im reposting the folowing post i made. Everyone does this, becasae like i said in the suggestions area, its a popularity contest. If you can get more searches, and if u can get your post to stay at the top the longest, you win. So imj reposting this in a more relevant area.

Im am writing this to relieve excessive stress, and to see if anybody can pick out major mistakes i made during my conversion. It will be long, but i encourage you to read it. I want you to give me help for when i give the conversion a second try.


: The Start :

I started out with windows xp. I have been using windows for many years, and i haven't realaized that jsut now, thers a count down on how many days i continue using it, before i have to repurchase it. I also realized that that day was in 22 days. I frieked, but knowing previously about linux, from making sad attempts to convert to linux years ago, i tried looking at the latest linux fads. I looked into fedora, mandrake, debian, and a few others. I having alot of compyter techinichle skill, deciding i would try out debian, seeing as it had the All-In-One feal to it. I had very limited internet bandwqidth, and decided i should buy it. I got debian sarge on dvd shipped to me on septemeber 3. It came in the mail about 5 days later. I quickly rushed to my computer, and installed it. Installing was simple. A few clicks, and i was done. having tried debian before, i remembered alot abou the apt-get system. Soon, i had kde up and running, except for one problem, my mouse wasn't working coreectly. It seemed to me that it had something to do with my scroll mouse. after many hours of fustration, and amny reinstalls, i finaly figured out that i had selected thw rong driver. that was simple. but this time isntead of installing kde, i installed gnome. liked its look and feal.

: Gnome Up and running fully :
So i got excited, i know knew how to get from a dvd, to having gnome up and running fully. From there, i went on to install all sorts of wonderous software i found on my cd. But i also wanted to install my favorite linux por of a windows game. I downloaded it, and installed. I took one look at it, and realized i might need drivers for it. I did a little resarch, and i opped up with the name iopen gl. Then, i continuied, to find that ati had linux drivers. So i went on to the ati website, and downloaded there rpm package of drivers. I did a little chatting, and found out i could convert it to debian pakcage using alien. I did that, and installed it. At first, the install had to overwrite the previous opengl drivers(MESA), 5 chatlines down the road, and i had it installed, and it gave me no errors. Sop i tried the game again. No such luck. A little research, and i found out i had to swicth the Xfree86 config to run the driver. I did that. xfree worked, but the game still din't. I was ferious, this was my favorite game, and uit just ahpooned to be thje only windows game i played that had a linux port. I was determined to get it to work.

: Second try :
By the way, the game i was trying to run is Wolfenstine enemy Territory. I wanted to reinstall debian oncew again, but first i realized that i didn;t want to redownload my enemy territory. I tried using a knoppix cd i burned to backlup large files that i downloaeeded, like enemy terriroty. no such luck. I found out that i cant connect to my windows netowork on knoppix, i cant write to ntfsa partition in knoopix, i couldnt do squat that people download knoppix for, on knoppix. I gave up, and resintalled debian without my enemy terrirory file. This time i , i downloaded ati's drivers, installed them ,and i run a utility to configure xfree for the dirvers, despp[ite a warning sign from another website. the firsr time, i didn;t think i went watched very carefully at it, and at the end, xfree stpooped working. So, i did't know how to reconfig xfree. I ended up reinstalling debian once again. I wanted to start fersh, and see if that would make a diffreence, i downloaded enemy territory, and installed it, and i watched to see if the orgiinal xfree drivers would work. No such luck. So i installed flgrx (the drivers) and went into detail about their installation instreuctions, and i found out that the recompile ther kernal just for these drivers. I followed through to make sure this took place, i even updated my kernel to one i had the kernel source of. I was atrting tyo beocme more expereinced with linux. the new kernel worked fine, so i sintalled fglrx apckages. Then i went to test the game again. It dind't work. i found out that there was small utility to find out if the active drivers were ati ones. So i ran it. I found out, even after being supposeldy dleted,m the mesa drivers were still the acvtive opengl drivers.

