Help me! I'm spoiled by Win98 but i want Linux!

[Faust]

As was said above:

BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!

let me repeat that:

BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!

partitioning is a tricky business, even experienced partitioners always back up the essentials!
DOS program for defrag : at the dos prompt type defrag C:
(defrag -a C: will analyze the drive)
note that after defrag the portions of the drive that will be changed (front and rear I believe...) must show as white or as free space.
for defragmenting on Windows I use norton speed disk which does a much more thorough job...
but norton costs money...
the easiest solution for me is a back up, partition and format all, reinstall windows, install linux.  But if you want info on partitioning without reinstalling windows someone else here should have info on FIPS, the First Interactive Partition Splitter.  Again my personal thoughts are that its less worrying to format the entire drive and just partition it as blank. (edit : provided you have backups of course...)

Note : make sure you make a linux boot disk at the prompt! (requires a floppy... remember them?       )

and in case you missed it the first few times:

BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!

[ April 06, 2003: Message edited by: Faust ]

[Lennon]

LoL ok ok ok Faust! Thanks for reminding me once again. I'll BACKUP for sure!!! Just hope i got enough CDs...

And i downloaded some Diskeeper defrag program, after i tried that in DOS and it didnt work. I have never defragmented my HD since i got the computer (2 years)    so 10% takes around 1 hour... Is this normal? And i cant backup and format, cos i have some installed software which i need and cannot re-install.

As for the floppy, i think i got some ... in the basement  

[Fett101]

You could try booting in safe mode and defragging.

[Lennon]

Hey everyone, I got the Linux up and running!!  

I feel delighted just like that time when I lost virginity... I mean I really did loose it!

The partitioning was done perfectly, no data lost as i can see so far. I got the partitioning schedule as i wanted it, but i wasnt clear on what JFS was. Now i understand, and it all works really speedy. The only "problem" i had is in Mandrake Control Center, once it took around 20 seconds to load. But i browsed around the OS for about 1 hour and i am really amazed. KDE looks awesome, and i dont know why anybody would complain about GUIs! Everything is SO fast, i can feel it! I managed to get a better refresh rate on my monitor, that XMMS mp3 player is so fast, Konqueror is AMAZING, etc.

One problem: I can't seem to get my ISDN going    but thats ok cos i'm probably doing something obviously stupid as i'm real tired now. Now i used something like "DrakConnect", and i see it detects my card but it won't connect.

This works in Window$ 98:
DMI-128l+ ISDN Card
D-Link International
E-DSS1 (Euro-ISDN) Protocol
PCM Law: A Law

So my question:
-Can anyone offer any suggestions about what drivers/programs to get to easily configure/connect my ISDN card?
-Should i get a new ISDN card? This one sux anyway.

Perhaps someone else had a similar problem...

[Lennon]

Fuck. New card it is...

http://www.dlink.co.in/dlink/Products/isdn/dmi128i+.htm

[Lennon]

HEY EVERYONE!  
I managed to connect in Mandrake Linux 9.1, the problem turned out to be my ISP. Everything works fine, but i don't like Mozilla, i like the other one better.

I noticed not many replies are here so i must be getting annoying. But just in case someone bothers to answer the simple question i am supposed to bitch about:

HOW THE HELL DO I INSTALL PROGRAMS!????

I mean i do the ./configure, make, make install, make clean commands but... erm, it dont work bros!  And once intalled, how do i get my progs going?
Is a restart needed for registry update in Linux?


HeLp! !!   :eek:

[Fett101]

Mandrake 9.1. They actually made it some much easier. Go download a rpm package and double click it.

[Lennon]

Yeah i can handle RPM but i get tar.bz or tar.gz sometimes.
It tells me i need to compile it. I get a bunch of .cpp .h files and so on, so i'm pretty sure i need to compile it.

And anyway, once i install the RPM packages, how do i start the program up ?

Anyone who could answer?

[ April 07, 2003: Message edited by: Lennon ]

[emh]

If you install a program via RPM, just pull up kpackage (look in your menu, under Configuration, then Packaging), look up the package you just installed, (just go to "file" - "find package".  You don't have to know the full name of the package, just the main idea is fine).  Click on the "File List" tab on the right hand side, where the description of the package is.  Look for "/usr/bin/*filename* or "/usr/local/bin/*filename*.  Whatever it says in one of those directories, that's the command you type to run the program.  You don't have to switch to the directory to run it, just simply pull up a terminal and type the name of the program.

The above procedure isn't as complicated as I made it sound.  It's really pretty straightforward.  To make a desktop icon in KDE, just simply right click anywhere on the desktop.  On the menu that pops up, select "Create New...", then "link to application".  From there, you can create a desktop icon for an application.  Say you just installed GAIM from an rpm.  They put an executable script in the directory /usr/bin, so you don't have to specify any directory when making your desktop icon.  You can just simply put "gaim" in on the execute tab, where it says "command".

