Some general, possibly incredibly stupid newbie questions
Thanks to Jerry and all who've been helping me with some of my SuSE 7.1 issues. I have some kernel HOWTO reading to do, so that will occupy some time. In the meantime, I have some inane questions: 1. What is the proper pronunciation of SuSE? A student at the school I work at told me yesterday that it is pronounced soo-say. 2. When building a kernel, do you have to build it from scratch? In other words, your existing kernel has a bunch of hardware support built in. In building a kernel, are you adding to that kernel, or are you building a completey new kernel to (eventually) replace it? My info so far sorta suggests the latter. 3. I've seen many references to the German list being full of, well, Linux elitist snobs. What's the deal with the English vs. German lists? 4. Why do you use SuSE, as opposed to other distributions? I was attracted to it because I heard the latest version was good for newbies, though so far, I'm not sure if it's any easier than Mandrake (my previous distro). But it did seem to run a whole lot faster than Mandrake on the same machine and the FTP installation from a boot floppy was pretty swift (and actually faster than the 2 CD install of Mandrake, if you can believe that). Thanks. Greg Lentz
Dont know about the pronunciation, but I like saving time, so I pronounce it
soos. Everyone in the LUG knows what I am talking about, and thats all that
matters... ;)
Check out http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/compiling/kernelcomp.html for
kernel compiling, its how I got started. (The answer to your question is
no, you dont have to start from scratch if you have a .config file from a
previous kernel (make oldconfig)...
I use SuSE because it was the first distro I was able to get running
correctly out of the box (6.1)....
HTH,
CK
----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Lentz"
On Thursday 05 April 2001 12:29, Greg Lentz wrote:
Thanks to Jerry and all who've been helping me with some of my SuSE 7.1 issues. I have some kernel HOWTO reading to do, so that will occupy some time.
In the meantime, I have some inane questions:
1. What is the proper pronunciation of SuSE? A student at the school I work at told me yesterday that it is pronounced soo-say.
Most will say it is 'soo-sah'. Personally I like Suzie and that's how I pronounce it! ;-) ('Cause she's sexy! ;-)
2. When building a kernel, do you have to build it from scratch? In other words, your existing kernel has a bunch of hardware support built in. In building a kernel, are you adding to that kernel, or are you building a completey new kernel to (eventually) replace it? My info so far sorta suggests the latter.
Everytime you compile a kernel you are builiding an entirely 'new' one! The file in /usr/src/linux called '.config' contains the settings that have been made when the kernel configuration program was last run. The command 'make menuconfig' starts a console version of the kernel configuration editor, allowing easy adjustments to the contents of .config. When you do make dep clean bzImage modules modules_install the gcc compiler uses .config and the file called "Makefile" (which contains rules the compiler follows to do the compilation) to control what it does. What really gets compiled sources of modules whose flags which have been changed.
3. I've seen many references to the German list being full of, well, Linux elitist snobs. What's the deal with the English vs. German lists?
Nothing, really. The German list is a 'tight ship' populated, as I understand it, by folks who are very technically oriented. You learn the drill or get run off. It keeps their list very 'efficient'. The Germans have put a lot into the Linux movement and the free software foundation. Check the various projects like KDE, GNOME, etc., and you will see a large number of Germans on the developer lsit. From what I've seen, America and other English speaking countries, are not represented in any great numbers. In my opinion the best Linux software comes out of Germany! American coders will have to get off their WinXX and VB addiction before they can contribute to a truely worthwhile cause, instead of increasing Bill Gate's wealth. Be of good cheer, though. From what I've seen of the VB camp (as an old VB coder) it is coming apart with VB.NET being so totally different it is a new language. Expect to see a large wave of GUI coders coming into the Linux fold in the next year. They'll really love KDevelop and although Glade has the look and feel of VB 1.0 they could shine to it as well.
