Re: Getting there
On Sat, 19 Jun 1999, Christian Dysthe wrote: Hi, I am sitting here now on my Debian box listening to NetRadio having X11Amp ready, all in all, I have a new envoironemt to work in that in many ways is just as appealing as my Windows environment was, except for the fact that this one is much more stable and looks s much better than MS Windows does (thanks to WindowMaker!). And then I have to miss two essential tools: 1. A stable www browser. 2. A multi account email program. 1. Netscape doesn't even need many comments. It us unstable and full of bugs under Linux. It works, but it does crash, alot! Always has under Linux. And I do not want lynx! :) 2. Linux people tell me to use mutt or pine or elm or whatever, but I do not want that. I want something like Outlook Express, The Bat! or even Eudora. But there is no such thing! A combo consisting of XFmail, exim and fetchmail is the only solution that comes close to those Win MUA's in my opinion. Then there is email software connected to Gnome and KDE. I do not want that either. Is Linux going to become worse than Windows, because you will have to choose a desktop environment you do not really like because it comes with must have apps? I hope not Help me out here! :) Why are you against Gnome and KDE? I use KDE and kfm, the file manager, is a very capable WWW browser, and KMail works fine. You can use KDE apps without being tied down to KDE -- any other Linux apps will run just fine. I don't see the problem. Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: newbie: installing new drivers
1. I just added an ethernet card to my system (3Com SC509TP) and I understand that I'm supposed to use the driver 3c509. My question is *how* do I get the system to load that driver? (If I were installing linux again You will have to re-compile the kernel ( read the kernel HOWTO, in /usr/doc/HOWTO). I don't think so. That driver comes with debian, it just does not install by default. All you need to do is run modconf, cursor down to the net modules, select the 3c509 and it should install just fine if everything is at its defaults. You might need to give it the I/O address. I've only been on this list a few weeks. One thing I've noticed when someone asks a question about installing a driver -- network, sound, etc. -- back comes the answer you have to recompile the kernel. But, you don't, in most cases, as they are loadable. I don't know all the issues re recompiling versus loadable drivers, but the latter is easier. Is the problem here that many responses are from people familiar with older versions of Linux and accustomed to doing it the old way? Same goes for some of the HOWTOs. Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: Problem compiling koffice
On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, David E. Fox wrote: Yeah, that is indeed not nice. Hell, all I have is a P-100 with 48 megs of RAM, and a full recompile of koffice took 30 hours to complete when I run it last week. And that's with little if nothing else running, no X/KDE hogging memory, and so on. It takes three to six hours to compile some files. What a nightmare it must be to compile on a 486 :(. Idl really doesn't add a whole lot to the compile time, but if the .cpp files that depend on the header files get recompiled when they don't need to, that's not nice. David, Could you be enticed to produce a KOffice binary i386 package? -- RPM or DEB, for Red Hat, Debian or SuSe? I've got a few PCs, at work and home, and there're all mediocre machines. The best I can do is a P133 with 32M of RAM. Besides, there seems to be an incredible amount of messing around installing extra stuff, to be able to get the compile to work. Would KOffice compiled with Qt2 work ok with KDE 1.1.1, which uses Qt1.44? There's a lot of us who would like to play with KOffice but can't compile it. Or, is there any existing distribution that has KOffice? Your feedback on this will be much appreciated. Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: acroread --why can't package be installed?
*- On 15 Jun, Barry Kauler wrote about acroread --why can't package be installed? When I type # dpkg --list acroread The package lists with the letters pn at the start of the line. Such packages will not install, and there is an error message no installation candidate when I try to install it. Why, oh why is this? I don't have acroread currently installed, and there it is as a package, so why can't I install it? What does pn actually mean? Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge | Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ NameVersionDescription +++-===-==- pn gv none (no description available) Follow the vertical lines. p: Purged(a.k.a. you don't want to try and installed(i.e. it is not select for install in dselect), not even config configs) n: Not Installed(a.k.a. it is not currently installed) Just for the record, I don't think 'purged' should be explained as above. AFAIK, 'purged' simply means that, in addition to removing the package, the config scripts for the package are removed from /var/lib/dpkg/info. Frankly, I've always wondered why 'purged' isn't the default action of dpkg. I have understood purged in respect to totally removing a package from a system. But how does purged apply to a package that I have never installed? I come back to the same question -- why can't I install acroread? It's in dpkg's local database, it's on the web package site, I've got a relatively new installation that hasn't been messed up in any way, I've never installed an earlier version of acroread. So, why can't anyone really answer this question? Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: snowcrash.tdyc.com... mirrors???
