An idea

**technossomy** · 10-25-2005

After all Linux installations having failed, only unstable Suse being the compromising exception, I had a thought. Did anyone think of a searchpage, similar to what can be seen on distrowatch.com, added with some hardware specs criteria, that leads the user directly to the files to be downloaded, rather than the myriad of ftp-files from which the user can only guess the correct file by looking at the name?

Tech

**deek** · 10-25-2005

Isn't that what google and this forum is for? I mean, I am not being entirely sarcastic here, as you can find a lot of what you need by either asking or searching for it...

Or, if you really think it is a good idea, why don't you try putting something like that together yourself? I mean, I am sure others would find it valuable, so you could create your own little project team and share this information with the rest of the linux world...

**technossomy** · 10-25-2005

Good point! It's just that I am down to my last 5 CD's out of my 50-pack and the only OS that has been working quite fine is Win98. Surely there must be a better way...

Tech

**techieMoe** · 10-26-2005

Originally Posted by technossomy

After all Linux installations having failed, only unstable Suse being the compromising exception...

I'm going to sidestep your question entirely and hit what I believe to be the real issue here: what is your hardware? What distributions have you tried? What exactly "failed" on each one? What do you mean by "unstable Suse"?

**technossomy** · 10-26-2005

Suse: too unstable (hangs 1 out 4 times), too many environments, too hard to configure and Yast doesn't help out
Knoppix: installation unsuccessful (stops midway)
Debian: still wrestling with the manual and looking for the iso to download, but I believe floppies are involved as well; one installation a few months ago was unsuccessful
Slackware: too many floppies wasted on this and can therefore be no serious OS
DSL: installation unsuccessful (stops midway)

I have tried these on PII-328MB-160GB and a subset of the above on an AMD K6-64MB-20GB machines.

I am tired of figuring things out, tired of learning that it will not install after lengthy download and burn sessions, tired of finding out there are many previously unknown settings that should have been done, tired of formatting floppies for all kinds of reasons, tired of finding a distribution that might just work. Even after the little of what I have seen from Linux, I just can't recommend this OS to clients and we all know what that means.

I'd like an interactive screen that asks me:
- what my usage requirements are
- what my system specs are
and takes me directly to the file of the 5 or so suitable distributions to download/burn and which then constitutes a complete installation CD. Naturally, I am happy to answer questions during install, and do not expect to be swapping floppies and restart my computer more than once.

**techieMoe** · 10-26-2005

Originally Posted by technossomy

Suse: too unstable (hangs 1 out 4 times), too many environments, too hard to configure and Yast doesn't help out

What version of SuSE were you attempting?

Debian: still wrestling with the manual and looking for the iso to download, but I believe floppies are involved as well; one installation a few months ago was unsuccessful

Floppies are not necessary for any modern Linux OS, Debian included, unless your system is too old to be able to boot from a DVD or CDROM. Debian is very large, however. It comes on either 2 DVDs or 14 CDROMs.

Slackware: too many floppies wasted on this and can therefore be no serious OS

I know quite a bit of people who would disagree with you. Is there a reason you're trying to install with floppies? ISO CDROM images are available for Slackware 10.1.

I have tried these on PII-328MB-160GB and a subset of the above on an AMD K6-64MB-20GB machines.

Can you be more specific? Can these machines boot from a CD or DVD-ROM? Do they have CD/DVD-ROM drives? What video display cards do they use, or is it onboard? If so, what chipset?

I am tired of figuring things out... Even after the little of what I have seen from Linux, I just can't recommend this OS to clients and we all know what that means.

Yes, that means Microsoft Windows works for you and you're not willing to put forth the time and effort to get Linux working, so you should stay with what works. No harm done, but if you ever get the inkling to sit down and learn more about Linux it will still be here.

Naturally, I am happy to answer questions during install, and do not expect to be swapping floppies and restart my computer more than once.

When was the last time you installed MS Windows XP? I had to give it floppies for my SATA controller, swap CDROMs for all the various programs I needed that didn't come with XP, as well as drivers for my sound and video cards. To me, *that* is more work. But to each their own. There's no shame in using what works for you.

**d38dm8nw81k1ng** · 10-26-2005

windows has the worst record for restarting. linux is much better imo. with debian you only NEED the netinstall CD and then you can apt-get everything off the internet during the install. seems to me that there is some broken hardware in your computer. the only time i had trouble with a linux install was the first time i tried to install SuSE. first my graphics controller wouldn't show YaST. when i got my current PC SuSE 9.2 went on. however the install DVD was corrupt, causing untold hell. i stuck with it, downloaded and installed SuSE 9.3 and life was good. (this is when i discovered the DVD was dodgy). after i got my ethernet modem, i was able to install gentoo, which is my current linux distro. when i get my hands on more storage space i plan to experiment more, but for now i have a dual boot of gentoo and SuSE.

the moral of the story is to stick with linux. if you really want an alternative to windows then the quality will eventually shine through. the second moral is to get CD-RWs and DVD+/-RWs. then you can overwrite them

**carlosponti** · 10-26-2005

i installed Slackware on a Sony notebook and while there may be features that dont work like the infrared sync i still got it installed and its a notebook they are more difficult than all other computers to get stuff installed and i did it from a CD-rom not one floppy was harmed during the install process. now it sounds like the second pc is a 64 bit CPU and on the first PC it sounds like there shouldnt be a problem unless like Moe said you dont have a bootable CD-Rom installed on it. in that case you can get a boot floppy to point to the CD-rom.

**technossomy** · 10-27-2005

I agree with each and everyone of you. But I am a user, not an administrator or configuration manager. I don't care which version I am using, I hardly care which hardware it should go on.

Again, I am quite happy to answer questions along the way as long as there is some system that makes most of my decisions for me (with the possiblility of manual corrections later). Ie, download, burn and install all in one go.

For those interested: after 5 attempts on a PII-328MB-160GB and 2 attempts on a PII-64MB-3GB, I must abandon Ubuntu too. All machines boot from CD-ROM.

**fingal** · 10-27-2005

Originally Posted by technossomy

Again, I am quite happy to answer questions along the way as long as there is some system that makes most of my decisions for me (with the possiblility of manual corrections later). Ie, download, burn and install all in one go.

Not asking for much are you

Thread Tools

Display

An idea

Re: An idea

Posting Permissions