[WBEL-users] A whole bevy of questions...

[Kirby C. Bohling]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 01:18:26PM -0800, kirby wrote:
> I have been tweaking around with White-Box to do a little Oracle Database
> training/testing for myself at home.  It has worked fine.
> 
> Now that I am past that I am starting to play around quite a bit more with
> Linux as a home box.. And I have questions coming out of my ears... If these
> are in the FAQ I apologize, but I didn't see them...
> 
> 1) If I am installing other applications that are supposed to successfully
> run on Red Hat ... Which ones should I be using?  FC1, FC2, FC3, RHEL9?  I
> am just a bit confused on the version numbering and why there are 4 versions
> of a program.  Are they that finicky on libraries and compatibility?

You should use versions built for RHEL3 (I'm not sure which typo you
made, there is no such thing as RHEL9, there is RHL9 and RHEL3).
There are several good sets out there.  Freshrpms and Dag Wieers
being my two favorites.  If you can't find RHEL3 packages, RH9 and
FC1 might do in a pinch (I've found they are fairly easy to rebuild
if I can get the source packages).  FC2/3 are based on a different
kernel architecture which might screw up a lot of packages.

> 
> 2) The application I am in particular trying to bring up is mythtv.  Sort of
> a free TiVo.
> Has anyone done this successfully?  Many of dependencies have installed
> fine, but a couple, like ivtv, have not.

Never done it, been meaning to for a while.  Tell me if it keeps
giving you trouble, it might finally be the motivation I need to
finish that project.

> 2a) I have hit some snags with kernel modules not being found.  Bttv and a
> couple of others.  Can someone explain how to add a module to the kernel?
> /sbin/modprobe says they aren't there.  Probably intentional, but I now want
> to add them back in.

You probably need to get kernel-unsupported installed.  That has the
unsupported modules you'll need.  bttv being the one I'm sure you'll
need.  I've found that with bttv you also had to fiddle with
/etc/modules.conf to set the module options correct.  Mine didn't
get auto-detected very well.

> 
> 3) I am installing a raft of applications to bring this up... My prior Unix
> experience has been Solaris, AIX, HP-UX on bigger boxes running one
> application ... Oracle.  So I am encountering issues I haven't had to deal
> with before.
> How do people organize 30-50+ packages that they are installing?  I started
> with one 'Install' directory, but that is getting unmanageable.

Not sure I understand the question.  I generally only install things
from RPM, and Oracle.  If I can't get it in those two forms, and I'm
building it from source, generally I use the default ./configure
configuration.  Which normally means they end up in /usr/local,
/opt, or /usr (which is less then good).  So I'm not sure what or
where you are installing stuff.

> 
> 4) ... With all these questions does anyone have a good book or site to
> recommend that answers this level of questions?  A book is preferred...
> 

Good luck on that one.  I'm not sure.  I've found that your
generally better off reading mailing lists and googling for answers.
They generally are move fluid and answers generally don't get stale.

	Thanks,
		Kirby C. Bohling