At 10:06 AM -0600 1/17/0, Christopher Reid Palmer wrote:
>I'm just guessing, but it sounds like you are relatively new to Unix in
>general, yes? Please don't be insulted if I'm mistaken.

yepers, you got it right.  Until now, all I've seen of UNIX is the tiny bit
I see on my isp's machine if I sign in via Zterm, which is VERY seldom.
They've got it all set up with menues, though, so I don't have to actually
know any UNIX commands to get around.  They probably tired of "help" cries
from the ignorant, and stuck it in, eh?  8-)  I had expected something like
it to be there in NetBSD.

At 3:37 PM -0500 1/17/0, Christopher P. Gill wrote:
>Perhaps the disk isn't really damaged.  It might be the difference between
>mounting the Zip disk as the start-up disk or as just another available
>disk (can this disk boot your machine?  I'll assume so).  Or perhaps just
>the driver on the Zip disk is banged-up - if the Zip disk in in the drive
>at start-up, the driver on the disk is probably used instead of the one on
>the boot volume.

"damaged" is a relative term.  The zip partition is not there, and I don't
know how to get it back, now that it is gone.  The drive recognizes the
disk as a generic icon when inserted AFTER the mac is up, and works just
like a regular zip disk, except that the icon is b&w - no red colors as is
the norm for zip disks.  Yes, I can boot the mac from any zip disk, if I
have a minimal system installed on it.  I have a few set up that way,
though not this disk, yet.  I've been considering it.  Normal zip disks
don't lose their identiy and think they are permanent disks, even when used
as startup disks.  This one has, well, character, in that it has
psychological probs.  8-)  I don't want to "fix" it until such time as I
understand it, as I find the schism interesting, and potentially useful.
If it is in the drive at startup, the mac thinks it is a regular,
permanently mounted disk, and the icon is the regular hard drive icon.  It
does have a mac partition on it, of 3 meg, in which I put the NetBSD
booter.  I could put a minimal Mac system on it, just like an emergency
disk, which puts something in my hands I wouldn't have otherwise.  Just
what it might be good FOR, I don't know yet.  8-)

>
>Well, once you are past the prompt for terminal type, there are probably
>some things you'll want to do to set your machine up.

Exactly, but I don't know what things I NEED to do to set it up.  The
instructions say, look at a file in the /etc directory, but I don't know
how to change directories (and haven't stumbled upon it yet in the manual)
and I don't know what sort of things in there need changing, or how to look
at the file, or how urgent it is to do it......

>However, UNIX was
>designed for computer people, and administering a UNIX system - which is
>what you are now attempting to do - was (and still is) intended for a more
>advanced computer person.  Novices learn it all the time, but if you are
>new to UNIX and setting up your own machine, it's like trying to take two
>big steps at once - possible, but there's a lot of effort required.  The
>skill set we are talking about covers what some people do all day, for a
>decent living.  I strongly suggest a UNIX book for beginners.  I also
>suggest a UNIX administration book for beginners.  Perhaps someone at a
>bookstore can help you, or one of your computer friends could lend you
>something.

I am an odd mix of novice and advanced computer person.  I actually
_understood_ the partitioning stuff, for the most part.  and octal - I
learned programming on an octal machine.  It was a CDC computer, and
inhabited an entire wall of a rather large room, with little blinking
lights, and an actual console; a typewriter-like thing with a zippy silver
ball that spun around noisily while it printed messages... monitors did not
exist.  I forget how much k ram it had, but it wasn't a whole MEG....  In
that sense, I have forgotten more than most people today will ever know
about computers.  On the other hand, I really have forgotten most of it.
I'm a mac person now, thru and thru.  Shutdown means a double click of the
mouse on a little switch on my desktop, or a selection on a pull-down menu.
I'm in the very early stages of learning C using the compiler in the MPW
shell.  MPW is new to me, too, and is likewise a double big step, as all
the instructions make mutually exclusive assumptions - you know C
programming / you know mac architecture.  If you know neither.....  It's
catch 22.   I hope you don't play that game as thoroughly as they do.  I
have ordered some books from the library that should help but it may be
awhile before I can get them.  I'm afraid I don't have any computer
friends.  8-(  I have the internet, and that's about it.

