View Poll Results: anybody else frustrated?

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Thread: ABOUT TO GIVE UP!!!!!

  1. #11
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    knoppixtryer wrote:

    and all i ever find is some dude (or dudette) saying it is simple really just type _____ ___ _ ___ and that will do it. okay dude (or dudettet) wherre the f**ck do i type that. just anywhere and linux will magically know what i mean???!!!! wtf. i appreciate all the people who try to help, but come one man try to remember if we knew where to type this crap we wouldn't be asking! you guys who use linux all the time have to remember we don't but we want to the linux movement cannot continue without new users and frankly if we can't figure it out we will go back to what is easy to use and works: windows.

    Ok knoppixtryer, boot up your knoppix live-cd, look at the icons in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Do you se the little black computer monitor icon? That is a Konsole (command line interface) icon. Click it! It opens a black window just like a "MS DOS prompt". Now you can type commands, JUST LIKE IN DOS....like "dir", "cd" (change directory), "cp" (copy). These are linux commands that work the same as they do at a dos prompt. You just have to learn a few more commands that "unique" to linux such as...su (means super user...also means root priviledges), sudo (do a command as a super user, ie root). Lets set the root password so we can do things only allowed by root (administrator):
    Type this in the Konsole window you clicked on:
    sudo passwd <now push enter key>
    type what ever you want for the root password ( I use the word "root" as my root password....hmmm)
    type the same word twice....now the root password is set!
    Now if you want to double click on the File Manager program, you cant type in the root password and it will let you in!

    Are you still we us knoppixtryer??? Post a reply.

    Moustache

  2. #12
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    Edit:

  3. #13
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    Hi,

    I am also a Linux newbie (although a genuine Windows expert with computing experience dating back to the TI99/4A and C64 days), and I am also finding Linux a challenge. Somewhat like the original poster of this thread, I find a lot of the Linux user help to be less than helpful (certainly NO complaints about this forum. This thread is has some of the most intelligent, well-thought-out, replies that I have seen on any topic).

    For example, I found this thread while trying to install Linux on a 2 year old Dell Inspiron 600m notebook PC. The main problem has been getting the PRO 2100 Wireless card working. Last fall I played around with a Knoppix CD, and I liked the "look" and found it promising, but it did not recognize the Pro 2100, so internet use was a no-go. For me, not very useful, so I waited....

    So, another approx 9 months later I try again..., decided to go with a full HD install, I researched the topic and found that even though there are probably 100,000+ Intel Centrino notebooks sold worldwide for at least 2 years (this is NOT cutting-edge hardware by any means...), I cannot seem to find a distro that will install a driver "out-of-the-box" for this Pro 2100 wireless NIC. Probably one of THE MOST COMMON wireless NIC's.

    2-year-old-common-hardware and not be able to install automatically? Frustrating and disappointing, especially since I find information about the Pro2100 using a NDIS wrapper type of driver having been available for more than a year. Why is it not incorporated into someone's distro package by now?

    And, if I understood HOW to install that driver, I would. But, like the 1st guy said, it is very much greek. Compile it? Yes, in the late 80's I programmed Fortran and Turbo Pascal, so I know what 'compile' is, but honestly this is not what most people would expect to have to do just to get a COMMON driver installed. I realize that Linux is different and I am accustomed to doing it the windows-way, but honestly, why is there no double-click to run a driver installation package?

    If I could at least get ALL of the hardware working properly on this laptop (which is not my main computer), I could begin to actually USE Linux, thereby experimenting and learning, and once I learn enough, I can permanently switch in the next year or so.

    Last evening I tried the lastest Mandrake/Mandriva distro. Looked very nice, but again no-dice on the Pro2100. (And the audio card was apparently incorrectly recognized, because I had no audio either although the OS thought I did). Tried Ubuntu, and again no dice (even though it properly named the Pro2100, it was not able to do anything constructive with it).

    So, I am trying SUSE 9.3 tonight because I found a post somewhere saying that the NIC installed properly with SUSE 9.3 (although the post was vague and may have been referring to the wired NIC), and if no go, then Debian 3.1 tomorrow.

    Maybe if one of you kind souls has some helpful advice, I can break through this bottleneck. I sort of wish that I could have gotten the nic installed under Mandriva because I liked the look, but at this point anything will be a plus.

  4. #14
    Senior Member registered user
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    PRO 2100 NIC not working.

