CentOS - Mar 2005 - Some newbie (straightforward) questions especially

Hi all,

I''m new to CentOS and also to KDE, and I find myself with little time
to
get acquinted with it well, so I''m hoping someone can give me some
quick
pointers for some (surely) really basic matters. I hope the questions
I''m about to ask are not too much ''dead horse
flogging'', but if so,
perhaps someone can point me to a good FAQ. :)

Having said that, I''ll briefly state my background: I''m a
developer
(mainly web applications), and my own server runs FreeBSD 5.2.1. I''d
say
I have rather advanced (though not guru level) administration knowledge
of FreeBSD, but the same does not apply (yet) to Linux, and then in
particular versions running KDE. On Unix systems I''m most comfortable
working in terminal mode and vi, but I''d like to get to know KDE as
well. BTW: A week or two ago, I configured an RHEL machine as a web
server, so I do know the concepts of up2date and the channels etc.

Then, the questions for now:

1) The machine I installed CentOS (v4.0, including the updates) on
automatically starts up in KDE. Is there a quick and easy way to switch
(upon start up time) to booting in terminal mode?

2) Being in web development, the applications I make have to be tested
against Internet Explorer as well (ideally the Windows versions), is
there a (pretty much 1-on-1) port of IE for KDE?

3) I''m considering ditching Windows XP altogether, but for the same
reasons as mentioned under nr. 2 it would be handy to be able to run
some Windows applications. Is there a VMWare (or other Virtual Machine)
version for KDE/CentOS that can be installed for free, and that can
handle Windows XP/2K installations?

4) An easy question: how can I best search in the set of available
packages? Is there a special tool under KDE that allows one to browse
the available packages, and/or search them?

That''s it for now, it probably looks rather funny to be seeing such
novice questions over here, but it''s just that I''d like to get
some
quick pointers as to how to set this up using KDE rather than the good
''ole hard-core terminal way. ;)
BTW: I''ll do some RTFM-ing as well, of course, it''s just that
I''ve been
given little time to set this machine up, so some help to get me quickly
in the right direction would be very much appreciated...

I hope anyone can give some quick pointers, and thanks for your time!

Cheers!
Olafo

Olaf Greve wrote:
> 1) The machine I installed CentOS (v4.0, including the updates) on
> automatically starts up in KDE. Is there a quick and easy way to
> switch (upon start up time) to booting in terminal mode?
edit the file /etc/inittab from
id:5:initdefault:
to
id:3:initdefault:

Also, I don''t think by default it starts in KDE but rather GNOME.
> 4) An easy question: how can I best search in the set of available
> packages? Is there a special tool under KDE that allows one to browse
> the available packages, and/or search them?
yum install synaptic
run synaptic in GNOME.

Hi Olaf,

Olaf Greve wrote:
> Then, the questions for now:
>
> 1) The machine I installed CentOS (v4.0, including the updates) on
> automatically starts up in KDE. Is there a quick and easy way to switch
> (upon start up time) to booting in terminal mode?
If you want your machine to boot up in ''terminal'' mode,
you''ll need to
change the default run level to ''3'' (level 5, which
you''re probably at
is what level the GUI loads on start). Open up /etc/initttab and find a
few lines like so:

# The default runlevel is defined here
id:5:initdefault:

Change that 5 to a 3 and the next time you boot up, it''ll start up
without a GUI
> 2) Being in web development, the applications I make have to be tested
> against Internet Explorer as well (ideally the Windows versions), is
> there a (pretty much 1-on-1) port of IE for KDE?
Other than an old solaris port, I''m not aware of any IE ports to
Unix/Linux or KDE
> 3) I''m considering ditching Windows XP altogether, but for the
same
> reasons as mentioned under nr. 2 it would be handy to be able to run
> some Windows applications. Is there a VMWare (or other Virtual Machine)
> version for KDE/CentOS that can be installed for free, and that can
> handle Windows XP/2K installations?
I''m not aware of any virtual machines that allow you to run windows or
other OS''s that are free.

HTH!

