steve yee

SORRY in advance FOR THE LENGTHY POST:
-----------------------------------------------------

I must say, the learning curve for Linux is steep and at times dizzying.
I'm a not-so-new Newbie.

I JUST upgraded from RH6.2 to 7.3..and right off the bat there are all
these errata and package updates to do.

Yesterday i bumbled through getting my adsl sw (rp-pppoe-3.5) installed
on this new box. I didn't have gcc installed and the sw wouldn't
install. It installed and worked fine on v6.2 with Gcc installed.

Using RPM,I tried to install the rpm for Gcc, but ended up with an error
message that the kernel-header package could not be found and that
"glibc-devel-2.25-34 requires kernel-header." I searched the disk and
could not find the so called "kernel-headers." I told RPM to go ahead
and install Gcc anyway. However, in the end, the dsl sw still failed to
install.

After a while of fiddling with RPM I decided to try re-installing the OS
and this time selecting Development Tools. Sigh.
So then I tried to install the dsl sw again, it still fails.

I found a slightly newer version (3.5.1) of the sw on their website. I
download and installed using RPM. It failed to install the gui for the
sw. I look thru the system tree, and found that the essential part of
the sw did install (i think) except for the gui. I am now able to run
the adsl-start,adsl-stop and adsl-status scripts. I edited the
configuration file. NOW I'm able to connect via dsl but only via the
command prompt.It's real simple but, i wish I had the gui also.

This was a lot of headache and tiring work.I called it a day.

Anway, I then did the RHN register via Netscape. And there were 98
errata and 200+ packages for me to update. When I tried to use the
browser to update, it seemed that the updates were scheduled, but
nothing was happening. I left machine alone for maybe 5 hours.

Eventually, I checked and I realize that some updates did seem to have
taken place but many failed. I didn't know why.
THEN, I tried using Up2date program instead. That seemed to work, except
I told it not to update kernel. So, then I decide to do it again and
this time update the kernel. This seemed to have gone fine.Then I rebooted.

Well, NOW it won't boot. GRUB now has 2 options for the 2 kernels. The
old and new. When I select the new one, after about a sec of scrolling
text it goes into an endless loop. The last line is:

[<c020c16f>] .text.lock.1gmp [kernel] 0xe2 (0xc16fc01e))
[<c020c16f>] .text.lock.1gmp [kernel] 0xe2 (0xc16fc022))


That's it! An endless loop.

The good news is, I am able to boot up with the older kernel.

SO, I got a message at a command prompt when I opened a shell that I had
a message..it was a log file..LogWatch?

Anyway, basically there were a lot of lines saying that various packets
were denied.

eg.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Denied packets from 62.29.114.190.
Port netbios-ns (udp,ppp0,input): 1 packet(s).
Total of 1 packet(s).

Denied packets from adsl-66-72-40-69.dialup.covlil.ameritech.net
(66.72.40.69).
Port netbios-ns (udp,ppp0,input): 1 packet(s).
Total of 1 packet(s).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


I'm wondering if the dsl sw configured a firewall which rejected
packages during the update and that's why some of the update didn't work.

BTW my next step was to try and set up a firewall to protect the machine
when on line with the adsl. I want to keep it continually connected and
perhaps be a Gateway and Firewall for other machines (linux and windows).

All HELP is appreciated.

Again, sorry for the long post and hope I made a little bit of sense in
explaining my exploits and predicaments.