Adventures in Linux

[faragher]

I succumbed to curiosity this weekend and decided to that I would have a go at installing linux on an old PC that I have had sat in the attic for a couple of years.

This thread is my story, with a few hints thrown in to help others who are thinking of trying this.

So, first things first. I needed to chose a distribution. This is pretty confusing for someone who is used to Windows, because there are LOADS. There is no real easy way to chose. I chose Fedora, because a company that I do some (non-computer related) work for uses this and Red Hat, and it seemed as good a way to chose as any. Now I had to chose what kind of Fedora I wanted.

As I was downloading I went for a livedisk with a Gnome GUI. Why? I actually have no idea, apart from the fact that it was the top livedisk link on the site. 20 minutes later, I have burned the CD on my current windows PC and am ready to go. So, It fires up, all seems to be OK, select install to disk (which currently has XP installed on it). It gives me the option to format before install, which I do and off it goes.

20 minutes after than I am looking at a Fedora Desktop. I've set up all the basic stuff and its time to tackle the wireless. I plug in the USB wireless widget. Nothing. Time to troubleshoot. Trusty google tells me that I can look up what is going on with a series of commands. First challenge is where these commands go. AHAH! Next challenge is making any sense of the output. Got it - It seems that Fedora is recognising the dongle, its just recognising it as the wrong chipset. Its fixable apparently. I just need to download and install the newest drivers. Ah, download. Not so easy when I don't have the internet working.

Download the drivers on the XP machine, put on USB drive, plug it in the linux machine. OK, time to learn how to install a driver.

Now I consider myself to be alright at this computer stuff, but this is all new to me. I make myself a folder, copy the driver file in there, do all the unzipping with tar and stuff. The next bit goes something like this

% make
bash: 'make' unknown command or filename

faragher: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!

bearing in mind that I am now 2 hours in, and installing the drivers is not a sure fix and THEY HAVEN'T EVEN INCLUDED MAKE WITH THE FEDORA DISTRIBUTION, I am pretty much ready to give up.

But no. I decide that I will not be beaten. I will try another distribution. How to choose? Back to google. Type in Linux, pick the first one that comes up - Ubuntu.

Back to stage 1 - I download the livedisk. But this time I'm a bit cleverer. I run the system off the livedisk first to see if it will correctly identify my wireless dongle.

SUCCESS! I has internets. Ok, set it to install.

30 minutes later it is installed. Restart the PC and...

... loading screen, followed by a BusyBox prompt.

This is not good. It not working. Again. So, back to google. Maybe this is a good time to point out something about getting help for linux. You know that when you type in your problem into google, it will find someone who has had the same problem, and a solution to it. The problem is, that it will also find a load of people who had very similar problems, that required dramatically different solutions. But with some effort, I found a couple of things that could help. I needed to edit the bootloader to stop it hiding what the problem was first. Fortunately, this was not as complicated as it sounded. So now I could see what the problem was. Or would be able to if it made any sense at all. Never mind, more digging, and there it is, the magic words I can append to the boot to make it recognise that my hard drive does hold the information it requires. Make the changes and finally I am rewarded. Working.

So now I have linux. I want to go onto IRC. I need to install an IRC client. And now Ubuntu makes me happy - it has a software repository that I can access, and it will download and install stuff for me. I know this is limiting what I can access, because not everything is here, but for me, its a big boon. I don't want to have to fiddle with command line installation, I want to just click go and it goes.

IRC client fixed. Opera installed. Have a wander round the web. Work out how to install a flash like thing (more of this later) and the codecs so that embedded windows media players work etc. Impressions? Its fast, especially given that the machine is fairly old. However, it doesn't really like doing more than one thing at once. I don't mean more than one window open, I mean install something and browse the web. I get massive slowdowns. I like it though, and there will be updates as I discover more.

Outstanding problems : the flash player seems to be only playing about one frame in 5 of anything. It seems to be running at full speed, just not showing all the frames. It won't shut down. I'm not even going to try to fix this. I have a power socket, and that has an off switch, so thats pretty good.

What I learned:

- TRY IT FIRST. Use a livedisk and see if your hardware is supported before you install.
- Its great to have a second PC handy to fix what goes wrong.
- It isn't as easy as windows to install. Sorry. Its OK, but it asks questions that are just scary at times. I should't have to know what a partition is, or how to edit bootloader to get it to work. Likewise, when it updates, I shouldn't be asked questions about whether I want to keep my amended bootloader - this is a question I don't know the answer to.
- It isn't as easy as windows to fix when something isn't quite right. Windows does a great job of hiding all the nasty from you. THis does mean that if something is properly broken, its pretty much impossible to fix without a reinstall, but it also means that if something is a little bit broken it will help you fix it. Linux has not been good at this so far. It has required far too much looking up of commands, and a lot of grubbing about to get it to go.
- Once it is going, its great. I really liked it - especially the speed and stuff. But I'm not sure what advantages it gives me over windows.