: DELETE MESA :
I went into alot of work,t rying to delete mesa. The next part is kind of blurry, but my memory shows me i did alot of deleteing and reinstalling of packages, all of them. I had deleted and renistalled more packages than your aversage debian installer does when installing a full system. This eventually wound me up to have no drivers for open gl, when i did the test. it said complete blanks, I was confused. Despite my previous experience and warnings, i thought i might try running ati's config again, and going through it very carefully this time. It replaced it, and it didn't work. It restarted that x window system, and wound up with the same aror as abefore, but not about to give up, i deceded i might find a back up in the diorectory. I had to laern the command prompt to do this, because i had tried linux again, and found out it woudln't let me modified root owned files. so, witht the console, i dareling exploreed differwent things, changing ati's config's name to DELETEME, and renaming the backup file t the normal. i tried runnign x again, same pronblem. I was getting real confused, angry stressed, and sad at the same time. I eventual;ly learned how to use ed, and found out that ati had written the same file to both the normal config, and the "backup". I was determined not to renistall debian. I soon learned that the pronblem could be sovled by running xfree's config again, something i thought i couldn't do. I did that, and all turned out great. I had to modify the ati verison of the copnfig to "Deleteme2" and once again gnome was back and running.

: My second achievement :
I finaly felt happy and proud again. I had soplved a problem that myself, 3 days ago, would never have knew how to solve. I went back ito linux, ran the etsts again, it still turned up with no drivers. I did some more reinstalls, but no deleteing, trying to get something to turn up into that space. I was starting to slow down, get tired. I was trying to get anything, mesa, ati, or some other open gl syustem to apear. but it trurned up negative everytime.

: Giving up on games :
The sadest part of the story. I finaly decided i couldn't run the games, and i had to keep windows. This is no recently compared to wheen i wrote this article. I deleting the lats of the mesa and ati packages, which automaticaly deleted all games requireing them. I decided that i would have to buy another windows copy, something cheap, and use linux for a main system. So i started working. i went into mozzilla. This is wherw another problem arose. I wanted to watch streaming video. I told me i had to get somesort of plugin, mplayer2. a thousand clicks and 2 thousand letters later, i had source tarball package on my desktop. I knew that i would have to learn to compile sources sometime, it might as well be know. So, i followed intrustions, and landed on s snag right away. It told me that my Compiler available couldnt compile programs. I went into little research about this, i tried renistalling all the compilers, nothinging worked. I had to give up on streaming video too. But still i have not given up on linux. I then decided should completely renistall my sytekm, new windows, new debian, based on that fact that windows would be internet, games and anything to do with sound, because sound never seemed to work under linux, but i never wnet into detail trying to make ti work. And that linux would tand for everything else.

: Here I Am :
Just in case, i wanted to backup my enemy territory for linux. I knew i couldn't do it with knoppix in anyway. So with my new linux experience, i tired resizing my partitions with one that i could store my files on, anf that wouldn't get deleted when i rensitntalled my computer. That eneded in disaster, com,pletely runing my linux system. It woudlnt read from the hardrive anymore, so i went into windows for the first time in 3 days. I was about to give up on linux. I thought to mself, Mayble Later, or maybe reactos (google it, i cant post urls). But, in a last attempt at hope, i found a program capable of copying from ext3 partiotns from windows. This gave me hope, and i succefully backed up wolfenstine enemy terrirory. That was about 20 minutes before making this post.

Its now down to five days before windows clocks out, and im going to give linux another shot. Im almost out of hope, so i came onto this site, and posted it hear. I wanted to see if others could fix my problems, and give me enoguh hope for me to actually pick up the cd and reinstall linux.

Please respond, even if its unrelated, to chear me up.

Genixpro: do not repost - it is against the Rules you agreed to when you first joined. Remember that we have a worldwide audience and many will not see your post for at least 12 hours, or in many cases a day. Everyone here is a volunteer, no one is owed or guaranteed an answer.

If, after 24 hours, your question is still unanswered you can bump it to the top of the boards by responding to your own question with more info or telling us what other things you have tried.

This is now closed.