Sat Nov 4 09:40:48 2023 UTC

NuTyX version 23.11 manual

CONFIGURATION

1. Language and locale

The command to adjust language and locale:

sudo setup-nutyx -cl



The file /etc/profile.d/i18n.sh defines the language of the user interface.

The link /etc/localtime defines your time zone.

To find out the various possibilities for Europe, for example, use the command:

ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe

Then adjust the link to match the city closest to your location. For example, the command:

sudo ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Rome /etc/localtime

will define Rome as city of your region.

2. The keyboard

The command to select your keyboard:

sudo setup-nutyx -ck

The file /etc/sysconfig/console defines the configuration of the keyboard when you are not in graphical mode.

Here is an example of a console configuration:

FONT="LatGrkCyr-8x16"
UNICODE="1"
LOGLEVEL=1
KEYMAP=fr_CH-latin1.map

The FONT variable defines the font that will be used. The UNICODE variable specifies the use of utf8 coding. LOGLEVEL defines the level of verbosity during the booting process (1 for least verbose, 7 for most). KEYMAP defines the keyboard mapping. All available keyboard maps are listed in the folder /lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/. Available fonts are listed in the folder /lib/kbd/consolefonts/.

The file /etc/X11/xorg.xonf.d/20-keyboard.conf does the same thing for your graphical keyboard. This is a wide subject; please use the Xorg main page for further information on how to configure it. You will also find a lot of examples on the Internet.

3. Setting date and time

The command for setting up the date and time:

sudo setup-nutyx -cc







4. Creating a new user account

The command to add a new user on your system:

sudo setup-nutyx -cu









If you wish to activate the autologin behaviour, edit /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf file.

The more basic commands useradd/userdel can also be used to add/delete user accounts.

5. The network

Automatic configuration via DHCP

The command below will configure you network:

sudo setup-nutyx -cn





Manual Configuration

The command below will configure you network:

sudo setup-nutyx -cn

















The file /etc/sysconfig/network contains all the network information.

HOSTNAME='nutyx'        # Hostname of this machine
MANAGER=''              # Network manager (wicd/networkmanager/cli/nothing)
NETWORKWAIT='no'        # Wait or not for network
LINKDELAY='15'          # init delay for initialisation of Networkmanager
NETWORKDELAY='0'        # init delay to wait after initialisation of Networkmanager

The script taking care of the network will adapt by checking which application is installed.

If wicd is found, the wicd service will be started; if networkmanager is found, the networkmanager service will be started.

If both applications are installed, networkmanager is started preferentially.

If neither is found, the cli script will be started.

For a static address configuration, it is necessary to specify the address of your DNS servers manually. For example, if you wish to use the google DNS servers, put this in the file /etc/resolv.conf:

nameserver 8.8.8.8
nameserver 8.8.4.4
EOF

You can often use the address of your router, as most routers are also DNS servers.

Define a wireless network and activate the wpa key

If your computer support wireless access, you can now configured it:

The command below will setup the wireless network

sudo setup-nutyx -cw





If you wish to do all by hand, here's how to proceed:

To know the name of the network card, use the command (as root):

iwconfig

If the result is something like:

eth0       no wireless extensions.

eth1       IEEE 802.11abg 
           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.417 GHz  Access Point: C4:3D:C7:9F:D0:CF
           Tx-Power=200 dBm
           Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
           Encryption key:off
           Power Management:off

In the example above, the eth1 card supports WiFi.

We just have to provide the configuration file which will be used by the network connection.

ATTENTION: it is important to name the configuration file correctly so that the script can find it.

In this example, the name of the card is eth1, the name of the WiFi network is casabianca and the access key will be Gg6!-@1234. From this information, we created this configuration file:

wpa_passphrase "casabianca" "Gg6!-@1234" > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.eth1

Then we add the configuration file as explained in the manual under the configuration section.

In this example, we have to create the file /etc/sysconfig/ifconfig.eth1.

Once this is done, you can restart the network by restarting the service:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart

Make sure you adjust the definition of the variable MANAGER as defined in the file /etc/sysconfig/network.

The management of the network service can be done through the command line. The value of the variable is then cli. If you want to use wicd, put wicd as a value; if networkmanager (which comes with the 'mate' graphical interface), then put networkmanager.

6. Setting the name of your computer

The file /etc/hostname defines the name of the local machine.

it's containing the name of your machine.

Example:

nutyx

7. Configuring the boot process

If you used an ISO image to install NuTyX and you installed GRUB as your bootloader, its configuration file is located in /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

The name of the NuTyX kernel file is kernel, and the name of the initrd is initrd.

Both files are located in the /boot folder.

In the following example, NuTyX is installed on the first partition of the second hard drive and grub is installed on the first hard drive.

