Grandma's Surfstation - help needed


Forum: HD Install
Topic: Grandma's Surfstation - help needed
started by: Eisenbroiler

Posted by Eisenbroiler on Jan. 22 2007,09:10
Hello,

first I want to thank the DSL team for the work. It's a pretty nice OS. Now to my problem:

I want to build up a "Surfstation" for my Grandma so she can have a look into the "damn new thing all talking about" - the Internet. Therefor I tried to boot on a Metabox (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabox) - it is a Settop box with a 300 MHZ Cyrix Prozessor video, sound and modem included - a DSL LiveCD. everything works fine and I installed DSL on a 10 GB HDD. The Linux is running, sound I do not need, the modem is also working.

Now I do want to setup DSL as follows:

1. DSL shall boot and login automatically at 800x600 (for TV) - I'm using grub and want to replace the bootoptions - default should be fb800x600. how do I do it?

2. after starting there shall automatically selfload Firefox with a button a question like "Connect over modem to internet?"  by clicking yes the modem shall dial a number an connect to the internet.

3. There should be a button on desktop for hangup + shutdown also. sounds like a .sh but i'm new in Linux...

You see: just what Grandma needs - an old computer that runs over TV - she is switching it on, the browser pups up, dials in and if she wants it she can hang up and shutdown with a click. a pretty simple surfstation build on DSL.

I'm new in Linux and especially DSL, it would be nice if someone could post the solutions / hints.

Martin

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 22 2007,14:30
Assuming you have a frugal installation...
1. /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

However, unless you need to specify use framebuffer (that bootcode is for console afaik), you can just run xsetup.sh instead (for X)


2.  No idea if firefox has this, but you could always create a script that calls the dial-up, then launch firefox

3.  Desktop icon?  See ~/.xtdesktop and add your own icons; and yes, you can point it to a .sh script that handles your dial-up things.  Shutdown script can be found in ~/.fluxbox/menu

Posted by Eisenbroiler on Jan. 22 2007,14:51
Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ Jan. 22 2007,09:30)
Assuming you have a frugal installation...
1. /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

However, unless you need to specify use framebuffer (that bootcode is for console afaik), you can just run xsetup.sh instead (for X)


2.  No idea if firefox has this, but you could always create a script that calls the dial-up, then launch firefox

3.  Desktop icon?  See ~/.xtdesktop and add your own icons; and yes, you can point it to a .sh script that handles your dial-up things.  Shutdown script can be found in ~/.fluxbox/menu

1. no, I don't - it's a full hdd install without any CDRom anymore. Am I right, that frugal means: booting from CD with safed settings on hdd or somewhere?

2. good idea... but I don't know how to wirte a script for the dialup. Do you have a link/example?

3. I'll try it. thx

Posted by skaos on Jan. 22 2007,15:17
I'm not sure if 800x600 will be legible if your grandmother has a normal TV ... it probably is better with a normal monitor.
Posted by Eisenbroiler on Jan. 23 2007,12:29
She got an brandnew LCD-TV from my parents with an VGA ;)
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 23 2007,18:53
1.  Well livecd is a type of frugal... depends on what you chose during install (run `mount` and paste the output here if possible)
2.  I believe theres a dialup tool in DSLPanel - but I haven't touched dial-up in a very long time.

Posted by scot on Jan. 23 2007,23:44
no to your #1, earlier.  a Frugal install is a Hard drive install of the contents of the CD image, unchanged except for the bootloader stuff.  It loads and backs up settings and home dir the same way as a cdrom boot.

 Not that you need this necessarily, just a clarification.  Your bootloader menu.lst (for grub) is the place to specify boot options.  try looking for it in /boot/grub (though I don't know where it gets put in a hard drive install).

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 24 2007,00:53
Re #1: not necessarily just restricted to hard drives :P
Posted by Eisenbroiler on Jan. 25 2007,21:53
Hello,

the file for the bootoptions is in

/boot/grub/menu.lst

i changed it with:

- sudo -s
- beaver
- open the file, reaarenged the entries and saved it. Works fine...

If I'm running "mount" it says:

/dev/hda2 on / type ext2 (rw....
/proc on ...
/dev/pts on ...
/proc/bus/usb on ...

And. yes, there is a dialup script in teh DSLPanel, it works fine for me, but I always have to choose the "provider" and push dialup. Would be nice to do this with a button on the desktop.

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 25 2007,22:52
Quote
I always have to choose the "provider" and push dialup. Would be nice to do this with a button on the desktop.

After setting up your dialup you can use the command "sudo pon" to connect to provider, and "sudo pon <whatever>" if your script is named something other than "provider".
The command "sudo poff" will disconnect.

You can create a desktop icon or hotkey combo to connect/disconnect more easily.

Posted by roberts on Jan. 25 2007,22:53
The command line option to use dial up is pon provider_name

Try and test it first then

you could use the icontool and add an icon and for the command use your pon command

Posted by Eisenbroiler on Jan. 27 2007,10:18
Quote (mikshaw @ Jan. 25 2007,17:52)
Quote
I always have to choose the "provider" and push dialup. Would be nice to do this with a button on the desktop.

After setting up your dialup you can use the command "sudo pon" to connect to provider, and "sudo pon <whatever>" if your script is named something other than "provider".
The command "sudo poff" will disconnect.

You can create a desktop icon or hotkey combo to connect/disconnect more easily.

Thx, works fine with

First you have to setup the <provider> at the dslpanel
Then

1. open the Icontool --> add
2. choose a name
3. write in full path: sudo pon <provider>; dillo

This starts the connection and the browser...

sudo poff closes the connection

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