    Quote Originally Posted by rpesq
    Maybe if one of you kind souls has some helpful advice, I can break through this bottleneck. I sort of wish that I could have gotten the nic installed under Mandriva because I liked the look, but at this point anything will be a plus.
    Do you know that the card works? That is, how have you ruled out that there is nothing physically wrong with the card?

    BTW, maybe we should move this particular thread to the Hardware & Booting forum.

    Regards,
    - Robert
    http://www.cwelug.org/

  5. #15
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    Getting to understand the original poster on this thread. After 8 yes 8 rewrites of a CD eventually got one to boot. OK you genii I hadn't checked the MD5, (but I was confident in my download (never had a problem with cuteFTP in years!) When I then checked it, it was OK anyway! Wrote several CD's with Nero, (another piece of software which has been problem free under Windows). For no apparent reason got one that works. BTW tried 4x didn't work, 8x did.

    I finally get system to boot with Knoppix, and it hangs at the X11 prompt! This is getting silly, I originally thought wouldn't it be good if I could learn a bit about Linux, so maybe set up a test Apache / MySQL server. I realised there would be a bit of a learning curve, but cannot see an end in sight. I used to be a proficient techie, but am now researching for small web business. Installed several ports of Unix in past though now forgot most of it, never had the same problems as with this. I read most of the posts on this thread and they are from people a long way in front of me, I shudder to think how a typical user would manage with this implemetation of Linux.

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quinny
    ..... I hadn't checked the MD5, (but I was confident in my download (never had a problem with cuteFTP in years!) When I then checked it, it was OK anyway!
    I'm glad your md5 sum checked (assuming you checked it properly). But there is good resaon that we stress to new users to check it. I've never had a known bad download of any other file by FTP or HTTP either, but about 50% of the ISO files for Knoppix that I have downloaded from the mirrors have had bad md5 checksums. I've put some time into determining why this is, and I've determined, by binary editing of a good ISO and a corrupt ISO side by side, that sometimes the FTP transfer happend as a text transfer instead of a binary transfer. This "feature" of FTP replaces the bytes that look like Linux new line characters with the byte pairs that look like Microsoft cariage return / line feed characters. Good for text file transfers, will ruin your binary download.

    I don't know why it's happening for me. I have my FTP client set up to force a binary transfer, not to "automatic". But still I would download for hours and frequently get a bad download. I can only guess that some setting is wrong on the mirrors that lets this happen. Obviously it only happens when you download to a Windows system, not when you download to another Linux system. I now use BitTorrent, which is faster, has built in error checking, and does not suffer this problem.

    So rather than get into discussions with several users a day about FTP transfers that translate between different ascii formats, we tell users that it is important to check the md5 sum, which will catch this problem and any others. What I dont understand is why people like you ask for help but then will not make the check.


    I'm glad that you have a good ISO. I don't know why you are having boot problems. Have you followed all of the instructions in the downloading faq? Have you tried the testcd feature at boot time? Have you tried using any cheat codes? My experience is very different than yours, the Knoppix CDs that I have burnt boot on every single computer I've even tried them on. Sometimes old memory starved 486s boot too slow to really be useful. Sometimes there are things like an old sound card that don't get recognized. Sometimes I've needed cheat codes (nodma on one system with versions 3.4 to 3.7; noscsi and acpi=off on another system for the same version range). But my CDs always boot on about 6 systems I have used them on here and on at least eight or nine systems of friends that I have given CDs to.

  7. #17
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    I am grateful for the help supplied here, and was not reluctant to follow the check. I read the site and saw the instructions on how to check in linux/unix, but did not see the next bit which was the downloads of windows checkers. BTW when I did eventually download a windows checker it was by no means straight forward. I sussed it, but most of my colleagues wouldn't have.

    There's a whole new vocabulary in this environment that will be impossible for a typical windows user to even comprehend.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quinny
    There's a whole new vocabulary in this environment that will be impossible for a typical windows user to even comprehend.
    Agreed. In those cases, I recommend that people find a local linux users group (LUG), join their mailing list, and attend one of their meetings. In many cities, there is often more than one LUG. For exmaple, here in Saint Louis, Missouri, we have several that meet at different times during the month. At each one, people will be glad to burn CDs, give demos, and answer your questions. Some groups even have regularly scheduled "installfests" where you can bring your machine and someone will help you with linux on your machine.

    Regards,
    - Robert
    http://www.cwelug.org/

  9. #19
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    Frustrated? Not me!

