Great but could someone help a little bit
Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Great but could someone help a little bit
started by: DogEatDog
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 15 2007,22:37
HiI was drawn to DSL some time ago and I am now in the process of really starting to use it in anger. I have started to kick off a bespoke RDP build (with some nice add-ons) which I will be fully documenting over the next few weeks.
I have added the Intro section below (and the first couple of chapters as posts) - could someone help initially by sending me to the correct forum. The trouble with this project is that it covers a whole bunch of evils.
Many thanks
C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 15 2007,22:40
The BIG IDEACreate DSL thin client for use throughout the house on low powered totally quiet PCs with nothing hanging out of them (USB pens etc.). These clients should be able to:
1. rDesktop / VNC into numerous hosted OS's on server (Windows 2003 SBS) running VMWare Server.
2. Have independent access to multimedia also stored on server to allow for playing of media files. There should be restrictions on permissions to delete / move files from within linux. (I have accidentally deleted many things before in this manner).
3. Create besoke Gui (.lua) to go to specific virtual computers via VNC / rDesktop without having to type in computer name / user name / password.
I also intend to write a noob proof step by step guide on how to do this. I am not the most technically minded but I can work stuff out slowly but surely. Any help greatly appreciated!
Other background thinking...
Network boot (pxe): I have tried spectacularly unsuccessfully to do this before and wasted hours and hours trying to resolve hardware issues and Windows Server 2003 (SBS) issues and really got no where fast. It is possible if you have the patience of a Buddhist Monk and you believe in mind over matter.
The Plan
1. Buy Machine - COMPLETE
2.1 Install DSL from LIveCD - COMPLETE
2.2 Install DSL on HD - IN PROGRESS
3. Connect to Windows Server 2003 - IGNORE (COMPLETE)
4. Check to see how rDesktop works
5. Check to see how VNC works
6. Compare them both with media streaming and ease of use.
7. With whichever works best, create automatic button based logons for users (.lua manipulation)
8. Connect the media player of choice to the music folder on the server. Set permissions.
9. Back up the iso / remaster ?
10. Push the whole build into Ram at boot (toram)
11. Write idiot guide (for myself and others) how to upgrade Distros in the future.
12. NEW - review intrd version for server pxe distribution(suggested by roberts).
Please feel free to help with this plan!!
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 15 2007,22:42
1. Buy machine - COMPLETEI have bought this machine from mini-ITX: < http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=27#m61g >
The M61G Fanless !Ghz Barebones Thin Client with 256KB Flash IDE Module + 512KB Memory.
Advantages: Small and noiseless.
Knock on effects: Because I don't want stuff sticking out of it, I bought the Flash IDE. I therefore need to understand how to do a flash install. The memory is of a decent size so that I can run the final operating system completely in RAM. It is totally noiseless but I may suffer in the long run with media reproduction due to lack of oomph powerwise.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 15 2007,22:43
2.1 Run DSL from LiveCD - COMPLETEPrecursors: Open up box - add RAM, attach CD drive, insert IDE Flash module.
1. Download latest version of DSL:
< http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html >
2. Select the 'current' directory
3. download the dsl.[versions_number].iso
4. Burn this to disk.
If you have trouble with any of this bit then google 'burning CD-Roms help' and find out how to do it.
5. Stick your CD-Rom into the Drive and start up your machine.
6. If it doesn't boot immediately, you may need to select 'Boot from CD-Rom' in your Bios settings of your computer. To access your Bios settings, hit Delete during the first few seconds after switching on. If Delete doesn't work, try F8, F2 or any of the other 'F's during the first few seconds (pretending you are a jazz pianist can work too by running your fingers up and down the F keys - not so good at identifying the correct F key to press for future though). You may be able to look up some Hardware instructions for your Motherboard if you are still struggling. Again Googling will probably help.
7. Let the whole thing run - when you are asked to enter cheat codes. Just hit return and get the thing installed.
8. Muck about with your very nice new Operating System that took less than 10 minutes to get up and running.
9. Is your computer connected to the internet to the network? Easy: Check by using Mozilla or similar to check your connection to the web. Otherwise, double click Terminal icon in top left hand of screen and type ifconfig (equiv of ipconfig in windoze). This should help you to diagnose problems. I'm not going to spend a lot of time sorting out problems here with this because I never had a problem. One thing I did though is to set a DHCP reservation for the linux box on the Serve - this is just to push the linux addresses away from the windows ones. Open up DHCPon the server, select your scope, open reservation and add a reservation as per instructions. Use the MAC address of your linux box (found using ifconfig like above) and enter in the details without the colons. Reboot.
A little note about Persistence.
