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Chilean Monks Need Linux Help?
Inexile2002 asks: "Ok, I'm going to Chile this Xmas season, and a distant second cousin of mine, a monk in a Dominican monastary emailed me
requesting that I bring copies of and set up Linux on their machines
and network. I've NEVER set up a Linux network before, won't have
reliable internet access when I'm there (if I have it at all) and to
top it all off, would really rather set this up in Spanish for the
non bi-lingual monks. (My spanish, of course, is weak and useless
when discussing computers) For someone who doesn't know Linux well
and won't be able to check online help, what is the best hard copy
Linux help out there? Is there a Spanish Linux? Will the monks,
once they do have reliable net connections, be able to seek
bilingual online help?" We've all been in this position before, but
the multi-lingual angle is a new twist. Do any of you have any hints,
or suggestions to pass along to Inexile2002?
So, is this the Shaolinux temple, mentioned in the signature of a Slashdor poster?
Bush Lies Watch
hmmm, well, for starters you might wish to look at www.linuxdoc.org/linuxfocus/Castellano which I would assume is a repository of Spanish-language documentation for Linux.
There is also the Debian translation repository at: www.debian.org/international/Spanish
And if you're interested in a Red-Hat based distribution that is supposed to have a fairly complete collection of spanish instructions, check out: conectiva.com. These guys also have a spanish-language publication that you might be interested in looking into. You might even want to sign up your new admin for a year or so.
hmmm, it's amazing what you can find in 15 seconds with Google, isn't it?
"If I wanted your input on my pet project, I'd stick my hand up your ass and use you like a sock-puppet." - Muse
Umm burn yourself copies of EVERY HOWTO you might even remotly think you need, EVERY major kernel version, EVERY driver you might think possible. I'd also contact them ahead of time and try to found out what the computers are, and as much info about the hardware as they can possibly provide. If they are old, you may have some SERIOUS headaches. You may also want to bring a few copies of BSD just in case.
And of course pray, pray heavily, pray often. Oh yea and before you leave, practice practice, practice, practive. Oh yea did I say practice. Installing linux on most likly old computers, you havn't seen which don't have an internet connection is a job only the most brave should take. If you can accomplish this, mention this at any tech job, you will be instantly hired. Oh yea, bring a laptop if you can with linux and windows and whatever network connection and dialup equipment you can find just in case. Oh yea, and do like the monks. Pray!
SuSE in Brazilan: http://www.suse.de/br/
SuSE in Spanish: http://www.suse.de/es/
Haven't tried either, but kudos to the company in recognizing that Portugese and Spanish aren't the same language.
Two of the best Liux books I've read are Running Linux and Learning GNU/Debian Linux both published by O'Reilly. Running Linux has tons of info for new Linux users, most of it is day to day stuff but is really great for somebody who isn't going to have access to alot of online resources. Learning GDL, has alot of info about installing and administering Linux (specifically Debian of course) and is the book that would be included with Debian if it included a book. Your distribution of choice isn't really so important as they offer so many of the same things. People will argue until they're blue in the face about it but thats true. I might suggest FreeBSD but the documentation that's easy to pack with you on a trip can be hard to come by and I don't know many books written about it for novice users. I suggest hitting up somewhere like Cheapbytes of LSL and getting several CDs. Learning GDL comes with a Debian 2.1 (x86) CD (the edition I have has 2.1 at least) You might even want to pick up CDs for different architectures because you never know when someone's going to find some old 68k Mac or something lying around.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I see two thing that could make it easier. One, you learn spanish. Two, they learn english. BTW, how do you plan on installing linux when you don't understand it, and you can't understand the monks???
Cyberbite Networks - Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers & Colocati
Conectiva has an office in Santiago, Chile.
I think that can help you a lot, once you can phone then.
URL: http://www.conectiva.cl/
Phone: (562) 3790930
Fax: (562) 3790626
morcego
Well I don't know about you Cliff, but I've never found myself in the position of having to set up a linux network for Chilean Monks, bilingual or not... (c:
--Cycon
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
LOL!
would that I had mod points for you.
mike
Liberty uber alles.
Have you read many howtos, I bet babblefish couldn't do much worse, it would probably atleast clean up their grammer some.
Just because they're monks doesn't mean that they are closetted introverts who never speak to anyone; remember that it was monks who invented beer! Mmm, beer good....:)
As far as linux goes, it's free and churches are no longer as rich as they once were, so they may be keen to save some money. Also, any MS license fee saved is more money for the needy/poor/sick/whatever, which should interest any worthy christian.
won't have reliable internet access when I'm there (if I have it at all)
That won't be a problem. As long as you have access to a phone line, you'll be able to get dial-up Internet access in Chile - there are many... er... "on-the-fly & no previous contract" plans from ISPs here that are charged on the phone bill. On the other hand, broadband access is expensive.
As for distros: Conectiva would be the choice here.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
Hi there,
You may want to consider using SuSE. They have pretty good multilingual support (I use the dutch), you can buy it with Spanish manuals (or at least you could with 7.2, probably still can) and they also have spanish how-tos on the disk. And, assuming the program supports it, it comes with spanish translations for KDE ang GNOME programs as well.
If you are going to be without the internet, this could be an interesting choice I think.
