Hi guys! I'm back

[Justbill 0]

After My short break from FC3, I'm ready to try again!

could someone suggest where I might find basic information about how to use Linux in general? I really realize that there is a lot I have to learn about this! I am only really familiar with win98, and have no practical dos experience. My computer is a HP233, Pentium II 233mhz, 60 gig HD, 192mb ram. I have win98 insalled in the first pasrtition (25gig), and FC3 behind it (20gig), with a 1 gig swap. I would like to pull your leg and tell tales about my brilliance in setting up my partitions, but the truth is "I got Lucky!" When I installed FC3 I used the typical install, and not the custom, and I'm back to the problems I had before, can't use my printer (Lexmark Z515), can't write to a floppy, and i really would like to install Thunderbird email client, which I downloaded , but can't figure out how to install it. Any thoughts? BSchindler was trying to help me once before (which I really appreciate), and trying to teach me about mount points (I really still don't understand what they are, or their purpose). So I guess I need to find a book "Linux for Dummies"

Any how, Any thoughts?

 

Justbill

[danleff 0]

So, did you buy the book? It describes details for installing Fedora Core. Take a look at Amazon. Look at -->search inside--> table of contents.

 

Go to your local Borders store and look for it, or browse the other related books.

 

To get an idea of Linux filesystems, etc... try reading the article at JUSTLINUX.

 

Realize, that Linux looks at hard drive partitions as filesystems. Forget what you know about Windows 98 and read some Linux documents. Really, you will begin to understand it soon.

 

Your system meets (barely) the minimum system requirements for Fedora. See this thread. expect that the system will be slow with this distro. You may want to consider another distro, like Libranet, or Vector Linux, which should run better. Or, consider more memory, if possible.

 

There should be no problem reading floppies in Fedora. What are you trying to do in order to read and write to a floppy? I will look at my Fedora install and try to walk you through it.

 

I think that I mentioned before, Lexmark printers are a bear. They are just now starting to support Linux, but your specific model is a problem. Just for our reference, look at the Gentoo Lexmark how-to.

[iamroot 0]

If I'm not mistaken, Thunderbird install for GNU/Linux is a shell script-based one. If it is then unpack the tar file and cd to it. Then type in

 

./filename

[BSchindler 0]

Welcome back JustBill. Dan is correct, your system just meets the requirements for the distro. Definately, add more memory if you can. You will see a big improvement. BTW, you do not need 1G swap on a system of your size. Typically, swap space = 100-200% of memory is enough. But, no harm done.

 

I do confess, that most of my machines do not even have floppy drives installed. I have a couple of older machines with floppies and I go there when I really need one. This happens one or two times per year. Typically, I just put a CD/DVD writer in and I am very happy.

 

I will put a floppy on a FC box to see how it looks. I am really confused why you had such problems in the past. Also, if I recall correctly, you mentioned that your box was having problems under Win98. Were any of the problems related to the floppy drive? Also, are you sure the floppy drive works? (Can you boot a floppy disk for instance and write to it under DOS/Sindows?)

 

Dan's book suggestions are excellent. Pick up the books and enjoy.

 

Bill

[Justbill 0]

Hi Bill,

 

For starters, who needs windows98 when you have Linux

I used one gig of swap for no better reason than, I had the space to do it. I still have about 10 gig of free space on this machine. I realize this machine is a dinosaur, but it is my first. I got it a year ago, cheap, to learn on. I didn't want to have a bunch of money tied up in something that I might screw up! I will, I'm quite sure get a new one this year, and when I do I am also sure I will run a linux system.

I have the book "Linux for Dummies" by Jon Hall ordered from Amazon, hopefully that will answer some questions.

I had a problem with win98 crashing on this machine, but not a problem with the floppy drive. On a side note, I got my cd burner working yesterday, flashed the drive(off a floppy), and tried to burn a couple of things useing "Nero"(in win98). Nero said that it burned, but, the cd's didn't work. I then went to FC3 and downloaded "Simply MEPIS" and burned that successfully, and ran it as a live cd in demo mode for a short time last night.I also burned "Debian Sarge" successfully

So my floppy works in win98, and my cd burner works in FC3.

I still haven't resolved my printer problems in FC3, but that'll come.

All in all things are looking up!

