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Buttpains in linux and workarounds
January 2, 2007 - 11:09am
I downloaded onto a laptop that a company threw out.
Then you say, maybe my knoppix distribution is better? The goal is to make it play the little dvd and vcd's that I make among other things.
It is 18 gigs
So I install ubuntu on about a 9 gig partition.
Works ok BUT it only writes itself to gruB (no referenceto ubuntu anymore in grug) so I cannot get in to ubuntu anymore! fucge!
So how to edit grub without installing yet another operating system?
Linux doesnt seem to have a gui tool or easy tool to do it in their distros!
Dont get me wrong, its a HUGE problem.
It used to be that you could just pop in a linux install cd and get it going, and go down through the list all the way to the grub installer (ignoring all that came before). h
Then you just run the installer, it detects the operating systems on the system and installs the choices in grub. (It often said failed to install but if you pressed continue, it used to to always install the options anyway!)
Nowadays, this option seems to be gone. You gotta install the whole new os or you cannot fix a screded up grub. So thats an hour or 2 wasted to do something that used to take 5 minutes!!
And luckily I made 3 partitions so I can do it.
But even then, you waste a partition to do this.
I installed debian sarge just to be able to reference the other 2 opperating systems!
Thats a shame.
Has anyone any cheats or has anyone found a distro that detects other os's and allows you to modify grub like this?
Without the confusing error message too.
The funny thing is that linux systems never fail to put in windows references in grub but they go and ignore each other! ubuntu and debian are good in that respect but knoppix and mandrake and damn small were bad.
They always ignored other distros!
I have to say, the laptop, (pulled out of the company garbage by my girlfriend, and declared a wreck by her it guy) is working really sweetly in linux! I just had to wipe the xp right off of it!
It doesnt play dvd's yet but has layed a homemade vcd.
I am writing this on the laptop.
Why have multible os on a loptop?
I am used to knoppix, it is kde, and it has a bunch of light window options, and the ubuntu is gnome based and has just one light window option (that I am not that happy with).
The "light" window options are just a ton quicker on an older machine than gnome or kde.
It often occured in the past that one distro had better monitor or screen support. thats another reason to try a couple of distros.
Anyway, dont throw out that old laptop cos it runs too slow with xp.
Wipe it clean and install ubuntu instead.
Brian
Both the joy and the bane of Linux is the variety. I'm a committed Linux user, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I swear and curse and say things like "this is why Linux will never replace windows!" And then, after using windows at work, I am so happy to return to my Linux desktop at home.
It is true, sometimes it is just too much work, but most of the time, it works flawlessly and does everything I need.
To answer your question, finally, when you boot from the Ubuntu CD, you will get a prompt that if you ignore will launch the install program. Instead, of ignoring it, type "rescue" (no quote marks) and hit enter. I understand there are then prompts to follow.
Ubuntu (6.06) has been my introduction to Linux, and without any other experience, I might give it a B+. If 6.10 doesn't prove to be significantly better, I just might try out SuSE.
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3650771
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1134924990;fp;2;fpid;1
Had I installed knoppix first, everything would have been fine because ubuntu plays fair with grub and doesnt scrub out references to other systems.
knoppix, damn small and others screw up grub.
I cannot complain too much about knoppix because you are not supposed to put it on the hard drive anyway.
But it works pretty nice when you do!
Any hoo, they all should let you more easily adjust grub.
Truly, though, I have to wonder why you're subjecting yourself to this. The effort required for you to run Lunix may outweigh the benefits. Contrary to what you have heard, it *isn't* easy.
As Commander Adama says: "Go with what you know".
Someone's pulling your leg. Slackware is a power user's Lunix. There are hundreds of Lunix distros out there, with no single one standing out as the best. "Distro of choice" depends upon one's requirements, disposition, and expertise.
