of course, Win98 (OEM version) which dualboots with Mandrake 8.0 thru Lilo My problems are these: 1) I have 2 CD-ROMs (one is an internal drive which Linux sees and the other is a Hewlett Packard CD-Writer+8200 USB burner which Linux does not see). I have gone through the control panel and found this much as follows: Vendor: HP Model: CD-Writer+8200 Device: /dev/scd0 Bus type: SCSI What I can't figure out is how do I talk Linux into recognizing it so that I can use it? 2) I admit that I have tons of Windows programs (like everything I have is Windows... Office 2000, AOL, and all my games) and I would like to run them under Linux. What do I need to use in order to do this? Can I get it free? 3) This one may sound a little lame and stupid, but it's been bugging me for the longest time... how do I log in as root? What I am trying to do is set my username so that it has all the priveleges of root and still have other usernames so that my folks can play around with Mandrake as well. If I can figure these few things out, I am about ready to make the change to Linux and of course, teach my folks how to use it (dad's still learning how to use the internet pretty much and mom's just barely able to use Microsoft Paint). I know this much: Linux is much more stable than Windows and much more user friendly than goofy Windows! theYinYeti Senior user Joined: 13 May 2002 Posts: 452 Location: Cannes (France) Post Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2002 11:42 am Post subject: Re: Various things _________________________________________________________________ ambrandt wrote: 2) I admit that I have tons of Windows programs (like everything I have is Windows... Office 2000, AOL, and all my games) and I would like to run them under Linux. What do I need to use in order to do this? Can I get it free? There are two kinds of products: virtual environments (you run Windows inside a window Smile ) and Wine-based products (a compatibility layer to Linux to make Windows binaries run). - Of the first kind, the best available is VMWare (costs a lot, is very reliable, no 3D-acceleration): you will install Windows and your programs as usual inside a "virtual PC", made up from memory and some disk space. On the other extreme, you have Bochs, which is the same but free and slower. In between, you have Win4Lin, which is very good-quality and does not cost as much as VMWare, and really enough for what you'll do (except games because no 3D). - Of the second kind, there are Wine, WineX, and CodeWeavers' Wine-products. Wine is a free Win32-compatability layer (including 3D): you don't need Windows, though you can use your existing installation if you have one. Programs you install are placed on your normal Linux filesystem, and when executed, they behave almost the same as other Linux programs. Of course, this is too good to be totally true: Wine is still in heavy development, and many programs still won't work with wine (3D support is very "experimental"). There are web site where you can go to see if your programs will work or not (or if you have to see for yourself; it's free, after all). Because Wine is not enough for some people (either too hard to install, or not good enough), companies created Wine-based products. WineX (from Transgaming) is the Wine variant especially created for games, with much better 3D support and other goodies. Many modern games run with WineX. Codeweavers created variants for productivity: CodeWeavers-Wine (free) is simply a packaged Wine (easier to install and use); CodeWeavers' CrossOver Plugin (not free but not expensive) is a web browser plugin that make all Windows browser plugins available to Linux browsers. CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office (not free but not expensive) is an improved Wine, that makes a lot of usual productivity applications work perfectly in Linux: Microsoft Office, Visio, Notes, Quicken, + all that normal Wine can do, of course. ambrandt wrote: 3) This one may sound a little lame and stupid, but it's been bugging me for the longest time... how do I log in as root? What I am trying to do is set my username so that it has all the priveleges of root and still have other usernames so that my folks can play around with Mandrake as well. As you already understood, root is more a "role" than a "person". So you're concerned that while logged in as you (your login), you can't access the root role, even though this role is assigned to you. Don't worry. Everything is in place, you don't have to change anything to your login's properties. If you want to use Mandrake's administration tools, then no problem: those tools ask for root's password, then all things you do are done with root's privileges. If you want to run commands or programs as root, then open a terminal window, and type: Code: su root [/i] After entering root's password, you have root's privileges in this terminal window. If you want to run commands or programs as root, but you're lazy and you don't want to enter root's password each time, then "sudo" is the answer. Yves. [color=red] [b]theYinYeti[/b] Senior user Joined: 13 May 2002 Posts: 452 Location: Cannes (France) Post Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2002 1:44 pm Post subject: _________________________________________________________________ [/color] For your first problem, I realize just now that the control center you're talking about is Linux', not Windows'. So according to the information you provide, it seems your CD drive /dev/scd0 is already recognized. If so, the solution to your problem may be as simple as creating a desktop shortcut... For Windows "emulation", here's a site that may interest you: http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/200...204.cappel.html Yves. [color=red] [b]ambrandt[/b] Newbie Joined: 01 Dec 2002 Posts: 5 Location: USA Post Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 12:22 am Post subject: CD Drive problem _________________________________________________________________ [/color] So far, I've tried this two other times and I get this error: "Could not mount device The reported error is: Mount: Can't find /dev/scd0 in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab" I've gone through those files and could not find what it was talking about because the text is so small. I'm thikning that it might require a certain driver to read anything on it or something or maybe I didn't load the right driver at installation. Also, are there more than one file that is needed to run Wine? [color=red] [b]BoyEnjinir[/b] Frequent user Joined: 01 May 2002 Posts: 89 Location: Houston, TX Post Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 2:22 am Post subject: _________________________________________________________________ [/color] Maybe it would help if you told us exactly what you types, and exactly what the response was. For now, try this: 1. Open a shell 2. Login as root (su root <enter> rootpassword <enter>) 3. Type: mount /dev/scd0 /mnt/cd_writer {NOTE: YOU CAN CHANGE /mnt/cdrom to whatever path you like. Just make sure you create that directory first. You propably already have a mount point for it in mnt. Type "ls /mnt" to see what is there already. If no name you like is there, you can type "mkdir /mnt/cd_writer" . But replace cd_writer with whatever name you like. If this works, then the system is fine. You just need to add an appropriate entry into /etc/fstab in order to allow anyone to mount it. If it doesn't give any output, it probably worked. Type: ls /mnt/name_of_directory_you_mounted_to (in my example /mnt/cd_writer) You should see the contents of the cd. To unmount it (you cannot eject until you unmount the volume), type umount /mnt/cd_writer What are you using to view the /etc/fstab file? vi works in the console, but if you aren't familiar with it it can be frustrating. Try using kate or gedit to view the files. They are a bit more windowsish. Easier to change text sizes, etc. A good text option for new users is also the editor in mc. Type mc, in the directory of interest, highlight the file of interest, and type f4. This will start editing the file. Should be easy to read. Anyway, add the following line to /etc/fstab file if the previous test worked: /dev/scd0 /mnt/name_of_directory_you_want_to_mount_to auto user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,umask=0 0 0 Save the new file. Now any user should be able to mount the device. Test it in a console NOT AS root, but as a normal user. Type: mount /mnt/name_of_directory_you_entered_in_/etc/fstab type: ls /mnt/name_of_directory_you_entered_in_/etc/fstab If you see the contents of the CD, then all is well in the world. If not, let us know what went wrong. [color=red] [b]ambrandt[/b] Newbie Joined: 01 Dec 2002 Posts: 5 Location: USA Post Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 1:29 am Post subject: new stuff wrong _________________________________________________________________ [/color] I just tried botting into Linux to try what was posted above this message and it did something I hadn't expected; it went into a text-mode login. I logged in and it stayed in the text-mode (the one with the little blocky penquin on the upper left-hand side). So, thinking that something was wrong, I erased the Linux partitions and bootmanager. I will reinstall it and see if maybe dumping those fixed the problem... otherwise, I will have to learn to use the text-mode of it (and I have trouble with DOS). In the mean-time, I will continue witht rying to find the best tutorials out there for Mandrake 8.0 (I might even try to install 8.2 if I can figure out why it doesn't like to install on this one... I get an error, something about the package list not matching the hdlist). I did find that 8.0, and more than likely 8.2, come with WINE which will help if I can figure out how to get it to work once I get this beast installed with Linux. [i][b]Editor's note:[/b] This thread was originally posted at the old MUB (Mandrake User Board at club-nihil). This post is the result of a 99% automatic backup, so due to its nature some text may be lost (improbable but possible).[/i] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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