Number 200 - January 2000

Computing On The Bleeding Edge Exploring Linux - Part 3
by Neil Stahfest, TAPCUG's Oct 99 Dataline
Last month I wrote about installing Linux on my computer. At the completion of the basic installation, using either the Redhat 6.0 or the Mandrake-Linux distribution, you have a working system. The Xwindow software is installed and it looks enough like Windows 95 that most people, who use Windows 95 (or 98), should be able to find their way around the desktop. At this point I still had two things I wanted to accomplish. One was to configure the computer to play sounds and music and the other was to set up Internet access.     Configuring Linux for sound actually turned out to be pretty easy. Like most things in Linux (and Windows 95), there are several ways to do it. The easiest way I found was to work from the Linux Shell (like the DOS prompt in Windows). There are several ways to do this but if you are running KDE Xwindow, all you have to do is look for the icon at the bottom of the screen with a sea shell on it. When you click on it a blank window opens on your desktop. ([Caution! Click] only ONCE or you will open up multiple windows!). You need to put the mouse pointer inside the window and click to make it active. Then you type "sndconfig" and press the Enter key.     With a little good luck, sndconfig will locate your sound card and hi-light its name on a list of sound cards. Then you press Enter to install the software and you're done. When I tried this with Redhat 5.2, it identified my SoundBlaster clone card and then installed the software. When I tried this with Redhat 6.0, it identified the sound card but couldn't install the software to make it work. That puzzled me. I removed the sound card and installed a SoundBlaster 16 card from another computer. Redhat 6.0 correctly identified the new sound card and installed the software. The sound worked perfectly. My recommendation is to use a genuine SoundBlaster card and avoid problems.     I put a music CD in the CD drive and searched the KDE menu for "multimedia" and then "CD Player". I clicked on the play button and was rewarded with music. Great! I now had an expensive, and complicated, CD player! I moved on to the next challenge, connecting to the Internet. Since most software for Linux is free and available on the Internet, you'll probably want to do this too.     The KDE Xwindow makes this pretty easy to do with an applet called Kppp. Before you run Kppp, however, you need to do a couple of steps to prepare your computer. First you want to get into the Linux Shell, if you're not already there. Just click on the icon with the sea shell as described above. When the command shell window appears, point inside the window and left-click once. Next type the following commands [where each line is] followed by :     [enter your root password when prompted]     chmod +s /usr/sbin/pppd     chmod a+x /usr/sbin/pppd     mv /etc/options/etc/ppp/options.backup     exit     exit	Now you are ready for the next step. Close the window (left-click on the "X" in the upper right corner of the window, just like Windows 95). Next, search the KDE menu for "Internet" and then "Kppp". Select Kppp and click on the "Setup" button. This will bring up another window.     Click on the "Accounts" tab and then select "New". This brings up a window that lets you insert the configuration information for your connection.     In this latest window, you click on the tab marked "Dial" and enter a name (any name) for your connection and the telephone number of your internet provider. Next you click on the ISP tab If you use the same ISP address every time you connect to your ISP, enter it here. If your ISP assigns a different address each time you log-in, select "Dynamic". Now select the "DNS" tab and enter the domain name of your ISP and the domain name server addresses (i.e. mail.yourisp.com and mail1.yourisp.com). You can probably ignore the tabs for Gateway, Login Script and Accounting Information. Just click "OK" and go back to Kppp's main setup screen, we're almost done.     At Kppp's main setup screen, select the "Device" tab. We're going to tell Kppp where your modem is located so click on the pull-down menu for the modem location. Try /dev/modem first. When you try to connect to your ISP, Kppp will tell you if it can't find the modem and you can try one of the other choices (there aren't that many).     Now click "OK" to get back to the main "Kppp" box. Enter your Internet user name and password and then click on "Connect". If you've done everything right, you'll establish a connection with your ISP. Both Redhat and Mandrake Linux come with Netscape browser and e-mail software. Once you have connected to your ISP, click on the Netscape icon to launch your browser. Wasn't that easy?     One note of caution here, my Linux distribution came with Netscape version 4.6. The browser worked okay but when I tried to use e-mail Netscape crashed. Once you are connected to the Internet, using the Netscape browser, go to the Netscape web site (www.netscape.com) and follow the instructions to upgrade Netscape to version 4.61 (make sure you get the Linux version!). Once I did that, I had no further problems with Netscape.     Next time, I'll write about some Linux application software. In the meantime, check out http://linuxtoday.com/ for stories about Linux.
Number 200 - January 2000