Debian, Slackware hell.....

[Chris H]

How's Slack going? Any problems? Lets fix em one at a time... Whats first?

Tis overwritten by Suse 9.0. Too many niggles I'm afraid.

Chief was that as a user I couldn't access data cds not enough permissions. Also no sound in anything as a user, audio cds, enemy territory, nothing.

An experience but back with Suse now.

Might try Gentoo sometime though as I'm repairing an old P200 soon.

[Anonymous]

Tis overwritten by Suse 9.0. Too many niggles I'm afraid.

Probably better off i suppose. It aint for everyone...

[APMTech]

I kinda wish you had a chance to play with Slack or Debian. I find those two distrobutions the most fun; especially slack, which has been my top choice for years.

Mike

[Chris H]

I kinda wish you had a chance to play with Slack or Debian. I find those two distrobutions the most fun; especially slack, which has been my top choice for years.

Mike

I did get a chance to play with them. Just like playing tennis with ice cream.

I suppose I'm too impatient. But there's somethings I have to have working straight away, like me nvidia card, enemy territory and apache/php/mysql.

I'll have a go next time I get some HD space.

[Chris H]

Getting the itch again

I should know better by now. <sigh>

Question is, what should I install?

System is Celeron 1.3, 256Mb RAM, CD/DVD reader, CD-writer, 8Gb secondary HD, GeForce 2440MMX PCI, i810 onboard sound, internet access through router with DHCP<sp?>

My needs (non-negotiable) are : sound working, nvidia OpenGL working, Enemy Territory running, apache/php/mysql running, printing to remote printer on XP box on LAN.

I have Slack 9.1, Debian Woody, Knoppix and Gentoo 1.4 (stage 1 tarball and source files) on dvds.

What shall I go for?

Slack is tempting cos it'll teach me a lot. Debian's tempting cos of it's commitment ot open source. Gentoo's tempting cos I've seen the list of games on the tree. :P

Go on, tell me what I should go for. Bearing in mind that I'll definitely be asking for help.

Ta

[kriss]

Check out slackware, it can do everything you want and more.. And when you're done, you'll feel very enlightened

[Chris H]

Check out slackware, it can do everything you want and more.. And when you're done, you'll feel very enlightened

Is that a windows manager?

I did have probs with Slackware 9.1. Maybe I should give it another go. I'll hopefully get a chance later on tonight.

[Chris H]

Scratched the itch again. Oh dear. When will I learn. Suse 9.0 is soooo nice. Everything works. Too nice perhaps?

Installed Slackware 9.1 but hit same problems as last time - no user permissions for accessing cdrom (and probably other devices), smb option greyed out for adding a samba printer under cups. Samba is running, checked with netstat, and can access remote window shares, but not the remote printer. Grr. Couple that with no sound as user and it was time for another distro.

Installed a game mod of Morphix. Very nice, IceWM desktop, lots of games but no KDE and I don't think I could survive without KDE (too noob).

In goes a Knoppix Live CD. But can I find out how to install the beast to hard drive? No. Don't think this one could.

Never mind, let's have another go with Debian. Result same as last time, no screens found. Grr. Still, with a bit more experience under me belt I boots up Vi and has a fiddle with me XF86Config file. Error messages indicate no frame buffer device found. Flag is up in the file for 'true' for a frame buffer device. Edit to 'false', save, startx and we're in to KDE!!!

Waahey, at last, I'm up & running with Debian, that Holy Grail of distros, the social contract unfurls beneath my feet!! How my dreams were to be shattered!

Scratches head. Why does it look like Mandrake 8.2, my first ever linux installation? Ah, cos it's using the same version of KDE as MDK 8.2 does. Hold on, this is an August 2003 release of Woody. Why's it using KDE that's over 2 years old? Damned if I know. Anyway, I was rather fond of MDK 8.2. Had a go with apt-get. Very nice. Downloads, installs and configures in one. Cool. Not so cool was problem of getting Nvidia drivers working. As before trying to install gives kernel-headers not found, wrong version blah blah blah. OK, with my new vigour for Debian, let's go find and install them. Apt-cache search (or summat like that), Google, rummaging on the install DVD - no headers. Kernel is 2.4.20-bf2 or summat like that. Latest kernel headers I can find are 2.4.19. Sob. Why are there no headers available? Shome misteak, shurely? Any distro that bars me from Enemy Territory just has to go. Social contract or no social contract.

In desperation the Gentoo 1.4 dvd goes in. And comes out again pretty soon afterwards. Got as far as determining me ethernet card wasn't configured and unless I knew what type it was it never was going to work. I ain't taking the pc apart and 2 in the morning. Pah.

In goes the Slackware 9.1 install dvd again. Boots into KDE flawlessly (as root anyway). Still no sound or permissions to access devices as user. No smb printer either. Sigh.

Still, I will persevere over Christmas with Slack. Might even fiddle with Gentoo if the christmas spirit flows too freely.

Thanks to those on #elitelinux for the help. I shall be back though