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PCQLinux 2005 FAQs

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PCQ Bureau
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As root, cannot lock the screen



If you are logged in as root in X Window, you won't be able to lock your screen by clicking on Actions>Lock Screen. The following steps will enable you to lock the screen as root. 

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After login as root in X Window, open a terminal window and issue the following.

xhost +



su

Substitute with any user account name on your Linux machine. For example,

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su shekhar

Then issue the following to finally lock your screen.

xscreensaver &

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Can't install or run Eclipse



PCQLinux 2005 bundles one of the most feature-rich and free IDEs for Java, namely Eclipse. Take the follwing steps to install and run Eclipse after installing PCQLinux 2005. First follow the instructions in the FAQ “Where is Java ?” (that follows later) to install JDK. 

Install the RPMs named linc-1.0.3-3.1.i386.rpm and eclipse-1-3.1.i386. rpm found in the directory PCQLinux/RPMS on CD3 of PCQLinux 2005. In X Window click on Actions>Run Application, type in '/opt/ eclipse/eclipse' and click on Run. This should launch the Eclipse IDE for you to quick start your development. 

How to start the database server?



PCQLinux 2005 is based on Fedora Core 3, but it carries version 4 of MySQL Database server downloaded directly from mysql.com. It does not bundle MySQL 3 carried by Fedora 3. So in PCQLinux 2005, the database server can be started and stopped by by issuing the following commands, respectively.

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Direct Hit!
Applies to: PCQLinux 2005 users
USP:

Understand and resolve the known issues of our distro
Links:

http://forums.pcquest.com 

service mysql start and service mysql stop

Installed but not booting



If after installing PCQLinux 2005, you are not able to boot into the system, as the system hangs after showing POST (Power On Self Test) or freezes after displaying 'Grub Stage2 Loading ...' then boot into the PCQLinux 2005 CD1. 

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On the boot prompt (boot:) issue this command and press Enter.

linux rescue

Follow the onscreen instructions till you are dropped into a shell prompt that looks as follows.

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sh-3.00#

At this prompt, issue:

chroot /mnt/sysimage

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And subsequently, issue:

grub-install /dev/hda

Reboot by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL and now you should be greeted by the grub boot screen. 

Good Old Telnet



PCQLinux 2005 installs and runs SSH instead of the Telnet, by default. The former is secure and facilitates encrypted connection. If you want to connect to the PCQLinux machine using Telnet, first install the RPM named telnet-server-0.17-30.i386.rpm in the directory PCQLinux/RPMS on PCQLinux 2005 CD3. Then issue:

ntsysv

From the list of services, select Telnet and issue:

service xinetd restart

Now, you should be able to telnet to the PCQLinux machine. Note that, by default you cannot login as root over Telnet. So you will need to login as a normal user and then issue 'su -' command to get the root's shell. 

Auto-mounting NTFS and FAT partition



PCQLinux 2004 automatically detected and mounted FAT and NTFS partitions under /mnt directory. To achieve the same with PCQLinux 2005, install the RPM named kernel-ntfs-installer-2-0.i386.rpm found in the directory PCQLinux/RPMs on CD3. This will produce a directory named kernel-ntfs-installer under /opt. Change to this directory and install the RPM named kernel-module-ntfs-2.6.10-1.741_FC3-2.1.22-0.rr.4.3.i686 .rpm.

If you are running an SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing) kernel, then install kernel-module-ntfs-2.6.10-1.741_FC3smp-2.1.22-0.rr.4.3. i686.rpm. You can find whether you are running an SMP kernel by issuing 'uname -r'. If there is an 'smp' suffix in the output, then install the latter RPM. Reboot the PCQLinux machine. Next, download and install the RPM named mountpartitions-1.0-0.i386.rpm from http://forums.pcquest.com /forum /download.php?id=51. This will detect and mount the NTFS and FAT partitions under /mnt as C: and C-ntfs: (say).

Where is Java?



