Re: Linux is not for consumers!
On Thu, 2003-12-11 at 06:26, David Baron wrote:
> Problems persist and have gotten nowhere!
>
> 1. Connecting ADSL -- edited everything including ppp_on_boot, dsl_provider,
> pap_secrets, all that stuff. No go. Running "pon ppp_on_boot" gives me a bad
> tdb and quits. The only tdb reference is from Openoffice so is irrelevant
> here. (All of the little utilities for adding "connections" assume dialups.
> Windows has a virtual VPN adapter to handle that--says it's dialing but it
> ain't.)
Did you try running pppoeconf? That has worked for me on the 15+
different dsl connections I have set up under debian...
> 2. Running Java stuff--Open office works. I installed netbeans (a Java
> programming IDE) but cannot get it to run.
That's not a very detailed error report... what exactly does "cannot get
it to run" mean? (also, OpenOffice is not a Java app, it's written in
c++)
> 3. The Adobe Acrobat reader looks gosh-awful. Like Windows 2! I have a
> version 5.08 linux distribution--maybe this will look better?
Yes, it does look quite bad, Adobe's fault (motif, shudder). KDE and
GNOME each have their own PDF viewers that look a whole lot nicer. Have
you tried them? They don't have all the features of acroread, but I find
I don't typically need them all... YMMV
> 4. Oldie-but-goody hardware which I really would like to use:
[snip some random hardware]
> Davicom32 Fax modem -- ISA, detected. Fairly standard and NOT a "win" modem
> (these have never worked on this computer for whatever reason). Haven't the
> foggiest how to set up KFax or anything else to use this modem. IRQ5, I
> believe, sitting on COM3. Suppose I could try talking to it through KPPP.
should work just fine...
# dmesg | grep ttyS
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
That will tell you the device name. kfax appears to be a fax _viewer_ I
believe you are going to want to check out hylafax. To do some simple
hyperterminal-type testing, apt-get install minicom.
> I would like to go over to Linux for everything except music production
> (since there is no appropriate software yet).
It might take some effort, Debian doesn't do much of the work for you,
but once you have it figured out, it won't break on you either. Also,
keep in mind that you are not an average consumer. (and keep the
troll-like subject lines to a minimum please. We are all here because we
like to help other people in our free time, no need to goad us)
--
Mark Roach
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