Drinou-Linux

A small and flexible Linux distribution

-this document consists of 73 paragraphs-

Drinou - linux

pronounciation is "drin'u"

is an operative system of the Linux family, based on Slackware 7.1 Linux distribution and

kernel = if you imagine an operative system as a cell, the kernel may be imagin ed as the nucleus of the cell. in an operative system all other components depend on the kernel, alike ribosoms, Golgi aparatus, vacuols, etc. depend on the nucleus...

on kernel 2.2.25. It can be installed both on an

filesystem = there is an impressive variety of operative systems today. each one "recogniwes" files contained in a computer in a different way. the filesystem is the way files are stored, retrieved, modified and deleted, on an hard disk or another memory device.

ext2 filesystem (on a dedicated partition) or on a DOS filesystem (as a loopback device). It can be installed from a pre-existant DOS, from a pre-existant Linux, in umsdos mode or via ftp.
Basic installation requires a 486 PC with 8 MB RAM and 105 MB minimum Hard Disk space. During the installation another 150 MB will be used. T he necessary space for the installation files must be added, so it would be a good idea to stay large on Hard Disk space, and this is as much true as you would like to add additional Linux programs. Another trick is to preconfigure Drinou on a big machine and transfer the system via parallel cable, ethernet, zip disk, cd-rom etc. (In other words you copy the pre-configured system instead of installing it). There are tricks for using old 386 computers zith 486 MB RAM. They work, but they are a little bit more complicated.
Once installed, the system contains many software and utilities, traditionally classified in console utilities and X Windows utilities. If you remember old Windows 3.X operative systemd, we may say that console can be compared to the DOS promps, while the graphical Windows 3.1 system may be compared in some manner to X Windows. As a matter of fact this is not a much successful comparison, it give only an aproximative idea, gi ven that there are no important differense between Linux console and Linux X Windows software, if we exclude the fact that X Windows applications are designed in order to output processing results towards a graphical server called X.
It is a little bit difficult to explain, anyway, console applications do not contain icons, commands usually must be issued via keyboard, they perform the same tasks as X programs, but they are not much finished from aesthetically. X Windows applications usually have a pleasant graphical appearance and work in an environment where most commands are represented by icons or are accessible with the mouse and finally they do not require the end user to know complex keyboard combinations and complicated commands.
This distribution gives a big computing power in your hands. You can:
Manage your email and newsgroups messages in different ways with mutt v. 1.2.5, sendmail v. 8.11.0, fetchmail v. 5.4.5., metamail v. 2.7, procmail
Copy, rename, move your files in an easy way and install packages with a couple of clicks thanks to Midnight Commander v. 4.5.50.
Surf the world wide web with Links 2.1, an internet browser very popular amongst Linux users, it works in text mode and in graphics mode and it is so quick

try yourselfe by calling this page in Links: http://zipham.free.fr

and easy to use that you will love it. Of course, it allows you to work with excellent search engines, such as http://www.google.com and http://www.alltheweb.com and it allows you to visit Radiovuvu.
You can customize your system like a taylored suite thanks to many small utilities, such as ppp v. 2.4.0, minicom v1.83.1, ncftp v3.0.1, tin v1.4.4, wget v1.5.3, telnet, rlogin, finger, nslookup, ping, vrfy, whois, lilo, Boa web-serveur, tiny httd, svncviewer, pure-ftpd, smbclient, pdmenu, tcpspy, exscan, tcpdump, splitscreen, pmfirewall, vpnd 1.10, tinyproxy, tcpdump sox, workbone, aumix, mpg123, ssh, ezipudate, tcpspy, and many others
You can order

you see that making coffee is no more an impossible task for a pc...

a pizza by email...
... and much more.
You wi ll feel comfortable with X, X Windows allows you not only to send

thanks to Sylpheed 0.85

email, or surf

thanks to Dillo 0.66

quickly web pages and graphics,

thanks to Ted

write letters, memos, notes, novels, read perfectly and at

you may display many pdf documents con XPDF - compatibility with Acrobat Reader is not 100% and sometimes parts of pdf documents cannot be displayed, anyway, for several pdf documents (articles, text, novels, etc.) XPDF is an excellent viewer. moreover it implements some useful utilities, such as text extraction tools from pdf documents (please consult XPDF site on this subject).

