Re: Just loaded debian, how do I help?
On Thu, 23 Oct 1997, Doug DeJulio wrote:
> Well, one problem was the install process, but I don't expect that to be
> smooth yet -- the distribution is labeled "unstable". Lots of "dpkg
> --force-depends" and symlinks in /lib were needed.
Yeah, I expected the --force-depends on a few things, but am not aware of
symlink problems in /lib. Which libs needed this? Also, fyi, none of us
can figure out where/how ldso was compiled (I can't get it to recompile
and don't know who originally did it on the Alpha) so we may be slow in
updating that package, which is pretty important.
> The system date is messed up on startup. Apparently the system doesn't
> realize my clock is set to local time, ARC (it thinks it's universal time,
> non-ARC). My hack to get past this was to copy the RedHat "/sbin/clock"
> utility and run it by hand for now.
Ah, no, you won't want to do that for long. We've had a discussion on
this in the past (see the hwclock/epoch thread in the archives) and
decided that "clock" was evil, but hwclock is good. In short, you should
only need to change the time zone shown next to the hwclock command in the
/etc/init.d/boot file to your local time zone. Since most people were
setting their ARC to GMT (alot of people dual-boot Digital UNIX,
apparently), we all figured it was better to just set it that way than to
ask for now. Also, be aware that if you're running the 2.0.30 kernel (and
possibly 2.0.31), there is no RTC support available (needed by hwclock) in
the stock kernel source. We do have patches for this, but the better
solution is to step up to one of the development kernels (I use 2.1.57 and
2.1.59). Just remember to compile in RTC support. If you REALLY want to
use the old "clock", there is a line in the "boot" script that you can
use. Just comment out the surrounding if...
> PPP wasn't connecting (which is important since this box is my router at
> home). I tried recompiling pppd from source and I tried fiddling with
> nsswitch.conf, and that didn't work. What *did* work was to grab the RedHat
> pppd binary, put symlinks in /lib so it found the Debian versions of the
> shared libraries it needed, and use that. This is gross, and will probably be
> the first thing I try to really fix.
Ah, please do. Michael Dorman was wrestling with pppd and, although he
did get it to work, he was having severe performance problems. If you
would like to work on pppd, you may want to check with him beforehand to
see what he did to get it working in the first place. Maybe the two of
you can combine knowledge and get this thing fixed for good :) His email
is mdorman@law.miami.edu
> Also, I couldn't install sendmail, but that might have been a packaging
> problem -- I'll try it again, and then try from source, and see what happens.
That's oddball. I compiled sendmail myself. Let me know since I don't
have any mail software on my box right now (not needed). The source
compiled cleanly, I believe, so you shouldn't have much of a problem.
> At work, we've got AMD 5x86 boxes running Debian 1.3.1, and the main server
> for my domain ({www,ftp,smtp}.aisb.org) is a 486SL running Debian 1.3.1.
> They're all rock solid with no troubles at all for months at a time. My
> Debian/Alpha box isn't there *yet*...
Once you shake down the initial problems, I'm sure you'll find that the
Alpha will rival your x86's in stability. It's really quite a wonderful
machine for playing and working on :)
> I'll try to write one up in HTML tomorow, test it on a blank SCSI disk (I've
> got a few more laying around), and put it up somewhere if the procedure works.
I actually have a Debian-Alpha page, if you'd like to put it up there.
Check it out if you'd like. It's incomplete, but it's a start:
http://beezer.med.miami.edu:8080/alpha
> I'll give it a try in a few minutes.
Great :)
> FWIW, I went with the 233MHz UDB (most other folks I've seen have the slower
> model), so compiles may go a *little* faster. If not, I'm used to waiting --
> I just set up Debian 1.3.1 on a 386 a few days ago (as a backup router/server
> in case something else fails). You should see how long compiles take on
> *that*...
Hahaha...I know that feeling. My first Linux installation was on the
"bare minimum" 386SX-16 with 2MB RAM. Needless to say, kernel compiles
took days to complete...
As for my UDB, it is the slower model, but I was fortunate enough to find
one that has an upgradable processor. I intend on trying to find a 233MHz
Alpha processor to slap in the socket one day (and overclock it, of
course), but haven't had the time. I also need to drop more RAM in this
thing soon. It's only at 24MB right now and is super-slow
compilation-wise...
Chris
--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-alpha-request@lists.debian.org .
Trouble? e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .
Reply to: