Hi all,
meanwhile we are running 4 of our spectrometers using
SuSe-Linux as operating system. This was by no means
possible without trouble.
I want to summarize our experience. Maybe it is helpful
for other labs. Of course I cannot promise to give
a complete description.
Why SuSe-Linux
--------------
Bruker recommends RedHat 7.1 as operating system and
there must be good reasons to do another choice.
We started with data stations. RedHat 7.1 was no
longer available and we tried 7.2 instead.
There were two significant problem:
- the stations had large problems with IRIX
based NFS servers and
- the stations refused to cooperate with a
lpd print server. We use a netware server
for this purpose and RedHat claimed
permanent RFC1179 problems.
That's why we checked SuSe 7.3 and both problems
went away.
The NFS problem is well known in the Linux
community and there exist patches to avoid this
problem. Unfortunately it is imossible to introduce
these patched both int the RedHat or SuSE kernels.
But the SuSE kernel already contain the necessary fix.
Hardware prerequisites
----------------------
You need a grahics card, which can work with
hardware visual overlays. Neither ATI nor nVidia
cards are convenient. A Matrox G450 is a good
choice, maybe the same is true for G550, but we
didn't check this out.
If possible, choose a computer with two SCSI
disks, one for the operating system and one for
data only.
Configuration of the X server
-----------------------------
Choose the default operating system installation.
Edit the file
/etc/sysconfig/suseconfig and set two configurations lines
CHECK_ETC_HOSTS="no"
and
BEAUTIFY_ETC_HOSTS="no"
Especially the first line is essential, otherwise
you will loose the interface information for
the spectrometer configuration after each call of
yast2!
Store the file /etc/X11/XF86Config under another
name.
Then edit the file
/etc/X11/XF86Config
Within this file look for "Section screen". Modify
this section according to the following sample:
Section "Screen"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x960" "640x480" "800x600" "1024x768"
"1152x864"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x960"
Visual "PseudoColor"
EndSubSection
Device "Device[0]"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
EndSection
The critical parts are "DefaultDepth 24" and the two SubSections. There may
be further SubSections.
Next look for the "Section device". Modify this section as follows:
Section "Device"
BoardName "AutoDetected"
Driver "mga"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Option "dpms"
Screen 0
Option "Overlay" "8,24"
VendorName "AutoDetected"
EndSection
The essential line is "Option Overlay 8,24".
After this modifications restart the X server. Using SuSe 8.0 it
is sufficient to logout and login again. For SuSe 8.1 either restart
the computer or login from another somputer as root and type
/etc/init.d/xdm restart
If this operation fails (usually you will fail 2 ... 5 times until
the configuration of the X server is correct) restore XF86Config
from the backup mentioned above and try it again.
If you graphics server works, open a shell and type
xdpyinfo
Yu should see the available visuals. At least there must
be one true color visual and one pseudo color visual.
Usually pseudo color is the default visual. This gives
strange results even for the login screen. To set
true color as the default visual edit the file
Xservers
For SuSe 8.0 this is located within the directory
/etc/X11/xdm
for SuSe 8.1 (many thanks to the SuSe programmers -(( )
under
/etc/opt/kde3/share/config/kdm
For SuSe 8.0 the file Xservers should contain the
following line:
:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X :0 vt07 -cc 4 -depth 24
For SuSe 8. the file Xservers should contain this
information:
:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X vt7 -cc 4 -depth 24
:1 local reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X :1 vt8
:2 local reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X :2 vt9
:3 local reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X :3 vt10
:4 local reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X :4 vt11
:5 local reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X :5 vt12
After this modifications start the X server again. In the
case of SuSe 8.1 the corresponding option at the login
screen is without of any effect, but the other methods
described above will work.
Additional software
-------------------
Install the following packages using yast2
- uucp
- bootparamd
- vsftpd
- xftp
- 100 dpi Fonts (xfnt100)
- telnetd (bzw. telnet-Server)
- jedit
- nedit
- netdate
- apache
- netscape
Whether you install vsftpd and telnetd or not depends
on your security demands.
To get telnet and ftp running modify /etc/inetd.conf
remove the # in the lines contaning vsftpd and telnetd.
After this action activate inetd using yast2.
vsftpd allows further configuration using /etc/vsftpd.conf.
Usually you will forbid anonymous access and allow
loal access.
Get your old configuration data
------------------------------
Using the old computer change to directory /u
and type
tar cvf /tmp/conf.tar exp conf
Switch to the new computer and transfer
conf.tar to the /tmp directory.
Then
cd /opt
mkdir xwinnmr
cd xwinnmr
tar vxf /tmp/conf.tar
This must happen before you install the new
version of XWIN-NMR, because using the above
action you copy some binaries from the old
computer, but these become ovewritten during
the installation of XWIN-NMR.
If you change from IRIX to Linux, the fieldmaps
have the wrong format. To convert them, change to
directory
/opt/xwinnmr/conf/instr/autoshim/refmaps
and type
echo fieldmap3D.33 |cpio -o |cpio -iub
Instead of fieldmap3D.33 insert the name of your
fieldmaps.
Installation of XWIN-NMR
------------------------
There are no special problems with one exception.
Until now I found no method to install NMR-Guide.
The installation procedure is looking for netscape
4.5 or higher and fails to detect this program although
it is present. No idea, what's wrong here.
After the installation
----------------------
Manually configure the second ethernet interface of your
PC using yast2 as eth1. This interface gets the IP
address
149.236.99.1
Don't configure hostname, domain, name server ...
Check /etc/services and comment out all lines
containing "2201" with the excption of the line
containing "bfsd" too.
Check /etc/inet.d for a line containing
"bootparamd". Remove this line and restart
inetd by
killall -HUP inetd
The script
/etc/init.d/bfsd
installed by SWIM will not work. Replace the
contents of the scripts by the following lines
#!/bin/sh
#******************************************************************
#
# $Source:
/pr/CvsTree/pr/gen/src/prg/install.net/netfiles/bfsd3.0.linux,v $
#
# Copyright (c) 2000
# BRUKER ANALYTIIK GMBH
# D-76287 Rheinstetten, Germany
#
# All Rights Reserved
#
# $Id: bfsd3.0.linux,v 1.3 2001/01/09 13:49:18 jgo Exp $
#
#******************************************************************
# Description:
#
# Startup script for the BRUKER bfs service.
#
# The comment below is obligatory for chkconfig. See 'man chkconfig'.
#
# chkconfig: 2345 85 15
# description: BRUKER boot file server.
#
#******************************************************************
# Simple start routine for a service used if function library is missing.
/usr/sbin/rpc.bootparamd bootparam
/usr/diskless/bfsd.linux
This is a little bit quick and dirty, but it works.
Change to
cd /etc/init.d/rc5.d
and type
ln -s ../bfsd S22bfsd
Caution: Bruker uses S09bfsd to start the demons. If you do so,
bootparamd will not come up.
Exporting diskless
------------------
Modify the file /etc/exports, created by SWIM as follows
/usr/diskless/dl_usr spect(insecure,ro)
/usr/diskless/clients/spect spect(insecure,rw,no_root_squash)
and start the NFS server using yast2
As far as I remember, that's it. Enjoy.
Rainer
Received on Mon Dec 16 2002 - 13:50:52 MST