OK - you have installed DSL - well done! You can do all sorts of things with this now. This includes downloading DSL add-ons etc. The changes you make are not PERSISTENT! This means that the next time you load up the DSL from the CD-Rom the preferences and changes that you have made will not have changed.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 15 2007,22:52
2.2 Install DSL on HDThe Website says:
##Quote
A "frugal" type install mirrors the operation of the LiveCD. It installs the compressed filesystem and associated boot files onto a pre-prepared partition of your choice on your hard drive.
The frugal install offers you a choice of two bootloaders, lilo or grub.
This method offers many benefits to you over the typical linux hard drive install.
Use of the extension repository for adding applications, which are designed to run in the frugal/liveCD environment.
Much easier upgrade path, without needing to reinstall from scratch.
Use of the 'toram' option, while still operating from a hard drive type device. This offers you the maximum performance in DSL, by running your entire OS in ramspace, but getting the load performance and speed the hard drive offers.(requires 128MB ram)
Most all other boottime options are available to you, like persistant home and opt directories, autoloading of applications, setting fresh passwords, encrypting/decrypting your backups, unique hostname, and autorestore/backup of your personal files and settings at boottime and shutdown.
You can easily revert back to a pristine install condition, and extend this feature to uninstall any extension.
Steps needed:
Create a 50MB Linux partition with cfdisk (ex. hda2 )
Right-click on the desktop, navigate to Apps>>Tools>>Frugal Install, and select your choice of Frugal-Grub or Frugal-Lilo. This will make a ext2 file system and copies the necessary portions of the cd to it.
You can also bootup the DSL CD with the bootcode option " install " , and you will be presented with all the install options in a menu format.
##End Quote
Just for those of you who are like me who don't know what a frugal install is let alone a grub or lilo install then read this bit:
Frugal: The ability to boot up your computer with a method that isn't the liveCD.
Lilo vs. Grub install: Not really sure about this one - the documentation isn't immediately obvious. Apparently Grub is a bit more future proof in that you don't need to upgrade it if you change operating systems and you can use network booting too. I will be using Grub therefore. I've no idea why anyone would want to use Lilo.
In this case we will set up the following drives:
hda1: This drive holds your DSL image (size: 60Mb)
hda2: This holds your persistent changes as and when you make changes that you wish to be remembered - (size: the rest)
Q: Should I be using a swap drive here (Bearing in mind I will move to a toram option at the end of the project)?
In my case I have a 256MB flash Rom for a hard disk which is very quick for I/O. I am not sure if I need a swap drive - could someone help me with this??
1. Boot from CD
2. At the cheatcode option type: dsl 2
3. At the command prompt type: cfdisk
4. Create the partitions as you see fit. I have sized them as above (60MB:the rest). I have not made them bootable at this stage. This is pretty straight forward. If you are unsure use the hslp. Once done, remember to write your changes and exit.
5. Format the partitions: type: mke2fs /dev/hda1 and type: mke2fs /dev/hda2 (You don't have to do this bit but it is to ensure that your drives are picked up)
6. Shutdown the machine to get the partitions changes to happen. Type: shutdown -r now
7. Reboot into dsl 2
8. type at prompt: /usr/sbin/frugal_grub.sh
9. Follow these commands:
Harddisk: hda1
Install from: [L] Live CD
Format?: yes & yes
10 Installed! Well done, reboot and take the CD out this time.
11. The grub loader now shows up and you can select which monitor resololution you want to go for at this time.
Notes
If you go into emel-fm (a file manager that takes a bit of getting used to is you are familiar with Explorer) you will see that in the root directory there are a mass of folders. Here is a list of them and a description of each:
Could someone help me here by pointing me in the direction of a good article / post about what the heck this filesystem is meant to be doing. It is so alien to me having spent the last 20 years working with PCs!
Posted by roberts on Sep. 15 2007,23:28
Doing PXE server with DSL is now very easy.You need to use the initrd edition of DSL and the pxedsl.tar.gz mydsl extension.
If you have some thin clients you should try it out.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 15 2007,23:51
Many thanks - I think it's inevitable that this is the way I will go eventually. Nice to know that things have got simpler. From memeory I think my problem was more server side. My machine picked up the server ok (mac recognition etc.) but the pxe server just wouldn't deliver the file (I installed 2 different flavours). I gave up in the end. I will add it back into the project plan.I am quite a long way off understanding the remastering process at the moment so the thought of remastering an initrd (initial ramdisk) version scares me a bit at the moment!
C.
Posted by roberts on Sep. 16 2007,02:34
No need to remaster to make an initrd. The initrd edition is available for download as an iso see the download section.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 16 2007,06:29
Sure, I'll do that. I was thinking more along the lines of once I have rewritten the .lua files etc.Could I switch this conversation to my more immediate needs (if that's ok
)...1. With the toram option, do I need a swap drive. I have run dsl with the toram option previously and it has worked fantastically. Have any users come across restrictions?
