| Moving to Peanut Linux |
by Walter Kruse (Mar. 14, 2003)
Walter Kruse offers up his experiences with Peanut Linux. Not talked about as often as more high profile commercial distros, this flavor of Linux is fast, lightweight, and suited to both new and advanced users. Kruse steps us through his reasons for making a move to Peanut as his distribution of choice and offers us some tips and links for customizing the environment . . .
Moving to Peanut Linux
by Walter Kruse
I was introduced to Linux quite accidentally three years ago and now I am addicted. My first installation was RedHat 6.0. Someone just gave me a CD when he heard that I wasn't satisfied with the operating system I had. I remember that first boot. Nothing made sense. I forgot the root password before I even finished the install (didn't think it was important). It took three days to find out I must type Xconfigurator after logging in as root. I had to reinstall and remember root password this time. Then I configured X and typed startx. A wonderful, fresh new GUI appeared, without blowing the monitor. Not too long after that a friend heard this and gave me a Mandrake 7.0 CD. I ran mdk7 for over a year and then gradually made my way through 7.2, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2 and finally version 9. At work I began using SQL and got to know Oracle (which runs on SunOS 5.6). Then I started using MySQL and PostgreSQL and all the client tools I could lay my hands on. I have also seen StarOffice grow up from 5.1 to, now, OpenOffice 1.0.2.
Of late I have become dissatisfied with mdk's tons and tons of additional software and RPM dependencies. I surfed, looking for a distro with a smaller footprint. Apart from the two above mentioned, I had short stints with SuSE and Corel Linux in the past. When I saw distrowatch's vast listing of flavors, I knew that there must be something else out there. Enter Peanut.
Boot from CD
I had to twist a few arms, and someone downloaded the boot iso and all the additional RPM's for me and put it all on three CD's. My test configuration is 120MHz Intel Pentium, 48 Meg RAM, 1 Meg S3 display card, 1 speed CDROM, Avance Logic 120 on board sound and a 4.3 Gig HDD. When I booted up, the difference was already there. A text install. Very simple. The first menu option is to install Peanut, modify an existing installation, or edit partitions. I chose to edit partitions. That option leads to a choice between PartEd or CFDISK. I chose the latter. I set up a 200 Meg swap and the rest for root. I then had hda1, with extended partitions hda5 / and hda6 /swap. Next, you choose your preferred filesystem. What I missed was the ability to name mount points for various partitions here (used diskdrake too much). I have never used ReiserFS, so I tried it, and then the file copy from peanut.bz2 starts. After about 30 minutes, the NNTR (no need to reboot) setup menu was displayed. Easy steps, really, if you have used Linux before. All my hardware configured. The setup allows you to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules directly and uncomment any additional drivers you want loaded at boot. I enabled vfat filesystem support. Another feature I liked, is that you can at any time return to this menu by entering setup.
The X configuration test failed, but worked after a reboot. Strange thing: neither RH or mdk since early versions (6 and 7, respectively) to recent ones ever found and correctly configured the sound chip on this old test box of mine. What do you know: �Hello, this is Linus.....� . Sound works. LILO configured fine, writing to MBR. Then I rebooted.
X
Enlightenment is the default windowing system. Not for me, but it worked on first startx. I wanted KDE and XFce. In order to install KDE, there is a certain path through the RPM's you must follow to satisfy dependencies. Very handy is mc, especially for someone who grew up, so to speak, with Norton Commander. A new thing that I did not know until now, is that with mc you can look inside an RPM package, find an install script, and execute it. I still prefer rpm -ivh. It took me approximately two weeks to get the RPM dependencies right and run KDE for the first time. I don't know if this is documented somewhere, or if I am supposed to just know this. I don't. The order that I found by trial and error that works is as follows: glib2, atk, pango, gtk2, qt3. I had to install Python with �nodeps, then kdelibs installed fine. Next, all the kde* packages, also with �nodeps. Then edit /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc by commenting the E paths and uncommenting the KDE paths. This will make KDE your default. Type startx, and there you go. You can also select kdm, or, by running Xconfigurator again, you can let kdm start at boot.
First of all, KDE3 performs better on my test box with Peanut, than even KDE2 did under mdk or RH. I don't know if this is due to the ReiserFS, which I heard is faster, or if it is just better support in Xfree86 4.3.X. Anyway, I was surprised. I also really like the default Keramik style, and you can set up the rendering according to your processor speed. It seems that all the screensavers in the world were included here. I missed the nice ones that were excluded form mdk9.
I wasn't here to stay, though. I normally work using XFce. The XFce cvs RPM installed no problem. At the command line, type startxfce. It didn't work, so I quickly typed xfce_setup, and it started up. I am still very impressed with the look and feel of this particular version (20020913-cvs).
Other software
One thing which is a little disappointing, is that the OpenOffice RPM uses the normal install script, so you only get a current user installation. You have to know how to do a network install to get it to be available for all users. This is in the OO documents. I like the new KAppfinder. In my previous experience, it just slapped all the software found somewhat randomly into your menu. This version gives you a choice which ones you would like added to the menu. All the standard tools are there: KPPP, KMail, Mozilla, Konqueror, KPackage, Netscape, XMMS, CUPS, Gimp, KOffice, AcrobatReader, AbiWord, KEdit, KWrite, VIM, MySQL, plus the usual games and toys and lots more. I think this menu layout is the most logical I have seen in all the distro's/versions I've used.
A tool that I really miss is Linuxconf. But I can live without it.
Hardware
I habitually use two HDD's in a PC. One for the OS, and another that I use as a dataslave, for documents etc. The mount has to be done manually with mount -t vfat /dev/hdc5 /mnt/hdc5. This didn't work, so I found that I have to delete the hda5 mount point automatically created by the installation process and recreate it as root, then no problem. (hdc5 and not hdc1 because it is an extended DOS partition, I learned). Now all my requirements are met. Floppy's and CDROM's are also mounted with the command-line nowadays.
In closing
Peanut is my new distro of choice. Admittedly, Mandrake is much easier to use (almost idiot proof), but I am no longer a newbie, I suppose. Peanut made me learn to do some command-line stuff, that were either automatically done or could be done in X with other distro's. In all, I have everything I need, and I can still do everything I could do with that other operating system. I had to (and probably will continuously) learn new things. That is what it is all about for me.
Peanut Linux can be found here, and some additional information is available here (where there are folders with material intended for particular versions).
About the author:
Walter Kruse is a software tester by day, Linux enthusiast by night. He is not a hacker or even programmer for that matter. When asked, Walter is not sure how many times he has installed Linux "just because I wanted to see what would happen if I change this ... OSS has given me the opportunity to tinker with and explore things I never thought were available."
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