That was probably more info than you really needed, but I hope it's helpful.

As for programs installed from source, the vast majority of the time, when "make install" is run, it places an executable with the same name as the tar.gz package in a "bin" directory (i.e. usr/bin, usr/local/bin, etc).  So just simply typing the name of the program should get it running.  For example, let's say you compiled and installed a program called mplayer-0.9.0.tar.gz.  When you run "make install", it places an executable called "mplayer" in your usr/bin or /usr/local/bin directory.  Therefore, simply typing "mplayer" at the command line, regardless of what directory you're in, will start up mplayer.

Occasionally, programs don't put executables in any "bin" directories.  But in this case, they usually tell you where they installed to.

And let me re-assure you, this is much easier than I'm making it sound.  Sorry about that.....    

THE SHORT VERSION OF THE ABOVE MESSAGE....

Say you installed mplayer-0.9.0rc2.rpm or you installed mplayer-0.9.0rc2.tar.gz.  In both cases, just simply typing "mplayer" at the command line will launch the application, regardless of what directory you're currently in at the terminal.  The same applies to making desktop icons.

Another example:

mozilla-1.3b-i686-sea-tar.gz or mozilla-1.3b-i686-sea.rpm.  In both cases, after installing the program, simply typing "mozilla" will start it.

Hopefully, this clears things up for you.  Hopefully, I didn't cause you to run from your computer screaming....

   

[ April 07, 2003: Message edited by: emh ]

[emh]

And I took a second look at your message, and it seems you're having a bit of trouble compiling from source.  Usually, that happens when the compiler is looking for something and can't find it.  The configure script should tell you if it needed something.  Where exactly does your compiling from source fail?  Do you get errors in configure, or make?

Oh, another thing, when typing "make install", be sure you are logged in as root before typing that command.

[Lennon]

Lets go, all over again. Please read carefully.

Thanks ehm, but this is too fucked up.
I'm running Mandrake 9.1 just so you know.
Firstly - when i go to Configure > Packaging, theres no file, find package or anything, wherever i go. Theres just:
-Install Software
-Mandrake Update
-Remove Software
-Software Source Manager
And none of these contain "Finding" files.
Now i installed linuxvideostudio-0.1.7-1src.rpm in hoping i would play some DivXs and it all seemed fine, but theres NOTHING in my /bin or any other directories. I tried the normal find files, nothing.
I also tried typing all sorts of commands in the Terminals > Konsole but nothing.
I'm not even sure the damn program IS for mandrake. How am i supposed to know that, is there any difference? Maybe its a plug in, theres no documentation with it, nothing to give me even a hint!

Ok now about the compiling.
i got two programs for video display. one of which is xmps-0.2.0 which i unpacked to /tmp and tried doing ./configure. During configure it gave me the usual checks and i once saw "command not found" if it matters but in the end it says

XMPS build configuration:
  - Build GNOME gui: yes

Does it mean i cant run it unde KDE?
When i run make install and make, i get all sorts of "parse error before '*' token" and " 'name' undeclared (first use in this function) " and error 1... make has 2 errors.  

Now i tried ./configure with kmplayer and it says "Good - your configure finished. Start make now" but once i type make install it says "mkdir: cannot create directory ... Permission Denied" so i tried typing login, and then root and then password, but that didn't work. Then i tried logging out and i shut down my whole Linux system so here i am typing the whole post once again...    now i hope someone answers because i gave up. I'll need a few days to regain strength to go on with this...

when i type login i get "login:" i type "root" i get "Password:" and cant type anything. I press enter, then i type the password, and it says its wrong.
And the You must exec "login" from the lowest level "sh" message is very annoying too...

Another bitching:
And now because i am typing this in a text file, i have to wait a few minutes to connect to the net because this strange network program will not use the full capabilities of my ISDN so i have to wait 20 seconds each time my ISP rejects me, where in windows i wait 1 second... any better internet connection programs out there??? No i quit, i'll have to connect from windows... here i am posting from win98.

P.S.
Please answer, im out of ideas how to run anything on here... so please before i loose it  
Took me 40 minutes to write this post and i am so agitated i am planning to sell my computer if things keep going this way. Fuck machines.   :mad:

[Doogee]

Terminal is your friend, always have at least 1 terminal open all the time.

RPMS:

$ su
<root pass>
# rpm -Uhv rpmname.rpm


SOURCE (tar.bz2/gz/others)

$ tar -xzvf (xjvf i think for bz2) tardotgzfile.tar.gz
$ cd tardotgzfile
$ ./configure
$ make
$ su
<root pass>
# make install
# exit
$ tardotgzfile  (this is the name of the program, this is how you execute it)


I hope this helps a bit mate, it will be hard at first, but once oyu get used to it you wont want to let linux go!

