Finally installed Slackware

wickdgin · 08-26-2002, 08:52 PM

Ok, so I finally deticated myself to swtiching to Slackware. I tried a month or two ago, but found I didn't have to time to configure everything the way I wanted- so I went back with Redhat for the time being. But now I installed Slackware 8.1 once again, and I plan on giving it a few days to see if I can get everything running smothley... so here is a list of problems/obsticles I have ran into so far:

There doesn't seem to be any available mixers available, so kmix is not working... though I have gotten my sound to work fine
Why doesn't it clear everything when u exit a shell... like if I log off root everything I did that was last on the screen is still there... how can I get it to clear the screen before it prompts for a new login
When executing a PHP script I get this error -- /usr/bin/php: error while loading shared libraries: libmm.so.11: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
I believe that is it for right now, I am still trying to get used to the placement of config files and such

Excalibur · 08-26-2002, 10:30 PM

1) Check for the device link /dev/mixer. Mine points to /dev/mixer0 but I am using the ALSA sound drivers. But I do not know if ALSA makes any difference though. I was using kernel builtin support for my sound card and the mixer was working, but I do not remember what the link was set too.

2) When I am in console mode on a tty and I log off; the screen is cleared as a part of the getty that is running when it reinits. If you use "su" or "login" commands then follow with "exit" or "logoff" then it doesn't clear the screen. At least until you logoff the main process.

3) libmm.so is located in /usr/lib for me. It is a sym link that points to /usr/lib/libmm.so.11.0.23. Sorry, but I do not know what package it is part of.

wickdgin · 08-26-2002, 11:26 PM

Thanks for your reply.

My problem with the mixer was my permissions on /dev/mixer, so that is solved
It doesn't clear when I logoff when on console on a tty
well, I am going to update my php package so lets see what happens after that, it is currently downloading

Excalibur · 08-27-2002, 12:12 AM

See if you have lines in the /etc/inittab file that match these.

c1:1235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty1 linux
c2:1235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
c3:1235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
c4:1235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
c5:1235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
c6:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux

These are the commands that start the getty's on the tty consoles. The second group of numbers are the runlevels. Runlevel 4 only has only one getty on tty6. Runlevel 1,2,3,5 have all six. I would think that "respawn" would clear the terminal screen and restart agetty when you logout and it is terminated. Then it should display /etc/issue file and then run /bin/login command and wait for a login attempt.

wickdgin · 08-27-2002, 01:15 PM

Well everything looks fine in the inittab, infact I commented out tty 5 & 6 because I never use more than 3 or 4 at a time.
Does it also clear the screen for you after the boot scripts run, because that is still displayed when is prompts for login. I'm still trying to figure this out.
I removed the tarball package for php, and compiled & installed it from source - it doesn't give me the same error messages, but acts funky. It doesn't seem to read argv[ ] . I am using php for some system scripts, not for web scripting. I might just re-write them in perl

Excalibur · 08-27-2002, 01:59 PM

When I was running at run level 3, the initial boot messages were not cleared prior to the login prompt. Currently I use run level 4 with only tty6 available. However, I think I recall other distros clearing the screen on boot before the login, like RedHat if I recall. That may also be a part of using frame buffers as well though. Didn't use it long enough to know much about it. Anyway, you might be able to add some codes to the /etc/issue file, like a [ESC]2J sequence, I think that resets the display. I know bash allows the "reset" command to clear the screen and reset the prompt, etc. I do not know if it could be added to a logout sequence or not.

To my knowledge, I do not use php myself. But it was installed as a part of full Slack install on my system. So my install should probably be considered untested. Since I do not know what it does, difficult to test it. If you know of a method to test it, I would be glad to for your comparison sake.

Perhaps it has helped in some way.

wickdgin · 08-27-2002, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Excalibur
Anyway, you might be able to add some codes to the /etc/issue file, like a [ESC]2J sequence, I think that resets the display. I know bash allows the "reset" command to clear the screen and reset the prompt, etc. I do not know if it could be added to a logout sequence or not.

That might have worked too, but I found this as a better work around... I edited my inittab from something like this:

c1:1235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty1 linux
to
c1:1235:respawn:/sbin/agetty -I '\033[2J\033[f' 38400 tty1 linux

which is the ascii equivelent to ESC[2J to clear the screen and ESC[f to reposition the cursor to the upper left hand corner
The exact script I've been trying to use is this:

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php

$rcpt = $argv[1];
$subject = "";
$message = "$argv[2]";

mail ("$argv[1]@mobile.att.net", $subject, $argv[2]);
?>

I've been using it to send text messages to my cell in the past. It originally was not passing argv[ ], and give me the error '@mobile.att.net... User address required'

Excalibur · 08-27-2002, 03:24 PM

Well I tested what you have provided, and I think I received the same results. It complained about the argv variable not being defined. When I hard coded in my address and a subject and message, the mail () statement worked OK though. Even with the argv errors being reported.

Perhaps the docs in the /usr/docs/phpxxxx directory might help to explain the problems and/or changes.

Good to hear that you got your screen to clear like you wanted. But I guess it still doesn't explain why it didn't work to begin with.

Marshall · 08-27-2002, 06:00 PM

Your solution to the login looks like it works, but just as an alternative, I just put the following line it /etc/rc.d/rc.local

clear

That simply clears the screen. This way just before the user logs in, rc.local clears the display.

I'm not at my linux box now (at work), but there is a way you can have it clear the screen any time someone logs out just like you are used to with RedHat. I thought it was in /etc/profile or something like that.... not sure. If I track it down I'll post it later tonight.

Good luck!

wickdgin · 08-28-2002, 11:26 PM

Well, I've gotten just about everything setup (well, except for my printer which I should probably do before my semester starts next week).

But I am still having problems with that php script, even if I make a script to just use the mail() function with hard coded values - it seems that php would hang for 10 -15 seconds, sendmail proccess is listed immediatly after executing the script - but no mail

... All I want to do is send e-mail from the command line, without having to run sendmail as a dameon.

Excalibur · 08-29-2002, 06:54 AM

If my message body is a text file, I just use sendmail by itself. Example:

cat message_body.txt | /usr/bin/sendmail -fmachine_name@mydomain.com my_email_address@mydomain.com

The sendmail daemon is not required to be running all the time to send the message. But if it cannot deliver on the first attempt, it will not retry without the daemon running scheduled to reattempt.

Also, If you want a Subject line in the message, it needs to be imbedded in the message body file. I echo the line in on the first line when I create the file.

echo "Subject: This is the subject line." > message_body.txt

Perhaps it will help you in the short time until you can get the php issues worked out.