2. Could someone point me in the direction of a good article that explains how the dsl filesystem (file system) works? I have worked with windows far too long. For example:
I don't understand why the Knoppix folder is 4MB. I thought it should be 50MB?
Why doesn't dsl autoload all the drives? Why doesn't is just go ahead and mount everything it can?
In the latest version the drives I have set up do not appear in the mount tool (they did previously) hda1, hda2 etc.
The cd-rom folder contains stuff and there is no cd-rom in the drive.
What is the etc folder and so on - I just don't know what I am looking at!!
Many thanks!
Posted by Juanito on Sep. 16 2007,06:45
| Quote |
| With the toram option, do I need a swap drive |
| Quote |
| I don't understand why the Knoppix folder is 4MB. I thought it should be 50MB? |
| Quote |
| The cd-rom folder contains stuff and there is no cd-rom in the drive |
| Quote |
| What is the etc folder and so on |
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 16 2007,10:31
| Quote (Juanito @ Sep. 16 2007,02:45) | ||||||||
|
Many thanks for your responses Juanito.
Toram option: I am not sure what enough is - I have 256Mb. Would you suggest more? What would you suggest for a typical install (if such a thing exists!)?
I am currently writing an explaination of the filesystem for Windows users. See below!
Thanks again!
C.
Posted by Juanito on Sep. 16 2007,10:59
| Quote |
| Toram option: I am not sure what enough is - I have 256Mb. Would you suggest more? |
- I think it depends on what you want to do with your dsl machine. To use it as a web browser and e-mail client, you could probably get away with 256MB or less and no swap. To use it for compiling, etc might be less obvious.
I'm using a 10-year old desktop toram but luckily enough it has 512MB ram - even so, I noticed the swap gets used when compiling large programs.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 16 2007,16:50
Juanito - thanks again for the reply. I don't anticipate doing much in the way of compiling just now. I suspect that the rdp uses will be minimal, playing mp3s should be minimal - decompressing xvid or other formats may need some more. I will report back later in the project.Many thanks.
C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 16 2007,16:52
Understanding the filesystem WORK IN PROGRESSIt took me a while to understand how the files system works with DSL. To get a grip on it you need to understand the boot process too which is not clear to a Windows user. It is much more technical than we are used to. Here's my way of explaining it...
If you go into emel-fm (a file manager that takes a bit of getting used to is you are familiar with Explorer) you will see that in the root directory (/..) there are a bunch of folders. They are NOT a consistent set of files that you might see in Windows explorer. Don't think of them as such. Here are the varieties you get:
1. Some are symlinks (shortcuts) to regularly used folders. (They can be recognised as light blue folders in EmelFM)
2. Some are real folders.
3. Some are mounted drives. Drives don't appear in the same way in DSL - they are mounted as folders.
4. Mounted images - the main Knoppix file is treated in this way.
When booting up, there is a bunch of primordial stuff that happens at low level that is handled by the loader (grub in our case). During that phase, it loads what is known as the kernel. This is the shell or environment that allows everything to start to talk to each other. The programs can interface with the hardware and different bits of hardware can talk to each other and so on. Once the kernel is loaded, the main operating system files (/Knoppix) are hunted down on the system. In our case, these are on hda1.
The basic DSL files stored in this image are then installed into RAM at /KNOPPIX. These files allow the Operating system to run. A bunch of shortcuts to commonly used folders are also set up for ease of use. In addition, the orginal KNOPPIX image is mounted (you could say that a shortcut to the main file is setup) under the /cdrom folder. Hence the Operating system can call on the other stuff it needs whenever and you can access the files you are most likely to need quickly. This is all very sensible when you think about it.
Back to persistence again:
As discussed, some of the files are in RAM. The ones that are in RAM can be changed for the most part - some are actually in use so can't be changed. When you start to change these files - nothing will last until you 1: Click System > Backup/Restore (if it does not default to your 2nd drive then select type the name of the drive e.g. hda2) and 2: Introduce the cheatcode: restore=hda2. More about this later!
The KNOPPIX image loaded at /cdrom is not writable either because it is in constant use by the OS. Hence - at a later stage we will have to remaster this image.
In an effort to explain what all these files are doing, here is a list of the files that you will see and an explaination of each.
Directory; Type; Description
/KNOPPIX ; RAM based folder ; A container for holding a bunch of files that DSL needs to run.
/bin; [Symlink to /KNOPPIX/bin]; OS files
/boot; [Symlink to /KNOPPIX/boot]; OS files - boot related
/cdrom; Mounted image; The main Knoppix file found when booting up
/dev; ## No idea!!; No idea
/etc; Ram based folder; Contains application settings
/home; [Symlink to /KNOPPIX/home]; OS files
/lib; [Symlink to /KNOPPIX/lib]; OS files
/lost & found
etc. etc.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 16 2007,16:57
Could someone tell me where I can find a proper description of all these folders? I would like to complete this list with a bit more knowledge. I don't understand for instance why there is a 'lost & found' folder in the cdrom directory as well as the ram root? Is there a reasonable explaination for this somewhere?Many thanks!
