[daip] AIPS linux installation

[Patrick P. Murphy]

"EG" == Eric Greisen <egreisen at cv3.cv.nrao.edu> writes:

EG> Neal A Miller writes:

NM> when trying to RUN FILAIPS I get the warnings about no defined

You could also have said "RUN FILAIP DA=SILMARIL" to force the RUN script
to include any data area matching the string "SILMARIL".  This is a seldom
used but occasionally life-saving feature, borrowed from the AIPS startup
scripts. 

And Eric's suggestion is also valid, though there are issues with having
one system's data area always getting included (especially if it's first
in the list), if you have many AIPS systems.

NM> Also, I have some general Linux questions that should help my
NM> AIPS installation run much more smoothly. In my Linux installation,
NM> the swap space was set at a small value (an error in the installation
NM> instructions led me to falsely believe I shouldn't go above 128 MB).

Quote from a Linux guru colleague of mine (not at NRAO): "Swap is for
wimps"  :-)  He actually runs without ANY swap space whatever -- but he
does have either 192 or 256 megs of main memory.  I don't recommend this,
but apparently the way Linux manages memory is subtly different if there's
not a single byte of swap defined on the system.  I'll take his word for
it and keep my swap partition for now!

NM> Is there an easy way to fix this?

Two ways:

  1) Add a swap file (as root), e.g. for an extra 256 megs:

      bash# cd /wherever
      bash# dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1024 count=262144
      bash# mkswap /wherever/swapfile
      bash# swapon /wherever/swapfile
      bash# emacs /etc/fstab
            ... or vi or some other editor: add line like this:
                /wherever/swapfile   none  swap  sw

     The last step makes sure the swap space is used on each reboot.

  2) use "parted" (see rpm -qi description below) to resize partitions so
     that your existing swap partition is bigger at the expense of
     neighbouring partitions.  WARNING: you need to be CAREFUL with
     parted; NEVER use it on a mounted partition!  You probably want to
     boot from your boot floppy or CD in "rescue" mode to run this program
     (and you'll want to temporarily mount /usr or whatever to copy parted
     to the RAM disk first); and you should read the documentation that
     comes with parted (/usr/share/doc/parted-1.4.7/README at least)
     before using it.

I've used parted to adjust swap partitions on my home laptop, and it works
like a charm as long as you understand what you're doing.  It resized
existing ext2 partitions, and allowed me to expand, contract and even
delete partitions with no problem whatever.  You should have a good
understanding of main and extended partitions first.

Hope this helps.
                                - Pat




Name        : parted                       Relocations: (not relocateable)
Version     : 1.4.7                        Vendor: Red Hat, Inc.
Release     : 2                            Build Date: Fri 23 Feb 2001 07:29:24 PM EST
Install date: Fri 21 Sep 2001 09:36:22 AM EDT      Build Host: porky.devel.redhat.com
Group       : Applications/System          Source RPM: parted-1.4.7-2.src.rpm
Size        : 497382                       License: GPL
Packager    : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>
Summary     : The GNU disk partition manipulation program.
Description :
The GNU Parted program allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and
copy hard disk partitions. Parted can be used for creating space for
new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, and copying data to
new hard disks.