Dan

> 1) The machine I installed CentOS (v4.0, including the updates) on
> automatically starts up in KDE. Is there a quick and easy way to switch
> (upon start up time) to booting in terminal mode?
change the id:5:initlevel to id:3:... in /etc/inittab
> 2) Being in web development, the applications I make have to be tested
> against Internet Explorer as well (ideally the Windows versions), is
> there a (pretty much 1-on-1) port of IE for KDE?
as far as I know IE is only available for windows and mac, so nothing for
linux, period.  You can of course trying running all of windows in an
emulator (wine, qemu, bochs, wvware, etc...) or possibly (which IMHO works
better) use vnc and have windows booted on a remote machine...

(actually I''d say skil developing for IE and force users to upgrade but
you wouldn''t like that answer)
> 3) I''m considering ditching Windows XP altogether, but for the
same
> reasons as mentioned under nr. 2 it would be handy to be able to run
> some Windows applications. Is there a VMWare (or other Virtual Machine)
> version for KDE/CentOS that can be installed for free, and that can
> handle Windows XP/2K installations?
no idea, vmware does work afaik and I think it''s free if not
commercial.
You have to remember that KDE is just the window manager - underneath it
all is X11 so any X app for linux work
> 4) An easy question: how can I best search in the set of available
> packages? Is there a special tool under KDE that allows one to browse
> the available packages, and/or search them?
personally I use "yum list | grep something" and google :)
I do believe there are some graphical package managers but never really
liked any of them (last tried a few years ago though...)
> That''s it for now, it probably looks rather funny to be seeing
such
> novice questions over here, but it''s just that I''d like
to get some
> quick pointers as to how to set this up using KDE rather than the good
> ''ole hard-core terminal way. ;)
> BTW: I''ll do some RTFM-ing as well, of course, it''s just
that I''ve been
> given little time to set this machine up, so some help to get me quickly
> in the right direction would be very much appreciated...
>
> I hope anyone can give some quick pointers, and thanks for your time!
Cheers,
MaZe.

On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 16:17 +0100, Olaf Greve wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I''m new to CentOS and also to KDE, and I find myself with little
time to
> get acquinted with it well, so I''m hoping someone can give me some
quick
> pointers for some (surely) really basic matters. I hope the questions
> I''m about to ask are not too much ''dead horse
flogging'', but if so,
> perhaps someone can point me to a good FAQ. :)
----
OK - start here...
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>

and then here
<http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/>
----
>
> Having said that, I''ll briefly state my background: I''m a
developer
> (mainly web applications), and my own server runs FreeBSD 5.2.1.
I''d say
> I have rather advanced (though not guru level) administration knowledge
> of FreeBSD, but the same does not apply (yet) to Linux, and then in
> particular versions running KDE. On Unix systems I''m most
comfortable
> working in terminal mode and vi, but I''d like to get to know KDE
as
> well. BTW: A week or two ago, I configured an RHEL machine as a web
> server, so I do know the concepts of up2date and the channels etc.
----
you might find yum or even ''smart'' more to your liking
----
>
> Then, the questions for now:
>
> 1) The machine I installed CentOS (v4.0, including the updates) on
> automatically starts up in KDE. Is there a quick and easy way to switch
> (upon start up time) to booting in terminal mode?
----
already answered
----
>
> 2) Being in web development, the applications I make have to be tested
> against Internet Explorer as well (ideally the Windows versions), is
> there a (pretty much 1-on-1) port of IE for KDE?
----
rumor has it that on April 1st - Microsoft will release the source code
for everything.

are you serious?
----
> 4) An easy question: how can I best search in the set of available
> packages? Is there a special tool under KDE that allows one to browse
> the available packages, and/or search them?
----
see above ''smart''
----
> BTW: I''ll do some RTFM-ing as well, of course, it''s just
that I''ve been
> given little time to set this machine up, so some help to get me quickly
> in the right direction would be very much appreciated...
----
rtfm is a good start

Craig

Maciej ?enczykowski wrote:
>
>>2) Being in web development, the applications I make have to be tested
>>against Internet Explorer as well (ideally the Windows versions), is
>>there a (pretty much 1-on-1) port of IE for KDE?
You''re best bet would be CrossOver Office (not free) or Wine (free).
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice/
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?versionId=1455
> no idea, vmware does work afaik and I think it''s free if not
commercial.
VMware isn''t free but it''s well worth the money.