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by Lennon:
XMPS build configuration:
  - Build GNOME gui: yes

Does it mean i cant run it unde KDE?

no. not in any way. kde stuff and gnome stuff is now so well integrated that you can usually run programs written for one on the other totally transparently. there are still one or two exceptions but you are unlikely ever to meet them.
   

quote:When i run make install and make, i get all sorts of "parse error before '*' token" and " 'name' undeclared (first use in this function) " and error 1... make has 2 errors.        

you need to run make before you run make install.  

quote:Now i tried ./configure with kmplayer and it says "Good - your configure finished. Start make now" but once i type make install it says "mkdir: cannot create directory ... Permission Denied" so i tried typing login, and then root and then password, but that didn't work.

ok, first of all, you have to run make install as root. to do this, type "su -", the 'su' makes you root and the '-' tells the system to load root's configuration stuff. then you need to type in the root password. you'll find this a lot less messy than trying to run another login session. type "man su" to find out more about 'su', eg you can use it to become other users as well as just root.

do check after you become root that you are still in the same directory you were in before. you can do this by typing "pwd" (which stands for print working directory) at any time to find out where in the directory tree you are.

it's difficult for me to try and help more unless you be more specific than "that didn't work".
   

quote: Then i tried logging out and i shut down my whole Linux system

ah... you won't be able to install anything that way...

   

quote:when i type login i get "login:" i type "root" i get "Password:" and cant type anything. I press enter, then i type the password, and it says its wrong.
And the You must exec "login" from the lowest level "sh" message is very annoying too...

well, as i said above, you shouldn't really be typing 'login' you should be using 'su' instead (it stands for super user by the way, i find it's easier to remember these commands when you know what they mean). i suspect none of these login problems will be there if you use su instead. nonetheless, if i get any errors typing in my root password then i usually change it as soon as possible, just in case. to do this, as root, type "passwd" which will prompt you for a new password, twice. you can do this as any user to change your password, and if you are root, you can do "passwd username" to change the password for that user too.

   

quote:Another bitching:
And now because i am typing this in a text file, i have to wait a few minutes to connect to the net because this strange network program will not use the full capabilities of my ISDN so i have to wait 20 seconds each time my ISP rejects me, where in windows i wait 1 second... any better internet connection programs out there??? No i quit, i'll have to connect from windows... here i am posting from win98.

can't help you here, i have never used this type of connection. i have a feeling it might be some settings thing rather than a problem with the actual connection program whatever it is though i could be wrong. somebody who uses this type of connection would be more help.


it took me a while when i was new to it all to successfully install anything from source, basically i suggest you read all the readme files and install text files and stuff before you try to install the program. i know it sounds boring but you get the hang of it. i find it is a good idea to type "./configure --help" before you start too, to see if there are any options you can add to ./configure which you might want (like if i was installing mplayer, there are quite a lot of things i put after ./configure on the same line, to enable features et cetera, if you see what i mean).

also http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/redhat/
in particular the apt-get and fonts ones. they're not directly relevant but they are easy and will probably be something you'll want (especially apt-get for installing stuff) at some time. you are using red hat aren't you?

also there are some basic FAQs that we put together at http://belg88.com/faqman/index.php?op=cat&c=2 which i think will be a great help to you.

edit: maybe this will help you with your isdn issues?
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/custom-guide/s1-network-config-isdn.html

[ April 08, 2003: Message edited by: Calum: crusader for peace & freedom ]

[Doogee]

oi dont go misleading the boy, su stands for substitute users, go root and type # su (nameofsomeoneelseonyoursystem) and whammo you are them    


I dont like saying it like that, i usually refer to it as switch user.


I know im being picky, but someone told me it was super user, the i went into irc one day and they laughed at me when i said it was super user. Also in one of my b00ks it says substitute users.      

now, to get that word processor going    :rolleyes:

[ April 08, 2003: Message edited by: Doogee : Get Slack ]

[Lennon]

Thanks Dooge, thats probably the greatest help i could get, cos i understand the workings just not the logic... i think... I'm posting from windows now, cos i found my ISDN is not working (I get hardware errors all over the place) but on random, it wakes up and i'm able to connect. So that other problem is about my hardware, not Mandrake.

Calum, thanks, your answer was a sorta variation on Dooges     ... it comes in handy. Thanks for the links!! I'll check them out. edit: You should also note i use Mandrake 9.1

Now i'll go try it out and come back when i have other stuff to bitch about.    :cool:

[ April 08, 2003: Message edited by: Lennon ]