What has happened to the snowcrash site? I've been trying to get onto it for about a week. Are there any mirrors of snowcrash.tdyc.com anywhere? I think I remember an alternative site being mentioned awhile back but can not remember the URL. deb ftp://ftp.uni-marburg.de/mirror/debian-snowcrash.tdyc.com potato rkrusty
acroread --why can't package be installed?
When I type # dpkg --list acroread The package lists with the letters pn at the start of the line. Such packages will not install, and there is an error message no installation candidate when I try to install it. Why, oh why is this? I don't have acroread currently installed, and there it is as a package, so why can't I install it? What does pn actually mean? Someone in an earlier posting said that no installation candidate has something to do with an earlier version installed. But, that's not my case. Some advice on this would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Barry Kauler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: acroread --why can't package be installed?
On Tue, 15 Jun 1999, Brian Servis wrote: *- On 15 Jun, Barry Kauler wrote about acroread --why can't package be installed? When I type # dpkg --list acroread The package lists with the letters pn at the start of the line. Such packages will not install, and there is an error message no installation candidate when I try to install it. Why, oh why is this? I don't have acroread currently installed, and there it is as a package, so why can't I install it? acroread is in the non-free section of the archives. Do you have the non-free section specified as a section to search for packages? Yes. Otherwise dpkg would not be able to find it. What does pn actually mean? Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge | Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ NameVersionDescription +++-===-==- pn gv none (no description available) Follow the vertical lines. p: Purged(a.k.a. you don't want to try and installed(i.e. it is not select for install in dselect), not even config configs) n: Not Installed(a.k.a. it is not currently installed) This doesn't explain why it won't install though. I typed: # apt-get install acroread and got the error message no installation candidate. Why? Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: LaTeX
On Tue, 08 Jun 1999, Lev Lvovsky wrote: I need to use LaTeX for a project in one of my classes, and was wondering whether anyone could recommnd a particular type that does mathematics-related things (integrals etc..), i'm quite a newbie to LaTeX (understatement), so a GUI-based version would be cool. Lyx is good. I use KLyx, a KDE port. Look at: http://www.lyx.org/ I got KLyx from the debian KDE site at http://snowcrash.tdyc.com/ but that site seems to be down for awhile -- it crashed! Regards,
Re: Debian, Slackware, RedHat and OSS (fwd)
err, Could someone tell me what OSS means? And ALSA ... So, are you saying that we just bring in sndconfig from Red Hat, run it, and that's it, we have sound? Regards, On Wed, 09 Jun 1999, Hamish Moffatt wrote: On Tue, Jun 08, 1999 at 10:07:59PM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It seems that RedHat might be able to support sound w/out recompiling if they included a OSS license in their packaged distro. Which wouldn't supprise me... considering the ammount of deals they're cutting, OSS would be pretty basic. Linux 2.2 has modular sound like Red Hat has had for a while. If we had a sound configuration utility, we wouldn't need to recompile either. ALSA (the OSS-replacement) has a nice configuration utility and has been modular since day one (even more so that OSS is now). The thing I dislike most about OSS is the licensing. Sure, it's GPL, but we get features from the commercial version whenever 4FrontTech feels like it. OSS/Commercial has been modular for ages; somebody else (Alan Cox) had to modularise the free one for it to be in OSS/Lite. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB (ex-VK3TYD). CCs of replies from mailing lists are welcome. -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: A couple of questions.
On Tue, 08 Jun 1999, Brad wrote: On Mon, 7 Jun 1999, Monte Copeland wrote: 1. What is the name of the program that allows one to take a snapshot of your desk top. I have used it before but I can not remember the name. I am trying to convince a potential convert to switch from windoze, but I need some jpeg pics to show her. I use KSnapshot, a KDE application. Regards, Barry Kauler
RE: I am not impressed with Debian so far.
On Tue, 08 Jun 1999, Brendon Baumgartner wrote: I mostly agree with his point about not knowing to put the second CD in while installing debian. I missed that also the first try. I didn't experience his problem with makeing the symlink, and i'm not sure how obvious modconf is to a new user. I don't remeber it being mentioned during install, but i could be wrong. Well, I hope his luck improves. I agree it is dificult for someone to jump right into debian even if they have used other distributions. I spent a whole day playing with it the fist time I set it up, and still had problems for awhile. Actually, i'm still having problems to this day, but I'm use to Debian, so i firgure most of them out quickly... well, except for ALSA that is =) ... Ditto from me. I started with Red Hat. It took me a *few days* to get Debian up and running. I still haven't got sound going -- I'm amazed that I have to recompile the kernel just to add sound support. I'm reluctant to do it, as I keep reading newsgroup and mail list messages from people who had trouble with recompiling. Sound support needs to be improved, as Red Hat have done -- I don't know what they have done, but I just selected my sound card and that was it. dselect needs better documentation, and also a nice GUI -- I still haven't figured out how to drive the Select section. Multi-CD needs to be streamlined. having said all that however, I like Debian, much more than my Red Hat system. I especially like its non-commercial nature. I reckon it's well worth going through a few hassles. But again, something happened today -- probably not Debian's fault. My hard drive suddenly got real busy. I wasn't actually using the PC, and I presume Linux does some housekeeping when it gets a chance. Or KDE? Then I started to use KMail, and suddenly my hard drive made a terrible sound and stopped, and everything hung, dead. I did a hard reboot and everything worked as though nothing had happened. That's a real worry. Regards,
Re: What/Where is ssh?
