Frustrated with linux

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Harteex
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Frustrated with linux

Post by Harteex »

Ok, I'm really getting frustrated with linux now.
The Red Hat Fedora 3 installer can't detect my mouse (a serial mouse, works fine in Windows), and then, later it crashes with unhandled exception.
The Fedora 4 installer can't detect my mouse either, and the window is larger than my screen... guess I can try textbased installation instead though... sigh...

Suse doesn't work either... Couldn't even start X... and textbased installer gives errors about not being able to install rpm packages.

Thought I'd try FreeBSD instead... (I know, not linux..) no no... the installer fails both from CD and from FTP, it slows down more and more and more till it just dies

But guess what, both Windows and ReactOS works fine on it...

Does anyone have a suggestion for a linux dist that works? I don't want to depend on some console...
Or should I just screw linux and install a windowsserver?
frik85
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Post by frik85 »

You can try out Knoppix (a LiveCD version of debian), and if that work, you can use Debian.


FreeBSD doesn't work on my newest pc nor in VMware (in WinXP) on the same pc. Both times, i got an infinit loop with a beep from my system speaker :(
And linux doesn't know my hardware (pci cards, etc.), and the original closed source drivers aren't supported any more.

Hardware compatibility is really bad in linux, most old driver doesn't work.
Imagine something like this in the windows world, even a WinNT 3.5 driver from my very old scanner from 1995 does work in WinXP.
Ged
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Post by Ged »

What chipset are you using?

SiS is notoriously bad on Linux machines.

In general hardware support is very good with Linux these days. I've never come across hardware I couldn't get running with a bit of tweaking.

Older hardware is generally prefered over newer hardware.
steveh
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Linux distros...

Post by steveh »

I have experiences with various versions of 4 linux distros, and my best experiences are those with suse:

- readhat/fedora
installed flawlessly but i could not make sound work, DSL ok, ISDN NOT ok,
bug with fdisk (it "didn't see" partitions > hdx15), problems with later changing config settings (change of graphic card) by redhat config tools and sax2
but this does not discourage me from soon testing fedora "core 5"

- mandrake/mandriva
same remarks as for redhat
i will test the next mandriva version

- suse
installed flawlessl, DSL and ISDN ok, sound ok, and i had not the these problems as for redhat, some problems (freeze) with suse's firefox rpm, so i replaced it with the standard firefox 1.5.01 gz.
also some minor upgrade/update problems because various software rpm's from suse (openoffice, acrobat reader) do not respect the standard installation directories.
some problems with suse's amarok, a lot of xine components are missing, i will need to try separate installation of standard versions...
i am permanently using suse 10.0, and currently testing 10.1 beta5

I have not yet tried to compile myself a kernel for suse. But as suse does publish only minor number updates for 10.0's 2.6.13 kernel, i will give kernel 2.6.15 or 2.6.16 a try on a duplicata, i don't want to "break" working suse partition.

- KNOPPIX
starts perfectly on the fly and finds all hardware, DSL works perfectly, ISDN config unsuccessful, and executing the script for permanent installation did not work for me

- Ubuntu
heard about it,
maybe i will test it in a virtual pc by qemu

Currently for testing reactos, i mostly use qemu in suse10
Harteex
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Post by Harteex »

It's a VIA-chipset.. a 600 mhz celeron.

Tried knoppix, but it set the wrong refresh rate or resolution so it was some seriously bad flicker... I changed monitor and it worked a bit better.
Mouse didn't work either, it detected my serial mouse a ps/2 mouse, and that computer doesn't even have ps/2 ports.
Anyway changed to another serial mouse and it worked better.

I could probably get it working with some tweaking but I'm not much of a tweaker, I like it when things work out of the box.

Suse seems to be too much trouble with failing rpm-packages, so I'm gonna make another try with Fedora 4 I think.


Edit: Ok, Fedora 4 could not detect this mouse either (which works fine in ReactOS even)... and I got an unhandled exception, so I can't install it.
So far Knoppix have worked best.

I'll try Ubuntu tomorrow. Now I'm going to watch Conan O'Brian ;)
danielmurphree
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Post by danielmurphree »

I have the latest Ubuntu installed on my computer. It supports most hardware very well. Out of the box. If you continue having problems even after you install Ubuntu we may need to look at the problem in greater detail. I've been using Linux since 1995. The mouse I had at the time was a serial mouse. You had to know exactly which communications port the mouse was on and you had to make sure that no other ports were using the same interrupt request (IRQ). If you have that information you can easily configure the mouse even if the mouse is not detected. I'll be happy to point you in the right direction If you do end up needing to tweak things.
Harteex
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Post by Harteex »

I've already installed Windows 2000 Server instead.
But, there seem to be something strange with my hardware...
In the event log I see parity errors on IdePort0 and controller errors on HardDisk0/DR0. That's probably the reason why Ubuntu and the other linux distros failed to install.
Just a shame that Ubuntu doesn't show what's wrong in the installation.. it just says, something went wrong, go check the log.
But I guess I can't blame these errors on linux since there is failing hardware. (but still, windows installed and runs fine...)

Even though I'll probably stick with Windows for now, thanks for the offer to help me :)
danielmurphree
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Post by danielmurphree »

I've been able to install Windows with faulty hardware (even faulty Random Access Memory) in situations that BeOS or Linux would not install. In the past Linux was much more verbose about the error but that has changed with many Linux distributions (ironically) to make Linux easier to install. Windows 2000 is a nice operating system and it will most likely be fine for the research you plan on doing. I'll be happy to help if you do take a stab at Linux in the future. Good luck!
Pharaoh_Atem
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Post by Pharaoh_Atem »

Whenever I install Linux distros and there are indications of faulty hardware, you should replace it very soon, since if software can detect it is faulty (Windows likes to trick you), then it may be on the verge of imploding.. I have had an experience where this has happened, and now I pay very close attention to system logs, especially installation logs...
Harteex
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Post by Harteex »

If I install Linux again, and if I need some help, I will ask here for sure, thanks :)
I will replace the failing hardware as soon as possible...
Meklort
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Post by Meklort »

If you ever want a verbose operating system, use gentoo, although you do have to do everything manualy. With a little tweeking, I have never had a problem with hardware (minus winmodems and wireles cards that dont work with ndiswrapper, but then again the wont work with any other distro).
If some kind of hardware doesnt work in gentoo (atleast the experimental branch) then it probably wont work at all in linux.
Pharaoh_Atem
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Post by Pharaoh_Atem »

In case anyone needs a simple guide on moving from other types of systems to Linux, there is a guide on my blog...
LordMicr0n
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HAL

Post by LordMicr0n »

try a Linux distro with HAL (Hardware abstraction layer) preinstalled, it's not the answer for all hardware problems in Linux, it's the answer for all basic hardware related tasks Linux have to handle.
for windows Lovers, the SuSE 10 (Open SUSE) is a good choice, because it's behave like windows, it handles hardware like windows.
don't even try distros that're not ment for desktop use only, belive me you'll burn your fingers on those.
after you have collected some skills , i hardly recommend Debian, or debian based distros , some good (desktop) distros are (MEPIS[KDE], Ubuntu[GNOME]) after that you might try UNIX
(FreeBSD or Solaris) and many more BSD based Distros (OSXx86 Tiger Pre release)
don't buy "windows Longhorn" !
http://www.againsttcpa.com/
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