Linux tips for UMBC

This document should be useful to staff, faculty, and students struggling with Linux installations and lab machines. If you have additional suggestions for this document, please mail systems@umbc.edu with your suggestions and tips.

Problems and Questions

• Please report any problems with the UCS Linux lab machines to systems@umbc.edu.
• Please report any problems on linuxbeta.gl.umbc.edu to systems@gl.umbc.edu.
• UMBC has a very active and helpful Linux Users Group (LUG), which provides the following resources:
• A UMBC LUG website is available at http://linux.umbc.edu/
• The LUG newsgroup is available at umbc.org.linux.
• The newsgroup is gated to a mailing list, which can be subscribed to by sending mail to umbclinux-request@lists.umbc.edu
• Newsgroup / Mailing List archives are available at http://linux.umbc.edu/lug-mailing-list/

The UMBC-LUG is a good place to ask general questions regarding Linux use and installation.

Known Bugs

Workarounds

• To use the Zip drive, use the mtools package. Mounting the drive is not now and will not ever be supported.

Fixed Bugs

• /afs/umbc.edu/public/linuxdist/ access denied. (Fixed 1998-October-23)
• XLock doesn't let you log back on: this is due to a Kerberos 5 issue. (Fixed 1998-October-23)
• Pine doesn't work. (Fixed 1998-October-23)
• Due to an issue with the 3Com 3C905B drivers, the lab machines needed to be switched off when switching from Windows NT to Linux. This has been fixed -- soft rebooting now works fine. (Fixed 1998-November-23)
• XLock may complain about your .xlockrc -- just "chmod 000 $HOME/.xlockrc" (This is fixed in Linux-Mercury both in the labs and elsewhere.)
• Sound doesn't work in the labs.(Fixed in Mercury.)

Booting and Rebooting

• To reboot from Linux to Windows NT, log out and log onto the machine as "reboot" or "winnt" (no quotes).

Information on Linux

• For users of Red Hat Linux v5.2.1-UMBC, updates and changes will be announced on umbc.linux.announce, which can also be read via e-mail by subscribing to linux-announce-request@lists.umbc.edu.
• Linux software provided by UMBC will be located in AFS space at /afs/umbc.edu/public/linuxdist/, available from any AFS-enabled machine.
• The release notes for UMBC's Linux distribution, Red Hat version 5.2.1-UMBC (Mercury), are available on the web at http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jon/ucs-stuff/release-notes.html.
• For the most comprehensive set of Linux documentation, check out the Linux Documentation Project at http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/.
• For information regarding Red Hat Linux, the best source is Red Hat Software's web site, available at http://www.redhat.com/.

jon@umbc.edu
Last Modified: 2000-June-21