Hi all,

Thanks for the answers, these were indeed exactly the pointers I was
looking for.
> change the id:5:initlevel to id:3:... in /etc/inittab
Excellent! That''s it; works nicely recognisable now ;)
>>2) Being in web development, the applications I make have to be tested
>>against Internet Explorer as well (ideally the Windows versions), is
>>there a (pretty much 1-on-1) port of IE for KDE?
>
>
> (actually I''d say skil developing for IE and force users to
upgrade but
> you wouldn''t like that answer)
Well, as in my case the ''end users'' comprise the entire
Internet, indeed
I''ll have to think of something else instead of suggesting all of them
to go Firefox... ;)

Either way: I already feared there wouldn''t be a good IE port (MS could
well be digging their own grave by making one), yet it''s good to know
for sure. Firefox is much nicer anyway, but as still some 98% of the
Internet runs PC/IE, it is something we have to develop for....

>>3) I''m considering ditching Windows XP altogether, but for the
same
>>reasons as mentioned under nr. 2 it would be handy to be able to run
>>some Windows applications. Is there a VMWare (or other Virtual Machine)
>>version for KDE/CentOS that can be installed for free, and that can
>>handle Windows XP/2K installations?
>
>
> no idea, vmware does work afaik and I think it''s free if not
commercial.
> You have to remember that KDE is just the window manager - underneath it
> all is X11 so any X app for linux work
O.k., thanks, I''ll take a look-see.

Cheers!
Olafo

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:17:56 +0100, Olaf Greve <o.greve@axis.nl>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
<<>>
> 2) Being in web development, the applications I make have to be tested
> against Internet Explorer as well (ideally the Windows versions), is
> there a (pretty much 1-on-1) port of IE for KDE?
I use VNC and a spare windows box when I need access to windows, or
Vmware as suggested. I''ve found the VNC method is easier then loading
VMware. One of my friends uses wine to do initial testing then a real
windows box for final testing.

Olaf Greve wrote:
> 3) I''m considering ditching Windows XP altogether, but for the
same
> reasons as mentioned under nr. 2 it would be handy to be able to run
> some Windows applications. Is there a VMWare (or other Virtual Machine)
> version for KDE/CentOS that can be installed for free, and that can
> handle Windows XP/2K installations?
I haven''t read through this, but there''s a guide in the Gentoo
forum,
"HOWTO: Installing Internet Explorer 6 with wine"

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-148168.html

There''s probably a lot of gentoo specific stuff in there but
I''m sure
you could use the same tips for CentOS.

--Ajay

On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 10:08, Olaf Greve wrote:
> Either way: I already feared there wouldn''t be a good IE port (MS
could
> well be digging their own grave by making one), yet it''s good to
know
> for sure. Firefox is much nicer anyway, but as still some 98% of the
> Internet runs PC/IE, it is something we have to develop for....
Better recheck that assumption. I''m only seeing around 90% IE these
days on a busy site - around 4% Firefox, the rest Netscape, Mozilla,
Opera, and Safari in that order.   And I think that is typical with
the Firefox percentage headed up.

--
  Les Mikesell
   les@futuresource.com

Hello all,

Can anyone tell me if there is any kind of an upgrade path to a current
install of RedHat 9 to CentOS 3.4?? .. If so is it a pain ?? .. Please give
me some feed back as we have some RH9 in production that we would like to
upgrade to CentOS 3.4.

BRW

Using the Centos CD''s, you should be able to do:
linux upgradeany

I have used that upgrade option along various paths including
Redhat 7.3 -> Centos 3.1

As always, make a backup of your data first, just to be on
the safe side.