What I would like to learn:
- What advantages have I got over windows - and btw, security is not one of them, my windows system has never had a problem.
- Why was it so difficult to get working - did I make some poor decisions, or was I just unlucky?
- How do I get flash to work properly
- What shall I do now?

[Paradigm^]

Warning: this post would be rated -1 Troll or -1 Flamebait were it posted on Slashdot. If you're a Linux lover, you'll no doubt hate me for it. I don't care.
- What advantages have I got over windows - and btw, security is not one of them, my windows system has never had a problem.Nothing of value. It's marginally easier to install software from the package manager through the Ubuntu repositories (just click and go), and because they're on the 'official' list of software they're pretty much guaranteed to work. What you have lost is compatibility with all the applications you're used to on a Windows machine. You've lost the time it will take you to find and learn the Linux version of everything. You won't be able to play games without a huge amount of hassle.
- Why was it so difficult to get working - did I make some poor decisions, or was I just unlucky?Neither. They've been saying "this is the year of Linux on the desktop" for around a decade now, but the truth is it's still not ready. Linux wireless support in particular is flaky, and graphics card drivers are improving, but still not there yet.
- How do I get flash to work properlyI don't know offhand, but I had a similar problem. I followed these instructions (http://www.opera.com/linux/docs/plugins/install/#flash) and they worked, IIRC.
- What shall I do now?Probably get bored, think "why did I do this again?", and switch back to Windows after the umpteenth little problem you have to type obscure commands into the terminal to fix.

Linux is good for:
Servers
Your nan - someone who wants to surf the internet and write documents in OpenOffice.
Linux is not good if you want to:
Maintain compatibility with that obscure but absolutely critical Windows app you were running before, or read that file that someone sent you that was produced using said obscure software
Play games
Use any remotely obscure piece of hardware

Linux is close, but it doesn't Just Work in the same way that Windows does. Having said that, there are going to be a lot of angry posts following this one saying "No that's not true it's Windows that doesn't Just Work I spent nineteen hours trying to __________ and in Linux all I had to do was type 'sudo /opt/var/cache/l33tbox.so | grep s*(0-1) > /usr/lib/share/.wanglator' " Linux has yet to gain the critical mass required for the majority of companies who make products for mass market to seriously start developing with it in mind.

NOTE: I've just installed Ubuntu on my Eee PC and it went reasonably smoothly. I suspect this is because it was a custom distribution designed for the Eee and most of the irritating stuff I'd normally have to do was already dealt with. Also, I use my Eee PC for surfing the web and writing documents in OpenOffice.

[piemastermike]

It's nice to hear i'm not the only person to have had massive problems with wireless drivers on linux. The funny thing is that in the past I simply couldn't get my wireless adaptor to work, but then I installed ubuntu onto my laptop and the card was recognised and worked straight out of the box!

A massive problem i see with linux is the amount of pot luck you have to deal with in situations such as this. Also, in agreement with a post I saw someone else make, "if it doesnt have a gui it's not ready" couldn't be more applicable. Your average Joe doesn't want to be fiddling about in the terminal half the time, and although this is becoming less and less frequent, it still has to be done sometimes and frankly the terminal scares me sometimes.

Having said all this, Ubuntu works perfectly and very very fast on my previously shit laptop and I would stick with it for the purposes of IRC, chatting on vent and surfing the web. Nothing more, nothing less. Linux is able to manage resources in a much more efficient way than windows, and on a less than powerful PC I feel this is a major advantage it has over windows. I couldn't say it would be a big enough reason to switch your everyday machine though.

[faragher]

I have to say that I love the look and feel of it. And I have that kind of OMGNOTM$ thrill, but I'm not sure how long that will sustain me.

And btw, I unplugged the graphics card before I even started knowing that it would probably kill it. I am going to plug in back in later and see how I do!

And yeah, this isn't my everyday machine, it was done more for fun. And it is quicker for the bits and pieces.

[Paradigm^]

You are clearly insane. GNOME is horrible :p

[doctor_fruitbat]

I have Ubuntu installed in case Vista craps out spectacularly and I need another OS to boot from, but that's the only reason. Windows has a lot of faults, but the layout in Vista is exceptionally good and it is very user friendly. Speed-wise I have no complaints either, and since that was the main reason I tried Linux in the first place I don't have any real desire to make it my primary OS. Plus I do tend to download a lot of obscure programs.

[Glitch]

I installed Ubuntu the other day, after having to re-download it about 4-5 times it corrupted and I can't be arsed to download it again. It's very slow, doesn't save my settings and freezes if you open Firefox, or have more than one application open at a time. Not happy.

Oh, and I had Xubuntu before which worked (kinda) - just really slowly, disconnecting from the Internet every five minutes. Also Amarok is horrible and keeps losing my music.

And then I realise there's nothing really wrong with Windows anyway. So that solves that.

