Manual configuration - how do you guys do it?

[Hej]

Greetings,
I'm curious how the veteran Zaurus users go about tweaking and manually configuring their units, namely the 5600.  I'm curious what the easiest way you've found is to edit the text files that don't have a .txt extension (thus the built in text editor won't open them).

Also, I tried copying the file onto my PC and editing it there, then copying it back, but apparently I don't have permissions for writing the file in question.  Running the terminal and trying to use 'su' to operate as root didn't help.  Any help is welcome, as I am definately not a *nix expert....

Thanks in advance,
Hej

[iamasmith]

I use 'vi', it's not very friendly but you only need to learn it once and it's on every Linux/UNIX system around (well mostly).

If you can't copy file back even as root then it's probably related to what you are trying to overwrite. On a Qtopia type ROM (including Cacko) many files are stored in a read only root partition and then symlinked out into the user partition.
Most configuration files that you would possibly want to change are copied to the user partition so you could overwrite them so it would be useful to know which file you are trying to edit that you can't replace as the user root. (also which ROM would be useful too!).

[Hej]

If you can't copy file back even as root then it's probably related to what you are trying to overwrite.

The problem was that I wasn't able to login as root in the first place.  I would use 'su', and it would change my bash prompt to just the # sign (usually means you're root), but echo $USER showed that I was still logged in as "zaurus".  I have since discovered sulogin, and now echo $USER shows "root".

I think at this point I've decided that it would be alot easier to telnet/ssh into my Zaurus from my laptop, where I'd have a much bigger screen and a real keyboard, to do my .conf file editing.  Now I just need to figure out how to allow a remote session, and maybe put something a little more friendly than vi on my Zaurus.

To answer what I think was your question, I'm trying to edit wlan-ng.conf.  The reading I've done suggests that I need to add to this for my Hawking H-CF30W wireless card to work properly.  I'd rather make this one work instead of exchanging it, as it was $35 cheaper than everything else at the store (I didn't want to mail order it) and the antenna has a very slim, unobtrusive profile.

-Hej

[blakeyez]

If you really want a login shell using 'su', try:

Code: [Select]

$ su -
(enter password)
# whoami
root
#
Adding that dash after su should do it.

As for editing config files, yeah, try using vi from an ssh terminal, makes things much easier

Dave