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 16 2007,18:09
You could pick up a document on (Linux/*nix) FHS.Afaik lost+found is used on every partition for recovered/non-saved files during system failures.
Posted by curaga on Sep. 16 2007,19:00
Their names also give good hints Like lib means libraries, or tmp temporary stuff.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 16 2007,21:49
Many thanks for both your comments. I have now looked up a decent article on subject (I had tried before but didn't know the correct search criteria!). I have reflected on this and my current feeling is that this may well be going over the top with detail for purposes of communicating this project. I hope that I have explained this reasonably well and I will point to the additional articles.
Amended changes below.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 16 2007,22:10
Understanding the filesystem - COMPLETEIt took me a while to understand how the files system works with DSL. To get a grip on it you need to understand the boot process too which is not clear to a Windows user. It is much more technical than we are used to. Here's my way of explaining it...
If you go into emel-fm (a file manager that takes a bit of getting used to is you are familiar with Explorer) you will see that in the root directory (/..) there are a bunch of folders. They are NOT a consistent set of files that you might see in Windows explorer. Don't think of them as such. Here are the varieties you get:
1. Some are symlinks (shortcuts) to regularly used folders. (They can be recognised as light blue folders in EmelFM)
2. Some are real folders.
3. Some are mounted drives. Drives don't appear in the same way in DSL - they are mounted as folders.
4. Mounted images - the main Knoppix file is treated in this way.
When booting up, there is a bunch of primordial stuff that happens at low level that is handled by the loader (grub in our case). During that phase, it loads what is known as the kernel. This is the shell or environment that allows everything to start to talk to each other. The programs can interface with the hardware and different bits of hardware can talk to each other and so on. Once the kernel is loaded, the main operating system files (/Knoppix) are hunted down on the system. In our case, these are on hda1.
The basic DSL files stored in this image are then installed into RAM at /KNOPPIX. These files allow the Operating system to run. A bunch of shortcuts to commonly used folders are also set up for ease of use. In addition, the orginal KNOPPIX image is mounted (you could say that a shortcut to the main file is setup) under the /cdrom folder. Hence the Operating system can call on the other stuff it needs whenever and you can access the files you are most likely to need quickly. This is all very sensible when you think about it.
Back to persistence again:
As discussed, some of the files are in RAM. The ones that are in RAM can be changed for the most part - some are actually in use so can't be changed. When you start to change these files - nothing will last until you 1: Click System > Backup/Restore (if it does not default to your 2nd drive then select type the name of the drive e.g. hda2) and 2: Introduce the cheatcode: restore=hda2. More about this later!
The KNOPPIX image loaded at /cdrom is not writable either because it is in constant use by the OS. Hence - at a later stage we may need to remaster the image. I am not sure just yet if I can get away with this project in backups only.
I began to write in some depth at this point about what all the individual folders do. It seemed very peculiar that there was a 'lost & found' folder nearly everywhere I looked.
Rather than go into real detail about what individual folders and files do and how they work. You can have a pretty good guess what each of them does and you'll probably be right. To find out more specifically about what is happening where. You can go and read The Linux Documentation Project (http://www.tldp.org/) and click on Guides and find the one on Linux Filesystem Hierarchy. This will explain everything in a lot more depth.
For now, I think we have enough to go on with, incidentally the 'lost & found' folder is found on all partitions for lost files / part files during system failures. That's why you see it around a lot.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 17 2007,11:32
Hi - I have just posted the entire article here as a temporary container for it. I will transfer it back when it's finished.< http://dsl-rdp.blogspot.com/ >
C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 17 2007,16:23
New Question:Coul;d someone tell me why my harddrives' partition names (e.g. hda1, hda2 etc.) are not included in the mount tool. Is there something I have missed here?
Thanks.
C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 17 2007,23:00
New questionCould any one tell me what version of rdesktop is currently being packaged with DSL?
Many thanks
C.
Answered my own one here 1.3.1 s the current version number.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 18 2007,01:55
1: Are they formatted? If hda1 is where your DSL image is in, it will automatically be mounted on /cdrom2: run `rdesktop` and it shows 1.3.1 for me
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 18 2007,06:57
Both drives, hda1 and hda2 are formatted and working. Both can be mounted from the terminal using the mount command.The Mount tool just does not show them up. After using the mount command, and when I click through all the unamed drives in the mount tool, two of the 'blanks' show up as mounted. It's all a bit freaky really.
Thanks.
C.