-geoff



On Mar 17, 2005, at 12:15 PM, Brian Watters wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Can anyone tell me if there is any kind of an upgrade path to a current
> install of RedHat 9 to CentOS 3.4?? .. If so is it a pain ?? .. Please
> give
> me some feed back as we have some RH9 in production that we would like
> to
> upgrade to CentOS 3.4.
>
> BRW
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS@caosity.org
> http://lists.caosity.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
http://www.galitz.org

This should work:

http://www.owlriver.com/tips/centos-31-ex-rhl-9/

Grant


On Mar 17, 2005, at 1:15 PM, Brian Watters wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Can anyone tell me if there is any kind of an upgrade path to a current
> install of RedHat 9 to CentOS 3.4?? .. If so is it a pain ?? .. Please
> give
> me some feed back as we have some RH9 in production that we would like
> to
> upgrade to CentOS 3.4.
>
> BRW
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS@caosity.org
> http://lists.caosity.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
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Brian Watters wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>Can anyone tell me if there is any kind of an upgrade path to a current
>install of RedHat 9 to CentOS 3.4?? .. If so is it a pain ?? .. Please give
>me some feed back as we have some RH9 in production that we would like to
>upgrade to CentOS 3.4.
>
>
>
I managed a 7.3 ---> CentOS 3.3 upgrade without incident.  It was
actually a live box in a datacenter that was a playpen for some
developers.  It came right up and needed very little tweaking after the
reboot.

Cheers,

C

Hi

Anyone actually managed a 7.2 to CentOS 3.3? I did 7.3, 9.0, Fedora, even
CentOS 3.4 to 4.0 all without incidents. But 7.2 seems a bigger challenge
due to the major changes from 7.2 to 7.3.


Regards

-----Original Message-----
From: centos-bounces@caosity.org [mailto:centos-bounces@caosity.org] On
Behalf Of Chris Mauritz
Sent: 18 March 2005 05:04
To: CentOS discussion and information list
Subject: Re: [Centos] Update from RH9 to CentOS 3.4

Brian Watters wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>Can anyone tell me if there is any kind of an upgrade path to a current
>install of RedHat 9 to CentOS 3.4?? .. If so is it a pain ?? .. Please
>give me some feed back as we have some RH9 in production that we would
>like to upgrade to CentOS 3.4.
>
>
>
I managed a 7.3 ---> CentOS 3.3 upgrade without incident.  It was actually a
live box in a datacenter that was a playpen for some developers.  It came
right up and needed very little tweaking after the reboot.

Cheers,

C

_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@caosity.org
http://lists.caosity.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

> On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 10:08, Olaf Greve wrote:
>
> > Either way: I already feared there wouldn''t be a good IE port
(MS could
> > well be digging their own grave by making one), yet it''s good
to know
> > for sure. Firefox is much nicer anyway, but as still some 98% of the
> > Internet runs PC/IE, it is something we have to develop for....
>
I run Internet Explorer under FC3 using CrossOver Office...
http://www.codeweavers.com/   It''s not fast... but does at least run...

You can also attempt it with Wine (http://www.winehq.org/ if your
budget doesn''t allow CrossOver Office.

Hi,

Now that I am taking a slightly closer look at the CentOS (and Linux in
general) specifics, I''ve come across something that looks rather
strange, or at least, in comparison to FreeBSD and Debian it does.

When booting in runlevel 3, and when running "top", at the top of the
list, there is a process described as "prelink" which looks like a CPU
hog (it keeps using up to 90+% of the CPU). When just looking now, it
seems to have gone away.

In Gnome, when looking at the system monitor the "prelink" thread
seems
to have the following thread structure: anacron -> bash -> sh ->
prelink
-> ld-linux.so.2

The ld-linux.so.2 part appears, and disappears every second or so.

As I''m typing this message, the system seems to have calmed down now,
and perhaps it was only some initialisation of something (as the machine
was only installed yesterday).

Can anyone tell me what this was (from the man pages I gather
''anachron''
to be a cron/at like scheduler)?

Cheers,
Olafo

> Can anyone tell me what this was (from the man pages I gather
''anachron''
> to be a cron/at like scheduler)?
prelink is a new technology from Redhat that speeds up program loading.

As the name implies, it prelinks libraries used by programs and the cron
job you see are the regular checks to update current system software
library dependencies.