If you want to install the Java Development Kit required to develop Java-based applications, then install the RPM named pcqlinux-j2se-installer-1-0. i386.rpm found in the directory PCQLinux/RPMS on CD3 of PCQLinux 2005. This will produce a directory named pcqlinux-j2se-installer under /opt. Change to this directory (cd /opt/pcqlinux-j2se-installer) and issue:

./jdk-1_5_0_01-linux-i586-rpm.bin

Accept the license agreement by typing 'yes' which will subsequently install Java 2 Standard Edition development kit in /usr/java/jdk1.5.0_01. Next, issue:

ln -sf /usr/java/jdk1.5.0_01/bin/javac /usr/bin/javac



ln -sf /usr/java/jdk1.5.0_01/bin/java /usr/bin/java

If you intend to only run Java-based application then all you need is the Java Runtime a.k.a. JRE (Java Runtime Environment). To install JRE, install the RPM named pcqlinux-jre-installer-1-0.i386.rpm found on CD2. This will produce a directory named /opt/pcqlinux-jre-installer. Change to this directory and issue:

./jre-1_5_0_01-linux-i586-rpm.bin

Accept the license agreement by typing 'yes' which will subsequently install Java 2 Runtime Environment in /usr/java/jre1.5.0_01. Next, issue:

ln -sf /usr/java/jre1.5.0_01/bin/java /usr/bin/java

Evolution doesn't work or mail client at the desktop icon doesn't work



In this case when you type on the e-mail icon at the top status bar of Gnome, it gives either an error message of some missing library file run just doesn't run. To solve this, just open up a new terminal window and run thunderbird from there once by issuing:

#thunderbird

That's it! From now on, whenever you click on the icon it will automatically open thunderbird.

I am logged in as root but still can't write some configuration files or how to disable SELinux after installation?



If you are unable to write or modify some configuration file or a specific folder even after logging in as root. Then it is for sure that you have selected SE Linux enabled at the time of PCQLinux 2005 installation. SE Linux feature enhances the security of Linux box but if not configured properly, it can conflict with the configuration files. The most common example is a misbehaving Apache server. The only way out is to disable SE Linux. You can make another instant of boot up sequence in grub.conf, to make it easy in selecting weather you need SELinux enabled, while booting. To do so open the file /boot/grub/grub. conf and copy the lines which say,

title PCQLinux 2005 (2.6.10-1.741_FC3)



root (hd0,1)


kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.741_FC3 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet


initrd /initrd-2.6.10-1.741_FC3.img


title Other


rootnoverify (hd0,0)


chainloader +1




And paste it at the end of the same file. Now modify the first line to 'title PCQLinux without SELinux'.

Then scroll to the third line which says 'kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.10-1.741_FC3 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/ LogVol00 rhgb quiet' and add 'selinux=0' at the end. Save the file and reboot. This time when you see the grub menu, you will find one more boot option, which says 'PCQLinux SELinux disabled'. If you boot with this option, the machine will start without SELinux. To enable SELinux afterwards, just reboot and select the default Linux boot option from the grub menu.

Sound card gets detected by kudzu but doesn't produce any sound



In some Intel boards with built-in sound card, when kudzu detects the card, it configures it with the sound muted by default and the graphical volume controllers doesn't work for the first time. To solve this problem, open up the terminal window and type in aumix. Now increase all volumes by using the arrow keys to the maximum and check whether your machine responds.

Can't run/install Yahoo messenger



The official Linux version of Yahoo messenger is the last update for RedHat 9 and is quite old, so we had to ship PCQLinux 2005 with this old version. But while running it, it can give you 'segmentation fault' error message just after the Yahoo connection wizard finishes and crashes. 

To solve this de-select the option, which says, 'Copy icon in the desktop'. Now it should work properly. Also, don't forget that we still have better IM versions that can access Yahoo Chat, Gaim and Koepte. So not necessary to stick with the old Yahoo IM.

Can't run VCD/DVD movies in PCQLinux 2005



Generally, when you run a VCD/DVD player such as mplayer, it searches for /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd instead of the actual devices. So to make it work properly you have to create a symlink of the actual device to the /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd devices. To do so, run:

#ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom



#ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/dvd 

Run the second command only if yours is a DVD drive. And from now on Gmplayer should detect and play your movies. 

PCQLinux 2005 CD1 can't recognize itself



When you place the PCQLinux 2005 CD 1 in to your CD drive and boot the machine with it, the machine will boot up with anaconda but only after showing the first two screens (language and keyboard). It gives an error message saying that installer cannot find the PCQLinux CD 1 in any of the CD drives and the installation stops. 

This is the problem, which took us around a full day to replicate in our Labs environment. But after finding the error we found that it is nothing but a problem of bad cdrom or bad media. 

Some site has mentioned that this error happens in case you have more than four primary partitions in your hard disk. But we tested out and found that this error is nothing to with any number of partitions.

Anindya Roy and Shekhar Govindarajan

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