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Topic: A ton of questions from a noob, not all laptop related, but mostly

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Lunar_Lamp Offline

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Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Oct. 19 2005,15:45

First post, so I'd just like to say that after dipping my toes into the waters of several distros, DSL seems to be my favourite! Which is amazing considering it's tiny size really.

Briefly, I am running DSL 1.5 on a Dell CP M233 (I think that's the model number). In short, 48mb of ram (with upgrade in post), 233 processor and a whopping 3gb hdd! :;):

I have done a frugal install, and seem to have it working nicely to my likes, with it saving settings etc and working largely how I want. However, being a perfectionist, I still have a long list of things I want to fiddle with.

Laptop Specific:
- Is there anything I need to do re:keyboard setup? Currently I am set to UK keyboard, but will this detect the FN key, and will it realise that I don't have all the buttons of a fully keyboard? This comes from me previously (and on other linux distros) being able to press FN+F3 to view battery meter, for example. This doesn't appear to be working in DSL currently.
- Is there another way to view battery power remaining?
- I don't think the screen is turning off when I close the laptop up - how do I sort this out?

Currently - I have no way of accessing internet with the laptop - so:
- How do I install packages without doing so?
- Linked to that - how do I mount a usb hard drive (rewritable). Can this be done automatically etc? Does it have to be plugged in on boot?

- For when I do get net access, what is a really lightweight msn-capable chat client. I know of GAIM, but is there another, more lightweight version?

Thanks if you can answer any of these questions, though I am sure there will be more to follow, and followup questions required.

AwPhuch

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Posts: 1404
Joined: April 2004

Posted: Oct. 19 2005,17:17

Quote (Lunar_Lamp @ Oct. 19 2005,11:45)

I have done a frugal install, and seem to have it working nicely to my likes, with it saving settings etc and working largely how I want. However, being a perfectionist, I still have a long list of things I want to fiddle with.

Laptop Specific:
- Is there anything I need to do re:keyboard setup? Currently I am set to UK keyboard, but will this detect the FN key, and will it realise that I don't have all the buttons of a fully keyboard? This comes from me previously (and on other linux distros) being able to press FN+F3 to view battery meter, for example. This doesn't appear to be working in DSL currently.
- Is there another way to view battery power remaining?
- I don't think the screen is turning off when I close the laptop up - how do I sort this out?
This might be something from the bios...I believe you can configure the keyboard from shell

Currently - I have no way of accessing internet with the laptop - so:
- How do I install packages without doing so?
- Linked to that - how do I mount a usb hard drive (rewritable). Can this be done automatically etc? Does it have to be plugged in on boot?
If you have a cdrom, you can mount and umount all day long

- For when I do get net access, what is a really lightweight msn-capable chat client. I know of GAIM, but is there another, more lightweight version? (gaim.uci there is nothing more light than a cloop mounted image (no ram usage until program is started)

Thanks if you can answer any of these questions, though I am sure there will be more to follow, and followup questions required.

Brian
AwPhuch

--------------
http://www.frappr.com/dsl <-- Where do you use DSL?
http://www.smoothwall.org <-- Ultimate firewall for the world!
http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php/userID:6107 <--My BOINC stats!
./S99LinuxRevolution start

Your Fuzzy God Offline

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Joined: July 2005

Posted: Oct. 19 2005,17:40

1. As far as the FN key is concerned, you might want to try running xev. Xev will allow you to see the buttons keycode when pressed. Once you find the FN keycode try mapping the key to an unused F-Button (i.e. F 13) Like this:

xmodmap -e "keycode XXX = F13"

Then use xmodmap again to route the button to a mod so that you can use it in your ~/.fluxbox/keys file:

xmodmap -e "add mod3 = F13"

Open ~/.fluxbox/keys and add lines to open certain programs. Use the following as a template:

Mod3 F3 :execcommand /path/to/batterymeter

2. I'll Leave this to someone with more knowledge on the subject.

3. Try amsn, it is much smaller than gaim.

--------------
Good Luck

-Fuzzy
www.mainframecomps.com
**Bienvienidos a la revolución**

doobit

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Joined: July 2005

Posted: Oct. 19 2005,20:30

amsn.uci works great on my laptop, just follow the directions on the info page.

--------------
"Help stop internet piracy...use Linux!"

Lunar_Lamp Offline

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Posts: 7
Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Oct. 20 2005,14:43

Ok, here are some more I'm afraid:

How do I get the clock to display in 24hour mode as opposed to 12hour mode? I'm sure this is obvious - but it's really bugging me, and I can't work it out.
How can I get the manual pages? i.e. so I can type "man foobar" and it will give me the manual pages I want.

"If you have a cdrom, you can mount and umount all day long" - that doesn't really answer the question I'm afraid, I wanted to know how to mount my usb drives (20gb usb hdd, and 256 usb flash drive) (note, not at the same time). If the info is readily available, please just point me in the direction - I have enjoyed working stuff out myself so far, though I am still a little confused as to the whole mounting procedure in a frugal install. If someone could point me to somewhere that it is explained I'd appreciate it.

10 replies since Oct. 19 2005,15:45

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