I gotta say you guys are amazing. I went back and read my rants - sorry about that. I am going to try debian.

I just was here to ask a question about how to configure the command to get all of the hardware that is in this computer so that I can go about finding drivers; I got sidetracked at Jeremy's post about the Quarterly Zero Reply Drive and was reading through it and found this Linux Command listed in MTK358' signature. I've been there for awhile. Same thing that you were suggesting Hevithan, but its live. I'm going to check this out pretty quick also Linux Wallpaper for Beginners

I've been looking at the Arch listed in MTK358's sig. I like the idea of comparing bare bones with this what I have loaded now - I'm thinking that if I seen the simplest structure, without all of the (I'm looking for a word here) I might - kind of like seeing a house built from the footings - get a better idea of the structure.

Edit: I like this Judd Vinet and his idea of being able to build the system exactly how one sees fit. Something to shoot for.

So should I start a new thread if I have a question like "When I install Linux, am I immediately root? or do I have to ask for that permission?" (I'm here at "Linux Commands") and one of the first things he asks in a declarative statement is "your not playing around as root are you?"

During installation most distributions ask if you want to set up at least one user account. After the system is installed, you will log into the system as a user if it automatically loads a graphical interface (which is the case with most distributions). If, like Slackware, the system boots with a command line interface, you have the option of logging in as a user or root.

Until one knows what one is doing, being the root user should be done as little as possible. I learned early on that using root to issue commands like a deity without knowing what one is doing can cause big trouble.

Hi,

just curious if this problem was restricted to ubuntu or if it still persists. A couple of weeks ago I too had some "point 'n' click" problems. Turned out that the mouse was broken. It is hard to imagine that a distro might have difficulties with that.

I'd only recommend something like Arch if you're willing to actually spend the time to set everything up from a bare-bones CLI system. This means installing/configuring X (as unlike Windows, the GUI is optional ), a desktop environment/WM (e.g. GNOME, KDE, Xfce, Openbox, etc.), drivers, etc. manually. The advantage is that you can have a truly lean and mean system, depending on your needs/desires, with the disadvantage being that it takes more time to set everything up. IMO it's worth it in the end, though.

Another distro that follows the "K.I.S.S." (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy that's popular among LQ members is Slackware. The main difference from Arch is that there is very little done for you; managing software dependencies is left up to the user, for instance, rather than being resolved automatically.

Good luck with your Linux ventures!

It seems to be the operating system, it happens sometimes and not others. I've yet get focused on the little things. I'm currently installing 7 Ultimate and then I'll re-install a Linux flavor.


Something to shoot for anyway - me talking Arch is kind of like my daughter applying a cold press to my son's forehead and then telling me she wants to be a doctor.

There was a kid (I call him a kid, I don't know how old he was) in a windows forum that had a group of linux users and he had chained together grubs? lilos? until he had like 20 versions of Linux on one box. I've got to find that again. He went into great detail how to do it, and what was really cool about it; I understood it. He was quite a good teacher. Didn't follow any grammatical norms but had good grasp on language - at least, well enough that he wasn't confusing. I'm not saying that I would want to chain multiple copies of Linux together but a couple different flavors maybe.

I've been looking at both of them. I'm going to try each one. Now I'm realizing the Mint and flavors like that are really dumbed down. But had they not been, I'm sure I would've found something else to do for the last 80 hours.

No harm no foul. Sorry for blowing up. I had her hanging over my shoulder and a I don't do well sometimes under pressure.

I'm amazed at how well it worked

1 members found this post helpful.

AFAIK there shouldn't be any need to chainload a crap-ton of bootloaders to have a bunch of Linux distros (or even other OSes) on a single disk. You can just add the distros'/OSes' entries to the existing bootloader from the first install…though it might get a touch confusing keeping track of all the partitions those distros/OSes are located on, if we're talking 20+.

I may have not told the story just right - exactly what he was doing, I think it was an experiment, just to see if he could do it. it was quite interesting reading his posts. I didn't understand any of the specifics of course - I had just learned how to turn on a computer and was about in the same place with Windows then as I am with Linux now.

I'm going post another question. I don't want to get into any more trouble by breaking the rules - get the barking dogs after me.

If you have time, maybe could stop by and take a look - tell me where I went wrong. I tried to sudo apt-get gparted but I couldn't until I got git - I don't have it sorted out in my head so I can explain it right, I'm on her windows machine right now. When I installed Windows back on that machine I borked my internet connection so I've been -- and then I got sidetracked reading how to flash my wrt54gs v7 - I think I suffer from old timers disease or adhd.

After finding out how to print out the info on the hardware installed I took the driver specs and dropped it into duck duck and it did not take long to figure out that this Realtek wireless adapter and the driver has been the downfall of many a poor boy - just won't play with Linux.
.

I cannot upload to LinuxQuestion.org from Libre. Had to convert to pdf. I dislike Word in the worse sort of way and have used Oo in place of having never used Libre.

Libreoffice is the "spirtual Successor" to openoffice, so you should be fine

Your signature: sign of humility and intelligence - a cool combination.

My experience has been this: some distros will like your machine and others will not. I have had luck installing and having things work "right off the shelf" so to speak, with Ubuntu 10.10, and OpenSUSE on one desktop machine and no luck with OpenSUSE on my laptop. Mint looked promising but it did not like the laptop. So I have focused on Ubuntu 10.10 and things seem to be working very well except for my wifi card on the laptop (which will be the topic of a new post)but then this is a used hp and it could use some work. The bottom line: experiment and learn. I've been learning Linux for nearly a year and have books, etc. because I really like the Linux system. I just have to un-learn Windows and the closed source software that I've learned to use over the years.

This is my third time at Linux - not because it's so hard or I'm so stupid - it's just that I'll need to do something real with the computer and end up reverting back to Windows because "gotta get it out now' and then I end up settling until the next emergency.

Hi there,

that's funny: For me, it is the other way round. I own and maintain several PCs, and though I've been familiar with Windows extensively for over 15 years, every few months I end up converting yet another of them to Linux because something just doesn't work, or isn't reliable, or requires a lot of effort in Windows.

[X] Doc CPU

Theres generally one of two reasons I go back to Windows:

1) Gaming

2) video/audio work- This one isnt too bad for audio work (Protools is no longer the ONLY bear on the market, and there are at least a handful of other editing suites that work just as well) Video wise I've played around with a number of other editors, and none of them feel as streamlined and expansive as Adobe/Final cut products, and beyond that, there is not a competent motion graphics program available.