The configuration file will be:

menuentry "NuTyX 23.11" {
  set root=(hd1,1)
  linux /boot/kernel-stable root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet 3
  initrd /boot/initrd-stable
  }

If we want to have an extra entry for maintenance, the entry will look like:

menuentry "NuTyX maintenance" {
  set root=(hd1,1)
  linux /boot/kernel-stable ro quiet 3
  initrd /boot/initrd-stable
  }

Note that this entry doesn't have the option root=/dev/sdb1 so the root partition will not be mounted. This would allow you to carry out maintenance tasks on this partition.

If the bootloader is not yet installed, (for example because you installed NuTyX from a script rather than from an ISO image), you can install grub separately by specifying the disk on which which the NuTyX partition is located. In our example below, we will use the following command:

sudo grub-install /dev/sdb

Ajust according your settings

8. Adding a partition, a disk or a NFS shared folder

If you have already defined the user(s) on this machine and wish to mount their /home folder (which contains the users personal files) on a separate partition/disk/NFS folder, it is important to back up the existing contents of this folder first.

There are several ways of doing this. Whichever way you use, make sure you are logged in as root and that the X server is not running.

As root, type the following commands:

init 3
sync
cd /home
tar cf /root/users.tar *

If everything went well (no error messages), you can erase the folders, still as root

cd /home
rm -r *

The home folder is now empty and ready to become a mount point for the real home partition.

The file /etc/fstab defines the mount points of partition devices when the machine boots up.

You will probably want to use a partition or a disk or even a NFS folder to store the personal data of the registered users on this machine.

In our example, GRUB is on the first partition, NuTyX rootfs is on the second partition, the swap partition is the third.

The file /etc/fstab of our example initially contains the following information:

# file/device   mountpoint  type      options    dump fsck order
...
/dev/sda1       /boot       ext2      defaults     0        0
/dev/sda2       /           reiserfs  defaults     0        1
/dev/sda3       swap        swap      pri=1        0        0

We wish to add the second partition (formatted as ext4) of the second disk to be installed on the mount point /home. We need to add the following line:

echo "/dev/sdb2  /home  ext4     defaults   0   0" >> /etc/fstab

To add a NFS folder /srv located on a remote server with the IP address 192.168.254.254 to the mounting point /server, we add the following line:

cat "192.168.254.254:/srv /server  nfs  rw,vers=3,_netdev,rsize=8192,wsize=8192   0   0" \
>> /etc/fstab

Once this is done, you can activate the mount points using the command:

mount -a

The folder /server must have been created earlier on your local machine. The values of rsize and wsize have the default values. Feel free to experiment with your own values for these. Make sure the package nfs-utils and the associated services are launched. Note that the version 3 of NFS has been chosen.

You should not see any error messages during the mount operation. You can check the result by using the command:

mount

it should return something like this:

...
/dev/sdb2 on /home type ext4 (rw)
192.168.254.254:/srv on /server type nfs (rw,vers=3,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,addr=192.168.254.254)
...

It is now time to restore the content of the /home folder.

This assumes that some users are already created and you choose to mount the /home folder:

cd /home
tar xf /root/users.tar

You can now switch back to graphical mode and login as a normal user.

9. Adding a swap partition or a swap file

The command fdisk lets you modify the organisation of your disk(s).

If you have less than 1 GB of RAM (for a 32-bit system) or less than 4 GB (for a 64-bit one), you definitely should create a swap partition.

If there is no space for another partition, you can still create a swap file and mount it automatically at boot.

We first create a file big enough (here +/- 500 MB):

dd if=/dev/zero of=/SWAP bs=1024 count=500000

A file named SWAP of 512Mbytes is created in the root directory of the filesystem.

Next we format it and make it active:

mkswap /SWAP
swapon /SWAP

Finally we add an entry for it in the /etc/fstab:

echo "/SWAP     swap       swap     pri=1       0        0" >> /etc/fstab

10. Manual loading of the kernel modules

A module is a piece of code used by the kernel which can be loaded while the machine is running.

The command:

lsmod

lists all the currently loaded modules.

The command:

modprobe-v module

manually loads the module module into the kernel.

The command:

rmmod -v module

unloads module from the kernel.

Deactivate the loading of a module (blacklist).

Sometimes it is necessary to blacklist a module that is causing problems, to prevent it from being loaded automatically.

The folder /etc/modprobe.d contains all the files that specify modules to blacklist.

File syntax example, the file /etc/modprobe.d/ati.conf contains:

blacklist radeon

11. Modify/Create folders/files at booting

The file /etc/sysconfig/createfiles specifies files and/or folders that need to be created or modified automatically when the machine starts.

It is unlikely that you will need to adjust these.

BINARY PACKAGE MANAGEMENT (REMOTE)

1. Configuration of cards

The file /etc/cards.conf defines the behavior of the cards package manager.

