Re: Desktop productivity with Debian GNU/LINUX
John & Peg Pickard wrote:
In early '99 . . .
So problem #1 was LINUX wasn't smart enough to find a sound card if
it wasn't
on interrupt 5 (unless the user was smart enough to edit and recompile
the sound
module).
Problem #2 was stair stepping when I printed. After some e-mail
correspondence
with Patrick Volkering, he suggested that I download a different prn
file. I did.
It was a monster of a file, with lots of printers, and I tried to set
it up for
my printer (OKIDATA OLE 810e, and then an hp equivalent. Still had stair-
stepping.
As I didn't have time to keep playing with LINUX, I gave up.
Linux, being an OS by geeks for geeks, up until just recently, needs a
geek to get it set up properly. Mandrake and others have made vast
improvements, but it's not automatic. If you expect it to be, you'll be
disappointed. Wait another couple of years. Until then consider yourself
a consumer; as a general rule, consumers get their computers
pre-installed with an operating system and don't do their own OS
installation (although they might do a "restore" using the System
Restore disk that came with their computer).
Spring of 2000 I got Mandrake, LinuxWorld's editor's choice for 1999. This
should be the ticket. After installing it, I still had problem #1 &
problem #2.
Also couldn't find the How To on setting up the modem, so never got
connected
to the Internet. Not too impressed with LINUX up to this point.
As stated above, if you expect a Linux installation to be automatic,
you'll be disappointed.
Have a new motherboard/chip (DFI socket7/K6-2 550mhz), same modem,
diff sound
card (Audigy PCI). From the reviews I've read lately, Debian is the
best LINUX if one
ever gets it installed.
Yep. Debian installation is not automatic; but once installed, it's a
breeze to maintain and upgrade.
Some articles mentioned KNOPPIX as a great way to get
Debian LINUX installed, so I downloaded the ISO (we now have a T1
connection
where I work), burned a CD, and tried it out. Booted up great. But no
sound, and it
can't find the modem or my printer.
Knoppix does very good hardware detection. If it didn't find your
hardware, I wouldn't expect Debian to do so.
So much for KNOPPIX as an installer, or even as
a trial for LINUX. It was well behaved, when I shut down it ejected
the CD & asked me
to close the tray and press enter. When I did it finished shutting
down the computer.
Nice touch.
Open Office appears to be a nice suite if I could only find my files!
I never
figured out how to get to the disk the files were on using the
programs file open
browser. The only way I could open files was to click on one of the
partitions on
the desktop and then browse until I found a file and then clicked on
it. Not real
handy. (I had downloaded and installed OpenOffice 5.2 in WinME and had
the same
problem at first, but after some reading was able to find my files).
With LINUX Open
Office, I'm stuck with only LINUX partitions.
Huh? Where do you have your files? Applications in Linux would expect as
a general rule to find users' file in their home directories. If you
have them stored elsewhere, it's up to you, not OO.o to be able to
locate them. It sounds like you have your files on some other partition,
in which case you need to do some system adminstration stuff beforehand
to be able to get to your files (like mounting those partitions, making
them accessible to your user, etc). *nix is a vastly different world
than Windows. Sometimes that makes things better, sometimes not. But
regardless, it's different.
A problem that I am having with WinME is playing CD's through the IDE
inter-
face. Since I have both a DVD and CD/RW drive, I didn't hook either
one up to
the audio plug on the sound card, as the Plextor rep said I could
play them
through the IDE interface. I can, using Plextor's player, but no other
Windows
player that I've tried will.
I've heard that such a thing is possible, depending on the player, but
I've never done it. At any rate, you've described a problem in Windows
here; can't give you much advice or sympathy. Sorry.
I wish I could devote the time learning LINUX that I did when I first
started
using DOS (1984), but I don't have that much free time anymore.
I understand that, and sympathize. But the fact remains that *nix is a
different critter from Windows, and _requires_ a learning curve. Redhat
and Mandrake & etc have tried to reduce that learning curve, but it remains.
My first
exposure to Windows was Win95 (I had been using OS2 at work previous
to that),
I read very little, I started using it and learned as I went. That's
the way it
will have to be with LINUX, I will have to be able to do something without
devoting hours trying to figure out each task that I want to do. Until
LINUX
progresses to that point, I and many others simply can't make the switch.
It has progressed to that point. Remember, when you were first exposed
to Win95, the internet didn't much exist. Nor did CD players. Nor did
multi-user capability (in that OS). In other words, you learned the
technology as the technology became available, on the platform that you
had already learned the basics on.
Likewise, you have the basics on Linux; you know how to start it, shut
it down, do a little word processing. The difference is that now instead
of learning a little now and a little tomorrow, you're wanting to know
it all now, so your Linux box will be as capable as your Windows box.
The different technology, combined with the less emphasis on "user
friendliness" in the *nix world, means a large learning curve in order
to get the same capability. Sorry, that's just the way it is.
If I get the Debian disks and managed to get LINUX installed (I hear
you have a
new version with a better installer), will it be able to find my sound
card,
Probably.
modem,
If it's on a standard com port (1-4 in the Windows world); otherwise,
you'll probably have to tinker.
and printer (Okidata OLE 810e).
If it's a real printer hanging off the lpt port, probably.
Can it print to a printer without stair-
stepping?
I hate setting up printers. Maybe, maybe not.
Can I easily add a USB HP Ink Jet
Since it's probably a "win-printer", the specs to which HP has probably
refused to make available to the Open Source crowd forcing them to guess
randomly in the dark with their hands tied behind their backs while
being screamed at to give up and buy Microsoft since it naturally works
with the printer, I wouldn't hold my breath.
, and an old Epson dot matrix
later?
If it's hanging off the standard lpt port, probably.
Assuming Debian LINUX can find my sound card, can LINUX CD players
play through the IDE interface?
I've heard some can (xmms?), but haven't done so myself.
In short, will I be able to do something productive with Debian LINUX?
Define "productive". With my definition, certainly you can.
And then I
will want to network it with our laptop running WinME,
Requires Samba, which is the Open Source effort to ferret out
Microsoft's proprietary and secret and seemingly ever-changing smb
protocol, which they have done _very_ well at (Samba on Linux often
makes a better server than Microsoft's own servers). Still, it's not
automatic. Don't expect it to be.
and a LinkSys Print server,
and possibly a US Robotics broadband router (if I can use the "back
up" dial up
connection on a permanent basis, which would then have an external modem).
All without requiring a PHD in networking?
A Master's should be sufficient.
If I get that far, LINUX will be for real,
and I will also load it on my old 100 mhz Dell and network that too.
You probably don't want to use a 100MHz box as a GUI-enabled
workstation. With enough RAM, it might be okay. Without the GUI (the X
Window System), it'll most certainly be dandy.
Any hope?
Lots. But it won't be automatic. Don't expect it to be.
Thanks,
John S. Pickard
Kent
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