Re: Newbie Frustration

[cloudmaster <cloudmaster@cloudmaster.com>]

Tesla Coil wrote:
> On 21 Nov 1999, Steven Pritchard replied to Walt Black:
> >> I can get the x windows and KDE working but I can't
> >> seem to print from any program.  The manual with SuSE
> >> 6.1 sucks bigtime!
> >
> > I always thought the SuSE manual was pretty good, but
> > I haven't looked at it in a long time...
> >
> > Keep in mind that SuSE is based out of Germany, so
> > some of their documentation sucking may be a result
> > of translation.
> 
> When the SuSE manual sucks, it's because they have the
> highest frequency of releases and manual doesn't always
> keep up with changes in the distro.

It does seem to jump around a little, hiting the highlights of some of the
software without ever really giving a tutorial or short getting started
lesson.  The 6.2 manual's better than the 5.2 or 6.1 manuals I have, and
I'd hope that teh 6.3 manual continues theier tradition of getting bette. 
6.3 has a better logo IMHO too. :)

...
> Some rpms built for Red Hat will not install on SuSE for
> differences in directory structure.  What few occasions
> I've run into a problem, I've been able to find an rpm built
> for SuSE, or, push comes to shove, there's the tarball.

There's usually a source RPM that will work too...  In general, if you know
how to force the package to install, you'll know how to repair the config
files that are broken.  Of course, in the unix way, there are always
multiple ways to do something - and if a package won't install there's
probably another way to do the same thing that *will* work...  Not that
that's really helpful or anything... :)

> >> 1.  How do you make Linux see a printer with Epson
> >> emulation?
> >
> > I'm sure somebody here with some SuSE experience
> > can help with that.  (There's a reason I only print to
> > Postscript laser printers...)
> 
> I expect Cloudmaster has more experience in this dept.

Have you tried entering Yast, going to "system administration", "Integrate
Hardware into system", "Configure printers", then moving on to select
"Other Printer" in Printer Type field, and selecting "epson" or "epsonc" or
one of the epson-like selections?  Failing that, you might be able to find
ghostscript support for your Panasonic and specify that in the
"userdefined" printer types.  That might require recompiling ghostscript
and various other hassles - so I'd suggest working with the apsfilter
epsons first... 

> >> 2.  The best I can figure is that I can't load individual
> >> programs off the CDs but have to install large packages
> >> of many, many things I don't need to get the programs
> >> I do need.  How can I find what programs I have loaded?
> >> Without a working printer it is too overwhelming!
> >
> > I'm not sure how YAST handles adding packages, or if
> > it does, for that matter, but you can always mount the cd
> > by hand and use rpm to install individual packages.  (Could
> > somebody who is more familiar with SuSE give an example
> > here?)

On each disk is a file called "english.pkd" in the setup directory. This
has the english description of each package in the distrib.  So, to play
with that like I would, you can mount the cdrom on /cdrom 
	mount /dev/cdrom /cdrom
open the file 	
	less /cdrom/setup/descr/english.pkd
and search for whatever you wanna install
	/ searchterm
("/" searches in less and in vi & derivitives)
You'll find a package name in the entry you're looking at, along with
description and other unreadable stuff.  Once you've found the package name
you want, quit by pressing "q", then open up the common descriptions
	less /cdrom/setup/descr/common.pkd
and search for that package name (vim.rpm, for example).  In that entry,
you will find a line that says something like "InstPath:      01 /a1/" -
the "01" means that the package in on disk 1, and the "/a1" means it's in
the directory "suse/a1/" on your CD.  So to install it (assuming the
correct CD mounted on /cdrom), you'd type 
	rpm --install -v /cdrom/suse/a1/vim.rpm
as root.  Since you've got '-v' in there, you'll get some stuff printed out
and then have a wonderful editor to use in place of bloated emacs and
involuntary word wrapping pico. :)

> > If you want to know what packages you have installed,
> > just do the following:
> >
> >   rpm -qa | sort | more
> 
> Install xrpm if you haven't.

kpackage is also nice if you're using the KDE stuff.  webmin's interface to
packages is pretty cool too...

I hope I've been of some help...

--Danny

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