Taking the first steps into Linux...

[magicfan241]

Well, I'm currently downloading the Fedora Core 1 release. I'm going to finally do it! I'm going to put a machine on linux!

The only guide I have to helpme is my mothers "Red Hat Linux 6 Unleashed" book.

So I'm going to asking a few questions (like WTF is this LS(T,F,Q I have no clue)?) Once my CD's are fully downloaded, and I install them tomorrow, only 7.5 hours left on the downloads, going at 95Kb/s combined................

magicfan241

[magicfan241]

I forgot to add that the only program I really liked in Linux was Abiword, which I use on all of my windows computers. Much cleaner than word, but still saves in Word formt!

That and I could never get Linux to connect to the internet.......It might work since the computer I am using has a built in ethernet card, and not a USB one. I have soooo many problem with them, but I paid nothing for them, and I can get at them if I need to....

magicfan241, waiting for the downloads to finish.....

[tim]

good luck! Too bad you don't have broadband (or a friend with broadband).

I like Mandrake, it's install process is something like windoze, and it's gui all the way.

As far as "the dreaded command line", just think DOS command line. Hopefully you have a little DOS experience.

[magicfan241]

@tim: I have ADSL 768/128. It still takes that long to download 1.8GB of data.

On the other hand, my new harddrive should be at the store today. 120GB (7200 RPM, MB cache) for $49.99. I love officemax...


I'll see about installing it this afternoon, after I reinstall win98 on that machine (ok, so I don't have any codes or install CD's for any higher version of windows.


magicfan241

[tim]

Good price for the HD. So you're going dual boot w/ win98? I have 2 machines like that. Installation was a breeze to make it dual boot with lilo as the boot loader. One tip that I wish I'd have had: when you decide how much HD space to give each os, think ahead to what you'll be doing with each. I decided I wanted to use the extra hd space on the win side for over-my-home-network hard drive backups (backup computer a to computer b, b to c, c to a kind of thing), and didn't leave enough space in the win partition. Had to reinstall both os's because I couldn't get my version of partition magic and the thing you use under linux (grub, I think?) to both work right. (I'm still a relative newbie in linux.) So anyway, plan ahead.

I too have win98se on some machines, nothing newer. Mainly it's so I can play the two network games I have with my kids all at once. I know you're supposed to be able under wine to use win stuff under linux, but I haven't had any luck with it.

[Dyyryath]

We're here for you, no worries. When you get stuck, just let us know and we'll be happy to jump in with advice (some of it might even be right ;)). :thumbs:

[magicfan241]

Well, I am currently posting off of Mozilla from Fedora Core 1.

Now to see if I can run a DC client on this thing, now would be the time for the handholding (I think).

Going for DF!

magicfan241

[magicfan241]

Since DF is a no-go, It just opens up and flashes a dos windows for a second, then dissapears. How do I make the son of a bitch work. I've clicked on it half a dozen times, and it still does not work! :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:

On another note, what D.net client would I use. Too many damned options! The whole Linux things has so many options that it makes me sooooo confused.

magicfan241

[rshepard]

For DF try this:
1. Open up a terminal (console) window
2. change to the directory you installed DF in
3. enter the command ./foldit

At the very least, you should get an error msg and we can troubleshoot it from there


<edit>

As for d-net, if you're just running on your standard PC, you want the [x86/elf] client;
furthermore, you will see that x86 reference in other places, with other software-- it will always be the one you want.

</edit>

[magicfan241]

here is the whole terminal thing:

[magicfan241@localhost magicfan241]$ dir
Desktop dnetc483-linux-x86-elf evolution
distribfold dnetc-linux-x86-elf.tar.gz
distribfold-current-linux-i386.tar.gz ESG_SharedHosting.pdf
[magicfan241@localhost magicfan241]$ cd distribfold
[magicfan241@localhost distribfold]$ ./foldit
./foldtrajlite: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[magicfan241@localhost distribfold]$
[magicfan241@localhost distribfold]$


have no clue WTF it is talking about....

magicfan241

[rshepard]

Ok, this is a known glitch, it's not finding the ncurses library-- hang loose while I look up the fix and I'll get back to you.:thumbs:

[rshepard]

Here ya go:

http://free-dc.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2660&highlight=libncurses

see if that helps

[magicfan241]

I'm currently importing all of my Fictionpress.com stuff (close to 300 links, 500 files and 2500 emails) so I am going to be on here for at least 3 or 4 hours.....

I have 27 e-mails from people asking me where I went online, because I dissapeared for 4 days. If I die, all of the world's servers will overload, and I will be known as "the man who overloaded the world's servers"

magicfan241

[magicfan241]

there it got working. It is going. I have to figure out services now *bangs head*.

So, how do you do a service in Linux? For DF, that iss (I'll assume that I could follow a similar step for other DC projects)

magicfan241

[rshepard]

If you want to just run it "in the background", this quote from one of Dyrryath's posts works:

I've modded the foldit script to run this command line:

nohup ./foldtrajlite -f protein -n native -qt -rt -it > /dev/null &

Which essentially runs the process in the background.

