Document Date: 1/26/2006
***WORK IN PROGRESS***
This document is at: http://www.cs.wichita.edu/~wallis/sarge.html
Q1. The printers don't work like before.
A1. The printers work, the names have changed. Each printer has a sticker on top of it with a printer name or number. Laser printers have names beginning with "L". Color printers (either laser or inkjet) have names beginning with "C". Dot matrix printers have names beginning with "D". A typical printer would be "L2" (laser printer 2 (old name P2)).
Laser printers can be used for anything, dot matrix printers should be used for program listings, color printers should be used rarely. Remember that print quotas apply for student use.
Q2. What are the commands to use to print?
A2. Debian 3.1 has better printer integration using a print system called CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System). Most printing menus in GUI applications should just work. Also, several commands are available to print files (Postscript or ordinary text, please):
lpr -Pname filename
example: lpr -PL3 fake.txt
a2ps -Pname filename
example: a2ps -PL2 file.txt
The above command makes printing C++ files and other items easier on the
laser printers.
xpp filename
example: xpp foo.ps
This command prints Postscript files and also gives the user more
control over the print layout. XPP has a built-in GUI print chooser.
A3. The old Debian 3.0 included a version of KDE 2. The new Debian 3.1 has KDE 3.3. The difference between these versions is too great for the programs to inter-operate correctly. You need to get rid of your old KDE profile. You can use the command:
fixkdeprofile
from any COMMAND-LINE login (no GUI). This will move your old
profile to a safe place and allow you to log in again and then get a
new profile. Each LINUX lab has a older machine in it with a
command-line login so you can use this command without being in the
GUI.
Q4. Where is the icon I use to get a terminal window?
A4. Depending on the options you chose when you set up KDE,
the icon may not be on the bottom panel. You can get to a shell via
several different menus, the most comprehensive being:
K-Menu>Debian>Xshells>Konsole
Also, on the panel at the bottom of the KDE screen, you can
RIGHT-click on the empty space. You then choose:
Add>Application Button>Debian>Xshells>Konsole
It will add an blue icon that looks like a gear. You can customize the icon it chooses by right-clicking on the icon then choosing Properties and clicking on the big icon box to choose from a new icon list.
Q5. What happened to telnet to the main servers?
A5. Telnet is dead, you should be using ssh/sftp/scp
Q6. There are new machines in 205 and 206. What are they?
A6. They are HP/Compaq Pentium 4 2.8 machines with 1G of RAM. These are really nice machines.
Q7. I notice the new machines in 205 and 206 have front-panel USB. Can I use a USB pen/thumb drive with them under LINUX?
A7. Under Debian 3.1, the KDE in this is not quite aware of USB pen/thumb drives. I have written two programs you can use to access your USB pen/thumb drive under Debian 3.1.
Any removable media (floppy, CDROM, USB Pen/Thumb drive) must be mounted on the LINUX filesystem in order to be seen and used. To mount your USB pen/thumb drive under LINUX, use the command:
usbmount
This will make the filesystem on the USB pen/thumb visible under
/media/usb_ramdisk/ . You can use standard UNIX commands to copy
files back and forth to this directory.
Once you are done with the USB pen/thumb drive, you need to unmount it from the LINUX filesystem. Make sure that any terminal windows that you have active in the above directory are closed. You can then use the command:
usbunmount
to unmount the USB pen/thumb drive.
You can also use Konqueror, the KDE file manager to handle copying files back and forth to the USB pen/thumb drive. It must be mounted and unmounted as above. There is a feature in Konquerer that must be turned OFF before you use it to access the USB pen/thumb drive. It can be found in Konqueror>Settings>Configure Konqueror>Performance. "Maximum number of instances" must be set to zero and any preloads turned off. When you use Konqueror, the normal behavior is to keep Konqueror running in the background even after you close it, so it can come up more quickly later. Unfortunately, it remembers the filesystems you visited and holds them active until all Konqueror sessions are killed. Therefore, usbunmount cannot unmount the filesystem because it is active. Turning off the preloads means that when you shut Konqueror down, it will really shut down.
Q8. Firefox won't start up. I have never used it before, and click on it. It grinds for a while, but never starts. What can I do to run Firefox?
A8. The Firefox startup is buggy. It appears to be a timing problem creating your initial Firefox profile. My workaround (that worked for me) was to run firefox with the following command:
firefox -safe-mode
(there is a space before the "-").
The command ran OK and created my Firefox profile. After this was done, I
could run Firefox via the "K" menus. Please let me know if this
doesn't work.
Q9. I hate KDE. How can I run a different window manager, such as GNOME?
A9. If I have programmed our system correctly, the system should honor the window manager you choose via your .xsession file. For example, if you like Enlightenment instead of KDE, you can create a .xsession file with the following lines in it:
#!/bin/bash
exec /usr/bin/enlightenment
Make sure the file is mode 0755, and you are done. Log out and back in again and your new Xwindows system should be waiting. If you have a window manager that you like that is not installed, please ask me. Debian probably has a package for it. Here are some common ones I found on the web (these are all on our Sarge systems) (this list is taken from the Tuning Debian guide):
A9. The default Java that was on the old Debian 3.0 was removed during the upgrade. There are currently two versions of Java installed on our system in /usr/local. One of these is Java j2sdk_142_nb, the other one is jdk1.5.0_06. Java users will have to set their PATH appropriately to activate these languages.
Q10. What happened the computers in room 257? They have what looks like a LINUX bootup trace on the screen. The ones in 256 look fine.
A10. The software that runs the machines in 256 and 257 was upgraded during the summer. The software attempts to put the machines to sleep (screensaver) after some period of inactivity. The machines in 256 handle it correctly (they are newer). The machines in 257 do not and go to the LINUX trace you see on the screen. Press any key and this will go away and take you back to the WSU login screen. The machines in 257 will eventually be upgraded as well.