MPrime on Linux

optim · 2003-11-05, 10:39

Hello,

I just installed MPrime 23.5 on my Slackware Linux 9.1 (kernel 2.4.22) machine that I use for learning Linux.

I have some questions:
1. is it better to run MPrime on a terminal window under KDE/GNOME or run it at another text console (for example, running mprime on console 1 and KDE on console 7)
2. how can I exit MPrime while it is runing?
3. how can I pause MPrime?
4. my Linux machine connects to the internet thru my proxy server, which runs on my Windows machine. These two machines are sharing the same monitor/keyboard/mouse by using a KVM switch, but usually I only use the windows machine. I have set up MPrime to think that it is always connected to the Internet by using RouteRequired=0 in the primenet.ini file. I have a dial-up ISDN connection, so I have to manually dial up my ISP when MPrime needs to contact PrimeNet. Is there any way to make MPrime beep thru the PC speaker when it wants to connect to the Internet? I want to be able to know when my linux machine needs internet access without switching the KVM switch.
5. is CTRL+Z a good way of stopping MPrime ?
6. Is there any special procedure that I should follow before shutting down my Linux box? Usually I shut down using this command:
shutdown -h now
is it okay? should I exit MPrime before shutting down or not?
7. is there any graphical PrimeNet client for KDE or GNOME? will George make one?

thats enough for now, thanks for reading my post!

Xyzzy · 2003-11-05, 14:55

Run it via cron or in the background...

nohup ./mprime &

CTRL+Z just pauses a process...

When you reboot or shutdown, Mprime will "see" the shutdown and stop cleanly...

If you need to kill Mprime use top or ps to get the process id and use kill...

GP2 · 2003-11-05, 15:33

2. If you're running mprime directly in a terminal window, you can use CTRL-C to terminate it like any other program. Or, if it's running in the background, you can use the "ps" command to find out its PID and then use the "kill" command.

3. There's no reason to pause it, just kill it and later restart it.

4. You can force a manual connection. Dial up and establish your ISDN connection, then run "mprime -m" to get the menu. Choose 12 (Advanced/Manual communication):

Contact PrimeNet server automatically:
Contact PrimeNet server now:
Send new expected completion dates to server:

Accept the answers above?

Answer "Y" to "Contact PrimeNet server now"

After communciation with the PrimeNet server is complete, choose 6 (Test/Exit) to quit the menu.

5. CTRL-Z just suspends a process, which you can then resume with the "fg" shell command. There's really no point in doing this for mprime, just CTRL-C to kill it (which causes it to write a save file) and then restart it again later. CTRL-Z suspend does NOT cause mprime to write a save file, so if you shut your system down after CTRL-Zing mprime you may lose up to half an hour of work.

7. There is no graphical client for Linux.

QuintLeo · 2003-11-05, 22:58

I've always run mprime on non-XWindow machines, so can't address the 'terminal window vs. whatever" question.

Control-Z is a not real good idea with mprime, in my experience - better to kill -9 it, it shuts down cleanly that way and then you can just restart it later.

mprime is quite fine with a standard shutdown sequence - no need to shut it down seperately then reboot the machine. It even tolerates "bad" shutdowns by power failure and the like, though you will lose any data since the last save file update in those cases.

There is no graphical client for Prime under any OS that I'm aware of - even the Windows client is a text-mode client, I'm pretty sure. Making it a graphical-mode client would slow it down at best....

Is your ISDN connection "measured service", or "unmeasured service"? If it's unmeasured, why not keep it up all the time? I had unmeasured ISDN service for a while, and it seemed to be pretty good at staying up for days at a time....

garo · 2003-11-06, 00:07

QuitLeo,
Surely you mean "kill -2". kill -9 does not force a write to savefile which can mean loss of work whereas kill -2 does.

optim · 2003-11-06, 08:20

Thanks for your answers.

Since I am in Greece I have to pay about 0.3 euro for each hour of Intenet usage during the day and 0.17 euro in the night, plus the ISDN connection cost (more than 12 euro per month) and the ISP account cost (from 50 to 80 euro every 3 months depending on different ISPs). I suppose this is what you call measured. These prices are for 64kbit ISDN. For 128kbit ISDN the usage prices are doubled. Also note that the service is not very good, since we have disconnects every some hours.