1. RELATIVE ease of installing proprietary codecs etc. for sound and video. SuSE makes it very hard to install all of these. You've got to hunt around for them. Ubuntu always had scripts and things for installing decss etc., and now with automatix, it's much easier. When I used SuSE there was nothing comparable.
2. CLEAR superiority of the debian package management system, and the excellent synaptic front end on Ubuntu. With SuSE, once the system got a little old, it was no end of broken dependency runarounds and breakage. RPM just sucks. I don't see that it's better than .deb and apt-get in any way. (You can get apt4suse which still uses the rpms.)
3. Clunkiness of YaST, the SuSE administrative tool. Its a good idea in principle, in practice it is a massive resource hog and if you aren't using a new system it is a real pain, especially when doing online updates. Sometimes up to an hour of not being able to use the computer because it was updating.
It is worth the pain. It is something I do for you! Me sticking with linux saves you (and every other windows user) a couple of hundred bux a year. (because it is not a total monopoly just yet) But it is more than that.
Those hundred buck computers that they are distributing in africa, they got a linux os.
Anyone that is using linux on their computer and letting the computer send back bug reports is helping these things happen.
Even here, complaining about how hard it is to manipulate grub, is helping linux.
And with what happened at novel, you should not get too hung up on the name linux.
linux is the kernel. The tiny bit in the middle.
many of the applications are cross platform. open office, the gimp, abbyword, thunderbird, firefox and others dont care if it is windows, linux, solaris or bsd.
So we should quit calling it linux!
If debian, or ubuntu or knoppix decide to go to opensolaris, we might not notice the difference.
Oh, it might be more stable, or not.
Back about 5 years ago when i started using linux, all the smart guys used debian, and spoke geek. I cannot speak geek, and cannot type or do without my gui but now I am using knoppix. (both debian based and the stability is amazing).
Another thing thats nice about linux is the lack of norton. God, I hated the BOO! INTRUDER Alert shit that they pulled on me every 2 minutes.
And I still get it when I boot into windows! Even though it is nearly a YEAR since I had windows on the net! marketing driven by fear!
There are antivirus programs for linux too.
There are a few things that are still hard but it is as easy as windows now. (I use both).
Here is a huge windows problem. I saved a dv file as an avi. with windows moviemaker about a year ago. I tried opening it with the sony program i got for my birthday. it wouldnt open it even though it opens avi files that IT takes from the camcorder fine. As with sonic. they have stuff in the dvd's to prevent other programmes from opening them.
Well sorry guys, this is supposed to be market driven. If I find a better program to open your shitty file and process it, I should be able to do it because it is MY file. It doesnt have a only sony or only windows moviemaker or only sonic health warning on it, it has avi.
So f**k off and stop wasting my time. Seriously, I wasted a lot more time on that shit than I did on linux this year. There is supposed to be a very good commercial dvd product for linux but I dont know where to get a boxed copy in this town.
Anyway, rant over.
Your cussing at me is *absolutely* uncalled for.
If there's any waste of time here, it's new Lunix users who havn't taken the time to google their problems or RTFM before running to a forum for help.
Thank goodness.
Sorry that you thought i was.
I was frustrated that the commercial applications market is run by jerks who put their little programmers bombs into files to prevent people from working on these files.
An avi file should be just that, a file. Any program for manipulating avi files should open an avi file.
But no, that is not the case. I spent a couple of hours trying to open a file with my nice program that I use all the time (it refused to open the audio part of the file) only to find that it opens just fine with shitty windows movie maker.
And why does only movie maker open it?
Because 6 months ago when I downloaded it off the mini dv tape, I must have used windows movie maker to download. (There is no "this file will only open with windows movie maker" warning on the damn file but there should be!
And that whole game that the 3 companys are playing with OUR files is the reason that we have to have open file standards for everything.
