Re: What's the Dealio with initrd, etc/fstab, initrd.img inittab, vmlinuz, grub and partitions ???

On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 14:24:23 -0800, iforone wrote:


Douglas Mayne wrote:
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 07:00:47 -0800, iforone wrote:
Really? ;-)

I know, I know, - no need to rub it in ^_ ^

Allow me to preface with system info, and install and kernel info;

SYSTEM;
PII, 350MHz / Intel 440BX / 192MB RAM /AGP nVidia TNT Pro(32MB)/
PCI Ethernet NIC / PCI 3Com USRobotic Winmodem / Onboard Ensoniq
AudioPCI 64D SB emulation / USB 1.1 only (onboard) / etc...

Not enough horsepower (CPU and RAM) for KDE to run smoothly.

See last comment...;-)

Here are the basic rules for disc partitioning (in the PC world):

it's funny - I know all that stuff for years now - just the Ext'd
(under Linux) was throwing me...as you know, Windoze doesn't have
"tools" like those found in *nix.

Note: comment inline.

I apologize - I don't understand that (inline?), if it's unimportant,
don't bother ;-)
Inline: The answer is partly mixed in with the question. Just a notice to
make sure a comment isn't overlooked.

Caveat: I am not running Debian.

Understood

The main problem you are having is performance? I would expect that
machine to have trouble with KDE. Personally, I find that KDE has too
much "eye-candy" for my taste.

So do I - but not being that CLI savvy in Linux yet and basically not
knowing how to even start another GUI (wm, icewm, enlightenment,
fluxbox, etc) I had no choice. I would MUCH prefer to learn it from the
Admin perspective. I'll refrain from further CLI vs GUI comments for now
;-). Heck; I only recently figured out how vim works (atleast well
enough to edit the visudo / sudoers file)...now I here of nano(used it a
few times already, nice) and pico and emacs (heard much ado about it)
-- also I want to get to know mc better, yet I don't even know how to
differentiate between a Windows Manager, a File Manager, an ncurses
based editor, a tty, etc *sigh*. I just found that X-Server is a GUI
Server(?) meant for networking/multiple users at once and one can have
MANY sessions open at once, and that either kdm, xdm, gdm can manage
(?)...oh boy - I can't even get 2 wm's/fm's going at once

Virtual terminals are on <CTL>-<ALT>-<Fx>
X terminals begin at <CTL>-<ALT>-<F7>



You can change the default window manager globally (for every user on
your machine), or locally (for an individual user).


Oh - so I just need to create more users? perhaps using adduser ?

You should have a non-priviledged (non-root) user for yourself. I use an
account named "doug" on my machine. Any new users will use the default
X windows manager.

See my issue is what is all this UID, SUID 1000, Umask, etc...I mean My
1 default $USER I created and use can't access things and see things I'd
like it to easily...I'd like to understand Why not first - so I don;t
keep making New Bad User configurations. Should my CD and DVD be 'rw',
rather than 'ro' in /etc/fstab ?? -- should the my '/' partition be
listed as ro ?? as it is now ? Why is there this errors=remount at
/dev/hda7 ?

/dev/hda7 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

and what the heck are the trailing 0 and 1 for ? oh brother...

Back on point for me;

I'd guess first and foremost, I'd like to understand IF and WHY and HOW
I can use a real installed kernel (kernel-image) ? it seems I'm booting
off a small kernel image WITHOUT actually having a kernel installed ??
does
initrd.img-2.6.8-2-386
call
vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-386

or something like that ??

vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-386 is a real kernel image, otherwise you wouldn't be
booting linux at all. initrd.img-2.6.8-2-386 appears to be a matching
initial ramdisk for that kernel. Initial ramdisks are used mostly for
loading kernel modules which are necessary to access the root
filesystem. The modules can be for hardware (a scsi controller, for
example) or for software (a filesystem not included directly inside the
kernel, say XFS). The kernel and the kernel modules generally are
prepared as a set when the kernel is configured and compiled.

Should I just run Kpackage and install the appropriate
"kernel-image"(2.6.8, i386, approx 50MB ??)

I don't know what Debian means by a kernel image, other than what I wrote
above.


Thank goodness for kpackage - 'aptitude' gives me strange "boxes as
characters" and as borders for window frames and menus - and 'apt-get'
is ok, but I'll never remember all the commands (and package names), and
there's s-o-o-o many packages...

That's why it's easier to be a Slacker.


My PCMCIA (and/or EISA) needs to be fixed (though I have neither ISA,
nor PCMCIA devices, but this Intel South Bridge (82371AB/EB PIIX4E)
certainly likes to have it's support) - I chose NOT to install PCMCIA
(passed it up during install) because this is a Desktop, not a Laptop,
with seemingly no PCMCIA - BUT, when Knoppix Live (v3.6, 2.6.7 Kernel)
was booting (both from LiveCD /and/ when installed to HDD), there was
definitely PCMCIA support and "hotplug" detecting and configuring
devices -- Since installing Debian I get these errors (similar only,
since I can't figure out WHERE to get AlL that Boot screen Info from - I
tried 'syslogd', and 'messages' many other files, but 'dmesg' seems as
close as I can get);

There are some big changes between the 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels. This is
probably a side effect from that.

