Managing Backtrack, or any Linux distro for that matter

[HTSPilot]

I still have basic hardware functionality with my 6000's Fn keys. I can control brightness and kill the wireless card. I can also use the "number pad" jkl, uio, 789 but I have no need for it.

[ghowriter]

I have searched this and many other forums for info on customizing backtrack and/or the slackware running the system and I havent been able to find any help for my specific system so I am posting here in hopes that those more knowledgable than I can offer a little help in pointing me to the info I seek. (BTW: everyone here is likely more knowledgable than I, I do not normally use any version of Linux thus I am a newbie to the whole OS. I took a Linux class in college, an intro of sorts which covered very basic things.)

Anyway, here goes:

I installed BackTrack on the hard drive in a dual boot (I couldnt get the process described in these forums to work so I used the process exampled in my class text that was for FC4 and it worked perfectly and uses ntloader instead of lilo or grub).

When I load BackTrack from the hard drive I have to type dhcpcd into the terminal to initialize the laptop ethernet card every time, i would like this done automatically, however i cannot find a place to make it happen.

Next, I would like to include my system specific drivers to BackTrack because (1) the generic drivers are blah, and (2) a few devices do not get installed (wireless NIC for one) but I cannot find the driver files I need either because I dont know what they are or because I dont know where to look.

My laptop is an ACER 5002wLMI
1024M RAM (128 shared with video)
SiS m760gx video adapter
ac'97 realtek audio
SiS 900-Based PCI ethernet (installed and working)
Broadcom 802.11g wireless NIC (not installed)
Agere Systems AC'97 Modem (installed, i think)
Texas Instruments PCI-1410 CardBus Controller (I dont know if this is installed or not)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind my limited knowledge of the Linux OS and know that I am willing and wanting to learn.

Thank you.

[xatar]

simple way to auto enable dhcpcd:

cd /root/.kde/Autostart

ln -s /sbin/dhcpcd

That will start DHCP discovery on all interfaces when KDE starts.

As for the drivers? Don't know, I was lucky and my Tosh works perfectly with everything!

later,

[armedpilot]

The best way to start dhcpcd at boot up, is to uncomment the lines (between the "for" and the "done", except for the two actual comment lines) in "/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1". That's how it's suppose to start. Try the "lspci" and "lsmod" commands, including "man"ing them to see if your hardware is being recognized, and if drivers are being loaded. Otherwise, do a google search for "linux <yourhardware>".

[ghowriter]

Both methods worked for getting dhcp up and running on the SiS 900 NIC, thank you.

I did google the device's searching for drivers. I found some at for driver guide that claim are for linux, but upon opening the zip, i found windows ini files and this goes on. It would help if i could discern exactly what kind of broadcom is in this machine. Windows simply reports it as a broadcom 802.11g... not very helpful at all.

In my list, i forgot to list the software that isnt installed.

Video is, naturally.
Sound isnt.
Wired NIC is.
Wireless isnt.
Modem is.

Here's the kicker, lspci says all but the wireless NIC is installed. I disagree since i have no sound!! lol

okay, well, thanks for the help, i really do appreciate it.

[killnine]

This is a sweet thread, very helpful. Thanks

[ShD!nEx]

to stop the KDE Startsound just delete or rename

/opt/kde/share/sounds/KDE_Start_up_1.ogg

[bgrimm]

What is the prefered method of updating installed packages on a Backtrack HDD Install. (Full install not livecd).

Is it okay to use #slapt-get --distro-upgrade and let it exclude/update/remove packages automatically?

Can I also use the --remove-obsolete option to clean up ok?

How about RPM package manager?

Example: NMap 4.03 was released as RPM binary
http://www.insecure.org/nmap/install...tall-from-rpms

I retrieved package as instructed but how to I install/replace the existing nmap install/package (4.00) ?


-bg

[ashtar5]

I had fun changing the login screen. I just wanted a black screen with the cursor blinking and "hostname login" printed. That way it doesn't scream "backtrack!" ..lol.. Anyways, I found it by going into /etc and doing grep -H toor *(this will find the file that says login with username root and password toor, so we know where to edit). I just deleted everything in that file.

P.S. How do I change the backtrack 2 background in KDE? The dragon is sweet, but not very discrete.

[archangel.amael]

Originally Posted by ashtar5

I had fun changing the login screen. I just wanted a black screen with the cursor blinking and "hostname login" printed. That way it doesn't scream "backtrack!" ..lol.. Anyways, I found it by going into /etc and doing grep -H toor *(this will find the file that says login with username root and password toor, so we know where to edit). I just deleted everything in that file.

P.S. How do I change the backtrack 2 background in KDE? The dragon is sweet, but not very discrete.

On the desktop right click with the mouse and choose configure desktop.