Linux/Athena Project Notebook

Last updated 11 September 2000.

Note: The installation instructions listed below were current in September 2000, but have been superceded. Layered linux as originally conceived in this project is VERY different from what has been implemented. -wdc September 2001

Linux Athena Task List

Installation instructions

There are two different varieties of Linux/Athena: the standard install, and the layered release.

The standard install currently requires:

A normal PC
ethernet controller
IDE disk
Video card capable of autodetection and autoconfiguration by XFree86.
The only sound card that will be automatically configured is the CS4236B, but having one is not necessary, and you can configure a different sound card with sndconfig once the workstation is installed.

To install the standard installation, attach bootkit, and follow the instructions in /mit/bootkit/rhlinux/INSTRUCTIONS. When you are done, you will have an athena workstation that works like any other athena workstation. Consult the Private Workstation Owners Guide for more information on maintaining your system.

The X configuration in the install cannot be fully automated and therefore assumes by default that you have

Three-button mouse
Monitor capable of hsync 30-96 and vsync 48-120.

If this is not so for you, then when you install you must tell the installer to do a "custom install" and then a "custom X setup". It will then run the X configuration tool in non-automated mode near the end of the installer and you should use that to configure X.

The layered release is intended for those users who cannot use the standard install or otherwise want more control over the details of their system than Athena usually provides. The instructions which were previously linked to here have been removed, as they were obsolete. The principle of the layered install is that you install Red Hat linux yourself (we are unable to provide detailed installation instructions for this) and then install the Linux Athena RPMs yourself.

Discovery process

This describes the outcome of the discovery process, which produced the discovery report below that guides the delivery work.

Delivery process

The initial pilot installation of ten workstations is in place. Here is a list of known issues that remain to be solved. (Most of these are just a matter of fixing the relevant shortcoming and making update releases.) Some of these bugs might have been fixed by other changes made to the system since they were reported.

Medium priority

rlogin gets EIO from read
fstab should be world readable

Low priority

Arrange to have xlogin centered automatically
pop-up window of "password incorrect" in xdm cannot be dismissed with ENTER
sanify the naming of the init.d scripts
augment /etc/services with whatever other Athena platforms have
Support KRBSRV, KADMSRV
Support MRUPDATE
zstat, when querying a Linux box, reports a size of -1

Optional changes

Perhaps something to deal with autodetecting two-button mice?
Perhaps create symlink for terminfo location, and maybe also localtime
telnetd/login.krb5 should set an initial path which includes /bin/athena
Perhaps build a kernel with a.out support
Install pdksh?
The athena inetd is called athena-inetd instead of just inetd
avoid the noxious messages "rmdir of / failed" and "package not found"
Provide an athena-ws alternative for layered workstations
Use magic sysrq to allow clean rebooting of workstations
Console should interpret Linux color espace sequences
Either delete tetex from the install list, or configure it right
enable multiple video modes for the X server
install oclock
Support NFSSRV and NFSCLIENT
Support RVDCLIENT
Red Hat fileutils is not compiled with -DAFS, which means it doesn't behave nicely on AFS, [17862] in bugs.

Fixed in Athena 8.4

Be nicer about not-relevant machtype switches
athena-sendmail.rc shutdown message mentions xntp instead of sendmail
/etc/athena/syncconf needs to exist and DTRT
/etc/athena/sendmail.conf is missing
TeX is broken (bugs [17555])
Installer should use gettime so that the dates it uses are correct
athena-ws should inaugurate rc.conf with PUBLIC=false; installer should set it true.
Support AFSSRV, AFSCLIENT, AFSADJUST
zstat reports an empty machine type when querying a Linux box
group `mit' does not exist
Dash menuse don't understand -linux. [17646] in bugs

Slated to be fixed in Athena 8.4

Patch releases

The initial release was 8.3.25. Here is a description of changes made or planned for patch releases after that point.

