Re: making linux look bad
tf wrote:
>
> Hey everybody
>
> I make linux look bad. I've been messing with it for almost 2 years and have never had it running well enough to use. So. can
> someone give me a strategy to follow? I'm obviously going about this the wrong way. I think it would help if I got ppp
> working-both pon and wvdail dial out, but leave the line open and not connected to anything. right now, my only internet
> connection is via windows.
This is awful! But luckily you have come to the right place. The Debian
community is a wealth of information and expertise unsurpassed by any
other distribution follownig in my experience (ymmv).
Ok, here are my recomendations, to be followed by some of my personal
experiences. This may get long so I will start with the summary and you
can stop reading beyond that if it gets boring.
1. Catalog _all_ of your hardware and ensure that _every_ piece is
supported (well).
2. If you have hardware that is not supported then buy, barter, or
trade, for pieces that are.
3. Aquire some desk references - good Linux books. Buy two and you will
be amazed at how often the answer you are looking for is in book 'A' but
not 'B'. Then you will find the answer to another question only in book
'B'. There are to many good books to list, but you need at least one.
This is not an option - get one or more.
4. Set some goals and priorities for getting things working.
a) get a solid installation completed.
b) get ppp working <-- important. use to access info for solving all
other pronblems.
d) start with the next most important feature and work on it until you
get it working.
e) repeat step 'd' untill everything works.
f) after all your hardware is working keep learing (shell scripting,
compiling sources, etc.)
Personal experiences:
Don't get discouraged. The first time I installed Linux it took me
_months_ to get all of my hardware working correctly. Then one day I sat
down in front of the thing and everything was working. That was so
great. The turning point for me was the day I realized that every time I
got stuck and couldn't find a solution to a problem I would boot Windoze
(ie. I would take the easy way out.). I realized that as long as I kept
dropping back to Windoze every time Linux got tough I would never learn.
At that point I decided to try an experiment - total immersion. I
resolved not to boot windows at any cost. I wanted to do two things:
1)learn more by forcing myself to find solutions to Linux problems, and
2) To see if Linux really could supply all I needed from a computer.
Well it worked. In '98 I removed windows to make more space for Linux --
I hadn't booted windoze in over a year! It was not easy at first, but in
the first two months of project "total immersion" I learned more than I
had in the previous _year_ of dual-booting.
If you do this I am sure you will look back in three months and be
amazed at how far you have come. I know that not everyone can make that
level of commitment to using Linux, but I recommend it if you can.
The good news is that it gets easier as you learn more. There will come
a day when you can sit down in front of a bare system and walk away an
hour later leaving a fully configured system complete with network,
printing, sound, x-windows, etc. And even better, you will know how to
use it! Then the fun begins.
Hang in there. We will be here to help.
--
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Ben Messinger bmessin@3-cities.com
Only dead fish go with the flow. Use Debian/GNU Linux.
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