Q40/Linux Journal
A Periodic Publication from Tim Swenson (swensont@lanset.com)
Special First Issue Hard Copy Edition
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the first issue of the Q40/Linux Journal.
It is the intention of this journal to be an informal
publication, documenting the differences of running
Q40/Linux versus regular Linux.
The aim of the Journal is to cover topics that apply
directly to running Linux on the Q40. General
questions about how to create user accounts, how to
change file permissions, etc. are best left to the
whole horde of Linux books available. The Journal
will focus on topics such as; using the sound on the
Q40 with Linux, support for ethernet cards, features
of the newly ported kernals, what packages have
been tested and work on the Q40, and so on.
The audience of the Journal is from the experience
Unix user (and know that there is still a lot to learn)
and the relative newcomer to Unix this is trying
Linux because it is available on the Q40. My first
goal is to document the things that I want to know
and adding other areas when readers have areas that
they would like to see covered.
I plan to use the ql-developers mailing list to
distribute the Journal and to keep past issues on my
web page. I doubt that I can keep the Journal on a
set schedule, so I'll start off by not promising a
schedule and that the Journal will come out
occasionally.
WINDOW MANAGERS
A Window Manager is better known as a Desktop. It
is the graphical front end to the system. Under
Linux, there are a number of different window
managers available, giving users an almost unlisted
amount of choices on how to make the desktop look
and feel. For some users, discussion of which
window manager is better is a heated debate, similar
to arguing which editor is better.
Switching Between Window Managers
The Q40/Linux CD comes with a number of
Window Managers. The one started by default is
FVWM95 and provides a Windows95 kind of look
for the desktop. The other desktops are FVWM,
FVWM2, AfterStep, WindowMaker, Lesstiff, and
TWM. GNOME and KDE are popular window
managers not included on the distribution CD.
The way to start X windows and a desktop is this:
% startx
The startx script runs .xinitrc (first locally and then
in /usr/bin/X11R6/xinit/). Then .Xclients is run
(again locally or in the root X11 directory). This
calls RunWm which then executes the window
manager of choice. Which window manager to run
is listed in the .wm_style file.
To define which window manager is used, edit the
.wm_style file with one of the following lines:
AfterStep
fvwm95
WindowMaker
Lesstif
fvwm
tvm
For more information on the window managers, how
to use and configure them, see the following web
pages:
fvwm & fvwm2 - www.fvwm.org
fvwm95 - ftp://mitac11.uia.ac.be/html-
test/fvwm95.html
Afterstep - www.afterstep.org
WindowMaker - www.windowmaker.org
For a web page that covers the different window
managers, goto:
www.plig.org/~xwinman/
RPM PACKAGES
Red Hat Package Modules (RPM) is becoming a
standard way of distributing applications in Linux.
In the past, tar files were the standard, with each
vendor (Sun, SGI, HP) developing thier own way of
creating a package management facility.
RPM packages come in either a binary or source
form. A binary form means that it contains pre-
compiled binaires for a specific architecture. A
source form means that it contains the source code
used to create the binary package.
With Q40/Linux we can use three different RPM
packages, source, no-arch, and m68k. A no-arch
package is loadable on all architectures and is
usually shell or perl scripts. An m68k package has
pre-compiled binaries for the m68k architecture.
Both the no-arch and m68k packages do not need
any additional work to have then run on the Q40. A
source package needs to be recompiled before it will
work on the Q40.
Each RPM package comes with a .spec file that
defines some aspects of that package. Usually the
.spec file is configured to know how to recreate a
binary package from the source package. This
means that if there is no m68k package for an
application, but there is a source package, we can
download the source package, run some RPM
commands, and end up with a m68k package, ready
to be installed.
To recompile a source package do the following:
rpm -ihv package.src.rpm
rpm -ba /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/package.spec
The binary package will then reside in the
/usr/src/redhat/RPMS/ directory and can then be
installed.
In some cases, the .spec file is seriously lacking the
information necessary to recompile the package.
Some package has not been modified to work fully as
an RPM and have other ways to install. With
some you may need to do a 'configure' and then
'make'. 'configure' is a well used tool that
determines what c compiler, c libraries, and such
things, are available on a system and then creates the
proper Makefile for the application. Then, once
'make' is run, the application is ready for use.
Before installing any RPM's, you will need to add a
line to the file /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc:
arch_compat: m68k : noarch
Without this, the 'rpm' software will tell you that an
m68k is not the right architecture for the Q40. This
line defines what architectures can be installed on
the Q40.
TESTED RPM
PACKAGES
pente-2.2.0-1.src.rpm
This is the board game called Pente.
unzipped with gzip
untarred it
'configure'
'make'
xpinguin-1.0-1.src.rpm
This displays Tux, the Linux penguin, on the
screen for you to move about with the mouse.
added 'touch xpinguin.c' to the spec file just
before the 'make'
SOURCE OF RPM
PACKAGES
RPM packages can come from two different sources,
CD-ROM and the Net. For finding RPM packages
on the Net, try www.rpmfind.net. This is the main
online repository for most RPM packages.
The difficulty in downloading RPM's off the Net is
the time it takes to download a huge package over a
relatively slow phone line. Getting packages off of
CD-ROM can sometimes be easier. A good source
of cheap source CD-ROMS is www.cheapbytes.com.
A number of CD's are available for $2 each, and
even some are free. I was able to pick up 8 CD's for
under $20 (including shipping). Some of the better
CD's I bought were:
CheapBytes Linux Source CD containing Red
Hat 6.1
CheapBytes Red Hat 6.2 Source CD
CheapBytes Games Archive CD Edition 1
Packages Galoree Edition 3
CheapBytes Miscellaneous Archive CD Edition 1