If you want it to start up automatically when you boot up ( and what are you doing booting your Linux box anyway :D ) then that involves messing with the init scripts I think, and someone else will have to help out with that one. My scripting knowledge is zero.:(

[magicfan241]

Originally posted by rshepard
If you want to just run it "in the background", this quote from one of Dyrryath's posts works:


If you want it to start up automatically when you boot up ( and what are you doing booting your Linux box anyway :D ) then that involves messing with the init scripts I think, and someone else will have to help out with that one. My scripting knowledge is zero.:(

I'm rebooting it. Something everyone should do to every box at least once a week. It makes you:
a)keep usless programs out of it
b) gives you a chance to find out start-up errors et whatnot (which down the road lead to bigger showstopper errors
c) allow the machine to relax for a few seconds
and
d) allow me the pleasure of watching my little meter fake wheel (the damned thing is electronic, no more lapping the meter) stop moving almost altoughter.

magicfan241, following Dyyryath's quote advice

[magicfan241]

Well, the quote won't work for me so I just sent it to another desktop. Much easier, and it is still out of my way.

magicfan241

[rshepard]

Sounds like you've had a pretty good afternoon/evening with getting into Linux--
Got it installed and booted, got your internet access up, and got a DC project running-
Shoot, I always figured when I got that far the rest of it was gravy :rotfl: :thumbs:

[magicfan241]

Well, the internet I didn't have to do anything to get it to run. When I installed it I just hit yes to automatically configure my ethernet connection, and poof, I have internet.

Getting everything else finished is another story......

magicfan241

[Dyyryath]

Originally posted by magicfan241
I'm rebooting it. Something everyone should do to every box at least once a week. It makes you:
a)keep usless programs out of it
b) gives you a chance to find out start-up errors et whatnot (which down the road lead to bigger showstopper errors
c) allow the machine to relax for a few seconds
and
d) allow me the pleasure of watching my little meter fake wheel (the damned thing is electronic, no more lapping the meter) stop moving almost altoughter.

magicfan241, following Dyyryath's quote advice

Heh, that's the windows in you talking. :D

Seriously, Linux just doesn't need to be rebooted. My development workstation (my primary desktop) only gets rebooted when I change kernels.

If you want to make df run in the background, then you can edit the last line in the 'foldit' script as was listed above. If it didn't work for you then you probably mistyped something. That's a pretty basic command that will work on Fedora. Here's a copy of foldit that runs quiet, extra RAM, auto update, connected to the Internet:

http://www.zerothelement.com/downloads/foldit

You can download it and stick in your df directory (overwriting the existing copy). You'll want to make sure it's executable (chmod 755 foldit), then just run it. It will run folding in the background. You can verify that it's working by typing 'top' at the command line and looking for foldtrajlite at the top of the list after a few seconds.

[magicfan241]

I still need windows in me, thank you very much. I still work with windows computers 90% of the time, this is a 'toy' for me.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And I think I crashed it by leaving it on, because me DF stats went down the preverbial gurgler, over the last two hours, and no it didn't do a cmplete set, it was only on gen56 at 6 aM this morning

magicfan241

magicfan241

[Welnic]

I am doing this post on how to start things up in linux so I will have something to refer to the next time I need to do it and I have forgotten how. The system that I am writing this about is running Red Hat 8.0, with a different distribution you have to look around in slightly different spots to find things.

Log in as root, or get there with "su". Go to the /etc/init.d directory. This directory is full with scripts that start various processes. If you wanted to write a fully correct script that could both start and stop processes you could copy the format of one of these. It would be nice if when you went to shutdown the script removed foldtrajlite.lock, but it dFold doesn't do that bad now just stopping the process when the normal shutdown occurs.

You need to make your own script to start up dFold. I call mine distrib.sh, so I type:

vi distrib.sh

If you have a editor that you like better than vi, have at it. My script looks like:


#!/bin/sh

cd /home/clint/distribfold # go to the folder
rm foldtrajlite.lock # this might be in there
./foldit & # start it up


You don't need to have the comments. Then you have to make the script executable:

chmod +x distrib.sh

Then you need to make symbolic links in the start level directories that will call this. I really have no idea what those directories are actually called. I do know that if you boot at run level 3 then the items in rc3.d are run, and that you want links in 3, 4, and 5.

So go to /etc/rc.d/rc3.d and make a link.

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/distrib.sh S96distrib

Also do this in rc4.d and rc5.d. The S means start, if your script was sophisticated enough. The 96 affects when the script will run, they run in numeric order. If you had a script that could shut it down you would make a K40distrib link in rc6.d.

There will be errors normally when this runs since there should not be a lock file, but you have to remove it in case it is there. Seeing the error print out when it boots hasn't bothered me enough to figure out how to check for the file to see if it needs to be removed.