LILA: Frequently asked Questions

Here is a list of frequently asked questions about our LILA project. They are not (yet) ordered. If you have anything you think you could contribute, please send email to Bert G. Wachsmuth (wachsmut@shu.edu).

If you have questions for which you don't find an answer, please call the help desk at x2222 to ask your question.

I heard that the new version of Mozilla 1.4.1 is much better than my version 1.2. Anything I can do?

Sure - just follow our upgrade instructions for Mozilla.

I heard that the new version of OpenOffice 1.1 is much better than my version 1.0.2. Anything I can do?

Sure - just follow our upgrade instructions for OpenOffice.

I am using the wireless connection to the Internet, but occasionally my computer seems to disconnect and does not automatically reconnect.

You need to restart the wireless network interface manually. To do that:

Open a terminal window

Become root by typing “su –“. When asked for the password, enter the root password for your laptop

Shut down the wireless interface by typing ifdown wlan0”

Bring the wireless interface back up by typing “ifup wlan

Close the terminal window by typing “exit”

I can’t seem to connect to my SHU Network drive Z so how can I access the files I have stored there?

Well, you are correct, you can not access drive Z: from Linux at this point, but we are looking into the best way to do it. For now we offer two solutions:

The easy solution: You can reboot your computer into Windows, copy your data files from drive Z: to your drive D:, and then reboot the computer into Linux. Then your files are available in your “DataDisk” folder.

A suggestion for the *real techi* are as follows (it will not do anything for you if you don't know what the various terms mean, go for the "easy solution" in that case). That said, if you want you can try:

Open terminal window and become "root" user

Create a directory to map to your drive Z: by typing

mkdir /mnt/netware

Download and install the latest "ipxutils" and "ncpfs" packages

Load the modules just installed:

"modprobe ipx" and "modproble ncpfs"

Turn on ipx by typing

ipx_configure --auto_interface=on --auto_primary=on

Mount the NetWare volume by typing, for example,

ncpmount -U username -S SHU1 /mnt/netware

(password prompt follows). This assumes that you are a registered Netware user with username "username", and that you know you are in the SHU1 branch of the network.

If you instead type:

ncpmount -U username -S SHU1 /mnt/netware -V /fac/User/BLACKDAV

you should directly load your user directory (the Z drive), assuming you get the path information correctly for your situation and server.

I can’t seem to connect to an SHU network printer. Anything I can do?

No, not really. The SHU network printers are driven by Novell and are not compatible with Linux. In the future SHU might reconfigure the printers so that they can be accessed via Linux or Windows. Of course you can create your document, restart the laptop into Windows, then print your document using the appropriate Windows application.

When I reboot my computer into Linux, it sometimes hangs, sometimes displaying something about my USB port, sometimes it just hangs. Same is true when I reboot from Linux to Windows.

When you run Windows and then reboot the system into Linux, it indeed hangs and you have no other option but to turn off your machine by pressing the On/Off buttons for about 6 seconds. Then restart the computer. It will not boot fine. If you first ran Linux and then switched into Windows, again turn off the computer by pressing the On/Off button for about 6 seconds. When you restart, you might be asked that Windows did not load properly - select "Start Windows normally".

To avoid the problem, try to get into the habit of shutting down the computer and turning in back on instead of “rebooting” the system from one OS to another.

When I am using my laptop without being close to a SHU wireless access point my computer seems to hang, displaying a message about “bringing up the wlan0 interface”.

It just seems to hang. If you wait for about 1-2 minute, the boot process will continue fine. If you know how to adjust the timeout value, we would appreciate hearing from you.

If I am not using my machine for a while, the screen goes completely black and I can’t bring it back by moving the mouse or touching a key.

The screen has gone black to conserve energy (or batteries), so it’s actually a good feature. To restore your screen, press FN-F7 three times.

I can not use my modem to establish a dialup connection to my ISP.

Yup. The IBM laptops have a special modem called a WinModem that tries to use the regular CPU to support most of its functions. To the best of our knowledge there is no (free and Open Source) Linux driver that supports these particular WinModems. If you manage to get the modem working properly, please let us know right away.

Robert Michniewicz has reportedly used a driver found at http://lpn.rnbhq.org/R31/slmdm-2.7.9.tar.gz for his R31 laptop successfully! We are in the process of testing it, and trying it on the R40, so hopefully there will be a resolution soon here.

When I insert a data CD, how to I access it?

After you insert the CD a folder should open automatically, showing you the CD’s content. Alternatively, you can refer to the top level of the CD as “/mnt/cdrom”. For example the command “ls /mnt/cdrom” will show you what’s on the CD.

How do I eject a CD? The usual eject button won’t work?

Either right-click on the CD-ROM icon on your desktop and select “Eject” or from a terminal window type “eject cdrom”.

Since I have a DVD drive I want to watch DVDs under Linux. Which application do I use, and how?

The R40 has a DVD/CD-R combo drive, while the R31 only has a CD-R drive. To watch DVDs you must therefore have at least an R40 model.

We installed a free movie player that can handle a variety of video formats very well. Click on "Start", select "Media", then select "More applications" until you find the Media Player. Once it starts, use its configuration screen to set the DVD drive to cdrom (by default it is dvd, so change it). After that you can watch DVD's just fine.

I am trying to use Eclipse, but I get an error message like "eclipse.org.cdt.core" ... not being found. What can I do?

Eclipse is apparently confused because a directory it's looking for isn't there. Actually it is there, but named confusingly.... To fix this, you need to do the following as root (su or sudo):

cd /usr/local/eclipse/plugins
ln -s org.eclipse.cdt.core_1.1.0 org.eclipse.cdt.core

It seems that this problem occurs if you don't use Eclipse correctly. In particular, you should not copy files directly into the "workspace" directory. Instead, start Eclipse, open the directory containing the files to copy, and drag-and-drop your files into the appropriate Eclipse project directory through Eclipse. If you do that, Eclipse is aware of these files and will adjust accordingly.

Last Modified: 10/21/2003