Linux Question

[Pastor Larry]

Does anyone here know anything about Linux or know where I might get some help??

Here's the situation: I have a Linux server here at the church used mostly for backup (though there is a future intent with it). My internet access is through my laptop modem (dial-up ... yes I am in the dark ages but I need access both here and at home and I can't afford a cable modem at both places).

Anyway ... I would like to set up a way to use my wireless connection on my laptop to make the Linux server dial the access number and connect. Then I could get my internet connection through the network so I can have internet access on my laptop using the wireless connection.


Does that make sense? Anyone have any answers??

 

[MsGuidedAngel]

Hiya Larry!

Here is the web page for "Linux Home Page"...

And you might need this one too called "Apache Software".. To help you run your Linux Page!

This one might help you as well "GNU's Not Unix!"..

Here's Linux.com "Linux.com"..

I have more if ya need help Brother! I also run my own Forum called "Kristi Ann's Haven". I know some URL and HTML codes that can help you!

Your Sister is Christ forever,

Kristi Ann

 

[Pastor Larry]

Thanks ... i will take a look at these ...

 

[jasonW*]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
[QB] Does anyone here know anything about Linux or know where I might get some help??

Me = like linux alot.

Anyway ... I would like to set up a way to use my wireless connection on my laptop to make the Linux server dial the access number and connect. Then I could get my internet connection through the network so I can have internet access on my laptop using the wireless connection.

Let me get this straight:

1. You are at your church, sitting next to your linux machine with your laptop? Or are you at home and you want to make the linux machine, which is at church, dialup?

2. Have you heard of Cron? It is a way to schedule jobs and tasks in linux. This may be what you want to use.

Either way, answering #1 would make it easier for me to help.

Thanks,
jason

 

[Pastor Larry]

I am at the church. I want to make the modem in the linux server dial the internet connection. That way, I can access the internet through the wireless network on my laptop. The wireless network is already set up and working.

I haven't heard of Cron ... I will search for it and see what I can find.

My knowledge in Linux is pretty basic. I have it installed on the server here and I have it on a desktop at home but I don't use it much. It is, so far at least, pretty unwieldy. Perhaps I just don't know enough about it.

 

[jasonW*]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
I am at the church. I want to make the modem in the linux server dial the internet connection. That way, I can access the internet through the wireless network on my laptop. The wireless network is already set up and working.

Have you setup the PPP connection on the linux machine? PPP connection is how linux uses the modem to dial up to the internet.

My knowledge in Linux is pretty basic. I have it installed on the server here and I have it on a desktop at home but I don't use it much. It is, so far at least, pretty unwieldy. Perhaps I just don't know enough about it.

Linux is pretty much the best home OS you can have (aside from Mac OSX, which is built on BSD, which is like linux in many regards). I would never again install windows on any machine I own.

It may take some time to learn, but remember that it took time to learn windows once. And with Linux, you won't have to worry about all the viruses and other nasty things that windows has.

jason

 

[Pastor Larry]

I just realized that my brother didn't put the modem in the server before he moved to Chicago. I have to get him to mail it to me so I can put it in before we can go farther I guess.

But since you know about Linux, let me ask you another question. Is there a way in RedHat 9 to get the floppy drive to automount on bootup? I use it every week to transfer our powerpoint to the laptop in the auditorium that doens't have a USB (and I don't have a floppy on my laptop). So I transfer it to the server and then to a floppy. But each time, I have to mount the floppy with a disk in it and then ummount it before I take it out or I have restart the server. I used Mandrake for a bit and don't remember having to do this ...

 

[jasonW*]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
I just realized that my brother didn't put the modem in the server before he moved to Chicago. I have to get him to mail it to me so I can put it in before we can go farther I guess.

But since you know about Linux, let me ask you another question. Is there a way in RedHat 9 to get the floppy drive to automount on bootup? I use it every week to transfer our powerpoint to the laptop in the auditorium that doens't have a USB (and I don't have a floppy on my laptop). So I transfer it to the server and then to a floppy. But each time, I have to mount the floppy with a disk in it and then ummount it before I take it out or I have restart the server. I used Mandrake for a bit and don't remember having to do this ...

