Still no luck with some things....

[SkittleLinux18]

Ok, after some long, tedious perseverance, I finally got somewhere. I just couldn't accept the fact that Kubuntu would not install on my computer. So I kept researching my old nemesis and learned that the problem was in my BIOS. I went in there and disabled the Floppy Drive (that doesn't exist in my computer?). From there, I was able to get rid of the Buffer I/O error on fd0, but not sr0. So some illegal research led my friend and I to the knowledge that it was an issue with my DVD-ROM drive. I am not good at explaining this stuff, but basically, the bottom line was a conflict with SCSI emulation being turned on. So I swapped out ROM drives and was able to install Kubuntu 8.04. Once the install was done, I restored my computer configuration and everything is working great!! It's fast, stable, and I will probably wake up at 3:59 AM just to watch my taskbar NOT reload at 4:00 AM... hahaha!

There's still more to do, so I will definitely keep reporting back and can't wait to mark this thread as SOLVED. In the mean time, thanks again to all of you! And to my friend who finally put some of the final missing puzzle pieces together.

[SkittleLinux18]

So I wanted to follow up with this thread. Sorry it has taken so long.

For starters, I am way beyond satisfied with Kubuntu! I mean, wow! Almost every problem I was having with PCLOS is gone. Linux is running more smoothly. I was talking to Dapper last night on AIM, and he was telling me everything he does on his Kubuntu machines. I would be terrified to do all of those things on PCLOS because it the distro's instability.

Now that's not to say that the PCLOS is not a good distro, because it is. However, it is not as "buttoned down" as say, Kubuntu, IMHO.

I still couldn't get my iRiver to work, however I did find more sites with information about that particular model being notorious for not working with Linux. Guess I'll just have to get a new one. =D

I am still having problems my read/write privileges on my DVR drive. Fortunately, I quasi-resolved that issue through fixing another:

This latest incident with PCLOS made me so scared about losing my "mission critical" data. I was waking up in the middle of the night, checking my hard drive to make sure it was all still there haha. So SierraDump helped me set up a sata raid 2 file server and all my data is on that now. So If I absolutely have to burn something, I can burn directly over the network on my laptop. Not a permanent fix, but one that will work for now.

The fact of the matter is that Linux is a very difficult OS, despite that fact that it is fun and enjoyable. It's easy if the most basic computer user who has it for listening to music, basic word processing, printing, checking email, and surfing the web. The reason I bring this up is because sometimes I tend to think that Linux is horrible. But situations like these remind me that it is actually one of the OS out there. It's just not as user-friendly when it comes to all the spiffy extras you want with it, i.e. servers, 3D desktop, some eye candy, and complicated hardware setups. Fortunately, the bulk of these complicated issues have now been resolved with my file server, so I can get back to enjoying linux.

Overall, a lot of good things came out of this. I learned a lot. My resolve to stick with Linux was tested and I came through! I got a file server out of it, and a much better working distro!