Unmeasured ADSL just appeared in Greece, but it costs more than 80 euro per month for 384kbit and the service is awful (the 384kbit speed is not guaranteed).

Cheap always-on Internet access is still a dream in my country

How much do you pay in your countries and where are you located?

QuintLeo · 2003-11-07, 23:04

Ouch. Yup, that would be measured ISDN service. Expensive. 8-(

I used to pay about $40 (US) for unmeasured ADSL 384/128k service - currently I'm paying about $50 for Cable Modem service (seems to be a lightly loaded loop, as I've seen 3MBps download rates on occasion) since I moved.

Maybeso · 2003-11-08, 07:28

Quote:

Originally posted by optim
. . .[snip] How much do you pay in your countries and where are you located?

This is a great question, you should summarize your post on the 'Cost for various things worldwide' thread
If others provide as much info as you, we could build a table.
Or would that be too depressing?

smh · 2003-11-08, 10:45

Quote:

How much do you pay in your countries and where are you located?

Here in the Netherlands, dail-up ISP's are free. Only pay the phone costs, which from €0,60 to €1,70 an hour depending on the time of the day (nights and weekends are cheaper)

Prices of ADSL dropped greately the last three months. Cheapest at the moment €14,95 a month for 386/128, but a few drawbacks. Price is only for the first year and a data limmit of 250MB :surprised

More serious offers go from €25(768/128) to €50(3072/512) and up to almost €80 for about the same thing depending on the ISP.

At the moment i pay €30 for a 386/128 connection. But since i want to give up my ISDN for a analoge phone line i have to give up my ADSL. That gives me the chance to chance providers and get double the speed for less money (at the cost of not having ADSL for several weeks).

NookieN · 2003-11-09, 21:04

And easy, set-and-forget way to run Prime under linux is to just add it to inittab. I have this line in /etc/inittab on my SuSE 8.1 box:

prim:2345:boot:/var/mprime/mprime -B

To kill it, I usually get the PID from top and do a kill =INT on it.

2003-11-18, 23:05

Quote:

Originally posted by optim
How much do you pay in your countries and where are you located?

[/B]

Here in Germany I use a provider for 19.95¤ for 1024/256 as a flatrate (Berlikomm)

2003-11-05, 10:39	#1
optim Nov 2003 European Union 2³·13 Posts	MPrime on Linux Hello, I just installed MPrime 23.5 on my Slackware Linux 9.1 (kernel 2.4.22) machine that I use for learning Linux. I have some questions: 1. is it better to run MPrime on a terminal window under KDE/GNOME or run it at another text console (for example, running mprime on console 1 and KDE on console 7) 2. how can I exit MPrime while it is runing? 3. how can I pause MPrime? 4. my Linux machine connects to the internet thru my proxy server, which runs on my Windows machine. These two machines are sharing the same monitor/keyboard/mouse by using a KVM switch, but usually I only use the windows machine. I have set up MPrime to think that it is always connected to the Internet by using RouteRequired=0 in the primenet.ini file. I have a dial-up ISDN connection, so I have to manually dial up my ISP when MPrime needs to contact PrimeNet. Is there any way to make MPrime beep thru the PC speaker when it wants to connect to the Internet? I want to be able to know when my linux machine needs internet access without switching the KVM switch. 5. is CTRL+Z a good way of stopping MPrime ? 6. Is there any special procedure that I should follow before shutting down my Linux box? Usually I shut down using this command: shutdown -h now is it okay? should I exit MPrime before shutting down or not? 7. is there any graphical PrimeNet client for KDE or GNOME? will George make one? thats enough for now, thanks for reading my post! Last fiddled with by optim on 2003-11-05 at 10:47

