Not enough action

[slydoggy]

Geez this board is pitiful, what there isn't a whole lot of Mac users using Linux? Yes the lowly mac users are few and far between. Well let's see if we can get some action happening.

I'm running Linuxppc Q4 on a new world powerbook. 128MB of ram, I forget but I think 6GB HD.

I managed to get my dial-up going using kppp I've also configured network access through tcp/ip for my job site. Problem is I can only do these as root, well let me clarify I can only do kppp as root, don't know how to give user permissions to use kppp.

I can't get more than 8bit depth for my monitor, I'd like to figure that out. When I changed a setting in XF86.conf I got blank screen with a distorted cursor but nothing to select . Had to boot from CD and re-edit the file so I could work again. I like to know how to change resolution to something higher than 1024x768 and a pixel depth of at least 16.

I'm using GNOME as my gui, don't know how to change to X but I like GNOME so that doesn't bother me unless I'm missing something good with X.

I've installed Opera as my main web browser but can't figure out how to get Flash working in it.

Apache is installed and running but I can't find the manual, seems to be missing from the dir path, maybe I didn't install it.

I'd like to know how to have my HD spin down and sleep, monitor sleeps but the drive just hums along.

Was this kernel built with APM support? Can't get the battery monitor applet to work gives me the above message about making sure it was built with APM support. WTF is APM support? I guess I'll figure that out sometime down the road.

Well that's all I can think of off hand at this hour. So if this aint the board to get Mac specific answers where is the action at? Hopefully this will generate some. I know this is going to be a learning process.

ttfn

[bighara]

Your right that this board is pretty quiet, but there are lot of good answers here, too. For the kppp issue check out the NHF section, specifically: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/modems/kppp1.html

It's written for Intel-based.but most of the info should apply.

Before you play with configuring X or anything in the .conf files, always back up your original file so you can switch back quickly if the changes don't work. Also, make sure you've got your tech specs in front of you so you can get the settings straight. LinuxPPC (http://www.linuxppc.com) and LinuxPPC.org (http://www.linuxppc.org) have some good info for setup/troubleshooting, too. Good Luck!

[slydoggy]

thx bighara I've check out kppp HOWTO and am having no problem using it as root but I know doing stuff as root isn't a safe thing to do. As I said I need to figure out and understand setting permissions for a user I'm not sure how to give a user, myself at present, permissions to do alot of admin stuff without being root. Also I...well I guess you see I've got some learning to do.

About X Windows is there an advantage to using it as oppose to GNOME?

Well I'll go rtfm and come back with more questions. ;-]

Until then ciao

[slydoggy]

Well guess what I'm back with another question but I didn't want to start a new post.

I read grrlfox NHF article about a swap partition, when grrlfox says that the fstab reads like so "dev/hdc6 swap swap default 1 0" does that mean that is the format I need to use?

I have for root this format:
/dev/hda11 / ext2 defaults 11
does the swap then need to be:
/dev/hda9 swap swap defaults 10?

What does the end number mean? There are a couple differences between the article fstab and mine. There is a leading / in mine and it says defaults not default like grrlfox.

I don't know if I can wait before getting an answer but I'll try, for awhile.

Oh, how do I know swap is being used, is on? Will df show it on the command line?

ciao

[bighara]

This is from an old post on the ppp subject & might help
If you really wanted to be (more) secure, you could create a group (or use an existing one), make your userid (and
any other userid that you wanted to grant permission to) a member of that group, and set perms on pppd as 4750.

[as root]

# chgrp pppusers /usr/sbin/pppd
# chgrp pppusers /dev/ttyS0 /* or whichever is the correct device*/
# chmod 4750 /usr/sbin/pppd
# chmod 660 /dev/ttyS0
# vi /etc/group

<add your userid to the end of the pppusers group line> Use whatever text editor you like instead of vi if you don't
know how to work it. If the pppusers group doesn't exist, you can add it beforehand [as root] with the 'groupadd'
command.

That should get you able to dial out as a user.

As far as the swap issue goes, I haven't read grrlfox's NHF, but if you've already installed, then adding a swap partition is a tricky thing. You might want to check out the NHF on fly_swapping (http://linuxnewbie.internet.com/nhf/intel/filesys/fly_swapping.html), it talks about creating swap space after you're up & running.
To see if any current swap is enabled, check /var/log/dmesg, that's the log file of your boot process, somewhere in there it should list the swap partition as being mounted. Even easier, from the shell, type top, that utility will show CPU & Memory usage, inculding swap. If no swap shows as available, then it isn't working right (assuming you set it up with swap space originally, that is :D).

Hope this helps!

[ 29 March 2001: Message edited by: bighara ]