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LINUX
flies...Pentium not required
Having a system boot from floppy is a very good way to introduce yourself to Linux. It provides the perfect way to safely try out some commands out without putting your present system into peril. The use of a floppy to allows this disk to be taken with you stores to do evaluation of the compatability of your next computer system purchase. Being able to boot up in Linux says a lot about the compatability of the system to the PC standard. (VGA, IDE, floppy, system clock, chipset, etc)
If you wish to create a single floppy from which to evaluate Linux compatability (like when you are shopping for a new system) then
first prepare a floopy with Linux installed on it by downloading the following zip file put together by Thomas Oehser.
Second, go to Thomas's site and read his FAQ for who to create a bootable Linux floppy. The basic instructions are simple and straightforward and repeated below:
a) Pkunzip it b) If you are running Windows-95, do "shutdown and restart in msdos mode". You have to be in really-DOS mode. Not a DOS session under Windows-95. c) CD to the directory you pkunzipped it into. d) "install". Follow prompts to create the diskette. This is for installing tomsrtbt when you don't already have Linux.
When that is done, insert the boot disk into the A: drive and reboot your computer. Linux will boot up and "login" prompt will appear ... type root and then follow instructions afterwards. To test out the system type the following commands:
ls ...to list files
du -a ...to list files and directories
top ...to look at processes....use ctrl-c or q to exit
Before you turnoff the machine, the last command you should use must type is the following:
shutdown -h now
2.1 Why Distributions when I can download
You have an option of downloading from the net (1MB
every 15 minutes using 9600 Baud Modem) and spending hours waiting but
it is a better use of your time to godown to your local store or library
and get a CD for about $20....If it were music...it get a Grammy :) .
CD-ROM Distributions are available from each of the following
companies .You can find these CD-ROMs in most computer stores and University/College
campus stationary stores:
2.2 What Distributions are available
and how do they differ?
Two very good starting points beging with Matt Welsh's tutorial on getting started with both Unix and Linux. It is suitable for the rank begineer knowlegeable in DOS or Win95 but also for sophisticated users of Linux. The second link should a site with sub links to other information alluded to by the first but at a level required by a sophisticated Linux User/Programmer. Links can be found below:
1. Matt Welsh's Linux Installation and Getting Started
2. Caldera'a Linux Documentation Page
If you are at this point then you are probably thinking about networking several Linux boxes, hooking up your digital camera to your Linux based computer, or trying to understand why you seem to have a problem with the date on your computer (especially Acer) in the year 2000 that is supposed to Y2K compatible.
4.1 Graphics is King...how to configure
Linux is an alternative because it has a Graphical User Interface. Editing text was fine with a text editor but in the new Millenium, even kids in Junior school know that editing their JPG computer image of Mom and Dad requires a editor that manipulate images.
4.2 My Linux Configuration: Problems and Workarounds
The clock on my Aopen AP5T motherboard rolled correctly on New Year's Eve. The computer showed the following when the "date" command was typed in:
Saturday Jan 1 00:12:05 GMT 2000
I shut down the computer for the night breathing a bit easier. The next morning the computer was powered up and the "date" command was again typed in and computer showed the following:
Thursday Feb 2 09:12:05 GMT 1997
Surfing the net at the Aopen site revealed that the hardware clock is interpreted by a BIOS routine that then communicates to the operating system. such as Win95. Linux however bypasses the BIOS time algorithim and accesses the clock hardware directly. One feature of Linux is that known systematic (example: 3 second loss per month ) error can be kept in a file on the system so that Linux does a regular periodic correction (See file called /etc/adjtime) to the clock directly. It turns out the problem is in booting portions of the boot code (file called /etc/init.d/boot). To workaround the problem, I prevented the periodic correction from ever happening by altering the line n /etc/init.d/boot containg the "clock" utility call to only read but not write (ie. update). Change
clock -a -u
to
clock -s -u
/\^/\ Peak /\^/\