On Mon, 07 Jun 1999, Kent West wrote: And, where is it? I've got my apt sources.list pointing to stable main contrib non-free, but apt-get install ssh returns a message that ssh is mentioned in the database but there's no installation candidate, which probably means the package is obsolete (summarized). What does the message no installation candidate actually mean? I've got that sometimes when I've tried to install a package, and I've had no idea what to do about it. Regards,
Re: 16-bit or 24-bit Color Palette ?
On Tue, 08 Jun 1999, Andrew J Fortune wrote: I have just installed Slink on my machine, and have ... almost got it working the way that i want it to. The only thing that won't work is that it is coming up in 256 colors, and I want it to use the 16-bit color palette or greater (with 1024 x 768). I have been running xf86config, and the problem for me is that I have been taking uneducated pot-shots in the dark, and I am wondering if there is a better way of approaching this problem. I have tried all sorts of (seemingly appropriate) combinations of monitor, video card and mode from within xf86config, but all to no avail. The areas that I am foggy on are horizontal and vertical sync, refresh rates and the modes (e.g. the menu which allows you to nominate different modes for 8-bit, 16-bit, etc etc), and these were the areas that I was guessing on. I did a lot of messing around when I installed my first Linux system, Red Hat 5.2. Second time around, installing Debian, was better, at least as far as the video is concerned. I think xf86config is the best program for configuring /etc/XF86Config -- the latter is the configuration file for X server. xf86config menu structure is very logical, but the part where you are having trouble, you have to study very carefully how it works. You can select any mode as the default, including any color depth. If you really want to narrow it down, you can even eliminate all mode options that you don't want to use, to be absolutely sure it will display with what you want. I think, from memory, that there are some S3 generic card options, that use the SVGA server. When you have selected your card or chipset type, some other selections are just accept the default. Horiz and vert sync rates should be in the manual that came with your monitor. You normally enter them as a range, e.g., 50-100. This cheapie 14inch monitor I'm using right now has horiz: 31-69 KHz and vert: 50-100 Hz. You enter them into xf86config just like that (without typing the units). Regards, Barry Kauler
RE: I am not impressed with Debian so far.
On Tue, 08 Jun 1999, Steve Lamb wrote: Multi-CD needs to be streamlined. No, it doesn't. Why use a CD at all when you van get the latest and greatest direct from the net? Better documentation, maybe, so people can get a base install working, but beyond that, nothing but net. Yes, that's what I did. I regret paying for the 4-CD set! dpkg and apt-get I'm very happy with. Great stuff. Then I started to use KMail, and suddenly my hard drive made a terrible sound and stopped, and everything hung, dead. I did a hard reboot and everything worked as though nothing had happened. That's a real worry. Can we say Hard drive failure? I knew we could. That has nothing to do with the software running at the time, that is a hardware issue. The hard drive does this thrashing thing occassionally, when the PC is just sitting there. No problem with that, as an OS can be doing some background housecleaning. The terrible noise and system freeze may be a hardware thing -- there, I said it. -- but the drive's only two years old. Well, we'll see. Regards, Barry Kauler
KOffice DEB package?
Hi, Has anybody compiled KOffice and generated DEB package/s for Slink/i386? The KOffice site, via http://www.kde.org/, only has the source, and I don't have the right stuff installed to do the compile. I wondered if any other Debian person has already been down that path if there is no package, did anyone compile it without hassles? Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: I am not impressed with Debian so far.
