More advanced users converting from other OSForum: DSL Tips and Tricks Topic: More advanced users converting from other OS started by: spark-o-matic Posted by spark-o-matic on Feb. 03 2008,06:55
This is geared for people with experiences similar to mine. please refer to other posts in other topics. I have over 25 years computer experience, but sadly, new to linux except as a web-server.It appears that edits do not send an updated e-mail. I,and hopefully others, will be making edits. There are concepts that may be unique to DSL or may be univerasal to linux, but they may be useful. Many usefull concepts and standards are posted on this board and the support is above excelence, but by its nature, a search can be frustriating. Please post, on this tread, only the final resolution and related search terms and phrases or more universal techniques. Thanks P.S. Please forgive misspelliings and gramerical errors. Although I am fluent or conversational in almost a dozen computer programming languages, I have yet to master my native language of USA-English (arguably, the most difficult language in the world). Posted by spark-o-matic on Feb. 03 2008,07:36
First is somethiing that can be put at then end of /opt/bootlocal.sh to automaticly create a file called /diagdata.txt that contains information that may be helpful and may be copied and pasted to the board. Please verify that you are not posting any confidential information or anything that may compramise your network! This will be heavily edited.Based on opinions, which i agree with, this could bog down the boards with way too much irrelivant information and should only be used if and how requested. There are other options, but I seem to revert to a simple text interface instead of a GUI for many things.
There is a lot of useful infornation about your system found in /proc/ The file names are descriptive of what will be found in them. Things are often Case Sensitive! Get in the habit. On command lines such as a shell or Exit to Prompt, prior commands can be accessed with the Up and Down Arrow Keys then edited. Over and over the question is asked 'How do i get ..... to start everytime I start the computer. Several ways, the 2 easiest are: /opt/bootlocal.sh especialy useful for loading drivers Must be accesed as Root. Ether a root shell or sudo from runlevel 2. sudo from a normal shell did not work for me. Useful on slower systems is: sleep x where x is the number of seconds sleep 2 will pause for 2 seconds before executing the next command. start with a long sleep to diagnose a problem, then reduce untill a reliable but quick boot. /home/dsl/.xinitrc This is a hidden file. It must be accessed from root. Documentation on the grammer is at: < http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....boot.3F > Tip: If you are able to open a file when not root and make a lot of edits then find that you do not have privleges to save the edited file, all is not lost. You may be able to save the file to another location then, as root, cp(copy) or mv(move) it. Please take this with a grain of salt at this point. Posted by jpeters on Feb. 03 2008,08:33
...try >>diagdata.txt
Posted by curaga on Feb. 03 2008,09:56
It actually looks quite similar to nvidia-bug-report. It's a script they require you to run before complaining of bugs. Perhaps this could be adapted to DSL and then noobs can be told to post a certain file which will have all their system info.
Posted by spark-o-matic on Feb. 03 2008,10:25
curaga,Perhaps we could bump discussions to another thread to prevent confusion. do you see where i'm going with this? perhaps you could start it? jpeters: >> appends a file > creates a new file or over rights an existing file with or without prompt depending on OS. The leading / is more for clarity. more advanced EU's (which this is targeted towards) would be able to place this file in any convenient location. Sparks Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 03 2008,14:39
I don't understand why you redirect every command to the same file. This can be much more easily/cleanly accomplished by putting the list of commands into a separate file (without the redirects) and putting this one command in bootlocal:/path/to/my/script.sh >/diagdata.txt Posted by lucky13 on Feb. 03 2008,15:23
Doesn't stats.lua put a log file of nearly all of this (or more) in ~/ when it's run anyway? Why not just put stats.lua in your bootlocal.sh?
Do we want to have to pick through newbies flooding the forum with every intricate detail of their systems when their problems are most often minor? I'll speak for myself: I don't. Maybe others are more interested in TMI, but I'd rather ask for and get specific information. Posted by roberts on Feb. 03 2008,15:52
I agree with Lucky13 on both points. This seems to be a duplication of stats.txt which is automatically created upon demand by clicking on System Stats from the DSLpanel.
Posted by spark-o-matic on Feb. 03 2008,18:56
I Edited. I Agree, it could bog down the boards.I Did look at DSL System Stats before using this myself, but was completly unaware that it could/does generate a file. I did spend several weeks reading the forum and Wiki, including the rules, before making my first post. There is a lot of very useful information in the Wiki and this forum, But it can be spread every where and take several attempts to get the right search string that does not produce 200+ results or nothing. Other people have commented on this. I would like to continue on. sudo Posted by WDef on Feb. 03 2008,19:41
It's true Sparks that a large part of the 'learning linux' process is in fact "learning how to find information/solutions', especially when teaching oneself.I spent many hours searching the dsl forum to get answers (most of which were there) when I first started, and I daresay it's the same for most people. Even *nix veterans have to do a bit of this, since every system/distro has its own peculiarities. It does get a lot easier with time, but it never ends as long as you're developing your skills. Also, the lack of decent help documentation for even highly developed *nix projects (such as KDE) can be dumbfounding, and in part I think is a cultural problem in the *nix and open source world, and the fact that writing good documentation is both technically quite difficult , unsexy, and requires a different skillset to coding. (Which is why documentation writers are paid roughly the same as coders). Unfortunately the DSL Wiki is a bit underdeveloped, which is everybody's fault here in this forum (tcchh!!) BTW this is one reason I like Perl: because its docs are so superb. Really I've never seen anything as good, as interesting or as clear as the Perl documentation - it's a masterpiece and whoever in the Perl team is responsible deserves the highest accolades. Posted by spark-o-matic on Feb. 10 2008,06:15
For diagnosic purposes, maybe the entire bootlocal.sh could be another file and the output to a file.
I have documented some other thiings that may be of use. If anything would be counter-productive, don't hesitate to say so. |