I always loved Linux, but I have so little free time these days, I wonder if it worth the headaches? [img]confused.gif" border="0[/img]
[ 03 January 2007: Message edited by: Trevormkidd ]
It was freaky for me first time I popped in a live cd and booted up. (I forget which one it was) about 4 minutes later I was on the internet (everything configured automatically on my cable connection) and I even downloaded and played (but didnt save) a song from one of the file sharing communitys. All from the live CD! i couldnt believe it. Damn small is just 50 megabites so it is quick to download and burn onto a cd as an ISO image. Thats important. Has to be burned as iso not data cd. I think, (not sure) (to protect the monopoly from the linux threat) ISO cd burning is NOT built into windows xp BUT you can download 3rd party applications including free ones to burn them. And if you know anyone who is a fan of linux, you can probably grab a cd from them. And by the way, it can be a REWRITABLE CD. So if you screw it up, you can try again or reuse the CD for something else. You can change the boot up order in the bios. I always have mine setup with cd first then harddrive.
Brian
Agreed. But on the other hand, SuSE comes complete with other commercially licensed software such as Adobe Reader, Java JRE (is that open now or not? I can never tell what Sun is actually up to), etc ... And, replacing the neutered SuSE apps with the full community apps is rather pain free if you follow the many how-tos available on-line.
True, also. But, on the other hand, I have never had a problem compiling under SuSE as I have had with other distros (missing or misplaced libraries, for example).
I have been using SuSE since 9.2 (now at 10.2), and I have to tell you the automated updates have improved considerably. It will run in the background and is trouble free.
Who says? It is quite easy if all you want is word processing, a spreadsheet, and Internet access as is the case with the vast majority of users. I remember being told "DOS isn't easy" back when the only other option was Mac and I was fiddling about with config.sys, and autoexec.bat and trying to load as much memory as I could, above 640k, into Upper Memory Blocks.
The reason DOS, and later Windows, won out was because it was cheap in relation to the Mac, and it allowed geeks to "get under the hood" and design their own programs or hack the system. I spent countless hours rendering hardware useless.
For those less inclined to get dirty, they could just run Word Perfect and whatever business apps they preferred.
Today, Linux is the cheap alternative that lets a user get under the hood and as dirty as he or she wants. Back in the day all the geeks preferred DOS to Macs. Now all the Geeks prefer Linux or some *nix variant.
No worries, Brian. I think I got accidentally caught in the crossfire of your enthusiasm.
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Contrary to what you have heard, it *isn't* easy
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I says! Lunix is a powarful OS, and that is where its strength lies, not in usability. "Desktop-ready" Lunix is forever just around the corner - But never quite getting there.
That being said, I'm very impressed by Ubuntu - But like all other Lunix distros, it fails my personal litmus test: It can't automatically configure my wireless card. Windows can.
IMHO, for the average end user, MacOSX is a far more reasonable alternative to Windows. Lunix is better suited to power users and hobbiests.
Things are improving - But the acculmulated hype of of the last 10+ years has lead me to set the bar of expectation high.
Please. Of course it is there. I use it. My spouse uses it. My mother uses it and my ten year old niece uses it. None of them are power users.
Mac OSX, by the way, runs on FreeBSD, a *nix derivative. Apple should give more back to the community it borrows so heavily from.
And Hype of the past ten years? You mean Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and yes, Mac OSX, the great pocket emptying Computer System (and how many users can fix their Mac systems when shit goes wrong)? Sure. It is the Linux, ooops, Lunix, hype that has crimped your expectations.
[ 04 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Microsoft have delayed adoption of linux for years with various incompatibilitys. First there was MS word. (couldnt open word on linux) this is pretty much solved with open office. Then there was software telephone modems. (the code for software to operate these modems is secret so linux people had to reverse engineer the code. which is really hard to do.
Cable modems seem easy to configure.
My guess that the wireless modems are falling back on the old trick used int the telephone modems. Because if the linux coders have the info, they can easliy communicate with anything.
