Using Lynx to Obtain a File and Install it
by David Johns and Jonathan Arehart
1999.11.21.02

Linux is generally bundled with a host of powerful tools. One of these tools is Lynx, a text-based web browser and anonymous ftp client. This document is intended to perform two functions: get the user acquainted with Lynx, and install a kernel module obtained by using Lynx.

Obtaining a file using Lynx

Lynx is executed on the command line in one of two ways: either by simply typing "lynx" and then using the built-in browsing capabilities of the program to get somewhere, or by passing it a url on the command line, such as "lynx http://foo.bar.com/".

If one executes Lynx without any other parameters, then it will be necessary to use some of the built in functions of Lynx to move around, since your default page will most likely not provide you with a link to absolutely everything you want. Pressing -g- will let you type in a url to download and display. Pressing -?- will provide you with a webpage designed to help you get around in Lynx. For the purposes of this class, however, it is simpler just to provide a URL at the command line.

[user@computer directory]$ lynx

To obtain the file we need to install, type "lynx www.linuxaustin.com/members/files/" at the command line. Keep in mind that this is an abbreviated form of the full url "http://www.linuxaustin.com/members/files/". (Lynx can also accept ftp and sometimes other urls, and is especially useful as a text-only ftp browser.) Once the page has been displayed, there should be a listing of several files on screen, one of which will be highlighted. Pressing the up-and-down arrows will change which file is highlighted. Find the file "dmfe.o" and press -d-. This will download the file highlighted. Once the file is downloaded, a new screen will be displayed. Press -Enter- to save the file to disk, and press -Enter- again to accept the filename. Then, press -q- to quit.

[user@computer directory]$ lynx www.linuxaustin.com/members/files/

Installing a kernel module

Kernel modules are as close as one comes to a binary driver in Linux. In this particular case, the source code to the driver is available, but finding and compiling the source code to a kernel module is really out of the scope of this class. With that in mind, we prepared this module for you, since it doesn't come compiled in the default RedHat 6.0 distribution.

Once you have downloaded the module, it will be in the directory in which you started Lynx, unless you specify otherwise. To install it, you must be the root user (or superuser). If you are not logged in as root, type "su" to become root; this stands for "switch user" and makes you root if you don't pass it any parameters. It can also switch to another user account if you know the password for it. It will ask you for a password, unless you are root already: you should supply it with the password that was set for the root account earlier in setup.

[user@computer directory]$ su
password:
[root@computer directory]#

Now that you're root, you can accomplish all sorts of things. However, the only thing that's important to do at this point in installing the kernel module is to copy the file "dmfe.o" to the appropriate place. Linuxconf will handle the rest. The appropriate place is the directory /lib/modules/kernel version number/net/. With RedHat 6.0, the default kernel version is 2.2.5-15. So, your command line would be "cp dmfe.o /lib/modules/2.2.5-15/net/". Also, you should execute the command "depmod -a" once it is copied. The depmod command will return an error. This command determines at what point in loading modules a specific module will be used, so it needs to be re-run anytime you add a module.

[root@computer directory]# cp dmfe.o /lib/modules/2.2.5-15/net/
[root@computer directory]# depmod -a

That is all that needs to be done to install a module when using linuxconf. For more information about dealing with modules by hand, you should examine the manual pages for some module-related commands. Also, many modules are distributed as part of the kernel, and so some instructions may be found in the kernel howto.