4. Why do you use SuSE, as opposed to other distributions? I was attracted to it because I heard the latest version was good for newbies, though so far, I'm not sure if it's any easier than Mandrake (my previous distro). But it did seem to run a whole lot faster than Mandrake on the same machine and the FTP installation from a boot floppy was pretty swift (and actually faster than the 2 CD install of Mandrake, if you can believe that).
IMO, SuSE is best engineered of the distros I've tried (RH, Mandrake and some lesser knowns). The apps are pre-tuned to SuSE's paradigm and when you use YaST all users, groups, menus, dat files, etc., are setup to run. (Some commerical apps excepted.) SuSE has, for a long time, included more software on it's 6 CDs than any other distro, and their documentation is better than any other software house of any OS on the planet. And, I like that little green lizard 8-} JLK
Thanks.
Greg Lentz
Jerry Kreps schrieb:
1. What is the proper pronunciation of SuSE? A student at the school I work at told me yesterday that it is pronounced soo-say.
Most will say it is 'soo-sah'. Personally I like Suzie and that's how I pronounce it! ;-) ('Cause she's sexy! ;-) Well it reminds me of SUZY... We in Germoney use to pronouce it like "ZooZa". I think this is the original :-) (Do you in U.S. understand what we italianos mean by "Tussinella"? That is the very same as "stooooopid suse..." haha)
2. When building a kernel, do you have to build it from scratch? Unfortunately *deeply sighing!* true. I would be delighted if it were not so.
Everytime you compile a kernel you are builiding an entirely 'new' one! The file in /usr/src/linux called '.config' contains the settings that have been made when the kernel configuration program was last run. And directly after the installation of Tussinella 6.0 or above that .config file is empty/not existing. Is that right?
3. I've seen many references to the German list being full of, well, Linux elitist snobs. What's the deal with the English vs. German lists?
Nothing, really. The German list is a 'tight ship' populated, as I understand it, by folks who are very technically oriented. You learn the drill or get run off. It keeps their list very 'efficient'. The Drill is the appopriate word for those pedants! Their highly-beloved "Netiquette" is more worth than for example friendliness.
represented in any great numbers. In my opinion the best Linux software comes out of Germany! American coders will have to get off true. compare the rubbish red hat released just weeks ago. bugged this. bugged that...
4. Why do you use SuSE, as opposed to other distributions? I was attracted to it because I heard the latest version was good for newbies, though so far, I'm not sure if it's any easier than *NO* repeat *NO* linux is good for winsuck wares-children.
IMO, SuSE is best engineered of the distros I've tried (RH, Mandrake and some i began on slackware in 1996 and that was really hard to my understanding of installation processes (oh, my english sucks...but i am giving my best ... )
the only thing i truely DISlike on many distros (even suse) is the misorder in things like directory arrangement. now the file xxx is here, some versions later it is somewhere completely else. also, the structure of documentation is very disgusting, as you can hardly keep an overview on what - in fact - you are looking after... you often run away from topic and get lost in thousands of lines which describe the highly technical content instead of short step-by-step instructions. next, which i am missing, is some index-help-base in which you can enter a search word for instance "squid" and get a 2,3 line short description of what it is and a link to the concerned howto, minihowto and doc files. is there anyrthing like that (before i am again inventing wheels...) or am i just blind and too pragmatically minded? -- *º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨¨*¤Oliver@home*º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨*¤
Everytime you compile a kernel you are builiding an entirely 'new' one! The file in /usr/src/linux called '.config' contains the settings that have been made when the kernel configuration program was last run. And directly after the installation of Tussinella 6.0 or above that .config file is empty/not existing. Is that right? I, too, was scared when I thought I had to build a config from scratch. I like to make small changes, and the first time I did a 'make config', seeing the defaults set to something I knew was different than
On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Oliver Ob wrote: the running kernel, I panicked! I didn't understand what half the options were for, much less knew how they might be set in the default SuSE kernel. However, after some searching on the distribution CDs, I discovered that there is a .config file corresponding to every binary kernel they ship! So all you have to do is go back to the CD, select the corresponding config, and copy it to /usr/src/linux/.config. Then you can run `make menuconfig` and be confident that you're making only the change you intend. (Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly where I found it, at the moment.)
next, which i am missing, is some index-help-base in which you can enter a search word for instance "squid" and get a 2,3 line short description of what it is and a link to the concerned howto, minihowto and doc files.
is there anyrthing like that (before i am again inventing wheels...) or am i just blind and too pragmatically minded? For this, I mount CD1, go back to yast, select 'index of all packages' and press F2 for the short description.