 

Justbill

[BSchindler 0]

Hi JustBill,

 

Glad to hear you are feeling more successful. Ain't it great when it all comes together? LOL Dan.

 

I really do not understand why the floppy drive is not simply installed when you installed FC. A long time ago, I had problems with floppy drives which were not completely spec. Windows would see them but other floppy controllers (on non Windows boxes) could not access them. I am only guessing, but were it me, I would try changing the floppy drive ??? Perhaps if I have time, I will install a copy of FC on an old machine with a floppy and see what happens.

 

As you have a CD writer working...who needs floppy anyway?

 

Happy Linuxing,

Bill

[danleff 0]

The older the floppy, the more issues you will have, regardless of the amount of usage.

 

Fedora does some funky things with permissions, so I bet this is the problem. Exactly how are you trying to mount the floppy in Fedora? From the command line, or from a desktop icon?

 

Are you getting any error messages, like only root can mount the floppy?

 

Most distros will also complain about floppy disks that have been formatted over and over. The floppy formatting utility is also funky in Fedora. I really don't know what the cause is. But if you try to format a floppy in Fedora, make sure that it is not already mounted.

[u_r_a_windroid 0]

Dude, first of all, RUN as fast and as far as you can get from Fedora. Almost everybody agrees Red Hat started Fedora to get free (labour) OS tweaking and upgrading. It is buggy as hell and is not suited for a newbie such as yourself. When Schindler says "your system just meets the requirements for the distro" (I don't know why he feels the need to repeat everything danleff says, a little bit of 'brown-nosing' goin' on there), take that literally. It's like running XP on a Pentium/100Mhz. Debian based distros are more newbie friendly and something like Knoppix or Ubuntu (there are others, just a couple of suggestions from a couple hundred +, just thought I would clarify before the 'regs' jump all over my answer because I am not part of their little clique) installed to the harddrive would be 'lighter' than Fedora. Go to www.distrowatch.com and look/read/surf around. I started with lousy rpm distros and wound up with Mepis (Debian/apt-get). Now, about user guides, etc., print whatever you can, even if you have to boot back and forth between Windows and Linux. There is nothing worse than getting stuck in the command line and not knowing what to type. At least, if it is on paper right in front of you, you may solve your problems like I did. These guys give very general answers, If you want real answers, you have to dig around. For example, Mepis has extensive user guides and help files for practically everything. I got my printer going in Mepis no problem using a driver for the next older model than mine (for the regs, it is the brother HL-1435 in the hardware list on this site where I posted it). But I digress, these are things I had to find out on my own, experimenting. I have installed some distros over and over, sometimes, 10 times or more until I got it right. After each install I would 'poke' around and tweak until I made a mess, causing a re-install. Wait till you are really comfortable with a distro before you worry about not crashing. Who cares if you crash ANY Linux, it is only a bit of electricity to wipe it off and try again or try a new distro. That is how I learned, lots of reading and trial and error. By the way, your 233 IS slow, they (the regs) called my 733 slow (don't know why when it has handled EVERY distro with ease). Little bit of hypocrisy goin' on boys? Now this is an answer. Answering a question with yet, even more questions is not an answer. In regards to the floppy question, the hardware and access system haven't changed in a couple of decades so I don't know what danleff is talking about: "The older the floppy, the more issues you will have, regardless of the amount of usage". When you click on the icon in Win98, Windows automatically 'mounts' the floppy behind the scenes. In Linux, you have to manually mount the floppy (or cd, or hd partition), most of the time by right clicking the floppy icon and selecting mount. In better distros, the icon will change slightly to show it is mounted. The second step to this process is opening a 'file browser' to view the contents.

 

P.S. To the site keepers, really appreciate you deleting my original user name (NOT). Didn't do anything to warrant it. Something wrong with you people. Cliques REALLY suck.

[Justbill 0]

Well, I'm playing with something different this evening, I'm writing this post while running a live cd, SimplyMepis, who'd thought! I sure wouldn't have dreamed you could do something like this on an uninstalled OS. This is too cool!