(By the way, in my time on a hardware phone modem, linux was way way quicker than windows! Because windows talks to microsoft, your printer company and god knows who else. The cia perhaps? and the phone modem has only so much room to carry information so your own info is last in the queue!.
the free software people are saying the next great obsticle to linux is going to be the new dvd players and recorders on computers. The digital melenimun..whatever, i am finger tied! copyright thing basically forbids reverse engineering so linux cannot (isnt allowed) to reverse engineer drivers for the new blue ray dvd recorders and players.
So they are hooped! The law has finally beaten the makers of free software. Volunteer work is now forbidden in the software arena!
The free software federation are working on the wording of a great new version of the gpl to try to save what they have. they see the microsoft and novel deal as a way round the gpl (which maybe it is)! Anyway, linus torvads is staying with the old gpl regardless, (the man is a millionaire anyway and he has a trademark on the word) and thats why linux MAY turn into something different. Linux is just the present kernel in free software. And a hell of a lot of people (who dont get any share of the limelight) work on open office, the gimp and all the other applications and free stuff that goes with it.
If opensolaris was released under the NEW gpl, linux might very suddenly become dead! seriously!
Debian would be the first to move (because they are pretty into the religion, free open code is good!
And, sun has done a whole lot for free software anyways. Open office was their baby (staroffice was the mommy) and IT is really what brought linux back into the limelight 4 or 5 years ago.
Openoffice is a couple of hours free download for windows or for linux and that sure beats a couple of hundred bux for microsoft office fot the average joe soap! Or, as it happens many small companys!
bye
They are very lucky to have had someone with the expertise, time, and caring to set these systems up for them. I assume it was you who set them up - Kudos to you for doing so.
Don't forget to mention OS X's other parent: Mach.
(Also, There's no need to wildcard the lineage: FreeBSD is the direct descendant of 4.4BSD-Lite.)
How so? Apple has open-sourced much of OS X as Darwin, and employs full-time developers to support this effort. This far exceeds Apple's minimal licensing obligations.
Although I don't follow much about Windows OSes, I suspect the hype-gap among them is less than Lunix - Although I'm pretty prepared to be wrong on that one. In any case, Unfulfilled hype of other OSes has little bearing on Lunix hype, and doesn't excuse it.
Ah.. The joys of proprietary hardware. As much as I am attacted to OSx, I do agree, the difficulty in user serviceability is daunting.
Correctomundo. I find perpetual Lunix hype to be tiresome and dishonest wishware, much like references to the Middle East "Roadmap to Peace".
Ironically, Lunix has made some remarkeable progress in other areas, such as grid computing, which has been eclipsed by the overblown Lunix VS Windows deathmatch.
On a related note, I see that many of the American troops in Iraq are turing to Unix:
http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=10262
Thus, I Downloaded and installed Ubuntu 6.10. Here's how it went.
- The partitioning was more complicated than it needed to be. It made a lot of false assumptions that required clearing/correcting.
- Predictably, it failed its attempt configure my wireless card during install - Again, due to faulty assumptions. Ubuntu's wireless-config interface doesn't allow one to specify the wireless-mode, and defaults to "access point". That screws the rest who use a different topology. After booting to the OS, I was able to configure the appropriate files to remedy this - No small challenge to most new Lunix users.
- Grub, for some reason, misinterpreted my drive mappings, leaving the system unbootable. I had to boot to the live CD and fix it manually. This required several (wasted) hours of pouring over grub documentation. I'm all for layers of abstraction, but they darned well better work as advertised.
- The desktop looks nice. Looks the same as 6.06. Works nice. It was a PITA to install, though, despite all of the Lunix zealot hype to the contrary.
Every six months or so, I "fall for it", and try the latest and greatest Lunix "desktop ready" distribution. It inevitably fails to live up to it's reputation.
Granted, there are many good reasons to use Lunix. At this point in time, ease of installation and management isn't one of them.
I'm typing this from Windows XP, and it feels warm and comfy. I'm disappointed in Ubuntu, but at least it's there for the next time XP succumbs to a virus.
However, does Windows installations recognize any partition other than its own? At least Ubuntu (and it is not my distro of choice) will recognize your windows partitions and mount them. It will also give you an expert's mode (or it should) to configure your partitions as you like.
More often than not, Windows installs fail to install proper drivers for video despite having access to all commercial drivers. Linux distros, on the other hand, community developed, often do not have access to commercial drivers. This is especially true of wireless chip sets. But where the vendors make drivers available, you will note Linux always properly detects and configures the hardware. It is why Linux, and not Windows, has Live distros.
I don't like Grub, I prefer Lilo. However, either will mess up if you don't ensure the boot record is installed to your boot disks MBR. A pain when you don't? Yes. But much easier to fix than when your XP flashes NTLOADER is missing and goes into a loop of restarting.
Again you refer to hype. It is clear you don't know what hype is. An award for an OS not yet available (and already with security holes) complete with fanfare and hoopla is hype:
Big award in advance of major marketing hype. Will the Rolling Stones sell another song?
I guess we'll see you back soon. Maybe next time you will try something a little less challenging like Linspire. It is a commercial release geared for Windows users, costs waaaay less than XP, and I imagine, Pfffsta, and won't get you a virus.
Linux has live distros that will start more or less any computer (as long as boot from cd is enabled in the bios). There is nothing remotely as adaptable in windows.
I dont have any financial interest in the success of linux. No shares in red hat or linshire or any of the others.
I use and promote it because it is good.
I am writing this in ubuntu on a laptop that was thrown out. Literally, my girlfriend picked it up in her company garbage and found the ac cord too and said, "can you use it?" I thought no but picked it up anyway.
XP would boot up but not do anything becuase of security stuff that their IT guy couldnt get past.
and the screen kept turning off.
I wiped off windows and have had it running on damn small, ubuntu and knoppix at this stage.
It will not yet play dvd movies but it has a sweet slideshow feature, plays utube stuff and plays the video from my camera very nicely too.
The screen is lovely.
And rated on the xp scale of things, this laptop is garbage.
At least $400 dollars worth of garbage if you use linux!
We should not be throwing out computers because the operating system decides they are broken.
we should only be trowing them out when they are no more good for anything.
Brian
Of course Windows and Apple engage in hype. What do you expect? They're in business to sell things.
That doesn't change -- is almost perfectly irrelevant to -- the fact that Linux partisans are known to retail hype as well, about (in this case) the true desktop Linux installation having arrived. Either that, or change the subject to the inadequacies of Windows, the mendacity of Microsoft, etc., as if we didn't know.
I don't know whether to be less annoyed by hype from Linux people (because at least their motives aren't crassly commercial) or more so (because as self-proclaimed progressives, some of them, they claim to be looking for a new and better way to do things). I guess I'll just split the difference, and settle for being equally annoyed, just for different reasons.
I'll not get into technical details, but my problems installing and trouble-shooting Ubuntu were similar to Legless Marine's -- and I have definite geek tendencies and command-line experience, though I'm very far from being a power user. It was simply not easier or smoother than a typical Windows installation, of which I've done dozens.
Yes, some of the problems, perhaps most, can be attributed to proprietary drivers etc. -- but others, so far as I can tell, have to do with various applications not working well with each other. (I'm not switching back, mind you -- that is, I'm keeping my dual-boot machine and using the Ubuntu side, as I'm doing now, except where I have no choice). Perhaps one or other of the commercial distributions are better in this respect. I don't know and don't expect to be exploring that possibility in the near future, because of having too many other things to do.
Anyway: I don't see the point of pretending that Linux is all things to all people. Powerful, yes; stable, yes; flexible, yes; but straightforward for the average user, accustomed to GUIs and GUIs only, to install and run? Not in my experience.
Were such a user, who is intimidated by or simply refuses to use the command line, to ask me if they should switch from Windows to Linux, my answer would be either "not yet" or "no," depending on how my day had gone.