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1. Space Station Raven

Space Station Raven, a Linux workstation ( running X11 ).

Space Station Raven is a £3 Internet shareware magazine (three UK pounds).

1.1 What is Raven

Raven is an on-line magazine to promote Linux, and help you to do something useful with it.

Please refer to Raven Base Station Zero for the copywrite notices, disclaimers, do not spit signs, distribution rules, and how to download it or read it without a broswer.

1.2 This is Raven Issue-1

You want to set up a Linux box, and marvel at the delights of modern technology. To do so you must already be familiar with Unix system administration. To learn that you must have a working Unix box. Where do you start?

Issue-1 - "Buying and Building a PC" (Intel 386, 486 or more).

Yes - you need to budget £1500 for the workstation. If you have more, get a better machine, but don't under-estimate other costs. If that is too much for your budget, you should be able to buy a proportion of the components you need for about £800, and get the rest later. You may need assistence from a friend (or work) with a second machine.

Issue-2 - "Now what's this? Linux User's view"

So you've got Linux running, and want a quick start on various things. Such as? Issue-2 has several things that might be of interest to you. Most of them are available on CDROM, so you can do something, if you haven't got Internet access.

Issue-3 - "Internet Working"

Issue 3 gives you a 'drop-in and change the values' configuration for a connection to the Internet. It documents all the files you need to setup, by providing a 'live' example of a machine with a modem and an ethernet card.

Download

If you are reading this on-line over the Internet, you may prefer to download the archive, uncompress it and read it off-line. Raven is intended to be download-able, so that you can fetch it. I also have text versions of the first issues, for access whilst your HTML browser is down. See Base Station Zero , or one of:

1.3 Step-by-Step

Many readers will already be Unix aware, many will be complete beginners. There is no easy answer. If you don't know how to do something you'll have to find out. I don't want to give baby-step instructions, but I'll try to sequence what you have to do, so that you can focus on the next step.

Although I find system administration interesting (yawn) maybe you don't, and you just want Linux running with TeX and 'Net facilities, anything else is not being a tool, but eating up drinking time.

However, load-and-go is not always so simple, especially if you've got the 'wrong' distribution, (there isn't one, but on that day you might think so).

It should be possible to be independent. (it is - but it takes ages). Building your own machine is part of that. Building your own distribution from materials available on CD and the NET is equally relevent. Deciding which distribution to pick, will effect your luck. Some distributions will build out of the box, others are "some assembly required".

A minimum 'system' is a BOOT+ROOT floppy disk pair. That is an integral Linux system, capable of accessing WIN.311 shares over the net! Above that, any distribution adds huge volumes of files, arranged in packages.

Issue-1: Some assembly required

Issue-1 is about getting the hardware together. The X11_SVGA section is here, because it is an unfair obstruction. These box shifters that sell us the hardware should contribute timings for typical monitors sold in 1992, 93, 94, 95, at typical clock rates found in the majority of cards ...

Issue-2 is Intro Information, for people who have never seen X11 before, and people that don't know what to do with a .dvi file. It gets you started by giving you a few simple projects to install, and a few tips on this and that.

Issue-3 is Internet (and fax) connections. This preview will get you up on ethernet as fast as the X11 section got your monitor going (please don't get burned!).

The sample files are real tangible examples, you simply have to substitute YOUR values for mine. Obvious really.

The files have been carefully prepared, taking into account the way different utilities use them (eg /etc/hosts). They avoid many problems that new-sys-admins find, and may begin to explain why things go wrong. Having a working TCL/IP network helps the terminology in the LDP + NAG make sense. The Linux TCP/IP is a full implementation.

Issue-3 also gets sendmail configured, and the Apache WWW server, so you can create your own WEB pages, and see them running on your own machine.

Issue-3 was the seed from which dial_ppp grew! dial_ppp is a utility that allows you to establish, or break a ppp connection, without having to login as root! It also works for dip and SLIP connections.

dial_ppp is available seperately, with a public license, so you don't have to buy Raven to use it, and can customise it for your ISP, then GPL your package.

To help it get started, the originating article is included, but it cannot be edited (it is quoted). You might like to write your own documentation.

As proof of concept, there is a menu utility so you can do the dailing from your X11 desktop. This is on one year loan, then you must come up with your own menu utility.

Issue-4 is just started, and currently holds the article about upgrading to Linux 2.0.


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