hello,

these should be pretty easy to answer for whoever decides to partake in this thread.
you know when ya log into slack and under your last login time it says "you have mail"...? well i was just wondering how i *read* that mail. i can't help it i was born a .
next up , when my login promp pops up after either i boot up or i logout, i would like it to clear the screen befor asking me to login. Is there a file i could modify to add a simple *clear* command to? (running bash)
Thanks a lot in advance to whoever jumps in. It took me 20 minutes just to write my cdrom and floppy into /etc/fstab, but I *refuse* to give up.

p.s you guys were right...i like slack *way* better than mandrake....and i cant even get X to install!!! ...it's more hands on...(this doesn't count...)

{pathogenik};

On my system you just run the program "mail"

To clear the screen on first login just edit /etc/rc.d/rc.local and add clear
rc.local will run anything you tell it to on bootup.
I have it run ppp-go, and I have it load a few modules etc.

no, i thinnk what he meant is to clear the screen when he logouts, so the person who logins after him cant see what was the last thing he did. A script that should run on logout, after BASH is closed and before the login respawns, something that will clear the screen, so no one can see last couple of commands entered by the person who just logged out.
I was looking for something like that too, cuz its really annoying having to clear screen before logging out...
Any ideas how to do this?
-nskl

Er... mail is the oldest, meanest e-mail client left. You might want to try: pine, elm or mutt... all of which usually turn up as defaults on my systems.

A call to clearscreen on exit is probably somewhere in init... It bothered me too when I switched to Slack... I just looked around for it and gave up rather quickly. Hmm...


Cheers,

Finegan

'mail' was the first thing i tried..."command not found" tried typing pine, elm, and mutt and got the same thing...maybe they're not installed..?

added 'clear' to rc.local, that fixed it THANKS

i will try and look around for that logout file...

Got another quick question too...
is it possible to edit my *user's* $PATH so that i could type 'halt' and 'reboot' without having to login as root? if so..what path would i include..?

--pathogenik

/usr/sbin/shutdown is what get's called... however, from the console itself, the 3 finger salute calls shutdown properly under any user, but its set for -r (reboot). That is in one of the rc's too.

Cheers,

Finegan

As for mail, you will want to install those email packages since it seems you don't have them. Just pop in the install CD, look at the FILE_LIST and find wich dir and filname you will want to install by doing installpkg filename.tgz
As for halt and reboot, that's a permission thing. Only root can do that, unless decide to add a user to the sudoers file and let them have the correct permissions to do this. Type man sudoers to get the low-down on that.

Try 'mailx'. I used to read mail using it on a crazy ol' machine at university. Very gnarly. Obviously I don't use it now, but it may be what you're looking for to read your mail spool, although any other program like mutt should do it.

ciao

Taz, dude, no kidding; any user, or even the machine just sitting there like a wet sock, can give the machine the 3 finger salute. It runs by keytrap. I know RH and Slack both have this feature. I think most of the other distro's do as well.

Word,

Finegan

mail packages weren't installed...one is now.

changed inittab to
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -h now
all by myself!!!

...mother would be proud

still gonna mess with 'visudo' for the hell of it

thanks for the help boys/girls

--pathogenik