On Fri, 2005-03-18 at 18:33 +0800, Christopher Chan
wrote:
> > Can anyone tell me what this was (from the man pages I gather
''anachron''
> > to be a cron/at like scheduler)?
>
> prelink is a new technology from Redhat that speeds up program loading.
>
> As the name implies, it prelinks libraries used by programs and the cron
> job you see are the regular checks to update current system software
> library dependencies.
> _______________________________________________
Prelink is also available for other linux/unix variants ... and it
doesn''t hog resources after it is done :)

On initial install, it prelinks the libraries ... which takes a
significant amount of time.  After it finishes, it runs at a
predetermined interval.

All major linux distros have prelink available.

http://www.pk.edu.pl/cgi-bin/man-cgi?prelink
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Hi,
> Prelink is also available for other linux/unix variants ... and it
> doesn''t hog resources after it is done :)
Yes, interestingly enough, after having run for quite some time, it
seemed to ave finished about the time I was halfway through typing my
original message. Wanting to understand what it was, I still wondered at
what it was, so I decided to go along and post the message anyway. :)
> On initial install, it prelinks the libraries ... which takes a
> significant amount of time.  After it finishes, it runs at a
> predetermined interval.
Thanks, it''s good to know what it does, and when it does it.
There''s of
course no issue for me if Prelink is hogging up the machine for a
limited time upon setting up the machine, just as long as afterwards it
doesn''t do so anymore to these extremes.

Cheers!
Olafo

> Prelink is also available for other linux/unix variants ... and it
> doesn''t hog resources after it is done :)
Just giving credit where due.

Unix variants?

Hi,
>> Prelink is also available for other linux/unix variants ... and it
>> doesn''t hog resources after it is done :)
>
> Unix variants?
Flavours, I guess. Solaris, *BSD, Linux, .... :)
(Or am I missing your point here?!?)

Cheers and ''ave a good weekend!
Olafo

Olaf Greve wrote:
> Hi,
>
>>> Prelink is also available for other linux/unix variants ... and it
>>> doesn''t hog resources after it is done :)
>>
>>
>> Unix variants?
>
>
> Flavours, I guess. Solaris, *BSD, Linux, .... :)
> (Or am I missing your point here?!?)
>
Well...I have yet to see another ELF binary Unix variant use prelink.

*BSD? These guys avoid glibc like the plague don''t they? I highly doubt
any *BSD uses prelink at all.

Solaris 10...Mac OS X...hmm...

Even Debian does not use prelink yet.

Right now prelink is only testing/unstable in Debian.

On Fri, March 18, 2005 8:31 am, Feizhou said:
> Olaf Greve wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>>> Prelink is also available for other linux/unix variants ... and
it
>>>> doesn''t hog resources after it is done :)
>>>
>>>
>>> Unix variants?
>>
>>
>> Flavours, I guess. Solaris, *BSD, Linux, .... :)
>> (Or am I missing your point here?!?)
>>
>
> Well...I have yet to see another ELF binary Unix variant use prelink.
>
> *BSD? These guys avoid glibc like the plague don''t they? I highly
doubt
> any *BSD uses prelink at all.
>
> Solaris 10...Mac OS X...hmm...
>
> Even Debian does not use prelink yet.
>
> Right now prelink is only testing/unstable in Debian.
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS@caosity.org
> http://lists.caosity.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
Lots of new things are in testing and unstable only in debian ... it''s
been a long time since a stable release.

Prelink is also available in most other Linux distros, like Mandrake,
Gentoo, etc.

BSD is using "Dynamic Linking" (similar to prelink) ... and with some
patches, you can prelink the Linux Libraries in BSD too.

--
Johnny Hughes
<http://www.HughesJR.com/>

We have upgraded 6 RH9 servers to CentOS 3.4 without issue by just using
"linux upgradeany" all went very smooth and without issue, However on
one of our attempts a server running RH9 has the following error when
attempting to upgrade,

"invalid compressed format (err=2)"

Have not seen this before .. Anyone have any ideas? .. This is a older
IBM Netfinity 5000 server but as stated RH9 loaded on it without issue
??


BRW