[aclug-L] Typical computer stuff

[Nathan & Jenny <njcozzen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Howdy ya'll,

Linux novice here.  I've had a little success only to run into more 
problems.  I'm wondering if anyone can help.

I'm using RedHat 6.0.  I've been struggling with my modem (USR Sportster 
PnP), finally getting it to work by putting it on tty1.  Linux didn't like 
it on tty2.  I move right into getting my ppp, pop3 and smtp set up.  I 
successfully got onto the web and downloaded some mail.  All seemed to be 
going well.  There were a few strange occurences though.

First, the only way I could find to connect to my ISP was by clicking the 
"Activate" button in the Network Configurator.  The strange part was that 
once activated, many of the normal Gnome functions didn't work.  I couldn't 
shutdown....I couldn't open Netscape....and lots of other stuff.  I 
couldn't even get the Network Configurator to open again so I could 
"Deactivate" the ppp connection.  Finally I had to use 
<Ctrl><Alt><Backspace> to get back to a login screen.  From there, it 
wouldn't let me login.  I had to use the buttons on the login screen to 
shutdown.  Then I restarted the machine and tried again.

This time, I started Netscape before activating the ppp.  Netscape's home 
page was previously set to an htm on my Win98 partition.  Since this 
partition wasn't yet mounted, it came back with an error.  I went into 
netscape and changed the home page, but it didn't stick 'till I came back 
and did it again later.  I set up my proxies, activated my ppp, and it 
showed me my first glimpse of the web from Linux.  Probably due to some 
Microsoft habit, I closed Netscape, reboot the machine, and try again, just 
to be sure it REALLY worked.  It did, but this is when I found out my home 
page change didn't stick the first time.

Throughout all of this, there were quite a few times when Netscape froze up 
on me, forcing me to forcibly destroy it.  I'm not sure if this is has bad 
consequences or not.  After doing this for the first time on each fresh 
boot, I'd get a message the next time I tried to open Netscape that said 
something about a file called "/root/.netscape/lock" and not being able to 
use caching.

On about the fourth reboot, the startup stagnated on a line saying the 
/dev/hda8 had reached it's maximum mount count.  It sat there for a while, 
but finally continued to boot.  When I logged in, the computer seemed to 
take forever to bring up Gnome.  This happened once before, but I never got 
to the bottom of it because I reinstalled Linux for other reasons.  Gnome 
did finally come up and look normal.  However, when I tried to shutdown the 
system, the shutdown wouldn't work.  I had to type "shutdown" from a 
terminal.

1.  What's the deal with the maximum mount count on hda8?

2.  Does anyone know how to fix the Gnome shutdown command so that it 
seems?

3.  When I get the error message about /root/.netscape/lock, what can I do 
to reset things back to normal?  Delete that file?

4.  Is there an easier way to tell my modem to call the ISP?  I'd like to 
be able to open netscape, and have the modem do it's thing automatically.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Nate Cozzens

Learning Linux for relief.  Still waiting, but hopeful.