2003-11-05, 22:58	#4
QuintLeo Oct 2002 Lost in the hills of Iowa 111000000₂ Posts	I've always run mprime on non-XWindow machines, so can't address the 'terminal window vs. whatever" question. Control-Z is a not real good idea with mprime, in my experience - better to kill -9 it, it shuts down cleanly that way and then you can just restart it later. mprime is quite fine with a standard shutdown sequence - no need to shut it down seperately then reboot the machine. It even tolerates "bad" shutdowns by power failure and the like, though you will lose any data since the last save file update in those cases. There is no graphical client for Prime under any OS that I'm aware of - even the Windows client is a text-mode client, I'm pretty sure. Making it a graphical-mode client would slow it down at best.... Is your ISDN connection "measured service", or "unmeasured service"? If it's unmeasured, why not keep it up all the time? I had unmeasured ISDN service for a while, and it seemed to be pretty good at staying up for days at a time.... Last fiddled with by QuintLeo on 2003-11-05 at 23:00

2003-11-06, 08:20	#6
optim Nov 2003 European Union 150₈ Posts	Thanks for your answers. Since I am in Greece I have to pay about 0.3 euro for each hour of Intenet usage during the day and 0.17 euro in the night, plus the ISDN connection cost (more than 12 euro per month) and the ISP account cost (from 50 to 80 euro every 3 months depending on different ISPs). I suppose this is what you call measured. These prices are for 64kbit ISDN. For 128kbit ISDN the usage prices are doubled. Also note that the service is not very good, since we have disconnects every some hours. Unmeasured ADSL just appeared in Greece, but it costs more than 80 euro per month for 384kbit and the service is awful (the 384kbit speed is not guaranteed). Cheap always-on Internet access is still a dream in my country How much do you pay in your countries and where are you located? Last fiddled with by optim on 2003-11-06 at 08:28

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2003-11-05, 14:55	#2
Xyzzy "Mike" Aug 2002 3·2,689 Posts	Run it via cron or in the background... nohup ./mprime & CTRL+Z just pauses a process... When you reboot or shutdown, Mprime will "see" the shutdown and stop cleanly... If you need to kill Mprime use top or ps to get the process id and use kill...

2003-11-05, 15:33	#3
GP2 Sep 2003 2²·647 Posts	2. If you're running mprime directly in a terminal window, you can use CTRL-C to terminate it like any other program. Or, if it's running in the background, you can use the "ps" command to find out its PID and then use the "kill" command. 3. There's no reason to pause it, just kill it and later restart it. 4. You can force a manual connection. Dial up and establish your ISDN connection, then run "mprime -m" to get the menu. Choose 12 (Advanced/Manual communication): Contact PrimeNet server automatically: Contact PrimeNet server now: Send new expected completion dates to server: Accept the answers above? Answer "Y" to "Contact PrimeNet server now" After communciation with the PrimeNet server is complete, choose 6 (Test/Exit) to quit the menu. 5. CTRL-Z just suspends a process, which you can then resume with the "fg" shell command. There's really no point in doing this for mprime, just CTRL-C to kill it (which causes it to write a save file) and then restart it again later. CTRL-Z suspend does NOT cause mprime to write a save file, so if you shut your system down after CTRL-Zing mprime you may lose up to half an hour of work. 7. There is no graphical client for Linux.

2003-11-06, 00:07	#5
garo Aug 2002 Termonfeckin, IE 3²·307 Posts	QuitLeo, Surely you mean "kill -2". kill -9 does not force a write to savefile which can mean loss of work whereas kill -2 does.

2003-11-07, 23:04	#7
QuintLeo Oct 2002 Lost in the hills of Iowa 2⁶×7 Posts	Ouch. Yup, that would be measured ISDN service. Expensive. 8-( I used to pay about $40 (US) for unmeasured ADSL 384/128k service - currently I'm paying about $50 for Cable Modem service (seems to be a lightly loaded loop, as I've seen 3MBps download rates on occasion) since I moved.

2003-11-09, 21:04	#10
NookieN Aug 2002 3A₁₆ Posts	And easy, set-and-forget way to run Prime under linux is to just add it to inittab. I have this line in /etc/inittab on my SuSE 8.1 box: prim:2345:boot:/var/mprime/mprime -B To kill it, I usually get the PID from top and do a kill =INT on it.