New Laptop Install Notes IBM ThinkPad G40 July 2003 RedHat 9.0 Computer purchased from EmperorLinux, came with broadcom ethernet card, pcmcia modem, set up with customized emplinux kernel, RedHat 8 version. Printing did not work via printtool or cups. There were other problems and frustrations. Performed fresh install of RedHat 9.0, chose "workstation" install. Had to go back, use package manager (Start menu > System Settings > Add/Remove applications) to install tex, xfig, kernel source tree, etc, etc. Next time just install all packages to save this trouble. Observation/Disappointment with RedHat/Gnome: RedHat 9 seems to have invested heavily in monolithic, ponderous applications (OpenOffice, Evolution) to solve all user needs. In the process, they seem to be racing as hard as they can to look like MSjunk. What happened? Where are all the nifty, fast, useful little apps that used to come on RedHat, like gnomecal? Why isn't the mail and mime reading capability of emacs built as default? I do not like this trend. Another beef: what happened to linuxconf? A unified admin tool was great idea. Now they've spread all the admin tasks over little gnome apps all over the place. If you are not running gnome, admin is trickier now. ================================ Configuration and Setup ================================ Display configuration: using systems settings Display tool Display tab: G40 XGA with i830M resolution 1024 x 768 millions of colors Advanced tab: horiz refresh rates 30.0-64.0 vert refresh rates 50.0-100.0 DPI unknown Video Card Type i830M Memory size 16 megabytes Driver i810 ethernet connectivity broadcom card * downloaded linux driver from www.broadcom.com * transferred to new machine on a floppy * followed instructions in README and DISTRIB notes to install had to first install "kernel source tree" by installing kernel packages, used package manager tool "Add/Remove applications" under system settings on start menu old linksys card autodetected, worked first try ran RedHat up2date 7/22/2003, installed new kernel, this was incompatible with card driver, so had to rm broadcom files (keep the tar file) and reinstall 9/11/2003 up2date gave me yet another new kernel a few weeks back. this killed the ethernet card again, and this time I could not get it to build. So I am not yet running that new kernel. gramps got rpm gramps-0.9.2-1.i386.rpm from gramps home page needed gnome-python2-1.99.14-6.i386.rpm which needed gnome-python2-gconf-1.99.14-6.i386.rpm got these from rpmfind.net it works! printers printtool does not seem to work any more use CUPS or redhat-config-printer access CUPS via web browser, URL is localhost:631 can view jobs with gnome-print-manager java 7/22/2003 downloaded and installed j2sdk 1.4.2 from www.javasoft.com used the rpm mozilla and java instruction from mozilla release notes: Linux Put a symlink to /usr/java/jre/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so in your plugins/ directory. (Note copying the file instead of making the symlink will cause Java to crash.) this did NOT work for mozilla 1.2.1 that came with RedHat 9. downloaded and installed mozilla 1.4 (bunch of rpms from mozilla site), restarted, java worked right away with no symlinks or anything enscript downloaded an rpm for RedHat 9 from rpmfind.com and installed it this did not come on the RedHat install for some reason maybe this can be replaced by a2ps in the future? gFTP crashes used gFTP to migrate lots of files from old computer to new computer. gFTP seems to crash a lot, but it seems to be just after it finishes a transfer w3m got the rpms from rpmfind.net and installed them w3m-0.3.2.2-5.i386.rpm was already installed emacs-w3m-1.3.4 (tar.gz) ./configure, make, make install w3m-el-1.3.3-4.src.rpm rpm -Uvh mail metamail missing? rmime doesn't work? emacs hmmmm, experimentation 7/23 rmime seems to work, had to copy it to /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp now we are missing mimencode aha! mimencode is provided by metamail got an rpm for metamail for RedHat 7.x, it neede sharutils, so installed sharutils-4.2.1-14.i386.rpm metamail-2.7-28.i386.rpm and now emacs rmail seems to work one glitch, w3m complains about a missing icon window manager redhat seems to no longer include fvwm 7/23 got fvwm from www.fvwm.org, rpm doesn't work, use source tar ball fvwm-2.4.16.tar had to diddle with .fvwm2rc file to get my pager to work looks great! glad to have fvwm back! looks like a strong support community spent some time putting the current gnome/redhat utilitites on my popup menu ical, gnomecal? ical seems to be dead. old rpms and src files won't build. installed gnome-pim 7/24 (gnome-pim-1.4.9 from www.gnome.org), now gnomecal is here and works. there was no documentation to indicate that I would get gnomecal by installing gnome-pim; I thought I was getting a bigger program, but I'm glad to have just gnomecal available. Why does gnome/gnu/redhat make this hard to find? now I need to make --geometry work for gnomecal so fvwm InitFunction can put it in the right place on login ghostview, gv neither of these was installed, had to go get the rpms from rpmfind.net redhat has something called ggv (gnome gv) which doesn't look as nice as gv up2date this is great! The little red button with the exclamation point on the gnome menu bar. here is a way to run it not in gnome: first cd /usr/bin, then up2date. you are prompted for root password, then it connects to RedHat servers, checks your machine for packages that need updating, downloads and installs for you. so far all it costs is filling out an on-line questionnaire every few weeks. here is how to run this without gnome window manager: as root, cd /usr/bin, then up2date 9/11/2003 up2date stopped working around the end of August 2003. RedHat sent out email that I need to get their new up2date client. Have tried to get it, but the web page download has not worked. Will keep trying. ===================== TO DO ===================== gnomecal geometry also test alarms--can it be run in the background and still alarm? solve opengl library problems, again, to compile hopf software