Linux - My computers
Linux - My computers
Here is a brief description of some of my Linux computers, their hardware, and their software. Incuded are copies of ppp and diald configuration files.
castle.spade.com
linus
lucy
ftp
My home computer is a PC Clone with a '486dx33 CPU, a VESA local bus motherboard, an ET4000/w32 video display, an internal Hayes 28.8 modem (I figured where better to go for Hayes compatibility than Hayes), one 340MB disk, and two 540 MB disks,. Two of the disks are visible to MS-DOS, and contain a C: drive, a D: drive, a partition that is used for swap by both Windows and Linux, and two Linux partitions. The third drive, which is only visible to Linux, is what I boot from when I am serious about net connectivity.
That disk contains a Slackware 2.3 distribution, the Linux 1.2.8 kernel configured for both SLIP and PPP capability, and the diald software package. This software frees me from the concerns of getting connected to my service provider, as it 'notices' a need to connect, dials, and starts PPP automatically. This means that I really don't care if I have to try a couple of times to connect, or if the provider disconnets. (In fact, diald itself disconnects in an effort to save the phone bill, so I'll give Best the benifit of the doubt.) Since it is only a local call, I could disable the disconnection feature, but I figure that disconnecting makes me a better 'modem citizen'.
Slackware includes the PPP software in /usr/lib/ppp. Getting PPP to work was an introductary exercize that involved configuring the ppp-on and ppp-off scripts.
I had to fetch the diald software and install it myself. This was not a big deal, it compiled right out of the package. Once I had the executable, it was not too hard to get a working diald-on script going.
Another problem was Email delivery. My mail is fetched for me by a script that runs popclient and formail. The script starts out with a couple of ping commands, just to wake diald up if needed. I didn't want to take the time to learn about procmail (yet), so formail invokes another script that uses 'deliver', the mail delivery agent that comes with Slackware. I have it set up so that it delivers mail to 'user' into /usr/spool/mail/'user'. This works fine for mail addressed to real users on my system, except that their .forward file is skipped. Mail to nonextant users still goes into files in /var/spool/mail, where I can investigate it at my leisure.
One of the computers on my desk at work is a Linux workstation named linus, after Linus Van Pelt of the Peanuts comics, or in honor of the creator of Linux (take your pick). In addition to being my workhorse machine, it is also the group's internal WWW server, and it can also function as a callback modem. The web server software is the NCSA httpd daemon, and the callback software is from a site in Europe that seems to produce all sorts of wonderful software.
Another of the Linux systems at work is an old 386/25 PC that drives a printer for the network. It seems that the printer's parallel interface is too slow to be driven by one of the more modern HP workstations that we use, but it is well within the capabilities of an old, slow '386. This system is named lucy, after Lucy Van Pelt, another Peanuts character. It is running a slackware 2.1 distribution, with the Linux 1.2.0 kernel.
The third Linux computer at work that I will introduce is our ftp server. It sits outside the firewall, and serves as a place where we can exchange files with some of our vendors. It is running the WU_FTPD daemon from Washington University at St. Louis, taking advantage of some of the 'guest account' capabilities of that software to allow controlled access to a limited number of users. It does support anonymous ftp, but don't bother looking, there is nothing there. Drivers, etc. will be available at ftp.quantum.com 'real soon' now (but that is another system, and another story).