Each line in this file is a <variable> <value> pair

2. Commands to know

The cards command has a lot of possible options. Only a few are listed here.

To get complete help information, use the command:

cards help

Any options that modify your installation must be used from the administrator (root) account or via the sudo command.

Synchronisation, to check the available updates.

check

or

sudo cards sync -i

Installing package(s)

get packageX .. packageY

or

sudo cards install packageX .. packageY

Uninstalling a package

del packageX

or

sudo cards remove paquetX

Updating of the X package. Note that all the dependencies will be updated if necessary.

up paquetX

or

sudo cards install -u packageX

Searching for a string in the name or description of the available packages.

search <string>

or

sudo cards search <string>

Print out a list of out-of-date packages.

sudo cards diff -i

BINARY PACKAGE MANAGEMENT (LOCAL) (for advanced users)

To manage local binary packages, we use the commands pkgadd, pkgrm, and pkginfo.

These commands modify your installation, so they need root access.(su -)

To get access to thoses commands, you need to install the cards.devel package:

get cards.devel

1. Configuration of pkgadd

The file /var/lib/pkg/pkgadd.conf defines the installation and upgrade rules for binary packages.

It contains three columns: EVENT, PATTERN and ACTION. The EVENT column describes the type of situation to which this rule applies.

Currently there are two types of events: UPGRADE and INSTALL. UPGRADE rules are applied when a package is installed over an existing version. INSTALL rules are applied in all cases.

The pattern is a regular expression representing a class of files.

The action applicable to both the UPGRADE and INSTALL event is YES and NO.

More than one rule of the same event type is allowed, in which case the first rule will have the lowest priority and the last rule will have the highest priority.

Example:

UPGRADE         ^etc/.*$                NO
UPGRADE         ^var/log/.*$            NO
UPGRADE         ^etc/X11/.*$            YES
UPGRADE         ^etc/X11/XF86Config$    NO

The above example will prevent pkgadd from upgrading anything in /etc/ or /var/log/ (subdirectories included), except files in /etc/X11/ (subdirectories included).

However the file /etc/X11/XF86Config is not to be updated.

The default rule is to upgrade/install everything, rules in this file are exceptions to that rule.

(NOTE! A pattern should never contain an initial "/" since you are referring to the files in the package, not the files on the disk.)

If pkgadd finds that a specific file should not be upgraded it will install it under /var/lib/pkg/rejected/.

The user is then free to examine/use/remove that file manually.

2. Commands to knows

Install a local package

sudo pkgadd /path/to/package

Upgrade a local package

sudo pkgadd -u /path/to/package

Delete the package silently

sudo pkgrm package

List all the installed packages

pkginfo -i

List the file list of a package

pkginfo -l package

Find out the owner of a filename

pkginfo -o FileName

Find out details of a package

pkginfo -d package

SERVICES

Various service packages are available for installation under the name <nameoftheservice>.service.

The command cards search service will printout the list of all available service packages.

Once installed, their start-up scripts (cups, gdm, sshd, etc...) can be found in the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory

Example: Starting the X service

/etc/rc.d/init.d/Xservice start

Stopping the X service

/etc/rc.d/init.d/Xservice stop

Restarting the service (this option is not available for all services).

/etc/rc.d/init.d/Xservice restart

IN CASE OF PROBLEMS

If you run into a problem, Linux automatically produces a variety of log files which can provide useful information.

There is a record of the boot process in /var/log/boot.log and more complete system messages in /var/log/sys.log.

A record of the last start-up of the X server is in the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

Most of the services have there own logs.If you have a ssh connection problem, some info will be found in the file /var/log/auth.log of the ssh server.

To find out about installed binary packages, check the file /var/log/install.log.

ONLINE HELP

IRC: join the chat room #nutyx on the irc.freenode.net (utf-8) network

WEB site: http://www.nutyx.org

FILES

Here are listed the configuration files mentioned in this manual. You may like to study them for yourself.

/etc/cards.conf,
/etc/pkgmk.conf,
/etc/sysconfig/console,
/etc/sysconfig/clock,
/etc/sysconfig/network,
/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.*,
/etc/sysconfig/ifconfig.*,
/boot/grub/grub.cfg,
/etc/fstab,
/etc/profile.d/i18n.sh,
/var/log/install.log,
/var/lib/pkg/nutyx-version,
/var/lib/pkg/pkgadd.conf

AUTHORS

Thierry Nuttens

SEE ALSO

man pages of

nutyx(8), cards(8), pkgmk(8) pkgadd(8),
cards.conf(5), pkgmk.conf(5), pkgrm(8), pkginfo(8), modprobe(8), modprobe.conf(5),
useradd(8), userdel(8)

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2013 - 2021 Thierry Nuttens

This free document is published under the free license WTFPL - Do What The F*** You Want To Public License.
( http://www.wtfpl.net/ )