Now for my rant of frustrations: 1) How can we develop a smooth upgrade path when the RPM package name changes from release to release? Why does SuSE issue Xfree3 and Xfree4 under different names, instead of changing just the release level? They can't coexist, yet one has to manually remove one before installing the next, then reconfigure from scratch. Same for KDE 1 & 2, bind, lpr, squid, etc. I just upgraded from 6.4 to 7.1, and well over half the packages came up with 'no replacement package on installation media'. I have over 300 rpm's I have to manually research and figure out how to upgrade. 2) Why are modules so dependent on the specific kernel build? IMO, the advantage of modules is that they can be compiled SEPARATELY from the kernel. Yet the current linux implementation is highly dependent on being compiled along with the kernel, and knowledge of the system.map generated with the kernel during compile. I discovered the hard way that because I chose to install the OSS drivers shipped with 6.4, I could never recompile my kernel without losing sound. OSS was shipped as `binary-only` and was mapped to the SuSE-compiled kernel, so it would not load on any kernel I compiled myself, no matter how slightly modified. Whatever information the module needs to find it's link points within the kernel, should be supplied *by the kernel* via a system call. This would allow total independence between kernel and modules, so that vendors who choose to develop drivers for their hardware, can produce a module that will install itself to a much wider range of kernel versions, without asking the user to recompile it from source. 3) With the development of the LSB, could there be something like a distribution-spec file? I know that rpm can invoke pre-install and post-install scripts. What if there were a set of standard environment variables which described the variation between the LSB and this particular distribution/release? So that rpm would invoke the pre-install script, which would read the spec file, set the environment variables, and then all the files would be placed in the right place for this distribution? Could we get to a point of 'universal rpms'? Probably, we need to incorporate more standard RPM names (see rant #1), and expand dependency checking to a range of release levels, as well. ...That's enough ranting for now. I'm still sold on SuSE. I bought it back around 5.0 because it was the only release which had actually incorporated the keyboard-howto into the code, and my backspace and delete keys worked consistently across all applications. Maybe a silly reason to you, but it lowered my stress level, and made Linux comfortable for me to use. I have stayed with SuSE as I've learned more about security concerns, and feel most comfortable with the work that the SuSE team puts in to keep the code clean and provide updates whenever exploits are discovered. -- Rick Green "I have the heart of a little child, and the brain of a genius. ... and I keep them in a jar under my bed"
On Saturday 07 April 2001 12:22, Oliver Ob wrote:
Jerry Kreps schrieb:
1. What is the proper pronunciation of SuSE? A student at the school I work at told me yesterday that it is pronounced soo-say.
Most will say it is 'soo-sah'. Personally I like Suzie and that's how I pronounce it! ;-) ('Cause she's sexy! ;-)
Well it reminds me of SUZY... We in Germoney use to pronouce it like "ZooZa". I think this is the original :-) (Do you in U.S. understand what we italianos mean by "Tussinella"? That is the very same as "stooooopid suse..." haha)
:)
2. When building a kernel, do you have to build it from scratch?
Unfortunately *deeply sighing!* true. I would be delighted if it were not so.
Everytime you compile a kernel you are builiding an entirely 'new' one! The file in /usr/src/linux called '.config' contains the settings that have been made when the kernel configuration program was last run.
And directly after the installation of Tussinella 6.0 or above that ..config file is empty/not existing. Is that right?
No. Compiling shouldn't delete the .config file that was used. You must be doing a "make distclean', which would delete the .config file and about everything else.