On Wed, 09 Jun 1999, Chris wrote: As for sound, I must say that I've had a few problems with it. Of course, I had similar problems in previous versions of RH... Go fig. Anyway, once you've compiled in the kernel modules that you'll need, try this: Grab an rpm of RH's sndconfig, alien it over to a .deb, and install it. I used it, and it worked the first time (SB AWE-64 PNP). Is there a comparable Debian tool that I've been missing? Great that you've tried sndconfig and it works on Debian. Maybe the Debian development guys could include it in the distribution -- would that be legal? Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: dselect problem - can't install stuff
On Thu, 03 Jun 1999, Erik Sandblom wrote: If you wish to use the multicd installation method, as is the default for CD-based installs, you should be careful to insert the LAST BINARY CD of your set when you start I have the 4-cd set but I put in CD 1. Did I break something in doing so? Can I fix it? Hi, I chuckled when I read this, as it's exactly what I did. I gave up at that point and used the apt access method, as my PC has a network card and Internet acess was working after the base install. I very successfully downloaded everything from the default site. However, I would very much like to know how the multi-CD install is supposed to work. There's not much documentation as yet on dselect. Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: apt-get proxy
On Thu, 03 Jun 1999, debian wrote: Also once I have downloaded/upgraded using dselect to apt-get how do I configure apt-get to use the MS-proxy on company lan, which doesn't require authentication It's in the documentation somewhere. # export ftp_proxy=ftp://your ftp address here:port/ ditto for http_proxy Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: Some Newbie Questions
On Tue, 01 Jun 1999, Andrew J Fortune wrote: ...and talking about EMails, can anyone give me any leads on the best way I ccan connect to the Net in Linux, surf the Net, send/receive EMails, participate in Chat programs etc. ? I'm experienced in W95, but I am only starting out in the world of Unix (...a whole new world), so if any responses could be in layman's terms I would be grateful :) My personal preference is KDE. DEBs are at http://snowcrash.tdyc.com/ This was my way of installing (as a relative newbie): You need to modify /etc/apt/sources.list to include the line: deb http://snowcrash.tdyc.com/debian slink rkrusty go into dselect and select update, then exit. # dpkg --list kde* to see them Use # apt-get install filename and install kdesupport0g first, then kdebase, then every other package starting with kde. Finally # apt-get install kdm Modify /etc/X11/window-managers so that /usr/bin/kde is first in the list. Reboot. There's lots of other DEBs. Try # dpkg --list k* to see them. Once you have KDE going, you will find it very Win95-like, and kppp is the easiest way of all to setup for the Internet. You don't even need netscape, as kfm the file manager is a good web browser, and kmail does email. Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: Kdevelop
On Sun, 30 May 1999, Eber de Castro Diniz wrote: Hi Barry I've tried downloading the mentioned file from the URL you gave... but it wasn't there... Umm, yes, I was going from memory when I advised you. I actually used apt-get to install kdevelop, but using kfm and kpackage, go to this URL: http://snowcrash.tdyc.com/debian/dists/slink/rkrusty/binary-i386/devel/ About the kfm, I've tried to install other package using the technique you said, but when I right-click on the file that I wanna install, the menu don't show me the install button... I do know that's so boring, but can you help me again? In kfm, with that URL on-screen, right-click on kdevelop deb package and one of the pop-up menuitems is kpackage. Select kpackage and it will load, and kpackage has an install button. If you don't get kpackage in the pop-up menu, then maybe it isn't installed. (is this a Catch-22 situation?) --- then, find what package it's in and use apt-get, which requires more instructions. Regards Eber Diniz -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Red Hat control-panel and sndconfig
Another newbie question. Those of us with a Red Hat background use control-panel to configure the printer and sndconfig to configure sound. When in Debian as a newbie, it is not at all obvious how to do these things. Is it legal and will it work, to install control-panel and sndconfig in a Debian system? sndconfig for example does some autodetection of the sound device, and writes to /etc/isapnp.conf, /etc/conf.modules, and /etc/sysconfig/soundcard. Does anyone know if this is possible/allowable? Is there a deb package for it? Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: Kdevelop
On Sun, 30 May 1999, Eber de Castro Diniz wrote: I have tried to install the kdevelop, but when I ran the ./configure, the program showed me up the following message: checking for X... configure: error: Can't find X includes. Please check your installation and add the correct paths! But where do I find this files? I've looked for it at /usr/bin/X11R6/include, but didn't work Hi, I've just installed it. I got it as a deb package from http://snowcrash.tdyc.com/ If you've got kpackage installed (should have it, if you have KDE installed), it's a piece of pie --- using kfm (KDEs file manager, which is also a nice web browser), go to the URL, right-click your mouse on the deb package of interest, and kpackage will be in the popup menu. kpackage starts, click install button. Job done. Actually, it calls dpkg. kpackage is a graphical frontend and handles both rpms and debs. I installed all of KDE from the same site. Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: Copy/Cut Past in X windows?
