Today I've installed PHP4 and PHPMyAdmin on the debian box. It seems that Debian use a really old version of PHP4 (based on 4.1.2). Installation was a breeze. Just use apt-get php4 and it'll get the package. However there are manual configurations that need to be done to turn "on" php4. I'll detail it out here.
First you need to go into /etc/apache/httpd.conf and uncomment the lines that read,
LoadModule php4_module libexec/libphp4.so
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
apachectl graceful
mysqladmin -u root password yourpasswordhereIf you done this already then there is no need to do it again. You may also wish to set the password for root@yourmachinename (the previous command would only set the root@localhost password). To do this go into mysql by typing
mysql -u root -pEnter your password that you have specified earlier and at the prompt. Just type
set password for root@yourmachinename=password('yourpasswordhere'); Also the /usr/doc/phpmyadmin/README.Debian mentioned that you should give additional privileges for a user, that is: GRANT USAGE ON mysql.* to 'root@yourmachinename;
I needed to ssh between my debian box and the Powerbook. I first did a
ssh-keygen -t dsaThis will create a DSA keypair which is SSH version 2 as opposed to RSA version 1. The first of the pair is
id_dsaand the second
id_dsa.pubWhat I need to do then is to copy the content of id_dsa.pub into the file
authorized_keys2which should reside in ~/.ssh on any box which i want to ssh to.
I had a lot of problems trying to set up my sound card. A word of advice for all. Make sure you get the sound card model and configuration right the first time. All the frustrations that I had was because I swore that my IBM PC300PL built in sound card was a Maestro3 because i saw this on the web somewhere. Its actually a Crystal423x card! Anyway one more thing is that KDE arts would require that the root chmod 666 /dev/dsp so that other users can use it.
I had a VCD that i wanted to play on the Debian box. I fired up packages.debian.org and did a search on vcd and found a package called xine-ui. I apt-get it and tried it. It ROCKS. I didn't even do any configuration. Although I must manually put it into the KDE menu.
After I was successful in making my debian box burn, it doesn't allow me to mount a normal cd through mount /cdrom. I was puzzled by this and the message hinted that I probably have load ide-scsi so the cdrom should be sr0 or sda. I looked through dmesg again for the scsi line and saw that the device was mounted at sr0. I went to /dev and did an rm cdrom and then did an ls -s /dev/sr0 /dev/cdrom and try to mount again an it work!
Just got Debian box burning today. I saw numerous articles over the net on how to burn. Most looks really complicated like you have to make some devices and stuff. Recently when I did a search again I came across an article on
append="hdc=ide-scsi"
dmesg | grep ATAPI. Once you've modified the lilo.conf, type lilo. This should churn out a bunch of added this and added that. If there is any error messages, you would have to figure out where it went wrong. Do not reboot until you've done so. If all else is ok, reboot. Next is to run the command
cdrecord -scanbusThis should display your cd/rw on one of the lines. If you have any problems, just go back to link above.
The initial X configuration that I have was not set to work with the Microsoft PS/2 mouse that I have attached to the computer. I initially had lots of problems with X so I was just being safe by selecting a standard mouse when I was initially configuring X. However not having the middle button as well as the scroller is getting to me and my wife so I dig into X11 configuration
After going through some websites. I found out that its simply adding (or making sure) a line
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"exists in /etc/X11/XF86Config. I nearly knock myself on the head because I saw the line and commented that out before. I was under the impression that the line had something to do with the resolution of the mouse or something but later found out it means the scroller up event is mapped to button 4 and the scroller down event is mapped to button 5. *DUH*.
So here is my paragraph that configures the mouse
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "imps/2"
Option "Buttons" "3"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Also one thing to note is that i used "Device" "/dev/psaux" instead of "/dev/mouse" which many of the internet tips said to use. I donno why but when i used /dev/mouse my mouse either die or behave improperly.
It seems that the Debian distribution that I have does not include mysql. Only postgres is included. I wonder why this is so. Maybe postgres is more stable? Anyways, it seems that the installation is straight forward. All I have to do is do an
apt-get mysql-server. After downloading from the source, Debian Configuration screens pops up and told that mysql will not be installed if the hostname is non-numeric. So I guess I have to check this first. I quickly checked by doing a
hostnameand did a
cat /etc/hostsSeems to be ok, I have furt (my box) to point to 192.168.1.202. Now lets go through the rest of the configuration.
Debconf will also create a debian-sys-maint user apparently and this is the bugger who will start and stop the cron scripts.
Note to self: Set MySQL password. (where is this set I wonder)
Debian also mentioned that if use the
.my.cnffile then i will have to put both the user and password line there. Wonder what goes in the
.my.conffile. Anyway more documentation can be found at the normal debian documentation path
/usr/share/doc/mysql-server/README.Debian
Also Debian seems to put mysql database files in
/var/lib/mysqland I chose not to delete the database files if the mysql-server package gets deleted. I also allowed mysql to start at boot.
I went around after that to take a look at the place to put the password. I recalled doing this some time ago but now I've forgotten where it should go. Anyway, I just edited the my.cnf at
/etc/mysqland change and uncommented the password line.
Doing a package search at standard Debian's package search site for the kernel which is currently installed i.e. 2.4.18bf24 shows that the image is only best for installation and after that its best that I get a new kernel to suit the current configuration.