>Figure out what you want to do with the system (WWWeb server?  E-mail?
>Programming?  WWWeb browsing?  Database hosting?), and on the road to
>doing that, you'll most definitely have to learn other things.  Then you
>can ask more pointed questions.

Right now, I just want to know how to get around in it.  I can do the man
thing now, sort of, which helps a lot.  I'd like to know how to use that
better, as I'm just guessing at things to look up in there.  Like, I can do
"man su" and gain info that way, and follow the "see also" stuff, but I
don't know the commands, so I don't know what is IN the manuals, or if
there are other manuals to look at, or ....  you understand.  Due to my
abnormal shut downs, I have some corrupted stuff in there (according to
warning messages) and it is asking me to please fsck(8).  I have learned to
exec reboot, which appears to clear it.  I suppose I CAN reboot to come up
with the Mac OS so I can shut down properly, but I'd kinda like to know how
it is _supposed_ to be done.

Another warning message I'm getting is the /etc/rc.conf is not configured
message, and I'd like to know HOW to do that, what is in there to be
configured, and what the options ARE.  That would help.

I don't really want to do anything on the 'net with it until I know what
I'm doing, as hackers could do me more harm with a NetBSD system than they
could with the Mac (one of the pluses in the extreme difficulty of learning
how to program the Mac is that it is a radically different way of doing
things for those who like to harm other people, thus few try).  I think it
might be easier to learn C using NetBSD, and the database hosting idea has
a lot of potential for me, though again, I need to know how to protect
myself before I open it up to anybody else.  Eventually, I do want to use
it for web browsing, as the big boys have abandoned me/us in that
department, and the Navibator 3 I have now is the latest one I'll ever have
for this mac, which is good for many years yet, now that it has a new hd.
(I do resent their exclusionary stance.)  I did not include the security
stuff in my installation, as I have little interest in it.  I intend to
install the compilers, and I was thinking I'd put the compilers in a
seperate root partition I have set up on my regular hard drive, in the
interest of space restrictions on the little zip disk and possibly,
improved speed performance of the compilers.  (no?  is my thinking wrong on
this?)

>Hmmm.  Well, for administering a system, you'll for the most part need to
>know what the coded gibberish means, at which point you'll most likely
>eschew the menu idea.

as a died-in-the-wool mac user, I doubt I'll be _able_ to operate it
minimally well via the gibberish, though I do understand the old-timers
affection for it.  The alias idea may work ok for me, as well as the other
suggestions, which I will check out.  Heck, I don't even use the keyboard
shortcuts liberally available on the mac.  If it's something I do often,
I'd rather make a script, with a menu of icons....  It's the graphical
thing to do.  8-)

>UNIX system administrators usually set things up to
>make things as easy as the regular users need them to be.  However, that's
>you, in this case  :-)  So start with a book, since the on-line stuff
>often isn't very... cohesive.  It's a lot better than staring at a
>blinking cursor in growing frustration.  "UNIX System Administration",
>IIRC, is one title I remember as being helpful.

yes, there does seem to be this assumption that howling hoards will be
using the system  8-)  and perhaps that will be so someday, but not until I
feel confident I can operate it pretty well myself.

>
>Anyway, it looks like other folks have also responded to your queries.
>It's a challenge, but I know a guy who went from having negligible UNIX
>knowledge to being a trusted system administrator of a medium-sized
>university facility in less than a year.  Good luck.

Thanks, to you all.  I appreciate all the ideas help and suggestions.  Yes,
it is a challenge, and frustrating, as I can see the other side, and the
only barrier is the lack of info.  I'm not one to give up easily, though.
See ya on t'other side.  The natives seem to be friendly.  8-)

Merideth
merideth@sky.net     ;)-{8-->=     li'l wimyn      @-{--E=

http://www.sky.net/~merideth/ - visit my poetry page & art gallery
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/9311 - genealogy site
http://www.anyboard.net/arts/artnpoetry/index.html - Art & Poetry Message
Board


*        * *    *
- - - - - - -- -- -- --- --- --- ---- ---- ---- ----- ----- -----<>]====-    *

*       *
                                                                           *
Don't weep for me because I will not know happiness, weep only if my
passion dies before I do.