 

Justbill

[u_r_a_windroid 0]

That is what I am using (SimplyMepis test02) from the harddrive. I found test03 to be a little buggy (fireworks GL, my favourite screensaver would not work and some stuff was added I didn't need). I think when they tweaked test 02 to make 03, they messed something up in the graphics system. Overall, I found Mepis to be the best for me because it plays many different video file types 'right out of the box'. If you install it (test03, no synatic in 02) to the harddrive, kpackage is easier to use and understand than synaptic.

[clutch 1]

Originally posted by u_r_a_windroid:

Quote:

P.S. To the site keepers, really appreciate you deleting my original user name (NOT). Didn't do anything to warrant it. Something wrong with you people. Cliques REALLY suck.

 

You have a PM from me.

 

[BSchindler 0]

JustBill,

 

Glad to see you experimenting. Please do not be offended when I say your machine is slow, for my use it would be. Computers for me are tools of my trade. I want them up and running, not crashing. Most of my time is spent writing code at kernel level or working on compilers. I frequently compile 100-200 million lines of code at a time and I cannot afford to have a system which is not stable. And I really like the compilation to finish in an hour or two, not in three or four days!

 

As one of the "regs" (whatever they are) sometimes I give advise which is very conservative. I LIKE MACHINES which are stable and believe that the best teaching systems are reliable.

 

I have 12 Linux boxes running on my home network. Most have uptimes of 300 days or better. The longest running is 800+ days. Reliability and stability, you bet! I have two machines (INTEL and AMD) running FC1 for over a year. No downtime! Two more machines running FC2, no downtime. And, my preferred beastie today a dual pentium 2.8 GHz with 16 G Ram and almost two terabytes of raid storage running FC3, 45 days up. The other machines are older and run older versions of Red Hat (RH6 - RH9). All run redundant gigabit ethernet and connect to literally two dozen sites worldwide over a high speed backbone connection to the internet. I do not tell you this to brag. I say it only to illustrate that Linux systems can be very stable and reliable and to emphasize my need for high quality tools.

 

When I advise someone who asks about getting started, I usually will suggest that they strive for a stable and reliable platform first. Usually (unless security issues contraindicate) install everything. This way you can play with everything. Compile programs, burn cds, update packages, install additional packages etc.. You may then progress to compilation and installation of additional packages, modifying your configuration settings etc.. If you are not using your machine to make a living you can tweek and play forever and learn alot. Once you feel comfortable with that, try putting up a minimal system and building say a NAT router.

 

Sorry to go on so long. I really respect people who will take on a challenge and work on it until it is mastered. And, whenever possible I will try to support that effort. So if you have questions about how to get something to work and you cannot solve it I will try to help as will some others on this site. And, by all means look around at all the great software out there! But, I implore you to avoid being tugged back and forth.

 

There is NO SUCH THING as a "best" Linux. All have strong and weak points, all of them. Once you have looked around, pick one and stick with it until you really understand what differenciates it from the others. Then you will not be tempted to listen to people who, without any real basis, tell you the latest dakota ajax flubber is best for you. You will know.

 

Bill

a reg clique (oops, my bad) click linux nerd

[Justbill 0]

Hi Bill!

 

Thank you for that thoughtful reply! I know I have an older, and slow machine, and was not at all offended! When I got this machine (about a year ago) I had little or no experience with computers. I got it feeling pretty confident I would "screw it up" in no time, but I had to start somewhere! I make my living as a cabinet maker, I also have a little side hobby I just started a few years ago, you can see it at http://www.geocities.com/justbillsguitars

if you'd like. So needless to say, computers are at best an evening interest to me. I started with win98, and I believe I told you why I got frustrated with that (kept crashing). I can honestly say "I'm sold on Linux" Sometimes its frustrating to a newbie like myself, however, I'm convinced its worth the effort to learn. As far as a "best system", I'm posting this while running "SimplyMEPIS", I have not had enough time with it to know if I like it or not. I have a new problem with FC3, its still on my hard drive at hda2, but will not boot. Mepis doesn't see it, and there are some other things that I believe I messed up durring the Mepis install, and everything i did to try to correct the problem. I'll go into that some more tomorrow night, I'm to tired tonight to even remember what all I did. At one point I do remember getting an error15 message when I was trying to boot FC3. I am really beginning to like FC3, I can see where there is a lot of potential, in that OS!

Any how, I have to go for now, I'm about to fall asleep at the keyboard :-)

 

Justbill