PS thanks for the 1.3.1 too - managed to find that one out by opening my eyes!!!
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 18 2007,09:12
4. Using RDesktop - COMPLETE rDesktop is a thin client for viewing other computers / applications that utilises RDP. Just so that you understand, RDP is a protocol for tranferring information across a network. VNC uses the RFB protocol. The VNC route basically splits the screen up into boxes and then transmits video changes as they occur. RDP on the other hand is a bit more integrated and will redraw things according to actions from the user. Apparently RDP is meant to be better but we will soon see!
If you haven't already done so, click the Rdesktop icon on the screen and type in the IP or the name of the computer on the network. If this doesn't work, then you will have to check to see if you have the correct premissions at the server. Refer to your server documentation for this (in fact, stop with DSL until you have managed to get 2 x PCs talking to each other with no problems). Again, I haven't had any problems in this area.
If you are using rDesktop - 3 things will occur to you...
1. Annoyingly "dsl" is entered as the user name & there is no option to automate
2. If you have used the fullscreen mode, there is no apparent way out (CTRL+ALT+Return sorts it but be aware that the box that it converts to is right on the periphery of the screen so it doens't look as if it has worked!).
3. The colour depth is rubbish.
To deal with these each in turn...
Rather than using the icon on the desktop (X), open up a terminal screen. At the prompt type the following:
Things in brackets need to be replaced completely with the description in the brackets and the brackets themselves.
rdesktop -u [username] -p [password] -d [domain] -a [8 or 16 according to your system] -f [targetname]
Explaination
Apart from the obvious ones -a sets the colour depth of the connection which is set at 8 or 16 bit and -f is the switch for fullscreen mode. For more about the other options you can use you can type just rdesktop at the prompt and the list of switches is shown.
example
rdesktop -u dogeatdog -p crumpet -d nicefriedeggs.local -a 16 -f flowerxppc
You can't specify all of this using the rdesktop GUI interface which isn't very surprising. The problems should now have dissappeared for you and it should look a whole lot better. I think it does look better but it is a fair bit away from the RDP client supplied with Windows (which was recently updated).
Now I am going to setup and run VNC to compare them both...
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 19 2007,22:51
Using VNC - WORK IN PROGRESSVNC is another means of accessing other computers remotely. It works using RFB protocol and, if you can actually find an opinion, the general feeling is that RDP is superior. It comes in various flavours for different applications. You can get a whole lot more on this on web based wiki's. Here's how to get it working quickly:
1. Download the free edition (windows version) from www.realvnc.com
2. Install it on your windows box and make sure you select run and register it as a service.
3. Goto Windows Firewall on the box and click on the exceptions tab. Click add program - select winvnc and click ok.
4. Click add port and add VNC with port 5900 as TCP/IP and ok out of everything.
5. Go back to DSL - click on VNC viewer and type your box name and the password you specified earlier. Hey presto!
Useful note: Get out of Fullscrren mode by pressing F8.
Ok - now to make it work in fullscreen...
From the command line use:
vncviewer -fullscreen yourserverpc
There are other switches you can too - have alook at this website...
< http://www.realvnc.com/products/free/3.3.7/man/vncviewer.html >
Having had a good look at VNC (with / without toram mode which made no apparent difference) it looks immediately great BUT is very slow to react and update. My network is a dedicated 100MB line using switches and no other real traffic. When I switched off the background etc. it did improve significantly but not enough to get excited about. rDesktop is winning so far...
I have just installed the VNC version 4 available at the MyDSL download area. Once installed, the icon doesn't work so it's best just to navigate your way to the /usr/local/bin directory and click on vncviewer to get this version up and running. I am not into ironing out these bugs right now, I am just testing the service.
The updated version gives you lots of nice options to set for the connection. When up and running you can also find out what speed you are running at - I am running at about 13000kbits/sec which seems pretty fast to me yet the connection isn't that great.
The conclusion I am coming to on this is as follows:
With the latest version of VNC up and running, my conclusion is that it looks great (because it is a faithful reproduction of the VNC-server's desktop) yet the scrolling is slow and the refresh rates are poor in comparison to rDesktop.
rDesktop on the other hand looks a bit boxy and frankly doesn't take your breath away with reproduction but it works very efficiently. The comparison is chalk and cheese. If you want something taht ain't annoying, redesktop is your solution.
I am off to see if I can install rDesktop 1.5.0 somehow.
C.
PS Anyone had thoughts on the hda1, hda2 problem with them not showing up in the mount tool? I am hoping this will go away with a fresh install towards the end of the project.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 19 2007,23:06
Another question:Upgrading rDesktop to current version 1.5.0 - I'm not sure how to do this. Could someone shed some light?
This may be a waste of time, I'm not sure (again help appreciated) - my idea is that if I upgrade I might get a better service.