3. I've seen many references to the German list being full of, well, Linux elitist snobs. What's the deal with the English vs. German lists?
Nothing, really. The German list is a 'tight ship' populated, as I understand it, by folks who are very technically oriented. You learn the drill or get run off. It keeps their list very 'efficient'. The
Drill is the appopriate word for those pedants! Their highly-beloved "Netiquette" is more worth than for example friendliness.
represented in any great numbers. In my opinion the best Linux software comes out of Germany! American coders will have to get off
true. compare the rubbish red hat released just weeks ago. bugged this. bugged that...
4. Why do you use SuSE, as opposed to other distributions? I was attracted to it because I heard the latest version was good for newbies, though so far, I'm not sure if it's any easier than
*NO* repeat *NO* linux is good for winsuck wares-children.
Well, folks who have a hard time using or understanding Windows Explorer probably wouldn't do well with any Linux distro.
IMO, SuSE is best engineered of the distros I've tried (RH, Mandrake and some
i began on slackware in 1996 and that was really hard to my understanding of installation processes (oh, my english sucks...but i am giving my best ... )
the only thing i truely DISlike on many distros (even suse) is the misorder in things like directory arrangement. now the file xxx is here, some versions later it is somewhere completely else. also, the structure of documentation is very disgusting, as you can hardly keep an overview on what - in fact - you are looking after... you often run away from topic and get lost in thousands of lines which describe the highly technical content instead of short step-by-step instructions.
That's why I like the 'locate' command, and why 'updatedb' is run by cron every night! ;)
next, which i am missing, is some index-help-base in which you can enter a search word for instance "squid" and get a 2,3 line short description of what it is and a link to the concerned howto, minihowto and doc files.
is there anyrthing like that (before i am again inventing wheels...) or am i just blind and too pragmatically minded?
You mean 'man'? Or 'info'? jlk
On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Jerry Kreps wrote:
next, which i am missing, is some index-help-base in which you can enter a search word for instance "squid" and get a 2,3 line short description of what it is and a link to the concerned howto, minihowto and doc files.
is there anyrthing like that (before i am again inventing wheels...) or am i just blind and too pragmatically minded? A friend of mine was telling me about the 'what' command he discovered on his system. It seemed to combine the function of 'locate', telling him where in the filesystem it was placed, as well as searching the rpm database and telling him which package it was installed from. Very cool, but it isn't part of my SuSE 6.4 installation. Anybody know if this is hidden in some rpm I didn't install, or where I can get it?
-- Rick Green "I have the heart of a little child, and the brain of a genius. ... and I keep them in a jar under my bed"
Try locate your querry [run locatedb before you run this] whatis your querry apropos your querry find [path] your querry man find rob ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rick Green wrote:
On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Jerry Kreps wrote:
next, which i am missing, is some index-help-base in which you can enter a search word for instance "squid" and get a 2,3 line short description of what it is and a link to the concerned howto, minihowto and doc files.
is there anyrthing like that (before i am again inventing wheels...) or am i just blind and too pragmatically minded? A friend of mine was telling me about the 'what' command he discovered on his system. It seemed to combine the function of 'locate', telling him where in the filesystem it was placed, as well as searching the rpm database and telling him which package it was installed from. Very cool, but it isn't part of my SuSE 6.4 installation. Anybody know if this is hidden in some rpm I didn't install, or where I can get it?
-- Rick Green
"I have the heart of a little child, and the brain of a genius. ... and I keep them in a jar under my bed"
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
dizzy73 schrieb:
Try
locate your querry [run locatedb before you run this] whatis your querry apropos your querry find [path] your querry man find
rob ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thanks rob, one should really combine what you wrote above and the "what" command in a intelligent bash which then executes less or maybe lynx. any thoughts on this? -- *º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨¨*¤Oliver@home*º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨*¤
Rick Green wrote:
where in the filesystem it was placed, as well as searching the rpm database and telling him which package it was installed from. Very cool, but it isn't part of my SuSE 6.4 installation. Anybody know if this is hidden in some rpm I didn't install, or where I can get it?
