[H-GEN] linux is still too hard

[Hilton Travis]

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Hi Tony,

On Tue, 2003-07-15 at 09:47, Tony Bilbrough wrote:

> My sympathies to you, Greg.
> May I add to your discussion point, with my latest effort.
> 
> To install E Smith v5.1 as a Router/Firewall/Server thru a Cable Modem 
> to/from Telstra Bigpond. .[1]
> The installation went onto an IBM 133 with 64 Mb RAM and 6 Gb hdd, 
> exactly as every one said it would. [2]
> Absolutely with out a hitch.
> And adding the correct info was all to easy during set up stages, too.
> Then a recent version of the BPA Login script had to be installed.
> For those unloved and unwashed, of my ilk:
> mount /dev/fd0
> cd /mnt/floppy
> ls
> rpm -Uvh bpalogin [tab]
> cd bpalogin-2.0 [tab]
> Then
> vi /etc/bpalogin.conf
> to add user name and password
> [Have I got the path right on that one?]

Yup - the path is correct.  I remember about 3 years ago when I had 2
different Telstra reps tell me that they were aboot to drop the use of
their stupid authentication client.  Good to see they are moving as
glacially as they normally do with things like this.

> Then 3 frustrating days of fiddling, pleading phone calls, and hunting 
> on the net - lucky I had a Windows lappie, with the Bigpond cd handy, eh?
> 
> Sigh - the solution was so simple - once you know!
> The bloke/blokette wrote a login script that dumped the login sim link 
> into the level 5 directory. Suitable for most installations, I suppose?
> [rc5.d] S50bpalogin

Yup - 99% of Linux distros would run like this.

> But the sim link had to be in level 7 for E Smith to connect - so [3]
> cd /etc/rc7.d
> ln -s /etc/init.d/bpalogin S50bpalogin

Runlevel 7?  Another reason I'm tending to build my own servers based on
Gentoo - E-Smith is getting WAY too far off the road for me - too many
strange - proprietary, dare I say it - ways of going about normal tasks.

> Thanks Stephen and ? for showing me the way to fix it on Sunday evening, 
> when you were supposed to be out partying!
> 
> Next Humbug I will try installing E Smith v6 on some spare boxen, if any 
> one wants to watch, or try it too.
> cheers
> Tony Bilbrough

I do want to have a look at this and see what they've done, however I
don't have the time right now.

> [1] before I generate too much flack about placing a Server on the 
> firewall/router. Shortly there will be a little Netgear solid state 
> jobie in front of this machine. And I do hope I don't find more 
> 'expert/arcane' semi psychic knowledge vital, to complete that leg.

Netgear?  I've seen a few of these, and am not overly impressed with
them.  The D-Link is better, and I've heard the Billion devices are also
rather nice.

> [2] E Smith v5.1 is based on the excellent RedHat 7.1 distro
> 
> [3] *nix only uses levels 1-6, in the general scheme of things, I believe.
> E Smith uses a level 7 - to initiate all its non interactive startup scripts
> ….Bugger

As I said, its things like this that are leading me away from E-Smith to
building my own servers.

-- 
Regards,

Hilton Travis                   Email: Hilton at QuarkAV.com
Manager                         Phone: +61-(0)7-3343-3889
Quark AudioVisual               Phone: +61-(0)419-792-394
Quark Computers
(Brisbane, Australia)            http://www.QuarkAV.com/

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