I have downloaded the tar.gz and installed it using MyDSL Load and a directory appears in the / which is all fine but I don't know how to activate it / use it. Using my honed windows skills I have gone to the directory from the cmd prompt and tried to run it from there but its just the same old 1.3 version that crops up. Apologies for such a noob question.
C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 20 2007,00:29
QuestionCould someone point me in the direction of a good article on creating command based shortcuts on the x desktop / finder. I am probably searching for the wrong thing again but I can't seem to find what I am looking for.
To explain further - I need to click on an icon on the desktop and it will run a command e.g. rdesktop (arguments) and it will go off and do it.
Many thanks
C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 20 2007,00:36
LUA bit of project - MORE HELP PLEASE!I originally thought that I would be able to relatively easily create a .lua file which would act as a container for all the parameters that each of the Virtual PCs that I was connecting to. Lua is beginning to look very daunting indeed.
In an effort to scope this out a bit better here is the func-spec overview of what I need. Could someone with good C understanding help me by explaining how much work is involved? I really have no programming experience at all. None. Nada.
Functional Specification
A .lua file (or perhaps something else) to do the following:
Provide a set of buttons or drop down boxes to efficiently select a Virtual computer housed on the server to connect to. At this stage the likelihood is that rdesktop will be used to connect to them. As the connection is selected, an rdesktop command is sent to the kernel for execution.
It seems pretty simple but I just don't know really where to begin.
Many thanks
Posted by Juanito on Sep. 20 2007,03:28
| Quote |
| To explain further - I need to click on an icon on the desktop and it will run a command e.g. rdesktop (arguments) and it will go off and do it. |
- I believe you can use the icontool for this.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 20 2007,21:29
Many thanks Juanito. I am sure this is a case of stating the blindingly obvious. My apologies.C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 20 2007,22:47
Installing the latest version of rdesktop - NOT WORKING!For those of you who are new to linux. This isn't very straightforward.
1. Download the latest version of rdesktop from www.rdesktop.org
2. You need to download / install gcc-with-libs from MyDSL (UNC) and also download / install openssl-includes (System). These enable you to compile the program from C that it is written in.
3. Navigate to your download folder (probably /home/dsl) and find rdesktop-xx.xx.xx.tar.gz, right click and decompress.
4. Navigate to that folder at the terminal prompt and do the following commands:
a) ./configure
b) make
c) make install
I start getting error messages like can't find -lcrypto and so on. Having started this, it is really beginning to get ugly...
Has anyone had experience of this?
Many thanks.
C.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 20 2007,22:59
If you don't want to fiddle around with lua you could just use icons or lists elsewhere, i.e. xdesktop, wmdrawer, or links/scripts that you can run through emelfm (these are just a few examples...)Re: compiling rdesktop (interesting that you didn't just want to grab the binaries, but I'll continue):
Afaik it depends on ssl, so you'll need to download and install libssl/libcrypto
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 21 2007,10:49
Thanks for the advice on the alternaives to .lua manipulation. I will investigate all these.| Quote |
| (interesting that you didn't just want to grab the binaries, but I'll continue): |
Er... can you tell me a bit more here. It sounds like I have missed something very obvious. I'm all for the easier way. There's so much to learn here...
Many thanks!
C.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 21 2007,15:16
Binaries are what's produced after you compile. Granted, if you get precompiled ones they may have conflicts due to different systems, etc. such as grabbing things from apt. But since you are already half-way done compiling, I would take the time and try to figure it out. (or try both ways)
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 21 2007,23:31
Many thanks <hats>Update: I am totally and utterly confused now. I've spent hours on this and I just don't know where to go next. My problem is that I just can't make any sense of any of this stuff. It just doesn't tie in with any of my computing knowledge which although windows based, is quite a lot. I just can't even begin to see what I'm meant to be doing!
Ok, rant over with. Apologies.
I have looked at both ways now.
Compiling:
I have this -lcrypto problem. I have found references to the problem and it is obviously that some tool or a magic bit of something is required to be in the right place. In my attempts to get this to work, I have tried to create a link using
| Code Sample |
| ln usr/lib/lcrypto.so.0.9.7 /lib/lcrypto.so.0.9.7 |
It doesn't work, which is ok. The bit that is frying my brain gently is have I got the link wrong (soft vs. hard etc.) or is this just the wrong solution in the first place. There aren't many articles out there on this particular one.
At this point, I thought, stop running up a steep hill and look at alternatives. I.e. Can I get the binaries as suggested before.
Ok so rdesktop doesn't host them. They aren't available through MyDSL - my hunt led me to the debian package finder on the web. This seemed sensible since DSL is based on Debian right? (Actually I have no idea whether debian stuff is compatible with DSL). Anyhow, I have downloaded this rdesktop*etch*.deb file and I have no idea what to do with it. It's not recognised by the system as an executable, an installable or anything really which makes me think I am very, very lost.