Some of the intersting ones are:
Name : howtoes
Summary : Collection of HOWTOs from the 'Linux Documentation Project' (Spanish)
Name : network_es
Summary : SuSE Linux Manual: Network (spanish)
Name : qappl_es
Summary : SuSE Applikation Manual (spanish)
Name : qconfig_es
Summary : Configuration Manual (spanish)
Name : sdb_es
Summary : SuSE Support-Database (spanish)
Name : susehelp_es
Summary : SuSE Help-System (base)
Name : suselinux-reference_es
Summary : System and Reference Manual (es)
Name : susetour_es
Summary : SuSE Tour spanish
Name : books_es
Summary : Several Linux Books translated to spanish
Isn't Connectiva largely based in South America? Yup. I thought Brazil was founded by Portugal, but that site looks like Spanish (of course, I have no idea what Portugeuse looks like, so...)
Oh. Here is the Spanish link. Start there. You don't have to load Debislackhat on their machines.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Monks didn't invent beer. But they sure make some damned fine lambics.
(Beer, as a fermented grain based beverage, is much older than monks or monasteries. There is some evidence that suggests that using grain as a food is NOT what caused man to cease to be nomadic. Rather, some believe it was to ferment the grain. So, yes, we are all descended from people who were trying to get drunk on a regular basis.
Damn. Can't wait for that brown ale to finish carbonating...)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The systems you are dealing with may have special needs. Depending on the age they may not have very much memory at all. You may want to consider canabalizing some of the computers for there parts to boost ram.
Sometimes ram can be so problematical that the installation media won't fit into ram. In this case, make one computer with enough ram (canabalize if you have to) that you can install linux on it. It should be nearly identical to all the other computers. Then use that disk image to create the other hard disks for the other machines.
If you have problems with init running out of memory before the system is loaded, use this command at the lilo prompt
lilo: linux init=/bin/ash
That will just load up the ash command prompt (ash has a very tiny memory profile)
You can remount the drives with `mount / -o rw, remount`
Also, you may need to use an earlier kernel, as they take up less space in memory (The entire kernel must be loaded into ram)
It'll be slow, with all the swapping but it should get the job done.
Also read the Small Memory howto at the LDP
SuSE
SuSE is probably the easiest to install, but I've had a hard time with trying to make it do what =I= wanted, as opposed to what =it= wanted.
On the flip-side, Red Hat (which can handle a Spanish language installation, and probably even has the dialect you want!) is only mildly irritating to install, but is MUCH easier to upgrade & manage afterwards, IMHO.
Others suggested d/l every HOWTO on the planet. I agree. Just don't kill off the rainforest in the process.
Installing a network is easy. Don't sweat it. It's no different from installing a standalone box, except that each box needs its own name & IP number, and you need to have one box as a router/DNS server/Mail server. (You can use different machines, but I honestly wouldn't bother.)
To install the network, use the IP numbers 192.168.0.x, where x is some number between 1 and 254. Use 192.168.0.1 as your router & Mail/DNS machine, and tell it to do network address translation (NAT) and packet forwarding. The ISP'll supply the "visible" IP address for that computer, so you can ignore that. That'll be handled by however you're connected up to the Internet. Probably PPPd.
Beyond that, I honestly can't think of any configuration or software you'd need. That should be enough to handle a network of up to 254 machines, with no great sweat. Oh, for e-mail, most clients will be able to pop the mail off the mail server. You're much better off doing things that way than to use fetchmail. Not because it's hard, but because it's one more thing to set up. The LESS you need to worry about, the MORE you can spend time enjoying the experience of creating the world's first Beomonk Cluster.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
They want it because they're sick of Microsoft, they hear good things and well... who knows - they're monks - I don't pretend to understand how they think. My cousin emailed me and asked me to spend a few days helping him out. I agreed.
I switched to Debian a while ago, so it's been some time since I used RedHat or SuSE, but from the point of view of a native speaker of Spanish, I'm quite happy with what they provide. Of course I have a pretty good command of English, so it's tough for me to judge how it would be for a monolingual speaker...
Personally, I'd burn CD images with all the Deian packages. You'd probably want to go with Woody, since it is almost frozen and Potato is quite outdated. Find pointers and instructions at http://cdimage.debian.org/. This way, you can make the install in English yourself and then install the appropriate packages. There is a very convenient "spanish" task package containing doc-linux-es, manpages-es, ispanish, wspanish and user-es. Then, run the "castellanizar" script found in user-es to have all the possible defaults in Spanish.
Another suggestion is for you to start to practice your Spanish now and make the same question on http://barrapunto.com, a Spanish-speaking slashdot copycat site. Best luck, anyway, I hope you make good converts...
Another thing you may want to add to your software list is a mini-linux, preferably something that runs from a single floppy such as
http://pocket-linux.coven.vmh.net/about.html.en
or
http://jspiro.tripod.com/linux/hal91.htm
(There's a good list of various distros at
http://www.linux.org/dist/index.html
including various foreign language distros that may be useful)
A little planning goes a long way...
to bring a few copies of BSD just in case.
BSD? That with a picture of a little devil? To monks? Vade retro Satana!!
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
recognizing that Portugese and Spanish aren't the same language.
I wonder why, while Spanish speakers usually require just one Spanish version, the Brazilian and the Portuguese ask for diferent translations.
Are both dialects so different?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu