Lab 5: Installing Software Packages

The purpose of this lab is to install, manage, and remove software packages using both the UNIX tar command and the RedHat Package Manager (rpm)
Read through this lab before actually doing it, so that you'll know what information you will be collecting and turning in.

Background

A software program may be as simple as a single executable, e.g. putty.exe, but more often, software products come with several executables, configuration files, help files, documentation, and possibly their own libraries. All these separate files need to stay together in their own directory hierarchy, or they need to be installed in various system directories. The challenge of an easy, effective installation is to keep track of all these files and where they are installed, so that they may be later updated or removed. This is the job of Package Managers such as RedHat Package Manager and the tar/gzip utilities in UNIX. In this lab you will install Adobe's Acrobat Reader for Linux from a compressed tarball, and a product called mtools using the RedHat Package Manager.

Software installation usually involves copying files to locations that require root access; therefore, you will do this lab as root.

Step One

You will install Adobe Acrobrat Reader for Linux and verify successfull installation by viewing the file unixfs.pdf downloaded from the CIS191A website.
  1. Using your browser, download the following file to root's home directory:
    http://www.cabrillo.edu/~jgriffin/CIS191/files/resources/unixfs.pdf
  2. Browse to Adobe's Acrobat Website and download Acrobat Reader for Linux:
    1. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
    2. Select Linux for the platform. (Note: all Linuxes constitute a single platform; this is very nice for software developers.)
    3. Choose broadband for the connection speed.
    4. Click on Continue and then Download
    5. Note the filename of the package: linux-509.tar.gz and the directory to which you are saving the file.
  3. Note that the tarball is compressed; how can you tell?
  4. View what is in the tarball with the following command:
    tar tzvf linux-509.tar.gz
    What do the above options mean?
  5. Create a directory, adobe, to extract the tarball in.
  6. Change directory to adobe and extract the tarball:
    tar xzvf what-goes-here?
  7. Install the application by running the INSTALL script.
    Note: the install script will ask you to accept an EULA and will ask you for a directory into which the installation will go. Select the default: /usr/local/Acrobat5
  8. List the contents of the Acrobat5 directory.
    Where do you think the executable might be?
  9. Try running the executable script:
    acroread
    Why didn't it run? What can you do about this?
  10. Make a symbolic link from /usr/local/bin/acroread to /usr/local/Acrobat5/bin/acroread:
    ln -s /usr/local/Acrobat5/bin/acroread /usr/local/bin/acroread
  11. Now verify your successful installation by reading the unixfs.pdf file you downloaded in step 1.
  12. Uninstall Acrobat Reader. For instructions on how to do this, check the README file.
    Hint: grep for the word, uninstall.

Step Two

You will now install a popular set of DOS tools for manipulating DOS files under Linux. The package is called mtools and is available from a Linux installation CD as well as from numerous web sites e.g. rpmfind.net
  1. Download the mtools-3.9.8-7.i386.rpm package from http://rpmfind.net
  2. View information about this package with the command:
    rpm -qip mtools*
  3. List the files contained in the package:
    rpm -qlp mtools* | more
    Note all the programs installing into /usr/bin. Note all the man page doocumentation.
  4. Install the package:
    rpm -ihv mtools*
  5. Modify the /etc/mtools.conf file to map the C drive to /dev/hdb1, or wherever you may have a DOS partition on your system. If you don't have a DOS partition, you may use a DOS floppy such as your Linux boot disk.
    (Hint: Notice how drives are mapped at the start of the file. # is a comment character.)
  6. Test the functionality of the following mtool commands:
    1. mdir c: or mdir a:
      Note: you do not have to mount the file system!
    2. mtype c:autoexec.bat or mtype a:syslinux.cfg
    3. mcopy c:autoexec.bat auto.bat or mcopy a:boot.msg
    4. Other mtool commands are listed in the "see-also" section of the mtools man page.
  7. Remove the mtools package:
    rpm -e mtools

To turn in

  1. A long listing of the files contained in the linux-509.tar.gz tarball.
  2. A recursive long listing of the Acrobat5 installation directory.
  3. A listing of files contained in the mtools rpm package.
  4. A copy of the /etc/mtools.conf file
Concatenate the output of the above into a file called lab5. and secure copy it to the CIS191 account on opus.cabrillo.edu using the following command:
scp lab5 CIS191@opus.cabrillo.edu:lab5.logname

Grading Rubric

5 points -
For showing the correct long listing of the files in the acrobat tarball
5 points -
For a correct installation directory hierarchy for Acrobat5
5 points -
For a correct listing of the files in the mtools-3.9.8-7.i386.rpm package
5 points -
For the /etc/mtools.conf file showing the mapping of C: to the MS-DOS partition.