[olpc-help] gettin on line with WEP

[William Bagwell]

On Sunday 30 December 2007, chuck418 at cox.net wrote:
> Just repeating some off list conversation, with the hopes you Linux gurus
> can make my instructions clearer. The main thing to notice is what us
> n00bies don't know, so perhaps you can help even more with instructions
> that include things YOU know but we need you to teach!

Neither a n00b nor a guru so perhaps I am qualified to comment:) Think you 
have done an excellent job of explaining this in a way that most can 
understand. I see very few errors, but much that can be expanded upon. Feel 
free to use or discard the later as you see fit.

> 1st, I'm on Build 653, having downloaded the 2 files on another computer,
> put them on a flash drive (thumb drive) formatted in FAT (not FAT 32 or
> NTFS) and plugged it in before turning XO on. I held down all 4 buttons on
> the lower right of the screen until it said let go, and it updated itself.
>
> I went to the Terminal application, which is on the 2nd set of icons at the
> bottom after you press the little right key at the bottom right of the tool
> icons you initially see.
>
> Once started, it gave a a prompt which has the initials OLPC in it. You
> have to click INSIDE the terminal window, as the cursor starts off in the
> Title box.
>
> I went to SuperUser, an account on all machines which can alter files the
> regular user cannot by typing SU

Lower case "su -". S, u, space, - then press Enter. "root" (and Enter) is 
another way to become root. One of them preservers the paths of the user 
becoming root and the other switches them to roots paths. Hard for me to 
explain further since I don't fully understand it myself. 

At the risk of really confusing things. Something else it does, which is 
easily tested, (And likely closely related to the paths change) is change the 
location. Cd (change directory) to somewhere intersting with lots of stuff to 
see with a "ls -a' command. Then try one of the two ways of becoming root. Do 
the "ls -a" a second time and compair results. Close, then reopen the terminal 
and repeat using the other way of becoming root. See the difference?

A plain "su" with out the dash is used on systems with a root pasword to get 
it to ask for the password.

All of this will soon be obsolete as the XO will be switching to "sudo -i" 
starting with Update.1 due later this month.

> I then got a new type of prompt that has the word Bash in it.

Important difference between the two prompts is the "$" of a normal user and 
the "#" of the root user.

> I wrote the command ls -la which means LIst what is here.
> That showed me what directory I was in.

Thought at first this was an error... Instead you taught me something! 

A "ls" (list) command will show names of all non-hidden files and 
sub-directories in the directory your in at the time. 

A "ls -a" does the same plus showing all the hidden ("." before the filename) 
files.

Adding the "l" is the one I did not know. Basically it is a verbose flag, so 
it includes a bunch of information beyond just the name. Thanks!

> I think I then went to the root  or most basic level of the directory by
> typing  cd ./. That was cd <space> period forward slash forward slash. I
> hope this is correct, as I gave the XO to Eva today and am relying on
> memory.

Think this wrong, or at least unnecessary. Happly, well unhappily for me:-( My 
little green friend also went to its intended new owner Sunday. (My grand 
niece) So I too, no longer have a way to test. 

I was using "cd /" (no dots) to change to the root directory. Putting periods 
around the forward slash breaks the command on the Xubuntu live CD.

> snips

All of the sniped portion *looked* OK to me... Can not really say because I 
did not go there. Whole time I had the XO here I connected with a USB to 
ethernet addapter.

> Then I EXIt, closed terminal, and went to the Sugar network view.
>
> I clicked on my network and for the first time it asked for a password.
> IMPORTANT, there is a drop down box allowing you to choose ASCII rather
> than Hex, and if your router has WEP and an understandable password, that
> might be it. I waited (have to be patient with an XO) and when  I hovered
> over my network it now gave the choice of DISCONNECTING. Fired up the
> browser, put something in Google, and I was on the net.

We got this far at lappies new home with out all the extra steps you posted. 
(Was upgraded to 653 here) However, it is not staying connected. Nor is it 
consistently asking for a password when trying to reconnect.

> I probably could have gotten on another, unsecured network (there were
> several there) but didn't want to trespass.

> Once online, I typed update YUM, which took a while to figure out how to
> get it to work (YUM is a package manager for installing new programs) but
> as I couldn't find out what was available or would work on XO, I just
> installed the special to XO version of Opera to replace the built in
> browser based on Firefox, which has no back key ;>{  Love Foxfire, but it
> didn't scale down well.

Got this one backwards, "yum update". Incidentally, yum is a Fedora (and 
related) command, not a Linux wide one as most of the others are. urpmi on 
Mandriva, yast on SUSE, apt on Debian based systems. (Probably others...) And 
no, they do not work exactly the same. Linux is wonderful like this, every 
thing is same only different:)

> That way my daughter can run it, but it is hidden from her kids, which the
> potential they will get her into trouble by going to sites inappropriate in
> Elementary School!

Ah, Opera is hidden by being started from the terminal and not in the 
activities tray. Someone will find it sooner or later. Probably sooner if she 
takes it to school!

> I'll post this to the list as well, where people more knowledgeable than
> myself can perfect these instructions!
>
> Every day, in every way, a Teacher counts!

To teach is to learn. 

Just Googled this and found I have been leaving one word out of the quote. I 
like my version better:)
-- 
William