the speed of the light most part of pdf documents, spend hours of relax with

have you ever heard about XCampo minato, XMahjongg, solitario, XTetris, Gnuchess...?

some evergreen games, you cansvagarvi dietro giochi evergreen, andare

thanks to XChat e Y!Messenger 099.19

chat, exchange instant messages, you can even speak (yes, speak and phone from a pc to another pc thanks to voice-over-internet, not speaking by chatting via keyboard)

thanks to GPhone

via pc-to-pc, internet or lan, listen to music and

thanks to console utilities aumix e mpg 123 supported by X.

watch video clips, create a lan or connect to one...
All this and much more in 150 MB... on any Intel PC with a minimal 486 / 8 MB configuration!
Isn't that enough?
Are you nostalgic of good old MacIntoshes? Drinou

IMPORTANT: please read very carefully the documentation about BasiliskII and please do not use the emulator if you do not have any legally acquired component requested by the emulator.

is 100% compatible with BasiliskII MacIntosh emulator, in particular ethernet support is included. Emulating MacOS is not an experience to be recommended to any pc user, you may really cry when you sense how easy MacOS was to use in the gone '90s. Anyway...
Install Opera, the adware internet browser of

adware are software which are free to download and use, they only display some advertisements, normally in a small window or on a banner. software houses and programmers get paid for advertisement campaign and in this way they cover their costs, earn money for their work and develop furtherly their software products.

the brilliant norway software house which modernized internet surfing and interaction between man and machine thanks to the introduction of mouse gestures and the pleasure to surf the net with a quick and flexible skinnable browser.
Add Abiword, Xspread, Mozilla, the distribution is compatible with many other precompiled packag es in .rpm, .deb, .tgz, .tar...
Do you want to expand the system? Compatibility with Slackware 7.1 is good, so you may go to the site and download all the packages hearth may desire.
For instance, compilation utilities are not included in the distribution, but they can be obtained on slackware site (look for Slackware 7.1).
This distribution was conceived in order to use low ressources 486 PCs. It allows to create easily:
1. - Internet or intranet networks
2. - Firewalls
3. - Ftp / Intranet servers oriented to the Web
4. - Office workstations connected to Windows or NT.
Communication applications, MS Word compatible word processing and Excel compatib le spreadsheets are available under the form of precompiled packages. You start Midnight Commander, you locate the .tgz package you wish to install, you press F2 and you choose "Install drinou, slackware package". That's it. To remove, you start Midnight Commander, you go to folder /var/log/packages, you select the package you want to remove, you press F2 and chose "Remove installed package". That's it. Easy and painless. More or less the same procedure is for .deb and .rpm packages, read the documentation for more details.
This distribution includes stable and recent software products. It is an ideal educational tool both in console and in X Windows mode and it allows to beginners, but also to advanced users, to evaluate Linux on hardware which today is considered to be obsolete (486, P133 ...).
More, this is a project which amuses us. In conclusion, Drinou is the name of my wife Sandine, Sonnyou is the name of my son Sonny. Don't worry, TerminalX isn't the name of anybody.

Copyright licence of Drinou-Linux, Sonnyou-Linux, TerminalX and the documents:

All these distributions are subject to GNU/GPL license. You may use, modify, re-distribute all or part of them but you must indicate where did you get them from, what are their origins and who are their authors. To learn more about GNU / GPL license, you may go to the site http://www.april.org/gnu/gpl_french.hrml(for all purposes interpretation of the copyright aspects and other aspects of Drinou-Linux, Sonnyou-Linux, TerminalX, the documents and anything else may be found on the site the only rules to be considered are the ones contained in the french version of the license a nd the french version of the license prevails to the other ones).

Configuration and first steps:

Root user has no password at the beginning! You must set one! The second step is to create your users. Please reference to the documentation on this issue.

