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Author Topic: Linux ISOs  (Read 11748 times)

roseway

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Linux ISOs
« on: July 20, 2006, 01:17:57 PM »

As a long-time Linux user (and as this topic is currently empty) I feel obliged to respond to this:

Quote from: "feliscatusx2"
Total downloads struggle to reach 1 Gb per month, then only when I feel the need to download yet another Linux ISO than won't work.


I've probably downloaded and tested about 50 different Linux ISOs, and I have yet to find one which didn't work. Some are better than others of course, and occasionally there will be one which has installation problems on certain hardware, but they all 'work'.

So in what way didn't they work for you? I'm not intending to be argumentative here, just helpful if possible. Did they fail to boot? If so, and assuming that the BIOS is set up to boot from CD, then it's 99.9% certain that the reason is that the ISOs weren't written to the CD correctly. The ISO image is just that - a bit-by-bit, track-by-track image of the data on the CD, and it has to be written to the CD as an image not as a file, in order to recreate the structure of directories and files on the CD.

If you (or anyone else) wants to have another go with Linux, then I'm happy to try to help.

Eric
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Astral

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« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2006, 01:52:27 PM »

Hi Eric

You may be able to help me. I decided a little while ago that I ought to get to grips with Linux and bought a full copy of Suse 9.3 thinking that as it has 2 manuals with it I should be able to sort out any problems myself.

Of course I didn't take into account that it would be largely written in geek-speak and that inevitably the very problem you were experiencing would not be mentioned at all. :evil:

First main problem was that I couldn't figure out how to change desktop from KDE to Gnome & vice versa, without uninstalling/reinstalling the whole shebang (or more accurately,as I tend to get a bit drastic on these occasions, format/reinstall). As far as I could see you had to choose which desktop you wanted during installation even though you didn't know what they were like. Anyway decided I liked Gnome best but after a week or so I would get "locked out". On boot-up I would get a grey slashscreen with an "embossed" chameleon (I assume the Suse creature is a chameleon cos it's always the same colour as its background) and an invitation to put in a password, but whatever I put in I couldn't get any further.

If you can enlighten me I would be very grateful.

No chameleons were harmed in the making of this post. But that could change. :twisted:
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roseway

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« Reply #2 on: July 20, 2006, 03:34:24 PM »

To answer your first question, the Gnome/KDE question you were asked during installation merely defines what packages are installed initially, and you can always install any other packages you like afterwards. To do this you would go into Yast --> Software --> Software management and click on 'Selections' in the 'Filter' box. Check 'KDE desktop environment' and (optionally) 'All of KDE' and then 'Accept' and KDE will be installed. You can then switch between KDE and Gnome by using the 'Sessions' button at the login screen.

However, If I understand your description correctly, you don't get a proper login screen any longer, so it looks as though something has got messed up. It can probably be fixed, but the fix would certainly be a bit geekish, and to be honest I think your best bet would be to scrap the installation and start again.

SuSE is a good bet for a Linux beginner because of the extensive manuals (they are a bit technical perhaps but a valuable source of information). No other desktop operating system that I know of provides such extensive printed documentation.

That being said, 9.3 is over a year old now. However it was a very solid release and is probably worth sticking with now you've paid money for it. I use SuSE myself on my main PC (version 10.1 now) and use two excellent forums for support:

http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/

and

http://www.suseforums.net/

Eric

PS The first of those appears to be down at present (which I've never known to happen before).
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Astral

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« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2006, 03:54:33 PM »

Thanks Eric

My impression was that you could switch at will between KDE & Gnome but I obviously didn't find a clear instruction in the manual either because I'm going senile (very likely) or it isn't there. (possibly) Anyway thanks for the clear explanation.

You are right about some sort of error causing the other problem, trouble is I didn't understand the error message or what geekery to invoke to fix it. I resorted to my usual scorched earth policy of formatting & reinstalling and all went well for a while then the fault recurred. I have no idea what causes it to happen though.

The good news is that this is all happening on the No.2 computer which is on a wireless LAN, or should I say was, cos I've b***ered that up now. :oops: The upshot of this is that I am going, when I've got time, to start from scratch again and if (when) it goes wrong I'll let you know what the error message says, if that's OK.

Thanks again for your input.
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roseway

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« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2006, 04:01:13 PM »

Quote from: "Astral"
I'll let you know what the error message says, if that's OK.

Thanks again for your input.


It's certainly OK, and you're welcome. And I refuse to accept that you're going senile, because if you are then I probably am too. Bu I do admit to being a Victor Meldrew lookalike. :)

Eric
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feliscatusx2

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« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2006, 08:52:05 PM »

I've only just seen your thread.

I tried a full install of Ubuntu, using the helpful dual boot facility provided.  The install took ages but appeared to work, but Ubuntu could not connect to the Internet (I use a NIC and a Netgear router). Ubuntu also ran veeeeeeeery slowly, although I accept my PC may be a little underspecified for that particular Distro.  I fired up Windows to have a look at the Ubuntu forum only to find that my entire W98 installation had been trashed.  

I found this slightly annoying, and yes I had backups.

More recently tried a Live CD of Vector Linux which ran better but still could not see the NIC.  As I was only playing with it I did not take this any further, although I still have the CD and may try again.

At the moment, and given my hardware, I don't feel the need for Linux.  If the situation changes I may try again, anything rather than WinXP.
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kitz

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« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2006, 09:05:24 PM »

I dabbled with Red Hat a few years ago, and got on quite well with it at the time.

Aside from one thing -  I just could not get my sound card to work with it... after spending ages trawling through the net - I found out the only way I would have been able to get it to work was by compiling my own drivers... (or getting a new sound card)  which kinda put me off a bit :/
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roseway

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« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2006, 01:29:13 PM »

Quote from: "feliscatusx2"
I tried a full install of Ubuntu, using the helpful dual boot facility provided.  The install took ages but appeared to work, but Ubuntu could not connect to the Internet (I use a NIC and a Netgear router). Ubuntu also ran veeeeeeeery slowly, although I accept my PC may be a little underspecified for that particular Distro.  I fired up Windows to have a look at the Ubuntu forum only to find that my entire W98 installation had been trashed.

I've never used Ubuntu, so I don't know why it failed to configure your NIC correctly. Assuming that your router is set up to act as a DHCP server (the normal default) then the installer should set up the NIC automatically and you should have internet access immediately. If you've disabled the DHCP server function then you would need to set up the NIC manually.

And I've no idea how it trashed W98, unless you let the installer shrink your Windows partition to make room for Linux. Shrinking does generally work, so long as you remember to defrag the Windows partition first, but it will always be a rather risky process. Congratulations on having backups. :)

Eric
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roseway

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« Reply #8 on: July 22, 2006, 01:41:16 PM »

Quote from: "kitz"
I dabbled with Red Hat a few years ago, and got on quite well with it at the time.

Aside from one thing -  I just could not get my sound card to work with it... after spending ages trawling through the net - I found out the only way I would have been able to get it to work was by compiling my own drivers... (or getting a new sound card)  which kinda put me off a bit :/

Things have improved a lot since those days, particularly in the multimedia area. Most Linux installers will configure sound cards completely automatically. If you perhaps fancy having another look, there are several live CD versions which run from the CD and don't touch your hard disk at all. You can try out all the features without having to install anything, the only downside being that it runs rather slowly because everything has to come off the CD. A good one to try is SimplyMEPIS 6.0, which you can download from ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distributions/mepis/released/ and if you like it you can click the 'Install' button and install it in the normal way. It's worth reading the HowTos and other documentation at http://www.mepis.org/ before starting.

Eric
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