Setting Up a Linux Operating System

Name: Setting Up a Linux Operating System We will be using the Linux operating system for most of our practical work in this class. Knoppix is a live CD distribution of Linux, based on the Debian distribution. A Linux distribution is a particular collection of a Linux kernel, together with support programs and installation software. A live CD distribution is one which runs entirely from a CD, and does not require installation to a hard disk drive. Knoppix is the first, and currently the best, live CD distribution of Linux. Go to Knoppix.net and read a little about the Knoppix distribution. Approximately how many installed software packages are included with Knoppix? Burning a Knoppix Disk Go the the files section of the class website, and download the KNOPPIX ISO file to your desktop. As of this writing, the file is named KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD- 2007-01-04-EN.iso, but that may change with newer versions. Then start Roxio Creator Home from the start menu: When it starts, go to Copy, and then Burn Image, and use the browse button to find the KNOPPIX ISO file, similar to what is shown below: Next, insert a blank CDR disk into the CD burner, and click burn image. After a few minutes, you should have a Knoppix CD! Booting Knoppix We are going to start our familiarization with Linux by starting up the base Knoppix environment. Insert your Knoppix CD into the CD-ROM drive of a computer, and restart the computer. You may have to adjust the boot order in the computer s BIOS to get it to boot from the CD. Typically this is done by pressing DEL or F1 or F10 during initial boot, and then adjusting the boot order in the BIOS screen that appears. On the Fayard 215 Dells, you must press F12 when it first starts to get a boot menu

(press F12 several times if necessary, until you hear a beep), and then choose Boot from CD. You should see the Knoppix boot screen as shown below. Press keys F2 or F3 for help and boot options. KNOPPIX V5.1.1-CD http://www.knoppix.de/ RELEASE: 2007-01-04 boot: knoppix noapic nodma Type knoppix at the boot prompt to prevent boot-up from automatically continuing. Note that you can add boot parameters at the boot prompt on the bottom of the screen, and you can get some simple help with F2 and F3. On most systems, you can simply hit return and let Knoppix perform its usual automatic detection of your hardware. Sometimes, however, you will have to provide additional information in the form of Cheat Codes which are listed when you press F2 or F3. Two cheat codes that are frequently useful are noapic and nodma, as shown in the example above, which means: Disable support for the Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (necessary for some computers, such as the AIRW Dells, to recognize USB devices) Disable DMA acceleration You will not have to disable APIC and DMA on most computers, including those in Fayard 215. Before continuing, press F2 to see some of the other options for boot. Which option would you use for troubleshooting (like safe mode in Windows) if you were having problems getting Knoppix to start? Press <ENTER> to continue the boot process.

You ll see some boot progress messages, and if all goes well, you should be presented with the KDE desktop: Insert your flash drive in a USB port. The system should recognize it and give you a choice to open it in a window. Choose Do Nothing. Now you should see a drive on the desktop for your USB flash memory device (probably something like sda1 or sdb1). You can check by clicking once on the icon. It should mount the device and open a window showing the contents. The drive should now indicate that it is mounted by a green triangle in the icon corner. Note that by default, Knoppix mounts all disk volumes as read-only. You can change this by right-clicking on the drive icon and choosing Actions followed by Change read/write mode. A dialog box will allow you to make it writable. Make your flash drive writable, and continue. IMPORTANT: If a drive is formatted with NTFS, do not make it writable. You can damage the filesystem otherwise! Note that the dialog box will say something like /mnt/hda1 (ntfs) if it is formatted with NTFS. Currently, NTFS drives will be mounted as type fuseblk, which is supposedly safe to make writable. It is always safe to make VFAT filesystems writable. Create a persistent disk image You can skip this step if you ve already done it in class. Otherwise, make sure your USB flash memory device is writable. Then use the Knoppix menu on the task bar and choose Configure, followed by Create a persistent KNOPPIX disk image. Indicate that you do wish to create a persistent home directory

