INLS 183
Distributed systems & analysis
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Introduction

My third project actually started as the X Window Server install WindowMaker, but it turned out to be a bigger install than I first thought that requires lot of little pre-installs so I'm saving it for another week.

I wanted to install PHP on my server, and I will probably do so next week, but I put that off as well because I finally got fed up with not having any Web-browsing capabilities on the Linux box. Thus, this week's install is the Lynx Web browser.

Narrative

I am going to skip the narrative that concerns the WindowMaker install and just concentrate on what it took for me to get Lynx installed and configured on the group Linux box.

Because there was no Web browser on Red, our group's Linux box, I instead used Mozilla on my Mac desktop to track down a version of Linux that I could ftp to via telnet. I started at freshmeat and then remembered that Ibiblio has a big section with lots of downloads so I went there, figuring the necessary files would be easy to find.

What I found at this URL was a tar ball file that I used wget to ftp onto Red. I un g-zipped the file and forgot how to un tar the file after words. Suffering from memory block, I simply started over by re-downloading the gz file and using the proper tar command that unzipped and de tarred the file all at once.

Now that I had a new directory for Lynx, I went in and read the read me and install files. I edited the lynx.cfg file and changed a few things to configure Lynx for the whole system, then tried to configure and install Lynx. Only, there were no configure or make commands that I could run that were in the Lynx directory...

Now, the directions say that installing Lynx is easy, and that all I have to do is log in as su and type the make install commands, but as far as I could see and experienced, there were no such commands that worked or even existed here. I tried looking around the system and using some different commands but I had no luck getting anything to work.

At this point, I decided to try and find another version of Lynx that I might install. Looking at freshmeat, I eventually found a newer version of Lynx with an additional bonus - I could get an rpm version for download. I grabbed that version on Red and then went back over our class notes on rpm's.

Installation seemed simple, but I could not get anything to install and I kept getting errors using the command rpm -i -vv. I eventually tried logging into root and trying again, and this time met success. I typed lynx and I was soon cruising the Web.

Now I tried to configure Lynx for our system. I had no idea where the lynx.cfg file was, but by checking options in the Lynx browser I found the correct pathname to the file. My first set of changes included setting cookies to "accept all", use mouse to on, and I reset the homepage to Google. I started Lynx again to see the changes, which were in effect, so I went back to the lynx.cfg file for more.

Next I changed the default index file to my personal page at Ibiblio,
set the use mouse to true (again?), set verbose images to true, and set assumed color to on. As far as I can tell, all my changes took effect except for the color option, which seemed to always reset with every restart of Lynx, and the mouse option, but that may only work on the computer itself and not through a terminal.

Instructions for use

Lynx has directions for use that one can find by typing 'h' for help. From the command line one simply types 'lynx' to launch the browser.
Functionality

It seems to work from every terminal I have tried it on so far, and I can view any web page I go to.
Files and Baubles

Installation Script
Screen Capture - Showing Lynx up and running with a white/blue color default.




   


  If you have any questions or issues, you can contact me at MCarroll at email.unc.edu.