History of Drinou versions:

Version 1.1 was the first version made public.
Version 1.2 corrects several bugs.
Version 1.3 includes a second Web server on port 81 and allow to start a connection via modem (PC is configured as router / firewall), and a second Midnight Commander version which takes in charghe Microsoft network (thanks to SaMBa) and the possibility to setup starting with a floppy disk or an ftp client.
Version 1.4 corrects a bug in the setup file and includes the new Links browser, featuring text and graphic mode of rendering html pages, a console based configuration menu, some more documentation and some modifications of X Windows. Siag Office and Abiword are optional and may be obtained as packages.
Version 1.5 features Dillo as the main web browser, kernel 2.2.19, Xpdf and french manual pages.
Version 1.6 includes tcpspy and gkrelmm.
Version 1.7 includes a shell in french, Midnight Commander in french, optional GTK libraries, Sylpheed mail client, IRC Xchat client, Ez-ipupdate, LinNeighbourhood (network ressources), Gnuplot and Apsfilter. Small bugs were removed and the installation program was rewritten.
Version 1.8 has all kernel 2.2.19 modules included, Sylpheed 0.85, voice over internet communication utility Gphone, Tinyproxy, Vpnd d. Installation program was rewritten; version is in tgz format in order to allow installation on a pc with 8 MB Ram. An umsdos version is available, it allows setup on a DOS Fat 16 or Fat 32 partition and is very easy to install, just by downloading the file, by unzipping it and by launching the system with linux.bat (please read installation instructions in order to be aware of all details).
A console based version is available, it includes the same software included in Drinou less sound support and X programs. It is named Sonnyou and you may find it in the download pages indicated below.
An ISO image is available, in addition a package to create your own ISO images is available and allows you to create your customized ISO image (excellent for backup purposes).
News in versions 1.9 and 2.0 of Drinou distribution, as well as of versions 1.1 and 1.2 of Sonnyou distribution is the possibility to use these distribution as X terminals if you have a network and prefer to dedicate to X Windows one of the computers composing the network. A vi clone, epic irc, chimera, manpages may be displayed on X. Versions 2.0 and 1.2 are based on a kernel which includes pcmcia and this is the main difference between 1.9a and 2.0 versions of Drinou and between 1.1a and 1.2 versions of sonnyou.

Bugs. Patches related to the current version:

If you install from DOS kernel contained in Drinou.wip is not valid. You need to take the kernel you may find in drinou.tgz. This bug will be corrected in the near future.

Mailing lists:

To subscribe to Drinou-Linux distribution list please click to this link: drinou-request@ml.free.fr?subject=subscribe
To wri te to the list: drinou@ml.free.fr
Do not send attachments, there are too many viruses circulating in this period... (and some readers use Windows).
The documents that follow (helas, only in french for the time being) are meant to be a starting point in Linux world and an installation guide of Drinou-Linux. They are written in a simple manner in order to be understand by anybody (I hope so, at least).

Installation documentation and download of Drinou-Linux

Installation of version 2 29/09/2002: /install.htm
Documentation for beginners: /ni ewbie.htm
More documentation for beginners: /linux.htm
Configuration scripts: /scripts.htm
Advanced system configuration, ver. 2 rel. 29/09/2002:/configuration.htm
X Window version implementing a better quality:/xwindow.htm
Screenshot in console mode: /screenshoot.gif
Screensh ot in graphical mode featuring icewm (default Graphical User Interface): /screenshoot1.gif
Screenshot in graphical mode featuring xfce (optional Graphical User Interface): /screenshoot2.gif
Screenshot in LAN mode: /lan.gif
Useful Linux links: /links.html
List of Xwindow compatible computers: /compatible.htm
Download: < /FONT> /download.htm
If you are willing to contribute to this project, please send an email at the adress of Jean-Philippe Piers
Thanks to gedsismik for spellchecking :-). Thanks to Ogallos for the logo
Jean-Philippe Piers and Valentino are often online on IRC channel #lealinux on irc.lea-linux.org server.

Adaptation and translation in english made by

Valentino