    Hi Guys,

    I apologize for barging in on this thread, ranting and reminiscing, and I'm not too sure that it is the appropriate topic to post here, but I found the thread rather interesting and discovered some unique perspectives in this group. You can skip by my history lesson and other BS (boring stuff) and go directly to the 6th through the last paragraph to get through this quickly, if you feel the need or lack the time to read.

    I am rather new to Linux even though I have used it infrequently over a number of years. I remember purchasing a set of the original Corel Linux disks packaged with the manuals. I installed it on a rather new pentium 2 at the time and was amazed how trouble free the install was. I did select linux "compatible" components, but Linux did the rest. There were no conflicts and everything worked without any further configuration or driver installation. It was so unexpected that I almost soiled my undershorts when it all worked the first time around, since I did expect it to act much worse than the latest version of Broken Windows installed over DOS. It was also based on Debian if I remember correctly. It was a great little distro with almost everything you needed to do most everyday tasks. Unfortunately it went the way of the Edsel (Old Ford Junker). I have used a few older Red Hat, Slackware, and other distros and probably still have the retail boxed disks (Some on Floppys) around somewhere. Yes, I purchased the disks since I would still be in the process of downloading them today with the "Cutting Edge" 1200 Baud modem I had back when I started out. Blank CDs back when I started burning them, were well over $30 each and the writeable CD drives were over $5000. You had to configure and master a disk before you could burn it and it required some serious time expended to get it right the first time, since the media was not cheap and systems were slow. It was burned at 1X or less and the entire process could take the better part of a day if you were successful. We used cutting edge systems (I386), loaded with Tons of memory (4 Meg or more), with incredibly huge hard drives (several hundred Meg apiece), capable of holding an entire CD image between an array of several drives. I now mostly use Nero or VSO and rarely give any of it a second thought. It is so easy to burn a disk today, but it was quite an achievement back in it's beginning. It took a lot of expertise and time to do it correctly. It's the same type of learning curve with Linux/Knoppix today. If you have someone that is proficient with it locally and willing to help guide your learning process, you can benefit from their experience. Out here where I live, we just got electricity, paved roads, indoor plumbing, and telephones last year, and it is hard to find someone with enough expertise AND willingness to help me along. For that reason, I rely heavily on these forums for information and insight. I could always travel a few hours to a more Metro-Area and explore the possibility of a Linux Users Group and I might have to consider doing so, but with the price of gas and tolls these days, it would still be only an occasional trip.

    My motivation for using and exploring Linux certainly is NOT saving the cost of some other OS. If you look at what is involved in getting proficient with any Linux Distro, most people would rather pay money for something simpler. I just like a challenge and have found another one with Linux. Besides. it beats the heck put of sitting outside and watching the cars rust, the grass grow or fixing broken Windows systems. It keeps your mind sharp and your learning processes working. I'm one of those older, but pretty Tech saavy people, with a lot of experience in many areas. (I'm rather severely over 20 and won't see the half century mark ever again) I also never fail to impress someone when their "Broken" system boots up from my Knoppix disk and runs like it did when new. Their system usually suffers from those self inflicted issues like Kazaa, Search Toolbars, downloaded games, and other invitations for Malware (usually blamed on "the Kids"). I usually almost have to beat them up to get my disk back with me and usually end up making a gift of it, IF I think they won't hurt themselves with it, and some others if I think they will.

    I have played with Knoppix for, I would guess, about 3 or 4 years now. I have tried a few of the "Modified" Knoppix distributions. I am certainly impressed with how far it has come in such a short time. Unfortunately, I have not spent the time I should have to become more familiar with it. I refuse to get frustrated with MY inexperience and I find it extremely helpful to go through the posts in this forum. Most of my questions were already answered or addressed somewhere within. I will probably never get to the upper levels of proficiency with Knoppix, but I am satisfied with each small accomplishment and discovery I make. There is a lot to learn and so little time, but I would not think of blaming the OS for my inability to be patient and take the time to learn it. I use whatever tools I have learned to use and do so on some spare systems I have laying around, if I have any reservations. It does a dynamite job of testing and verifying my hardware outside of windows, or before an OS install. It is convenient and does not require extensive set ups or installs to get it running.