On Sun, 30 May 1999, John Foster wrote: One of the things that I seem to have missed in setting up Linux is the ability (as in Windows) to be able to highlight almost anything in any window and cut/copy it to another window. I have not been able to find any means to do that consistantly in Xwindows. Some individual applications will allow it to be done within the application but not to another application. Did I just miss something or is this really missing in a lot of linux applications? Thanks! John, Install KDE. See site http://snowcrash.tdyc.com/ Info at http://www.kde.org/
getting out of fvwm
I'm *still* installing my first Debian Linux! I got X windows running, with default window manager fvwm, but next time I logged in it didn't stop at the commandline --- went straight into graphics mode and gave me a login window for fvwm. In Red Hat, this is controlled by /etc/inittab, which sets the initial runlevel to 3. 5 is required to launch X. In Debian, inittab has default runlevel set to 2, so why is it launching straight into fvwm? Does anyone know what config file needs to be changed so I can login to commandline only? Also when I exit from fvwm, refuses to exit to the commandline. I'm back at that darn login window again. Even ctrl-alt-backspace won't get me out. regards, Barry Kauler
Anyone need KDE install notes?
I've just installed KDE, from http://snowcrash.tdyc.com/ using apt-get. If there are other newbies out there who don't know how to install KDE, email me directly (not via the list) and if there's interest, I'll create a web page. I'm pleased to have KDE up and running. I use it on my Red Hat system. It is very sophisticated, and rock solid -- stable. The file manager kfm is an excellent web browser, and there's kmail and knews -- who needs Netscape? -- though a WYSIWYG HTML editor is missing from the KDE suite. Are we going to see KDE in Potato, when it uses Qt library version 2.0? (which is supposed to be free). Regards, Barry Kauler
Re: Changed CDROM hdd to hdb
- I changed the IDE cables in my PC and now the CDROM drive - is at hdb (primary ide slave), and previously it was hdd - (secondary IDE slave). - I did this when I was messing around getting Win95 to install - properly. - - Now, what file do I change in Debian Linux (Slink) to get Linux - to recognise the CDROM? - I notice during boot-up that it does find the CDROM, but when I - try dselect, multi-CD access method, it can't find the CDROM - any more. when you start deselect use the select access method again, and when it asks for where the cdrom drive is type /dev/hdb. Unless you tell it, deselect is using the cdrom at the device address where it last found it. There is no automatic update of this. (like in windblows). Aah, Thanks for that! I was just about to post to the list that I *had* updated /etc/fstab already and it didn't work. I'll do what you advise. P.S. It's an interesting story why I changed the cabling. I reinstalled Win95 but couldn't get it to recognise the CDROM and hard drive -- it ran them both in MSDOS compatibility mode. I thought maybe if I put the CDROM as slave on the primary IDE, it would help things. But no. Eventually I discovered that I needed a driver for the motherboard chipset, which I didn't have, the vendor didn't have, but I found the motherboard manufacturer on the Web and got a patch that actually is for a different chipset, but it works. Debian recognised everything. What I liked with Debian is that I was able to *tell* it where the CDROM drive is (hdd) -- Win95 is too darn automated. My experience so far, two systems only, is installing MSWindows from scratch is more difficult than installing Linux. Previous PC, I installed Win95 and RedHat, and Win95 hung during install -- I had to resort to peculiar measures to eventually get it installed -- and I had the motherboard drivers for that one.
Changed CDROM hdd to hdb
Hi, I changed the IDE cables in my PC and now the CDROM drive is at hdb (primary ide slave), and previously it was hdd (secondary IDE slave). I did this when I was messing around getting Win95 to install properly. Now, what file do I change in Debian Linux (Slink) to get Linux to recognise the CDROM? I notice during boot-up that it does find the CDROM, but when I try dselect, multi-CD access method, it can't find the CDROM any more. Any advice appreciated! Regards, Barry Kauler
Using dselect -- connection timeout
I'm new to Debian, and I'm finding dselect to be troublesome. I first tried the multi-CD access method, but got confused, so before going too far I decided to use apt to download from the Internet. I used the default site, http://llug.sep.bnl.gov/debian, but I keep getting connection timeouts. I tried the Australian ftp site, ftp://ftp.au.debian.org/debian stable main But, it gives an error message. The site has Packages and Packages.gz. but the error message is something about Packages.gz is not a plain text file. Anyway, the default site did download a heap of deb files, to /var/cache/apt/archives/ Is it possible for me to install just those files, to save having to download them all again (it took hours)? Then can I run dselect again and take off from that there, without having to download the same stuff repeatedly? Note I'm using the workstation profile, so don't have to go into that complicated looking Select section! Regards, Barry Kauler