[...]
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.2 ACPI: PCI interrupt
0000:00:07.2[D] -> GSI 9 (level, low) -> IRQ 9 uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2:
Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: irq 9, io
base 00001020 uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: new USB bus registered, assigned
bus number 1 hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
agpgart: Detected an Intel 440BX Chipset. agpgart: Maximum main memory
to use for agp memory: 149M agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000
cpci_hotplug: CompactPCI Hot Plug Core version: 0.2 pci_hotplug: PCI
Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5

start Failures;

pciehp: acpi_pciehprm:\_SB_.PCI0 evaluate _BBN fail=0x5 pciehp:
acpi_pciehprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x5 shpchp:
acpi_shpchprm:\_SB_.PCI0 evaluate _BBN fail=0x5 shpchp:
acpi_shpchprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x5 input: PC Speaker
inserting floppy driver for 2.6.8-2-386 Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
parport: PnPBIOS parport detected.
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7, dma 3
[PCSPP,TRISTATE,COMPAT,ECP,DMA]
eth0: DSPCFG accepted after 0 usec.
[...]


ACPI is working fine and before I placed those apm= and acpi= entries
into GRUB entries, I still had the same two FATAL: errors about
*hotplug* .ko's during Bootup...I recall the PATH to problem files are
here;

Note: You can have only ACPI or APM. ACPI is preferred with 2.6.x
kernels.

The FATAL bootup messages mention files (.ko) found in here;

lib/modules/2.6.8-2-386/kernel/drivers/pci/hotplug

$ ls -l
total 540
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33393 2005-08-16 11:13 acpiphp.ko -rw-r--r-- 1
root root 8997 2005-08-16 11:13 cpcihp_generic.ko -rw-r--r-- 1 root
root 9895 2005-08-16 11:13 cpcihp_zt5550.ko -rw-r--r-- 1 root root
82017 2005-08-16 11:13 cpqphp.ko -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6079
2005-08-16 11:13 fakephp.ko -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 112573 2005-08-16
11:13 ibmphp.ko -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 108788 2005-08-16 11:13
pciehp.ko <<--- -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40088 2005-08-16 11:13
pci_hotplug.ko -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 111944 2005-08-16 11:13
shpchp.ko <<---

The arrows point to specifically the two I can recall (pciehp.ko and
shpchp.ko)

So how do I go about giving this system PCMCIA support ?? Through 'make'
'modprobe' ??
Do I have to Re-Run the Debian Installer from CD ??

Probably not.


I am not sure of the exact
specifics of Debian for the global change, but start by looking in the
directory /etc/X11/xinit. On my system there is a symbolic link,
xinitrc, in that directory which points to the global default.

The shell script "xinitrc" is present but no symlink there;

$ ls -al /etc/X11/xinit
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-02-15 07:54 . drwxr-xr-x 13 root
root 4096 2006-02-22 23:25 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 224 2005-09-01
18:34 xinitrc -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 53 2005-09-01 18:38 xserverrc

This appears to be different under Debian than I am used to in Slackware.



To change it locally (for one user), copy a file from that directory to
the user's home directory, as appropriate. For example, to switch to
the blackbox window manager, I would type this command:

doug@localhost$ cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.blackbox ~/.xinitrc

Ok - Thank you - I'll mark this area as "bookmarked" lol.., so I can
refer to them when I'm done with atleast a stable/solid hardware
foundation to build on - does the tilde ' ~ ' mean $HOME ? -or- $USER ?
I think /. means root and hidden(?) in this instance?

Partitions...
AFAIK, the original idea for allowing multiple partitions to be mounted
as directories (/home, /usr) was to allow multiple devices to be used.
That way, the 4G needed for /usr could be assigned to a 4G SCSI disk.
This detail is less important now, because of the dramatic increase in
disk size. There is still one obvious exception for continued use of
disk partitioning- it is useful for your /home directory to be on a
partition by itself. That way, your files are segregated from the OS
and this creates three classes of backups: /home only, OS only, or
combined complete backup.

--
Douglas Mayne

Mi Capito me thinks - the /homey is good ;)

Thank you for your help and support. so far, I really appreciate it -- I
didn't want to cross-post either, and I thought of posting (also?) in
linux.debian..user, but after the original dissertation, I forgot
(doh!). Oh dear, look at how long this post is .....(where's Enrique?
O_O )

Note: my comments inline (above).

I think you are making rapid progress. Keep up the good work. Curiosity
is where it starts. I would recommend a basic book on GNU/Linux command
line tools, such as Linux in a Nutshell:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565925858/103-9873526-3468618?v=glance&n=283155

Or Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours:
http://www.intuitive.com/tyu24/

Of course, the Linux Documentation Project is the definitive resource.
And Wikipedia has some great overviews.

--
Douglas Mayne
.

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