Perhaps someone exceedingly kind could tell me:
a) Am I mad
b) Is this whole excercise to install this newer version of rdesktop actually worth it?
c) Some means of nudging me in the right direction.
I have to thank those of you again who take the time to answer questions from people like me - you really are worthy of loads of free beer.
I only hope this project helps some others to comvert over from Windows. On reflection though, what is concerning me is that the whole Linux 'thing' is getting more confusing for me rather than starting to slot into a nice little matrix in my head. I suppose this was exactly how I felt about PCs and Macs back in the 80s/90s but it's so long ago now. The other thing I should perhaps consider is that Damn Small Linux may be for very advanced Lunix users and I should be trying to get it all to work on something bigger and uglier before attempting the small and very elegant bit of the pie.
Still confused, but grateful as always for help.
C.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 22 2007,00:00
You need the development installations of the libraries, not the runtime ones. You can compile the sources as well to get them.Re: binaries: I did hint at apt, which can be enabled in DSL with dsl-dpkg (which supports .deb's as well)
Re: b): asking a question with another question... why you needed to use this version?
Posted by Juanito on Sep. 22 2007,05:50
Instead of using a symlink to the crypto libraries and header files, you could tell the ./configure script where to find them by using something like:| Code Sample |
| $ export CFLAGS=-I/opt/myheaders $ export LDFLAGS=-L/opt/mylibs $ ./configure --prefix=opt/myapp etc etc |
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 22 2007,23:59
Thanks again for coming to my aid!Whilst working further towards my solutions here, I thought I would just come back with one or two bits and bobs:
<hats> Many thanks once again, I am afraid subtleties pass me by far too quickly for comfort. My family complains. The reason for the up-to-date version is 3-fold: It seems to hint that there is better support for fullscreen mode, mice and other things. Also, it's worthwhile knowledge to obtain because there could well be an advance in rdesktop that's a must-have in the future (DSL may still lag behind a bit) - learning this now is a good thing for my technical future, just a poor thing for my sanity! Finally, I think it's a good idea to test all the avenues possible within the scope of this befuddled mess that I am calling a project. Many thanks for the .deb install note.
Janito - also many thanks again. This makes sense. I'm not sure where I will put this script just yet but it does all seem sensible. I will look into this further and instructions for others will spew forth.
Hope everyone is having a good weekend.
C.
Posted by DogEatDog on Sep. 23 2007,07:48
Still trying to get this thing installed.Many thanks for dpkg advice. I enabled apt from the system menu. This updates apt and downloaded dpkg. From the command line I ran dpkg -i rdesktopx.x.x.deb and it tried to install but founf that dependencies were missing. One of which was libx11-6. No problem, downloaded this and tried to install. This needs x11-common. Downloaded x11 - tried to install - no luck, is conflicts with xfree86-common. Seems like my luck has run out. (I haven't even bothered to look at the other dependencies just yet).
Why is this so difficult to do? Surely the installation of packages is meant to be easy in an OS? I understand that DSL is a version of Linux and that code written in C must be compiled to be used on every platform. That's not a problem and I don't mind doing work on it but this is just impenetrable.
Losing my will to live...
C.
Posted by curaga on Sep. 23 2007,08:01
Packages that are meant for that distro are easy to install. Deb's are meant for Debian, and with that they are easy to install.Compiling might prove easier
Posted by Juanito on Sep. 23 2007,12:41
My (non-expert) advice would be to try and compile the application yourself as Curaga suggests.As you've found, your application will not compile because it depends on other applications. It's quite likely that some of these other applications will, in turn, depend on yet more applications - eventually you will get to the end of the dependency chain and then you can make a start.
My suggestion would be to compile everything to the same place and then you can use +/- the same commands to compile each time. Let's say you decide to use /opt/rdesktop, then you could use something like:
| Code Sample |
| $ export CFLAGS=-I/opt/rdesktop/include $ export LDFLAGS=-L/opt/rdesktop/lib $ ./configure --help [to check application specific options] $ ./configure --prefix=/opt/rdesktop [+app specific options] $ make $ touch mymarker $ sudo make install $ sudo find / -not -type 'd' -cnewer mymarker | grep -v "\/proc\/" | tee files |
Since it looks like you're missing the crypto libraries/headers, you might need to start by compiling from the openssl-0.9.8e.tar.gz package, but that's just a suggestion (and I cannot remember if this package depends on anything else...).
Note: one common ./configure option I keep forgetting is the one to compile dynamic libraries (*.so) rather than static ones.
Posted by DogEatDog on Oct. 05 2007,01:35
Lcrypto problem (continued)Many thanks Juanito / Curaga for your help again.