I've found out over the internet that there are basically two ways in which you can plug in a new kernel. A website that contains helpful instructions of compiling/installing a new Debian kernel can be found at http://www.thing.dyndns.org/debian/kerneldeb.htm maintained by a New Zealander (I still cannot find his name anywhere on his page!) One way was to compile your own the kernel obtained from debian using apt-get and grabbing kernel-headers, kernel-source and kernel-package (of course you have to go through the steps outlined in the New Zealander's page). The other way is the easy way which is to get the kernel-image package which is the way I'm going.
At this time of writing the latest from debian is 2.4.18 which is basically the same as the version of the default kernel. However there is a 2.4.18-686 package which is more optimised for Pentium Pro and higher thus its best that I install this.
I got the package by
apt-get install kernel-images-2.4.18-686
It then went on to say that it needs to create a link from /boot/initrd.img-2.4.18-686 to the initrd.img so I responded with Yes. I also answer yes to install a boot block using the existing /etc/lilo.conf.
I then reran lilo (as recommended by the New Zealander's site) and did a reboot. It now has a linuxOLD which I assume is my old kernel. I continued with Linux option at lilo boot screen (the default).
And everything wents well. Bzzzzzzzz...
After my second try with Debian installation, my network card is still down. I can load the driver but cannot ping the router at all nor my PowerBook G4. So i figured it might be the driver coz I saw the syslog says something about block for the tulip network card. I suddenly remembered that the PC has two network cards. One is built in and the other is on a PCI bus. So my hunch was that the wrong card was detected. (Writing this log later makes me knock myself in the head to see how stupid I am not to have just unplugged the network cable from one card to the other to test this theory).
I did a search using
find / -name tulip*
/lib/modules/2.4.18-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/net/tulip
insmod eepro
route add default gw 192.168.1.222
nameserver 165.21.83.88and then pinged www.google.com and it worked, woohoo.
Now it seems that using Singapore dns all the way in Melbourne, Australia seems to be kinda stupid so I looked around for Telstra BigPond dns ip address. I went to the support page which is hopeless and never show me what I need. I did a google search and found a site which is quite good called the oscableguy at http://www.ozcableguy.com/dns.html which gives not 2 but 4 dns server ip addresses! So thats it. I was in business! Now all I have to do is update the debian packages.
I got a copy of Debian from Glenn (thanks Glenn!), my wife's colleage. It is a 2 CD Debian 3 distr (I think) based on the 2.4.18bf24 kernel image.
I have a IBM PC 300 PL (Pentium 2 300mhz) with 128mb of memory and 20GB of hard disk space. The VGA card is S3 Trio 3D and I think the network card is tulip based. I have an old version of Debian on it which is broken due to my stupidity of installing Gnome 2.2 which sucks at this moment (bleah!) and Windows 2k (always have this as a backup that you usually never have to go to but then again maybe someday I can see the light of using Windoze).
The installation was pretty straight forward if not for the X windows problems that I have due the the S3 Trio 3D card that I have.
Firstly, a question that puzzle me and still do right now is what is the best way to partition my 20GB hard disk to give the best performance. So I went to Debian's official documentation, read a bit and came up with the following partition schemes.
hda1 Primary 10479.01 - Mounted / using ReiserFS
hda5 Logical 49.36 - /Boot1 (I don't know why this is here but i leave it anyway in case it makes me not able to boot into my Windows partition)
hda6 Logical 5198.38 - /home using ReiserFS
hda7 Logical 197 - Linux Swap (I think the documentation says as rule of thumb use same amount as the amount of available memory so i did this 128mb plus a little bit more just in case ;) )
hda8 Logical 49.36 - /tmp (the docs recommend it on separate partition)
hda3 Primary 4565.04 - Win2k FAT32 (my old windows 2k partition)
The whole installation went smooth. I just skip through most of the questions using defaults except for CVS which I enabled pserver (I want to experiment with this because sourceforge use it) and a couple of other small details. After done, when I hit startx it crashed! What I've selected was S3 Trio 3D from the VGA driver package. I've somehow expected this because the configuration somewhere says that Trio 3D is not supported. I couldn't decipher the error message. I tried using xf86cfg (instead of xf86config) which is the graphical configurator for X and it went into graphics mode ok. It detected S3 Virge which is strange but it can go into graphics mode anyway. So I resaved the configuration but X still crashed on me. I figured somewhere out there in the pile of bits and bites the VGA driver has been locked somehow. I also tested my network card which i set as Tulip but it can load the module but cannot ping my router!
Anyway I figured, oh what the heck, let's reinstall. As a famous busy bee once said "When you're stumped and hit a dead end, reformat and reinstall!"
So the next time around, I make sure I selected S3 Virge and it worked! But my network card is still down, DUH!
I used to run a Debian box a couple of years ago. I think I've gone through so much compiling kernels, downloading ISOs, installing from network. Unfortunately, all this knowledge are either foggy or has been completely wiped out of my memory. As a busy bee, I have a lot of things on mind and my amazing (or crippling) passion to learn everything at once has made my brain into a speghetti of information bits and pieces. I swear if I go on like this, I can get committed into a mental hospital.
So rather than try to remember all the steps, all the installations, all the tricks of the trade, I've decided to create this BusyBee Debian blog so that it will track all the things that I've learnt. I intend to start from scratch again after installing the home Debian box all the way until I've reached guru hood! Maybe you guys can help me and tell me if (ever) i've reached this state ;)