also you have rpm -q package man rpm rob
On Sun, 8 Apr 2001, dizzy73 wrote:
Rick Green wrote:
where in the filesystem it was placed, as well as searching the rpm database and telling him which package it was installed from. Very cool, but it isn't part of my SuSE 6.4 installation. Anybody know if this is hidden in some rpm I didn't install, or where I can get it?
also you have rpm -q package
Not exactly. Exactly the inverse, actually. 'what' takes a filename as an argument, and tells you tells you which package it came from. Even `rpm -qf <filename>` will return the package name only if you give a fully-qualified name. It's more like "rpm -qf `which <filename>`", except that it works for any file, not just executables in the current path. -- Rick Green "I have the heart of a little child, and the brain of a genius. ... and I keep them in a jar under my bed"
2. When building a kernel, do you have to build it from scratch?
Unfortunately *deeply sighing!* true. I would be delighted if it were not so.
Everytime you compile a kernel you are builiding an entirely 'new' one! The file in /usr/src/linux called '.config' contains the settings that have been made when the kernel configuration program was last run.
And directly after the installation of Tussinella 6.0 or above that ..config file is empty/not existing. Is that right?
No. Compiling shouldn't delete the .config file that was used.
Jerry Kreps schrieb: true.
You must be doing a "make distclean', which would delete the .config file and about everything else. what i actually meant was that the original .config which fits the default kernel which you chose is NOT installed. that and more "missed" shots on SUSE are truely annoying to a logical thinking man.
the only thing i truely DISlike on many distros (even suse) is the misorder in things like directory arrangement. now the file xxx is here, some versions later it is somewhere completely else. also, the structure of documentation is very disgusting, as you can hardly keep an overview on what - in fact - you are looking after... you often run away from topic and get lost in thousands of lines which describe the highly technical content instead of short step-by-step instructions.
That's why I like the 'locate' command, and why 'updatedb' is run by cron every night! ;)
not enuff. see below. as I said:
next, which i am missing, is some index-help-base in which you can enter a search word for instance "squid" and get a 2,3 line short description of what it is and a link to the concerned howto, minihowto and doc files.
is there anyrthing like that (before i am again inventing wheels...) or am i just blind and too pragmatically minded?
You mean 'man'? Or 'info'? jlk man and info is by far not structured enuff. also, i want all that (locate, man, info, howto and so forth) started with ONE menu command
-- *º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨¨*¤Oliver@home*º¤., ¸¸,.¤º*¨¨*¤
Oliver Ob wrote:
Jerry Kreps schrieb:
2. When building a kernel, do you have to build it from scratch?
Unfortunately *deeply sighing!* true. I would be delighted if it were not so.
Everytime you compile a kernel you are builiding an entirely 'new' one! The file in /usr/src/linux called '.config' contains the settings that have been made when the kernel configuration program was last run.
And directly after the installation of Tussinella 6.0 or above that ..config file is empty/not existing. Is that right?
No. Compiling shouldn't delete the .config file that was used. true.
You must be doing a "make distclean', which would delete the .config file and about everything else. what i actually meant was that the original .config which fits the default kernel which you chose is NOT installed. that and more "missed" shots on SUSE are truely annoying to a logical thinking man.
These are on the CDs, but I can't remember exactly where just now - sorry.
the only thing i truely DISlike on many distros (even suse) is the misorder in things like directory arrangement. now the file xxx is here, some versions later it is somewhere completely else. also, the structure of documentation is very disgusting, as you can hardly keep an overview on what - in fact - you are looking after... you often run away from topic and get lost in thousands of lines which describe the highly technical content instead of short step-by-step instructions.
That's why I like the 'locate' command, and why 'updatedb' is run by cron every night! ;)
not enuff. see below.
as I said:
next, which i am missing, is some index-help-base in which you can enter a search word for instance "squid" and get a 2,3 line short description of what it is and a link to the concerned howto, minihowto and doc files.
is there anyrthing like that (before i am again inventing wheels...) or am i just blind and too pragmatically minded?