Apologies for not being tuned in for a few days - work took me away.
I think I might well be suffering from 'a little knowledge is a bad thing!'. I am getting to understand this all a lot better but I am still essentially at sqaure one with this partiuclar problem.
Juanito - I understand that I can specify where to get the libraries (LDFLAGS) I just don;t know which libraries to put in the folder I am specifying. The libcrypt.2.3.0.so available in the lib folder I believe is a runtime version of the library I need. You mentioned before using a switch which enabled the use of runtime libraries for compilation - unfortunately I can't see any reference to this in ./configure --help for rdesktop. Is this a setting that can be used for all compilations?
Many thanks
C.
Posted by Juanito on Oct. 05 2007,05:28
| Quote |
| I understand that I can specify where to get the libraries (LDFLAGS) I just don;t know which libraries to put in the folder I am specifying. |
- Usually when you run ./configure, it tells you which libraries you're missing.
| Quote |
| You mentioned before using a switch which enabled the use of runtime libraries for compilation |
- sorry I wasn't clear, what I meant was there's often a ./configure switch to tell the compiler to build static or dynamic libraries.
Maybe this can be done one step at a time - can you cut & paste the first error you get when you run ./configure?
Posted by DogEatDog on Oct. 06 2007,15:19
In order not to complicate things just yet, I have added no export flag settings (CDFLAGS LDFLAGS) - this is the ./configure output.$ ./configure
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -Echecking for egrep... grep -E
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking whether byte ordering is bigendian... no
checking for X... libraries /usr/X11R6/lib, headers
checking for gethostbyname... yes
checking for connect... yes
checking for remove... yes
checking for shmat... yes
checking for IceConnectionNumber in -lICE... yes
checking for library containing socket... none required
checking for library containing inet_aton... none required
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking sys/select.h usability... yes
checking sys/select.h presence... yes
checking for sys/select.h... yes
checking sys/modem.h usability... no
checking sys/modem.h presence... no
checking for sys/modem.h... no
checking sys/filio.h usability... no
checking sys/filio.h presence... no
checking for sys/filio.h... no
checking sys/strtio.h usability... no
checking sys/strtio.h presence... no
checking for sys/strtio.h... no
checking locale.h usability... yes
checking locale.h presence... yes
checking for locale.h... yes
checking langinfo.h usability... yes
checking langinfo.h presence... yes
checking for langinfo.h... yes
checking for strip... strip
checking for OpenSSL directory... /usr
checking if architecture needs alignment... yes
checking ao/ao.h usability... no
checking ao/ao.h presence... no
checking for ao/ao.h... no
checking sys/soundcard.h usability... yes
checking sys/soundcard.h presence... yes
checking for sys/soundcard.h... yes
checking dmedia/audio.h usability... no
checking dmedia/audio.h presence... no
checking for dmedia/audio.h... no
checking sys/audioio.h usability... no
checking sys/audioio.h presence... no
checking for sys/audioio.h... no
checking for dirent.h that defines DIR... yes
checking for library containing opendir... no
checking for dirfd... no
checking whether dirfd is declared... yes
checking whether dirfd is a macro... no
checking iconv.h usability... yes
checking iconv.h presence... yes
checking for iconv.h... yes
checking for iconv... no, consider installing GNU libiconv
checking for socklen_t... yes
checking sys/vfs.h usability... yes
checking sys/vfs.h presence... yes
checking for sys/vfs.h... yes
checking sys/statvfs.h usability... yes
checking sys/statvfs.h presence... yes
checking for sys/statvfs.h... yes
checking sys/statfs.h usability... yes
checking sys/statfs.h presence... yes
checking for sys/statfs.h... yes
checking sys/param.h usability... yes
checking sys/param.h presence... yes
checking for sys/param.h... yes
checking for sys/mount.h... yes
configure: checking how to get filesystem space usage...
checking statvfs64 function (SVR4)... no
checking statvfs function (SVR4)... no
checking for 3-argument statfs function (DEC OSF/1)... checking for two-argument statfs with statfs.bsize member (AIX, 4.3BSD)... no
checking for four-argument statfs (AIX-3.2.5, SVR3)... no
checking for two-argument statfs with statfs.fsize member (4.4BSD and NetBSD)... no
checking for two-argument statfs with struct fs_data (Ultrix)... no
checking for struct statfs.f_namemax... no
checking for struct statvfs.f_namemax... yes
checking for struct statfs.f_namelen... yes
checking for struct statvfs.f_namelen... no
checking for special C compiler options needed for large files... no
checking for _FILE_OFFSET_BITS value needed for large files... 64
checking for _LARGE_FILES value needed for large files... no
checking mntent.h usability... yes
checking mntent.h presence... yes
checking for mntent.h... yes
checking for setmntent... no
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile