[SPARCbook] Help

Wed Dec 13 02:58:17 CST 2000

On your tip and other modem problems, I suggest that you go to
http://www.kempston .net  and check out the materials on Solaris.  Though
written with respect to Solaris 7 and 8, everything they recommend has worked
flawlessly for me on 2.5 and 2.6.  Before installing their suggestions, I had
similar problems to yours with tip.  You have not properly designated your
modem in the place where tip is looking for it.  Installing PPP as is
recommended by Kempston will solve that problem.  (Use 38400 (not 9600) where
baud rate is requested.)  On her website, Celeste says that tip will not run
reliably in a window with scroll bars.  As for books, "A practical Guide to
Solaris" by Mark Sobell (Addison Wesley Press),  and "A Student's Guide to
Unix" by Harley Hahn (McGraw Hill) may help.  Problems with Netscape 4.7 are
addressed on the Netscape page where they refer to a patch to solve your
screen problems in Solaris 2.6.

Oscar.G.Farah at census.gov wrote:

> - I did try to run 'bash' but it was unknown to the machine. I assumed
> that it would be there since it took forever to install Solaris 2.6!  With
> the command 'echo $SHELL' I discovered that I was running sh. Thanks for
> the help; I will try to find bash at the URL suggested.
>
> - I am curious to know what browser most of the SparcBook owners use.
> Solaris 2.6 has a browser and StarOffice 5.2, which I installed but have
> not tried yet, seems to have a browser as well.  I downloaded Netscape
> 4.72 (the version for Solaris 2.5.1; I did not find a version for Solaris
> 2.6) and installed it easily, but (!), it does not want to run! it
> complains that it cannot access the screen!  How do you allow it to access
> the screen?
>
> - I discovered still another problem when I tried to use the internal
> modem!  I issued the command "tip modem", the machine did a "file synch
> operation" and informed me that I needed to run "fsck" which I did; I had
> to correct some number that had to be 1 and was 2.
> After rebooting the machine, I was able to run the sequence 'tip modem
> atdtxxxxxxx';  when the machine connected, I could not read the response;
> I believe, the number of bits and parity may have been set incorrectly.
> But I could not determine how to set these.  There was a mention of some
> config files in "man tip" but no indication of the format required to
> enter the data in these files that must be created because they do not
> exist.
> Subsequently, I issued the command "~." to supposedly disconnect.  But I
> could not get the prompt back ... so I killed the console.  WHEN I TRIED
> TO RUN "tip" AGAIN THE MACHINE DECIDED TO RESYNCH THE FILES AGAIN; I again
> had to run fsck  and reboot!
>
> - I went to the MicroCenter store and tried to find a book that would
> explain some of the subtleties of UNIX.  After looking at a dozen or so
> books, I came to the conclusion that UNIX instruction books were written
> for people who already know UNIX and not for those who want to learn UNIX
> without the help of a third party.  Can any one suggest a book that
> contains instruction on how to do things rather than talk profusely about
> them without showing how to use them!
>
> Oscar Farah
>
> Oscar.G.Farah at census.gov wrote:
> >
> > HELP!
> >
> > 1.  When using Linux or Windows 2000, I can press the up button and
> recall
> > previous commands; this is very useful to me since I am a lousy typist.
> > Can you do that with UNIX on a 3XP??
>
> Keep in mind Solaris isn't Linux.  A lot of GNU utilities come
> preinstalled with Linux.  These don't come with Solaris, but you can
> download them.
>
> What you're looking for is bash or tcsh.  Go download and install these
> from www.sunfreeware.com, and get them for the correct
> version of Solaris that you're running.
>
> They'll be in compressed Sun Package format, so you'll have to have gzip
> first.
>
> For example if you have  downloaded bash-2.0-Sol26-sparc.pkg.gz
> type in gzip -d downloaded bash-2.0-Sol26-sparc.pkg.gz  Which will
> uncompress the package to bash-2.0-Sol26-sparc.pkg
>
> You can then install it with pkgadd -d bash-2.0-Sol7-sparc.pkg
>
> It should show up as /usr/local/bin/bash
>
> You'll have to edit /etc/passwd to switch your default shell to bash, but
> be careful when you type in the path or you won't be able
> to log in.  Also you shouldn't switch the root account to use bash. Switch
> your user account.  (You should only login as root to
> fix problems.  It's a huge security risk if you run the wrong program,
> etc.)
>
> > 2.  With Linux I can use the alias command to replace a long command
> with
> > a short string; viz. if I issue the command dir='ls -aFl ' then to get
> "ls
> > -aFl" all I need to do is issue the command "dir".  This does not seem
> to
> > work with the 3XP; when I issue the command dir='ls -aFl', the machine
> > accepts it but when I type "dir" I get a "dir - not recognized"
> response?
>
> Once you install bash, you can type in alias BLAH='ls'
> Now when you type in BLAH it will give you a directory listing.
>
> --
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