You mean 'man'? Or 'info'? jlk man and info is by far not structured enuff. also, i want all that (locate, man, info, howto and so forth) started with ONE menu command
This would make it more complicated, IMHO, because these commands aren't all designed to do the same job. You'ld end up with having to specify various options for each of the tasks, which is more daunting to a new user than separate commands. I do see your point about unifying documentation sources, but the argument that you're making isn't necessarily correct. Take man and info, for example - you don't want to combine these. 'info' is the successor to 'man' - the 'man' command is supposed to be phased out in preference to the 'info' command, but this is taking its time. manual/info pages are also, by definition, different from HOWTO documents, so these can't be combined in the same way either. What might be more useful is for 'info' documents to have links to HOWTOs on tasks that you would use that command for. For example, the cdrecord info page may have a link to the CD-Writing-HOWTO, etc. One of the more significant problems would be deciding how the documentation in /usr/share/doc/packages links to the info pages, since this is information of a different sort again. Another significant problem would be that these links between documents would need to be included in the document by the original author, and this leads to problems because a large number of people contribute to various documents which get updated at different rates. Of course, I'm open to practical solutions - it's a nice idea in principle, but hard to implement in practice (unfortunately). Main sources of information: For individual programs: o man/info o /usr/doc/packages o source code For tasks: o /usr/doc/howto For more general info applying to all of the above: o web sites o mailing lists Bye, Chris -- __ _ -o)/ / (_)__ __ ____ __ Chris Reeves /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / ICQ# 22219005 _\_v __/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\
Oliver Ob wrote:
what i actually meant was that the original .config which fits the default kernel which you chose is NOT installed. that and more "missed" shots on SUSE are truely annoying to a logical thinking man.
These are on the CDs, but I can't remember exactly where just now - sorry. During my failed install attempt on the Gateway laptop last night, I found it. WHen you select a kernel in yast, it puts the kernel image, as well as <imagename>.config and <imagename>.system.map in the /boot
On Sun, 8 Apr 2001, Chris Reeves wrote: directory. When you want to compile your own kernel, grab the config for the kernel you want to use as a 'starting point' and copy it to /usr/src/linux cp /boot/<imgname>.config /usr/src/linux/.config cd /usr/src/linux make menuconfig HTH, -- Rick Green "I have the heart of a little child, and the brain of a genius. ... and I keep them in a jar under my bed"
Oliver Ob wrote:
You mean 'man'? Or 'info'? jlk man and info is by far not structured enuff. also, i want all that (locate, man, info, howto and so forth) started with ONE menu command
Hi Oliver I dont think you're every going to get that. From my limited experience, the philosophy of Unix/Linux is to have many small tools. Of course the desired effect is to combine the tools and end up with a program (of sorts). For me, the *best* way to have *all* your docs in one place is to take advantage of the builtin webserver and even easier SuSE default page that comes with the distro. Ive mentioned this yesterday as how to do it install as much docs as you like thru yast, then in rc.config set your machine to be a "doc_server" in rc.config DOC_HOST= your ip address or localhost DOC_SERVER= yes run SuSEconfig then when you open your browser, from SuSEs default page (on your loacl webserver) you'll see *all* the docs! mans infos how-tos RFC Books packages(alll the programs on your machine) anything_else (all the documentation you installed thru yast in there) its all there!! just point and click Ive you want to get carried away, you can look into htdig which will do basically the same thing but in a searchable indexed format Htdig is a fair amount of work to setup, but if your interested its there Actually there is the built in search form preconfigured already there your have apache running??? If not you should. Its pretty much preconfigured so its just a matter of turning it on ;-) rc.config start webserver Ive found using the doc_server which is built in works as well as I need... everythings there have fun! rob
participants (7)
-
Chris Reeves -
dizzy73 -
Greg Lentz -
Jerry Kreps -
NOC - Kulish Consulting -
Oliver Ob -
Rick Green