for the knoppix user, and specify the partition for your USB flash device. It will then ask if you want to use the entire partition. Answer NO just create an image in the existing filesystem. Then specify a desired size of at least 120Mb and let it create the persistent home. Reboot the system with your USB device plugged in, and watch for a Knoppix Configuration menu to appear during the boot process. Use the arrow keys to accept the default selections, so that your persistent image will be active. Click on the icon for the USB device and look at its list of files. What file was created to hold your persistent home directory? Exactly how many bytes in length is this file? Set up jgrasp After booting with your persistent home active, start the IceWeasel web browser (a version of FireFox) and use the download link at www.jgrasp.org and download the jgrasp.zip file. You do not have to fill out the form at the top of the page unless you want to just click the button for jgrasp.zip, and save it to your desktop (which is part of your persistent disk image). After the download completes, right-click on jgrasp.zip and use Extract here to extract it to the desktop with Arc. You should now have a jgrasp folder on the desktop (and you can delete the jgrasp.zip file to save space). Open the jgrasp folder and navigate to the bin directory inside. You should see a jgrasp file (along with jgrasp.exe and other.exe files, but these are Windows executables and will not work in Knoppix). Drag this icon onto the desktop and click Link Here to create a shortcut on the desktop. It will notify you that the jgrasp folder on the desktop already has that name, so change the new link s name to Run jgrasp. Click on this new link to execute jgrasp. jgrasp should start, and will warn you that this version is not fully tested acknowledge the warning and let it finish the startup. Test your installationg by writing a simple HelloWorld program in java and compiling it with jgrasp. Save your program to a folder on your desktop. Note: When navigating folders in jgrasp, you may find that double-clicking does not open folders. Instead, click to select the desired folder, and then hit <ENTER>. Install SmartCVS Using the IceWeasel web browser, go to www.smartcvs.com use the SmartCVS download link to download the generic version of SmartCVS to your desktop. After the download completes, right-click on smartcvs-generic-*.tar.gz and use Extract here to extract it to the desktop with Arc. You should now have a smartcvs-* folder on the desktop (and you can delete the smartcvs-generic-*.tar.gz file to save space). Open the smartcvs-* folder and navigate to the bin directory inside. You should see a smartcvs.sh file (along with smartcvs.exe and other.exe files, but these are Windows executables and will not work in Knoppix). Right-click on this icon, go to Properties, and set permissions to Make Executable, and click OK. Then drag this icon onto the desktop and click Link Here to create a shortcut on the desktop. Rename this icon to Run SmartCVS. Click on this new link to execute SmartCVS. SmartCVS should start.

Starting the SmartCVS Client 1. Start SmartCVS as described above. 2. The first time you run SmartCVS, you may be asked to agree to the program license (if not, skip to step 4). If so, you will be presented with the license agreement dialog box: You will have to check the agreement box and scroll the license agreement all the way to the end before you can click Next to continue. 3. Next, choose the version of SmartCVS being used. We are using the free version of the software, so click the radio button for Foundation Version, and then click Finish.

4. SmartCVS will now open the Smart CVS Foundation window ( on the taskbar), which is the main program window. You may also be presented with a Tip of the Day. If you don t want to see the Tip of the Day the next time you use SmartCVS, uncheck the box for Show Tip at Startup. You can use the Next button to look at more tips, or the Close button to start using the SmartCVS client. Using the SmartCVS Client Concurrent Versions System keeps your files in a central repository on another computer. Only you and your teacher will have access to your files. To work on your files, you must make a copy of your portion of the repository on the computer you are using, and that copy may reside on hard disk, on a network drive (like your M: drive), or on removable media such as a USB flash drive. You can then work on the local copy of your files, but remember: (1) When you create new files, they will not be managed by the CVS system until you explicitly Add them. (2) Changes to files (or new files that have been Added ) will not be saved in the central repository until you explicitly Commit them. Every time you commit a file, it creates a new version of that file, and CVS keeps up with all the versions. You should commit your work regularly (every time you make an important change is a good rule of thumb). This will allow you to go back to a previous version if you need to, and will also provide an extra backup of your work (in addition the backup you keep for yourself on digital media). 1. When SmartCVS starts, you should see a window like this:

The Welcome to SmartCVS dialog box will initially appear with an option to check out a project from the repository. After you begin using SmartCVS, there may also be one or more existing projects in the selection pane which you can use. Since we don t have an existing project to use, make sure that Check out project from repository is selected, and click OK. 2. The Check Out Project dialog box will appear. If this is the first time you ve used SmartCVS, you will notice that the Repository profile box shows <No Repository Defined>. Before we can continue with the checkout procedure, a repository must be defined, so click the Manage button. Creating a Repository Profile 1. The Repository Profiles dialog box will appear. Click Add to create a repository profile for your account. 2. The basic Add Repository Profile dialog box will appear. Click the ext (SSH1/SSH2) radio button to select the access method that we will be using. The contents of the dialog box will change slightly.

3. Fill in your w-number (using a lowercase w) as your user name, aslan.nix.selu.edu for the Server Name, and /usr/local/cvsroot as the repository path. Fill in the Password blank with your password (if you have not already logged in to aslant.nix.selu.edu and changed your starting password, stop and do it now). Select Store password on disk if you are using a jgraspstick or your own computer. Otherwise, leave it unchecked to preserve your privacy. Leave the remainder unchanged, and click OK to continue. Note that you will not see what you are typing for your password, so be careful! 4. If the server name was incorrect, you will get a failure message. Click OK and correct the name and try again. If the server name was entered correctly, you should see a Public Host Key Verification dialog box appear. Click Yes to accept the host.

5. If the user name or password were entered incorrectly, you will now see a Login dialog box. Click Cancel and return to step 3, re-entering both user name and password in the Add Repository Profile dialog box. 6. If all went well, you should now be back at the Repository Profiles dialog box, now containing your repository profile. Make sure that the profile name contains /usr/local/cvsroot (check it carefully). If it doesn t, click the delete button, and try again from step1. If it does, great You shouldn t have to do this again! Click OK to finish creating the repository profile and return to the checkout procedure (if that is what you were doing). Now you should be able to use your CVS repository in the usual way, as described in the SmartCVS Tutorial. Submit results Put your sample Hello World program(s) in a folder called Lab1 in your w-number folder, and submit it through SmartCVS. Also, Turn in this completed lab handout. It is due at the beginning of class on Monday, January 29, 2007, and is a part of Assignment #1.