This file will be subjected to much modification.
modified 8/7,8/9,8/16
I have a couple of ideas for articles in Linux Answers. I would like to open it up to discussion (to make everything correct) before I submit these to them.
1- how to put users in a group
2- how to create a drive/partition (I don't know how to do this)
3- how to make different file systems
4- how to create a swap drive/file
5- how to get a hardware/software modem to work (I am not sure about the IRQ # thing with this)
6- how to configure jpilot
7- atomic clock sync

1- grep (exhisting user) /etc/group
usermod -G (groups seperated only by commas) (user to add)

2- cfdisk

3- every drive created must have a filesystem on it
unmount drive creating filesystem on
mkfs -t ext2 /dev/(drive)
mkfs -t ext2 -j /dev/(drive) (creates ext3)
mkfs -t vfat /dev/(drive) (creates M$)
mkfs -t hfs /dev/(drive) (creates Mac)
(what other types of fs can be created)
Please explain about journaling and how a fat32 must be created for windows to read it)

4- umount /dev/(drive)
mkswap /dev/(drive)
swapon /dev/(drive)
(editor) /etc/fstab
add '/dev/(drive) swap swap noauto 0 0'
(I don't know how to create a swap file)

5- (this worked for me)
cat /proc/pci (find I/O & IRQ)
less /var/log/messages (find ttyS? & uart)
~~
cd /dev; test -c ttyS? || /MAKEDEV ttyS?; chmod 666 /dev/ttyS?
setserial /dev/ttyS? uart (#) port (#) IRQ (#) baud_base 115200 spd_vhi skip_test
ln -sf /dev/ttyS? /dev/modem
(port = I/O)
~~
try ttyS4 first then the ports found in /var/log/messages
~~
example of relevant part of cat /proc/pci & less /var/log/messages
~~
cat /proc/pci:
Bus 0, device 11, function 0:
Serial controller: US Robotics/3Com 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 1).
IRQ 9. (use this IRQ)
I/O at 0xec00 [0xec07]. (0xec00 is port)
~~
less /var/log/messages
Aug 1 14:34:49 bmike1 kernel: ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A (16550A is uart)
Aug 1 14:34:49 bmike1 kernel: ttyS02 at 0x03e8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A

6- TwistedCranium helped get jpilot going.
chmod 666 /dev/ttyUSB*
rm /dev/pilot
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB1 /dev/pilot
I then opened jplot and snych was successful!
If it does not work after this, contiue on.
Run lsmod and find if PDA module is running, so I did a ....
modprobe visor which started it. (I need other modprobes that can be started)
I then added the modprobe visor line to the file at
/etc/rc.d/rc.local so that the visor module would load at session startup.

7- Get "nist.pl" (from http://www.zdo.com/ (Arizona local time is '-07:00:00' hours earlier than UST with no daylight savings)
which perl
<editor> nist.pl
(change first line)= #!<which output>
(change) $timediff = <+/- time from UST>
move file to /usr/local/bin

First post modified on 8/9
added jpilot configuration

Topics contained therein:
1- putting users in a group
2- creating a swap drive
3-
4-creating a filesystem
5- Modem configuration
6- jpilot configuration

If the drive partition is larger than 2048 Mb you'll get an error about a wrong size, you need to supply the -F option to force FAT32, like this: mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/hd**.

You do that with fdisk (as in Windows), just the GNU fdisk is a little different, read man fdisk for a complete reference.

Creating a swap file is the same as making a particular device/partition swap.

First create the file with:

touch <filename>

mkswap /filename

man swap for details on specifying how to create the file at a certain size, etc.

Also as these are good little howto's, examples, I don't feel they qualify for an actual LinuxAnswer, as those are more in depth type articles/howto's. Something along the lines of, "How to install and setup Apache" which goes indepth to get a newbie or anyone for that matter to start from scratch to install and configure apache.

I figured the 'how to' section would be like an area with a list of problems which would lead to an answer and if the answer didn't satisfy the problem then the individual with the problem would ask in the forum.
I just ran into a new problem with the modem and linux so that solution isn't quite ready. The problem is that it can't resolve the host. It dials in fine but won't read mail or go to any web page. Do you know what's wrong?