My guess is that if you looked at your fstab (/etc/fstab), you would have a line like this:

/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

that "noauto" means that it will not automount at boot. If you changed column 4 to 'auto', the system should automount the drive. But, as I understand it with the floppy (I haven't used a floppy drive in about 3 years), you will still have to type 'mount /mnt/floppy' at the command prompt and 'umount /mnt/floppy' each time.

Though, I am not sure about that last point. if you don't feel comfortable mucking with your system in that way (editing your fstab via the root user), I would just say leave it as it.

Though, I seem to remember RedHat having an applet that will mount and unmount your FD for you. Check your programs menu to see if anything seems like it might do the trick.

jason

 

[Pastor Larry]

Jason,

A couple of more questions when you get a chance. I was playing with Linux last night again for the first time in a while, mainly working on some graphics for our church website we are putting together. I did a little searching and found that Corel is supposed to have a distro that includes Corel office. Are you familiar with that?

What do you think is the best distro to use? I liked Mandrake better than RedHat but I couldn't get the modem to work so I abandoned it and went back to RedHat. RedHat is on our server. But I konw some others are out there. Mandrake had a read/write capability with a NTFS drive which RH doesn't have (or at least I can't make it work). At one point, I had RH reading from the NTFS drive, but it wouldn't write to it. Mandrake was automatic as I recall.

I am also trying to get Scribus (DTP Program to work), but I can't get any fonts with it. I am trying to figure out how to do TT fonts in Linux. I would like to use all my TT fonts from my Win2000 install on both OS's. Is there any way to do that?

On my home desktop I have both Win2000 and RH9 installed (I think it is 9 though it may be 8). The instructions I have found for installing TT fonts are confusing to me ... maybe I just don't know enough about it.

One of my problems with Linux is that I am mainly interested in production, i.e., using it, rather than knowing a lot about it. Linux is hard to use that way, to me. Any suggestions??

BTW, my brother is mailing me that modem so hopefully I will have it soon and I can get back to the original question.

 

[jasonW*]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
A couple of more questions when you get a chance. I was playing with Linux last night again for the first time in a while, mainly working on some graphics for our church website we are putting together. I did a little searching and found that Corel is supposed to have a distro that includes Corel office. Are you familiar with that?

I have heard of it, but I have never used it. If you are looking to do some graphics, I might suggest using the latest Gimp .

Also, make sure you check out OpenOffice. This is available for windows as well.

What do you think is the best distro to use? I liked Mandrake better than RedHat but I couldn't get the modem to work so I abandoned it and went back to RedHat. RedHat is on our server. But I konw some others are out there. Mandrake had a read/write capability with a NTFS drive which RH doesn't have (or at least I can't make it work). At one point, I had RH reading from the NTFS drive, but it wouldn't write to it. Mandrake was automatic as I recall.

Hmm..that is quite a religious question!

I have used SuSe, Mandrake, Redhat, Slackware and a couple of others, but I always seem to settle on Redhat (now called Fedora for their home distro). For no other reason that it seems like it is the most used distro.

Though, I have heard nothing but good things about Mandrake. They do have a new version. Version 10. That might solve most of your problems you were having with Mandrake.

I am also trying to get Scribus (DTP Program to work), but I can't get any fonts with it. I am trying to figure out how to do TT fonts in Linux. I would like to use all my TT fonts from my Win2000 install on both OS's. Is there any way to do that?


On my home desktop I have both Win2000 and RH9 installed (I think it is 9 though it may be 8). The instructions I have found for installing TT fonts are confusing to me ... maybe I just don't know enough about it.

Don't know what Scribus is, but if you want to get fonts working, here is how you do it:

1. Create a folder called .fonts in your home directory

Mine looks like this:
/home/jason/.fonts

Copy all your TT fonts into that directory.

Use the fonts.

That should be all you need to do, though you might have to reload X (Gnome or KDE, whichever you are using). Not sure about that last part.

One of my problems with Linux is that I am mainly interested in production, i.e., using it, rather than knowing a lot about it. Linux is hard to use that way, to me. Any suggestions??

Not really. I guess my problem is that I feel completely comfortable dropping to the command line to do something. I guess I would just say "keep plugging away", though that really isn't much of a help.


jason