saving apps - I got it to work but I'm confused

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: saving apps - I got it to work but I'm confused
started by: setecio

Posted by setecio on Nov. 14 2006,20:23

Hi,

I have got HD frugal DSL to save my settings using system-backup/restore hda2, but I got a bit confused when saving abiword, could some kind person unconfuse me?

1) I downloaded app Abiword using myDSL and wanted to get DSL to save it, so after reading the forums I opened Emelfm and tried to create a new directory '/mydsl' but it wouldn't let me. Why not ?

2) Somewhere in there it asked me for su password - what is the su password, or do I have to set it - if so how?

3) I then went to power down and it asked me if I wanted to save unsaved extensions, so I said yes. This opened Emelfm and I was able to create /mydsl and move abiword from /tmp to /dsl. Why was I not able to do it first time ?

4) Now when I open Emelfm I can't find /mydsl folder, it isn't there, and yet everytime I boot up DSL it finds the folder somewhere and reinstalls abiword as I want - but why can't i find the folder in Elemfm ? I read that it must be at location /mydsl as this is the only location that would be automatically checked, and I haven't told booting to look elsewhere. I also did create /mydsl as I said.

Thanks.

Posted by abracadabra on Nov. 14 2006,20:39

Quote (setecio @ Nov. 14 2006,15:23)

Hi im new to linux but may be able to answer a few questions here, hopefluly correct!

1) maybe you need to be root (ie su user) to make mkdir (make directory).

2)I dont know the su password for default dsl installs but i know if you right click the emelfm icon you can open it as root (su) without a password.

3)maybe when it automatically opens emelfm it opens it with root privilages! not sure

4)By defaults Elemfm does not show "hidden files". try open a shell as root and type cd /mydsl and then type ls -all , i think this will show hidden files.

Your post maybe unintentionaly ignored as i think its posted in the wrong section

This is my first post! hope ive been a help and not telling lies!

Posted by setecio on Nov. 14 2006,21:25

Thanks Abracadabra.

1) It seems so,
2) Great, yes I made a test folder this way to check,
3) That would make sense
4) I don't know how to open a shell as root - I tried ATerminal and typed su but it asked for a password. I open Elemfm as su and it said /mydsl doesn't exist.

Well I was between HD install, Apps, and User feedback as it was feedback on the issue that /mydsl doesn't seem to be where I created it - which section should I have put it in - Apps ?

Posted by mekane on Nov. 14 2006,21:31

4) If you bring up the Desktop menu (right-click on the desktop) and go to 'XShells' -> 'Root Access', you can open a terminal window with root access.

Or, you can type 'sudo su' to become root in a normal window.

Posted by setecio on Nov. 14 2006,21:43

Thanks, learning slowly - apparently /mydsl doesn't exist

but how can boot find it since I have never told it to look anywhere else, and if what I read is correct, the only places it will check (without being re-directed) is / and /mydsl

I understand that abiword is installed to /opt using mydsl on boot

Can I search for a folder called mydsl so I can see where it is? I couldn't see a search facility in Elemfm.

EDIT : I booted up using Knoppix live CD, and can see /mydsl
So it is there, but it seems to be completely hidden from DSL - I hope i can save other apps to it.

Posted by humpty on Nov. 17 2006,17:29

I'm only guessing here, since I'm using an old version of DSL.

I think you're supposed to copy your extensions (e.g something.dsl) into the "mydsl" of the root directory of the drive you boot from. The cdrom doesn't have anything inside /mydsl and you can't write to it anyway (it's probably a temporary map to ram).

So what you do is you copy something.dsl to e.g /dev/hda1/mydsl/ (first hard disk)
and boot with the option e.g mydsl=/dev/hda1
which tells DSL to load the extensions in /dev/hda1/mydsl/

in older versions (<2.3) the mydsl directory wasn't invented, and you have to put your extensions at the very root e.g /dev/hda/
(this might also work for newer versions, i'm not sure).

if you put the extensions inside a directory called "optional"
e.g /dev/hda1/optional then the extensions will appear in a right-click menu on the desktop myDSL>Install Optional Extensions.

Posted by setecio on Nov. 18 2006,00:19

Thanks Humpty. I re-posted this in the correct place and learnt that I was booting toram with no mydsl location specified and trying to write to ramdisk, so it just disappeared when I rebooted.

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