On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 01:43:28, Ray Hogaboom wrote: >On Thu February 19 2004 4:40 pm, deedee wrote: >> >> snip >Wow deedee >The time you spent writing this reply has mad my day much brighter! >Thank you so much.
My problem is in keeping things short :^). If I have a lot of time, I can be brief. But if I'm in a hurry, it's hard for me to prune as much as is needed. I know it is hard to tell, but I'm doing quite a bit of snipping :^). >> >> snip >With Windows XP I have not had any components and peripherals that >where not working correctly after installing XP Pro. With XP, I had to install manufacturer printer drivers for my printers to get all their features. My external USB floppy disk drive nearly drove me nuts trying to get XP to do the installation. I finally had to go through the CD and run each installation file manually to get the FDD to install on XP. And so on. I have a long list of things that needed additional drivers and stuff to work as they were expected to work under XP. >With Red Hat and Mandrake I have Problems with. I do not recommend Red Hat for folks new to Linux. IMO, the tools are inadequate for a person who really doesn't understand how Linux works. Mandrake, SuSE and Knoppix have user-friendly applications which will walk new users through most areas needed to get their Linux systems working satisfactorily. Check your Mandrake CDs for rute (Rute Users Tutorial and Exposition). It was on my PowerPack CDs on the Commercial CD. You can also Google for rute to download it, or get it from Amazon.com (it's a big book and not cheap). This book really is comprehensive, and one of the more current. Current kernels do a number of things differently than earlier 2.4x kernels do. A lot of Linux bibles are sadly out of date when trying to work with systems with the recent kernels. >wine You need to break down your questions into separate posts to get help. Not everyone reads all the threads. So there may be people who have no interest in wine and aren't reading this, who could help you with your CD burners, for example. Don't reply to a message on this thread, however, to start a new thread. The archives and e-mail handlers that many people use will thread a message according to message IDs in the headers. That will defeat the purpose of starting a new thread and getting people to see and answer your questions. >2 CD burners = 1 locks up the system the other would not read. >3 cdroms = where not detected I could not find any linux info for >these I have a combined CD burner/DVD player. It was detected and set up correctly at installation. I have never had problems burning CDs (using K3b) and viewing commercial films (using Ogle). >3 modems = 1 U.S. Robotics 56k Fax modem. 2 = older modems There is an internal Conexant winmodem on my portable which ML detected, but I do not use. This portable has no serial or PCI ports, only USB, ethernet, and wireless. I have an external USB 56K fax modem (Zoom Telephonics). ML detected and installed it correctly right away. However, I did have a problem getting efax and KPPP to recognize it. This was due to the fact that the newer kernels are using a different file system naming convention than the older kernels are using (devfsd vs devfs). So efax and KPPP looked for /dev/modem which was not there. Instead the device was really /dev/usb/acm/0. However, by setting up a symlink from the real device to /dev/modem, everything worked as advertised. This was not a Linux installation problem, but a problem of using a correctly installed device with particular apps, the versions of which did not recognize the new file system naming conventions. >Zip Drive = will not read disks Zip drives install as the fourth SCSI partition (this is something determined by Iomega not Linux). ML detected and installed mine correctly right away (it is external and plugs into the parallel port). Look in /dev and you should find symlinks @sda, @sdb, and so forth. Make sure your /etc/fstab is using the correct /dev/sda4 or /dev/sdb4 or whatever for your actual Zip device. Note that every single physical component, peripheral, and device on a Linux system identified by that system is represented by an inode in /dev -- an inode looks like a file and frequently is a file, though not always. It is a good idea when installing Linux systems to make certain that every device you want available to you is connected and turned on during installation (and bootup). Since I travel with my portable, I ended up turning off harddrake so that it wasn't changing things because of peripherals that weren't hooked up at bootup. Harddrake can always be run when you need to make a change. >USB Flash Card reader = Some times mounts to /mnt/removable >sometimes to /mnt/memory_card >USB External Hard Drive = Some times mounts to /mnt/removable >sometimes to /mnt/memory_card USB protocols for storage media are also very similar to SCSI protocols, so storage media devices are frequently installed as SCSI devices. Go to /dev/scsi and see what's there. Make certain the symlink that represents the device in your /etc/fstab is pointing to the actual physical inode in /dev/scsi that represents the device. >Sound card worked with Red Hat after setting it up. Have not been >able to get it to work With Mandrake. Go the MCC (Mandrake Control Center) and walk through the troubleshooting about sound. If you're still having problems, then open a new thread to the list about what you've done to resolve the problem and what errors you're still getting. > snip >Believe it or not but this is more that most people can do with >there computers. Most people have never type any kind of command. >They send and read email but would be lost if they had to set up an >email account or an internet connection manually. They play games, >surf the web, Type a document, and maybe do some data entry. I have no problem believing this. I work a lot with folks new to computers, and many ms win computers end up as doorstops or boat anchors because the new user can't solve a simple problem like getting on-line. Because they can't get on-line, they are cut off from most sources of help. However, for many folks (remember mailing lists have mostly lurkers -- people who never have a problem or comment) they can do everything you say on a Linux system without any difficulty, immediately after installing the system. >to make it work. In Windows XP it just works >snip >Don't have to do a check sum, after download, edit config >file, make directories, move files into the new directories, and >make a short cut just to see if it might work. For me, Linux just works. I certainly have never done a check sum with Linux, nor have I fiddled with changing directories. I do edit configs, but that's how I can get things to work exactly the way I need them to work. If you've installed something, remember that the system now thinks it's in the place where it was installed. If you