Hi,

So I'm thinking about developing an app for the empeg. Easiest way I thought would be to give Linux a (long overdue) try on my desktop. I got the (both) RedHat Linux CD and Installed it into an empty partition selecting the Workstation Installation option. All goes well until I decide I want to connect to the net to down load the toolchain, read this board etc. I then discover that I need to download an rpm for my internal modem, no problem, however when it comes to installing the rpm! For some reason best known to itself I don't seem to have the rpm executable on the system (I am logged in as root); also the GNURpm menuitem (or was it GNORpm?) doesn't do anything!

Not to worry I think, some quirk with the Workstation install, I'll do a custom one this time, tick a few compnents - still no joy with rpm! Anyone have a clue what's going on? I've had a look through the RedHat site but all references to rpm tell me how to use it - right now I just need it!

Cheers

If it was me I would give up on the internal modem now (which is probably a crappy winmodem of some description), before I wasted endless painful hours. Go and buy yourself a decent external modem, which you'll be able to get up and running in minutes as it won't require drivers at all.

Yeah, what Andy said.

Winmodems suck.

not all internal modems though...
just internal Winmodems

Not only do they suck, they suck poorly...

I would still prefer an external modem over an internal even if the internal was a real modem, it's far easier to debug problems with external ones (you can't see the lights on internal ones and you can't power cycle them when they get upset).

That said I only stoop as low as a modem nowadays if my 1Mb DSL line is down

Yeah, OK so they suck. But the major issue I've got is where's rpm gone?! And how do I go about getting it back!

You'll have to excuse me as I don't use any of that fancy graphic stuff on my linux systems, so this might be the "dificult" way.

RPM's arn't executable, they have to be installed with the "rpm" program. Something along the lines of "rpm -i rpmname". To find the rpm that has disapeared, the easiest thing is to (As root) run updatedb, and let that finish... (I'll leave getting it to run in the background as an exercise, as it's not necessary). Once updatedb finishes updating the database of all your files, type "locate file_that_you_want_to_find" (or part of the file name). That should spit out at you the exact location of wherever it is.

Matthew

PS: Be gratefull there is an RPM for your winmodem. When i was "young" we had to spend hours on slashdot complaining about the lack of drivers for them.

Hmmm, The rpm for the modem drivers is fine, its the actual rpm executable that I want to use to extract them (the first rpm in the 'rpm -i rpmname.rpm' bit you mentioned) that's missing!

Sorry about this, it's a bit of a weird one! But it definitly isn't working!

Cheers

Hehe. I like that... 'when you were "young"...'. It seems like such a long time ago since the last time I heard anything about a winmodem and how there was absolutly no way It would work on linux.... and that was only a year or so ago.

-Greg

Redhat 7.2? Well I'd first recommend to dump it and install another distro like SuSE. But if you really want to keep it, rpm is probably in the /sbin directory. For some reason, RedHat decided to take that out of the root path.

So, to run it, type /sbin/rpm ...

I personally never recommend RedHat to a new user. It's convoluted, has no decent mangment tools, etc. SuSE has Yast and Yast 2 allowing great control in text mode or graphical, and Mandrake has probably the best graphical tools anywhere. RedHat on the other hand has staginated for years now.

locate rpm maybe? "locate rpm | grep bin"?

You are root, right? That could easily be your problem as your path wouldn't include sbin.

Matthew

Aha, nice one - I'll give that a go. Although I'll seriously think about swapping it out for suse; I've got access to the ISO images for that too without having to download them (takes ages on a modem - esp a winmodem . I tried RedHat 6.? once before briefly and so far, I thought it was better than this 7.2 version.

Cheers then. Hopefully my next post will be from mozilla!

In reply to:

---

It seems like such a long time ago since the last time I heard anything about a winmodem and how there was absolutly no way It
would work on linux.... and that was only a year or so ago.

---

Yeah, I just bought a new laptop and was amazed when I went searching for a modem driver and found winmodem drivers. I havn't gotten around to seeing if it'll actualy work, as I only need my modem when I travel and I never have time to work on it before I leave...

Matthew

I'm also guessing it's a path issue. rpm has to be installed as a precursor to the base system being installed. If you can login, you've got rpm.

Is is usual for root to have a very limited path. This is by design, if root always has to explicitly type paths, there is far less chance of a system binary being trojaned through a path attack.

Yeah, OK so they suck.

If in fact what you have is a Winmodem, it isn't just that they suck, but that you may waste a lot of time on it to no avail. I think folks are just trying to save you from wasting your time. If your access is going to remain dial-up for the foreseeable future, and you want to do something that is fairly painless, I'd bid on something like this . Even better than an external modem (will serve multiple machines with NAT). I still have one that is my backup in case my DSL flakes out. It's great. If you couldn't win one of those, you should be able to get an external 56K modem cheap.

Yes, for the 3com "lanmodem" you'd have to invest in an ethernet nic if your machine doesn't already have one, but it's a more worthwhile way to go, IMO.

The problem with external modems is that the serial ASIC and the modem ASIC are not integrated, and that can lead to some dropped data at high speeds. Mostly, this is irrelevant, as other protocols deal with it, but it was an issue.

Then again, finding an internal, non-Winmodem modem, especially if you need PCI, can be a real challenge.

By the way, if anyone out there thinks that Winmodems don't suck, try running one off of a phone line that's coming through a PBX. Then swap it out for a real modem and see how much better it works.

Nope - still on Internet Explorer!

I checked out that locate util - definitly no plain rpm file. I did discover the gnorpm, when I tried to run that it complained that some library files were missing librpm-4.0.3.so. I checked out the /usr/lib directory and there was a link called librpm.so linking to this missing file also. I tried the install on a machine in work - same thing, I even went into 'Select Packages' option and made sure that gnorpm was ticked.

Dunno what's gone on there - check out that suse installation I rekon.

Cheers.

I've read comments like yours about Redhat and Suse before and for my next (half cocked ) Linux experience I definately want to try Suse in preference to Redhat 7.x.

Whether I really want to ride the Linux learning-curve depends upon a lot of things but for now a piece-of-cake install would sure help me get started. It will be on a networked (cable internet connected) spare box but if possible I'd like to keep clear of the potential pitfalls of an ftp install.

I can't find ISOs for Suse, are they legally available?

Edit: Apologies, I've just realised how OT this post is

Rue

Sure. For an idea of what ones are available, check out http://www.linuxiso.org/. It's slow to actually download from there, but you can see what ISOs are downloadable. Most of the free Unices have one, OpenBSD being a notable exception.