8.3.26

Update athena-discuss package to ensure that the discuss user has a homedir with empty krb login files, and create the discuss user before package extraction to avoid a warning message during installation.
Update the athena-ws package to clean up the reactivate and update scripts in several nice ways, and fix bugs in the update script.
Update the athena-dotfiles package to fix the default system cshrc file to include /usr/X11R6/man.
Remove the following Red Hat packages from the standard install list, because they conflict with locker software or otherwise cause significant user confusion: screen, fvwm, fvwm2, fvwm2-icons, lpr, mtools, cvs, lynx, gimp, inews, tin, trn, xrn, pidentd, pine, routed, elm, xscreensaver, ghostscript, ghostscript-fonts, gv, xanim, xloadimage
Remove the following packages because they depend on the packages in the preceding list: printtool, rhs-printfilters, gnumeric, urlview, dosemu, control-center, gnome-core, control-center-devel, enlightenment-conf, magicdev, pygnome, xdosemu, gnome-core-devel, rp3, xchat

8.3.27

Update the athena-cleanup package so that cleanup will kill setuid processes too.
Update the athena-ws package so that the reactivate script can find update_ws
Update the athena-ws package to print a message on disabled virtual terminals telling people how to switch to a working one.
Update the athena-xdm package so that when you hit C-p to xdm you land in vt7, not vt0.
Update the athena-xdm package to fix the Unmatched " bug on terminal logins.
Update the athena-zephyr package to name the host manager correctly in the startup message.
Update the athena-ssh package to name ssh properly in the shutdown message.
Update the athena-lprng package to overcome the bug in printing from acroread

8.3.28

Update the athena-ws package
- so that syslog.conf is no longer necessarily destroyed on updates.
- to add an athena crontab.
Update the athena-xdm package
- so that the login you get when you kill X with C-p is kerberized.
- to fix a bug that would hang workstations when they try to update
Install a local modification to the glibc package to fix a syslog bug which caused named to print excessive console messages.
Update the athena-glue package to include an attach-and-run script for lastlog.
Update the athena-afs package to install config_afs and run it at the proper time.
Update the athena-zephyr package to fix a bug in the zephyrd startup script.
Upgrade the following Red Hat packages due to security bulletins: pam, usermode, ORBit, ORBit-devel, esound, esound-devel, initscripts
Delete the Red Hat bind and slrn packages to avoid potential confusion.

8.3.29

Update the athena-ws package to
- Omit a debugging echo in update_ws
- Store on local disk a copy of the package list we upgraded to
- Don't inaugurate the version file; athena-base does that
- turn on sound for cluster workstations
- make /dev/dsp and friends world read/write
Update the athena-sendmail package to fix a bug that caused all local mail delivery to drop mail on the floor.
Update the athena-dotfiles package to install the root dotfiles in ~root.
Update the athena-glue package to
- omit installing the Athena xlock wrapper script
- fix a bug in the verify-message attach-and-run script
A replacement for the Red Hat rootfiles RPM; this replacement is empty and installs no files; it is necessary because of a shortcoming in the update_ws release procedure.
Delete the Red Hat gpm package.

8.3.30

Update the athena-ws and athena-base packages, moving the inauguration of /etc/athena/rc.conf to athena-base.
Update the athena-ws package to prune some unnecessary grep output in its post install script.
Update the following packages to add variables to /etc/athena/rc.conf instead of creating sysconfig files, and to make the startup scripts read rc.conf: athena-inetd athena-lprng athena-sendmail athena-sshd athena-xntp athena-olc athena-zephyr.
Update the athena-ws package to set Xterm app defaults in a more athena way, for eight bit input and backspace behavior.
Update the athena-dotfiles package to include /bin in the path specified by ~root/.cshrc.
Add back the Red Hat gpm package; it's required by some packages we do care about.

8.3.31

Update the following packages to fix a typo in the previous change: athena-inetd athena-lprng athena-sendmail athena-sshd athena-xntp athena-olc athena-zephyr
Update the following packages to fix a security bug in Kerberos:athena-krb5 athena-discuss athena-lert athena-olc athena-rkinit athena-xdm athena-zephyr athena-lprng athena-ssh
Update athena-ws to fix a mistake in the previous Xterm patch.