[Ozzylator]

The sad fact is that for all the raving that the Linux lobby get a kick out of, Windows XP Professional has been pretty much the peak of operating systems so far.

[faragher]

ugh. Word of warning

Ubuntu does not automatically assign a root password. Which makes life a bit difficult.

You need to go set it yourself

[MargateMan]

You shouldn't need to use root in Ubuntu

Just do everything with the 'sudo' command in Terminal and use the main user's password. Ubuntu is designed to try and avoid root

[wyrd_fish]

i've been dicking about with linux for years now, but only a month or two ago did i switch to it full time


i don't think a younger me would switch to linux in it's current state, games can be a bit of a black art under linux and i didn't know enough to be confident i could fix it once it broke

now though, i've stopped playing games, mostly, and i can fix most of the problems i come across


but the main reason, was i wanted a decent photo library application, for free, and i found f-spot (www.f-spot.org)

it's loverly

PS gnome wees all over kde :P

[faragher]

You shouldn't need to use root in Ubuntu

Just do everything with the 'sudo' command in Terminal and use the main user's password. Ubuntu is designed to try and avoid rootThats fine until you are using someones install script, and it tries to copy stuff to directories that it can't access because it doesn't have root :/

there may be a way to avoid this, but that means more time working out how to do it, easier to just run the install from root.

[Paradigm^]

Thats fine until you are using someones install script, and it tries to copy stuff to directories that it can't access because it doesn't have root :/

there may be a way to avoid this, but that means more time working out how to do it, easier to just run the install from root.In all seriousness I've never had this problem. If you run the script with sudo too it should do everything fine. Running as root in Linux these days should never be necessary.

[piemastermike]

sudo is always the answer.

sudo make me a sandwich.

[Paradigm^]

I miss the old days when xkcd was actually funny :(

/controversial

[wyrd_fish]

Thats fine until you are using someones install script, and it tries to copy stuff to directories that it can't access because it doesn't have root :/

there may be a way to avoid this, but that means more time working out how to do it, easier to just run the install from root.

sudo -s gives you a shell with root privileges

[Scribbly]

I have a sort-of old laptop that I hardly use, so I figured I should give Ubuntu a try

Four hours later I'm screaming at my laptop because the bloody thing won't install video card drivers, connect to internet, freezes every ten seconds for 6 seconds, and occasionally pretends I'm holding down the button - which I touched briefly - for five minutes

So I threw it back in its corner and the - once somewhat fun - thought - of having a linux OS is banished forever.

You can start digitally slapping me BUT ... I must say that what I saw before all hell broke loose.. well it was pretty damn impressing! Auto-updates for everything ,at once.

Installing programs by clicking on them in a list or finding the huge collection via that one program thingie..

Damn. Rather cool.

But really, Linux users don't have the right to start pointing their chubby fingers at us 'regular' users. I mean come on, I know pc stuff, I built my own for pete's sake.

When I have to start typing things in a command prompt then the usability aspects got crotched-kicked straight out the window.

Make an OS where installing (and I mean to the point where I can start my pc and everything works) is do-able and by god you will not be a 1 digit* OS market percentage anymore

It's free, people'd love it!


* no idea how many people use it, it sounded nice

[Lewiji]

I run OpenSUSE on a box for playing around with. It's actually very nice, I mainly use it for modding the crap out of the source code to see what you can do with it.

I do enjoy people who dislike Linux/Mac OS when their main reason is "you can't play games", as if gaming (I'm really starting to dislike that word) is the most important thing you can do :p

[faragher]

I run OpenSUSE on a box for playing around with. It's actually very nice, I mainly use it for modding the crap out of the source code to see what you can do with it.

I do enjoy people who dislike Linux/Mac OS when their main reason is "you can't play games", as if gaming (I'm really starting to dislike that word) is the most important thing you can do :pI think the issue with games is that whilst its not the most important thing you can do, it is a part of the computer using experience. So why cut out a part of that?

I'm not bashing Linux / MacOS here, because I know they are more suited to certain things, I know all the OSS arguments and I know that in a lot of ways they are better. BUT - the fact that I need to not only know about sudo, but also about the flags it can use in order to install something, and the fact that I STILL CAN'T GET PEGGLE TO WORK is a big deal for the average computer user.

[Glitch]

I was wondering about Opensuse actually, it seems very nice although the website doesn't tell me much about it.

Gaming isn't a massive part of using the computer for me, I mainly just use it for music and internet. If it has a decent media player (not that amarok shit) I'll consider it.

[Martinus]

Amarok can seem like overkill until you have to work with a large music collection. My girlfriend has hundreds of albums and loves Amarok (despite having only used my Debian laptop a handful of times).

As for games, I was impressed by how straightforward it was to get Soldat working under Wine. It's not as fast as it would be on windows but it's quite playable. Having looked through the Wine game database you can also get Steam and a number of other recent releases working (as well as a number of fantastic older games).