Re: Finding installed package files

From: Moe Trin (ibuprofin_at_painkiller.example.tld)
Date: 04/05/05 

Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 14:56:56 -0500

In article <SbidnU3Gvf-jn8_fRVn-pw@news.ruraltel.net>, Rod Engelsman wrote:

>Not particularly. Actually, the reason I wanted to replace it was
>because I disliked the changes that RH had made to the program. For
>instance, RH seems to be *very* internationally oriented. So one
>consequence was that the config loaded about 100 different dictionaries.
>Made spell-check slow as hell. Well, I could fix that manually, but they
>also used their own icon set and I just wanted a familiar touchstone on
>the Linux side of my box after using OOo for over a year with XP.

Yeah, that's been a problem for a while. At least as far back as RH 4.2
(Feb 1997), Red Hat included international language support. It sorta
sounds as if you installed everything. I can't speak for the icon set,
as I've never used any of the later versions of windoze, and I'm much
more command line oriented. There are 27 nxterms in six panes on this
desktop, and not an icon in sight.

>Are you familiar with the phrase, "Like trying to herd cats?"

It's easy when you know how... well, relatively easy... well...

Actually, under the desktop, there really are a lot of similarities
between the distributions. I also have to support several branded
UNIX systems, and I can assure you that there are huge differences
between supposedly POSIX compliant systems. The differences between
SystemV and the BSD trees will drive you nuts - same commands use
conflicting options.

>Not in my case. I normally don't even leave my box running overnight --
> it's not like it would be doing anything useful for me except burn
>electrons.

Four of the (8) systems at home run 24/7 - firewall, file server, and two
workstations. Partly, this is a holdover from running Unix for nearly 20
years. There is a moderate amount of tasks run by Vixie-cron at oh-dark-thirty
and there is a nightly backup of all systems. The firewall and file server
run headless, and we do turn the monitors off when they're not in use.

>My problem was that using the internet was just painful. The browser would
>keep timing out and hanging on "Resolving www.whatever.com...". Called
>these guys about 20 times because I was convinced there was a problem with
>the DNS or maybe just my line.

The browser is using a connection/setup provided by the O/S, so there are
three things to check - /sbin/ifconfig, /sbin/route -n, and the contents of
/etc/resolv.conf. If there is a firewall involved, /sbin/iptables -L. For
the phone line - that really is manufacturer dependent.

>Turned out that the network configuration dialog had an entry that I
>hadn't noticed in the advanced tab. "Enable Dial-on-Demand Routing" with
>a timeout of 100 secs. Oh-Hoh!!! I know what that is and what it would
>do, but I hadn't noticed it or thought to look because Doze doesn't have
>that option in their network setup.

There's nothing wrong about using dial on demand, but that timeout is
rather short. This is one reason I hate these helper tools. While there
are a bunch of options to pppd (164 if sed and grep are correct), you
rarely have a need for all those options. In fact:

[compton ~]$ cat /usr/local/bin/dialin
#!/bin/bash
exec /usr/sbin/pppd connect "/usr/sbin/chat -f /etc/ppp/dialscript" \
defaultroute lock noipdefault modem nodetach /dev/modem 115200 crtscts \
user ibuprofin demand idle 300 holdoff 15
[compton ~]$

There must not be anything after the \ in those two lines.

[compton ~]$ cat /etc/ppp/dialscript
ABORT BUSY ABORT 'NO CARRIER' "" AT&F1 OK ATDT2662902 CONNECT \d\c
[compton ~]$

There is also a /etc/ppp/*ap-secrets file, but that's the whole thing I
needed to run in demand mode. The '/usr/local/bin/dialin' is run out of
rc.local at boot time.

>Only reason I figured it out was because the help desk guy finally told
>me that I was logging on and off repeatedly so I had some idea of what
>to look for.

I try to at least scan the logs weekly, and this should show up in
/var/log/messages. My firewall and modem are hidden away out of sight,
but if the noise level isn't that bad, I can hear the modem dialing.
Also, the phone in the computer room is a multi-line type, and has
'line in use' lights.

        Old guy

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