robstr12

Someone gave me a printer... http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Canon-LBP-460 and, its a paperweight. I figure that if I work at it a little every day, I can learn the basics of C programming in one year. Then, maybe I can tackle the challenge of writing a device driver for this printer. Is that a ridiculous thought? C is the language that all this kind of stuff is written in, correct? If other people can do it, why not I?

Well, that's just grand, JustBill! Good for you! That's the way to "hunker down" and make it to the other side, I'd say!!!

You know what? If indeed the boot order in the BIOS looks to boot from the cdrom before the harddrive, in this case, I would suspect that the cd is not bootable. In other words, that it was not burned correctly. The bootable cd's must be burned in a special way. Here are some links that may be helpful: http://www.iceteks.com/articles.php?act=view&article=burniso&p=1& http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/coasterless.htm make sure that you burn it as an .iso disk. Let us know how you get on with it. Oh, and by the way, I myself have reason to be impressed with Mepis. It was the only distro that I have tried that automagically got the x configuration right on my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. Regards, Robert

No problem at all... from this page here, link: http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_admin/x1762.html I see that: (quote): "A swap partition is also not special in any way. You create it just like any other partition; the only difference is that it is used as a raw partition, that is, it will not contain any filesystem at all." (/quote) So, there is no filesystem on the swap partition. And, in my experience, the swap file is automagically detected and used by every distro that is installed to the system. I am confident someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

hehe... Well, thanks you guys... but I'm a slight bit away from actually doing it yet. Right now I'm reading and working through Practical C, an O'Reilly book. I figure that I will keep at it... and then get that O'Reilly book about the device drivers. It may take me years, but, if I do succeed in pulling it off, I would have something to put on my tombstone, I guess.

Well, If there's a will, there's a way. I can devote the time to it. We'll just see, then. If I ever get one to work, hehe, I'll post about it here, DD!!!

Originally posted by Dapper Dan: Quote: robstr12, have you checked out FreeSBIE? The live CD runs very well on my system. I'm thinking about installing it to hard drive as the installation looks a lot easier than regular *BSD. Thank you, Dapper Dan, but, I have my eyes set on the `authentic' FreeBSD, that is until debian Sarge goes stable (I'm on dial-up ). When that happens, all bets are off, it will be Sarge all the way. Right now I've got Slackware 10 and Ubuntu. BTW: I am very impressed with Ubuntu. Its definitely the linux for everybody's Grandma! Very easy to use, installed it on a buddy's computer, he took right to it, never before saw Linux.

mine: 1. Yoper Linux 2. Open BSD 3. SUSE Linux 4. Redhat/Fedora Linux 5. Free BSD Mind you... I'm not keen on Redhat/Fedora or SuSE. (no offense to those who are, of course). hehe... but, in the back of my mind, *ALWAYS* lingering... is this wish to mess with FreeBSD and OpenBSD (just to see what the fuss is about, and see if I can do it w/o wrecking the whole neighboorhood), and... Yoper???? If I wanted fast, why not just do stage 3 of Gentoo??? Am I missing something?

Hello, Dapper Dan! I hope this finds you in good spirits! Until a more workable solution is presented, you may want to try to look at the `shred' command. you know, just look at the man page for shred: man shred Also, maybe a utility can be found here: (if you are using some journaling filesystem?) http://www.packetstormsecurity.org/UNIX/secure_delete/ Regards, Robert

I'm not a seasoned IT person by a LONG_SHOT. Just a n00bie. I will echo though, that Fedora was a lot easier to deal with. everything that came with it worked out of the box. Hey everyone, Who thinks that Sarge will be much easier when it goes stable? Is the concensus of thought that it will be much easier to work with?

Hello SoulNothing. I am a n00bie, but have been studying pretty hard. I have installed Slackware 10 and am in love with it. I would say this: heads up with the Slackware install... it likes to have its / filesystem on a primary partition. Life will be easier for you that way. Also, It is suspected that around the middle of September, Debian Sarge is going stable. I'm telling you, I have high hopes for that release. High hopes! I am definitely going to install that as soon as I can buy some iso's. (I'm on dial-up). I guess there is ego involved, too. For some reason, I just think that there is something special, prestigious if you will, about running debian.

Hello. I am trying to help a friend out. We met on another board. He has just installed Fedora Core 1, and is trying to connect on the internet with www.dial4less.com (their site is down now - just happened today) He is using kppp to connect with. Connection to net is good. However, there are DNS issues. The ISP does not give out DNS addresses. (I suppose they use "DHCP" [?] to give out the DNS IP addresses upon login time). The ISP website (when it was up) had an internal link to a page with kppp instructions. I think that we configured it according to those instructions, but to no avail. I have seen on other boards while googleing that you may be able to put some other ISP's DNS server address in /etc/resolv.conf and use it. Is this unethical or illegal to do? Also, when he cut and pasted his /etc/resolv.conf on the other board, it included a local address on his LAN. if anyone is interested, he (mgrist) and I (Robster12) have been trying to work through this on this thread (starting with post #155) in this thread here: (posts before #155 in this thread are not dealing with this at all) http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=34799&page=8&pp=20 I will post on that board and let him know about this post. Thankyou, Robert

And, mucho appreciado for the mini-tute regarding whois, dig, and host, martouf. Very well put. Robert

Thankyou, martouf. This was WAY too hastily posed. I am mildly embarrassed, but will put it behind me. Anyway... I advised him to take a "brute force" way out of the problem... to do a clean install. That did it. kppp configured without a hitch. MAYBE some default gateways were set up during the install that were wrong, since it was on the LAN at the time. (The subsequent install was as a standalone box). Well, I have learned to be cool. This is a problem that I have in general. That is enough about that. I will endevour to be more respectful in the future. One last thing... The guy talked to me on the phone tonight. He's having almost as much fun with his Linux as I am with mine. As soon as I get a second box myself, I am sure that the Local Network concerns will be more clear to me, since then I can be hands on. Thank you again. Great site here! Robert

My apologies for rudeness. The ISP in question is www.dial4less.com. The kppp instructions for their site are unavailable presently, because their web page is being updated. This happened today by surprise. In general, the kppp program does not seem very hard to negotiate, except for the screen where you configure DNS. There, the question arises whether or not to choose the option: "Disable existing DNS servers during connection" This admittedly could be determined through trial and error. I only posted this here because I was so enthusiastic about getting my friend connected on his new Linux box. Otherwise, I would have tended to simply google about myself. In my searches, though, it seems that most tutorials having to do with kppp make little allowances for situations where you are not given static DNS addresses. Knowing this, I would have never gone down the road of trying to connect with such an ISP. Perhaps my friend can join in the thread here, firsthand, or, perhaps it will be just as well to drop it, with no hard feelings. Once again, I regret my lack of attention to net manners. I feel a little over my head with this one.. So many variables.. he is connected to a LAN with may pose more problems... I will advise him to try another ISP, one that is easier... Thank you and happy tweaking to you both