Taprobane GNU/Linux Version 0.4.1
Special edition for Academia
Starting Taprobane. Boot from the Taprobane GNU/Linux CDROM and hit ENTER key at the boot: prompt. Please consult your hardware vendor if you have trouble booting from CD. You may have to set the boot device order in the CMOS setup.
If everything goes well, the K Desktop Environment (KDE) will show up. The live CD will not use the hard disks. Instead it will create a temporary ramdisk. But this will reduce the RAM space available for other programs. Also, the files on the CDROM are compressed, and decompressing will take time. Therefore, it is natural for the live CD to perform slower than an installed GNU/Linux system.
Passwords. Taprobane and other programs (PostgreSQL, MySQL and Zope) come with a user account with the username and the password both set to taprobane. Super user (administrator) is called root and the password is also root. PostgreSQL admin account and password are both set to postgres. MySQL admin is root with a blank password (no password).
Educational software. Most of the educational software are in the Edutainment section of the K menu. Additional packages can be found under Debian -> Apps. Here are some of the popular ones in the CD:
GNU Octave: MatlabTM clone
KmPlot: function plotter
Gperiodic and Kalzium: periodic table
Ktouch: typing tutor
Stellarium and Kstars: astronomy
Celestia, SSystem and Open Universe: 3D travel through the universe
Xaos: fractals
Chemtool: drawing chemical diagrams
Programming languages. Taprobane comes with many programming languages (compilers, interpreters and integrated development environments). GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is included for C and C++ programming along with other GNU tools (make, autoconf, automake etc.). Perl, Python and addon modules are included to write scripts. PHP is also included for server side scripting of web pages.
FreePascal is very similar to TurboTM Pascal. Unfortunately, it is not in the menus, so you have to start a terminal (System -> Konsole) and run the fp command to get into the IDE. Inside the IDE, set the target (Compile -> Target) to Linux for i386 before attempting to compile a Pascal program.
Java Virtual Machine and runtime libraries are included, but the SDK is not included.
BWBASIC is a simple environment for BASIC programming similar to BBC BASIC or GWBASICTM. Gambas is more closer to Visual BasicTM.
Kommander is a GUI based dynamic dialog editor. Kdialog and dialog are handy tools to create GUI programs quickly using shell scripts.
Databases. We have included PostgreSQL and MySQL database servers in Taprobane 0.4. They can be started or stopped through Servers menu. If you are a command line fan, use the tools psql and mysql in a shell to access them, otherwise, see the next section about the easy-to-use tools for database access.
If MySQL doesn't start up with the first attempt (this is a known issue in this release of the Taprobane Live CD and not a MySQL bug), try stopping it and starting again.
Managing the databases with admin tools. PostgreSQL and MySQL database can be easily be administrated using the phppgadmin and phpmyadmin tools.
Start PostgreSQL or MySQL (Servers -> PostgreSQL -> Start PostgreSQL).
Start Apache (Servers -> Apache -> Start Apache).
Click Links on the desktop.
Click PostgreSQL administration or MySQL administration.
Check the section on passwords above for logging in details.
Remastering. You can change Taprobane and create customized CDROMs. Changes can range from setting a new wallpaper or splash screen to completely different selections of programs (e.g.: a games CD). You will need a Linux partition with a lot of free space (3-4 GB recommended). Use the command prepare-for-remaster. The following uses a directory (folder) taprobane on the 4th partition (hda4).
taprobane:~ % su -
Password:
taprobane:~ # prepare-for-remaster.sh /mnt/hda4/taprobane
This creates a directory structure necessary for remastering. Afterwards “chroot” into the source/gnu-linux directory, do the necessary changes and create (touch) a blank file called chroot-stamp. You can also simply use make chroot.
taprobane:~ # cd /mnt/hda4/taprobane
taprobane:/mnt/hda4/taprobane # make chroot
After customizing is complete, running make should create a new ISO image.
Known issues in Taprobane 0.4. Due to a minor bug in the kernel setup, a large number of messages are generated which will eventually fill the RAM. This can be worked around by deleting the relevant log files. Use the super user's password (root) for the su command. This is fixed in 0.4.1.
taprobane:~ % su -
Password:
taprobane:~ # cd /var/log
taprobane:/var/log # rm messages syslog kern.log
Taprobane GNU/Linux is a project of the Lanka Linux User Group (LK-LUG).
Taprobane home page is http://taprobane.org and that of LK-LUG is http://www.linux.lk.
This guide was prepared by Anuradha Ratnaweera (anuradha@taprobane.org)