move it, you need to know what you're doing to avoid further problems. One major problem can be the significant slowing down of your system while Linux goes searching for things you've moved or while Linux is reading the same files more than once because you've made more than one copy of them. >> MS certified manufacturers deliberately disable components in >> computers as well as install components that are meant to only >> work when a release of ms win is installed on the machine. Most >> preassembled computers, as well as preassembled components (like >> motherboards), are produced by MS certified manufacturers. This >> is part of the contract they sign with MS. > >Yes MS greed is one of the reasons I was hoping Linux work for me. The point is that the game is rigged to work with ms win and to make things as hard as possible if you want to work with a different OS. What I can't believe is all the problems one can still have with ms win, even though they've spent millions to rig the game in their favor. >It seam I have read the above statement form other Linux user sounds >great. But I am yet to find out just what you are doing that i can >not do with windows xp other than read files and execute programs >made for Linux or Mac's. What one uses one's computer for varies a lot. Most of what professionals are doing with computers are things they know how to do without computers. Those same things are things that people with the proper software and a computer, but without the training, still can't do. It doesn't matter what system they're using. A simple example is with accounting software. You can have the best accounting software in the world, but if you don't know what an accountant does, the software is only of minimal help to you. Software doesn't make a person knowledgeable about things they don't know or haven't been trained in. I can assure you I can do all kinds of things with XP you can't do, and I can do more with Linux than I can do with XP. You most likely can do things I cannot do because of your background and training. It is not a simple equation or all things being equal. Computers are tools. They are limited by their users as well as by their hardware and software. Like a high-performance car being driven by a low-performance driver, and vice versa. With ms win, it's not the software made for that operating system, it's the operating system. Software like Adobe's Indesign can do more on a Mac than it can do on XP in the hands of an expert user. An average user probably wouldn't notice a difference. I can do things with dos software that people using Adobe's Indesign can't do, not because Indesign can't do it, but because the person is not aware of the fact that it needs to be done. Ms win didn't work for me. I knew what needed doing. It couldn't do it. >I do not have new components, except the 120 Gb USB External Hard >Drive. Check your hard drive controller -- some have limits on how big a hard drive they can control. People using hard drives larger than 20-60Gb can have problems that have nothing to do with the hard drive itself, but with the hard drive controller. Ms win systems ignore a lot of information provided by various components, Linux systems do not. >Some components I have tried are getting close to 10 years >old. Components that are not used by a lot of folks? Samsung and >U.S. Robotics made a hell of a lot of Components Without more details, it's difficult to say why you're having problems, while another person is not, with the exact same component. Start completely new threads to ask about these things. Include what you've done to troubleshoot the problems and what error messages you are getting. >My biggest problem with Windows XP is it as become the favorite >target for low life scum. They have nothing better to do than write >viruses, worms, Trojans, or spybots and use my computer and the >computer of others to launch DOS attacks on some web server. MS win is a target because it's easy to target. MS put in all kinds of backdoors and holes in their software. The low life scum are using what MS made available to them. MS did that for its own use (another way to rig the game by spying on computer users), but was too arrogant to realize that other folks aren't stupid and would notice. A lot of this is MS's fault. There would be viruses, sure, and other annoyances like spam. But, MS is the company that made it so easy to do that any "kiddie" hacker could do it. Did you know that even when MSWord was a dos program, it had more viruses associated with it than any other software at that time, including dos itself? >Reviews I have read about Linux make it sound so good but I some >time think I have been miss lead. >Linux is secure? But still I have to have a fire wall. Linux is secure precisely because it's concerned about security. You can use MCC to put in a firewall. It takes only a few seconds. You don't need AV software for Linux systems. AV software should be installed on any ms win system open to cyberspace and any mail server that sends e-mail to ms win systems. The firewall that comes with XP is a one-way firewall. You need a two-way firewall on any ms win system using cable or dsl. A firewall is not as critical on a dialup system, though it is still a good thing to have. >And I still need to down load and install security updates. I have not joined the Mandrake club as yet. However, I have subscribed to the Security mailing list. I don't install everything, because I don't have quite a bit of the software installed that needs to be secured. I do install the updates on the software that I'm using. I go to the ML security page and use a mirror to download manually the things that I need. I have a directory set up on my system using MCC where I put things and where ML can find them for installation (I believe it uses urpmi). In addition, one can buy update CDs cheaply from places like Edmunds Enterprises (99 cents for the CD, US$1.50 for shipping anywhere in the US). Periodically, I buy an update CD to get all the things I didn't bother to download. You don't need the Mandrake Club, although it would be nice to support Mandrake because they've made tremendous contributions to making Linux user-friendly. Wander through the Mandrake web site. You may find a lot of stuff available that you didn't realize was available. There is also a TWiki site that has helpful information. You can set up for yourself how to best get help, updates, and so forth in a way that works for you. There are many free sources for getting what you need. Then, when you feel it is worth it, make a donation. deedee --- Registered Linux User #327485 Visit "WordStar & GNU/Linux" http://www.wordstar2.com Also, see the WordStar Users Group http://www.wordstar2.com/cbabbage/wordstar ____________________________________________________________ Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10
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