    I have found that quite a few people have some sort of instant gratification expectation. In other words, it should automatically install in less than 1/2 hour on any configuration and they should be an instant expert with it! It just does not happen like that in the real world. There is a rather steep learning curve with Linux, but it appears to be worth it. I have downloaded the 4.0 LinuxTag DVD and am thoroughly hooked and impressed. Even though there are some bugs mentioned, it works well enough to do what I need it to do, most of the time. There is so much included on the DVD and most of which I know little or nothing about. It is an adventure discovering what is there and what it does. You get out of it what you are willing to invest in it regarding the time and effort expended. There really are no short cuts, except to rely on the more experienced users and the limited written documentation to help you through the rough spots. Not to complain about a lack of up-to-date written documentation, but it is difficult to produce a "Current" users guide since Linux is a moving target.

    Now for my main reason for posting here. I might have a little little insight for some of the previous posters regarding disks that will not boot, prompting MD5 checks, etc. One thing I have experienced that can cause a disk to fail is BAD MEDIA. You know the stuff that was on sale for under $10.00 a hundred at the local Geek shop. I used to buy loads of it and I still have most of it hanging around collecting dust, since it is usually pretty worthless for use with applications like a Knoppix CD. On these El Cheapo CDs, you can hold them up at an angle to a light source and actually see the defects. There are usually some defects in the middle of the disks and some near the outer edges. DVDs are harder to see the defects on and they are most often near the outside of the disk, so a 4 Gig burn such as Knoppix 4.0 may not be affected, but you would notice issues with a full length video near the very end. I use a disk inspector program to check the occasional disk, but I stay away from the no-name cheap stuff. I also do not really bother to do an MD5 test unless I have a failure of some sort or am investigating some issue. I know I really should, but I have run into very few problems with the later downloads. Bittorrent seems to do an incredible job of downloading a correct image file. I have also had a few suspect downloads early on, but not lately. I can only offer my experience with poor media as another possibility to think about. I now use only the Premium disks, or more precisely, a brand/type that is known and proven to work well in my drives, to burn Knoppix onto, because it's worth it. I save the cheap stuff for audio CDs that I might leave in extreme heat or sunlight inside a car or something like that. You know, the disposables that double for frisbees at the beach or found hanging from the rear view mirror, or used to graphically test a microwave oven for proper function!

    Another issue that I have seen is the failure of some CD and DVD drives to read some brands of media well AND that some Writeable drives have difficulty writing to some media. Not that the media is actually defective, it's just that the media does not work well with that particular drive, for whatever reason. Sometimes a firmware upgrade takes care of the issue. I'm not sure if all of this applies to your situations, but it has driven me nuts in the past and I do check my Media and drive compatibility before I pull out what's left of my hair. I recently had a DVD drive that did not read DVD-R well and seemed to prefer DVD+R media when I first tried the 4.0 LinuxTag DVD. The system hung at inconsistent points, sometimes failed to boot completely, failed to shut down properly, locked up a few times, and just did not work well with the DVD-R. A switch to DVD+R solved the issue and now the system works as it should.

    I also boot a newly burned "Official" Knoppix disk with the "Knoppix testcd" cheatcode for the first time and am satisfied that if it passes all checks, with no failures, the disk is reasonably accurate. That tells me that the download was probably good and the burn to disk and media is most probably good. At least it proved out for what was tested. Some re-mastered disks will not always pass the "testcd" cheat on start up. I believe I know what the issues are and it does not appear to mean that the disk is not good, only that it is NOT the "original" disk as configured before the modifications. The "testcd" cheatcode also appears to work for the DVD version, it just takes a while to run the test.

    I have also encountered faulty memory or bios memory settings in some systems causing hangs and other failures. It may be worth the effort to test the system memory with one of the "Memtest" programs. It makes sense simply because Knoppix runs on a "Ramdisk" and bad ram could spell trouble that might not always show up consistently in Windows or other hard drive based OS. It is sometimes bad enough that it could prevent Windows or other OS from installing properly. I would also guess that Knoppix may not boot successfully either. On occasion, simply changing some memory settings to more conservative values in the bios will take care of the issues.

    Thank you all again for participating in these forums and helping us learn and use Knoppix. Without dedicated individuals who sacrifice their time to help others, something as great as Knoppix or other similar projects would struggle even harder to exist. I would hope that I sometime reach a level of proficiency that would enable me to be on the "Helping" side rather than the "Need Help" side of it in order to repay those who had helped me get there. In the meantime, I will endeavor to ask good questions so that others may benefit from my lack of knowledge and experience with Knoppix/Linux.

  10. #20
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    I could sure use some help with my post over here

    If there's any missing info that you guys need to know just post and let me know. I'll see what I can find out.

    And yes, I am feeling the frustration in getting this thing to work.

    Thanks

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