unbelievable

[johngrinham]

I ordered a 7 CD set of Debian, it arrived the next day, wonderful service.
Then I discovered why they want to get rid of it so fast.
The install asked about 6 million questions, none of which I knew the answer to, and at the end, a backward step to a 2.2 kernel (does 2.2 recognise usb?) and command line only even tho I nominated kde as the desktop.
Does anyone remember the conspiricy stories about the holocaust not being true ?? Maybe these stories about linux actually working are a story too. Surely out of Redhat, Knoppix, Debian, Gentoo, one of them should have done what everyone is saying linux can do. Maybe these are all just rumors to frighten Billy. I dunno. Give me a reason to keep trying.
I've been telling people how good linux is, but I'm not game to tell them I can't get it to work.

[fingal]

Well, Debian is not for newbies. It has a reputation for being hard to install. Have you tried Redhat or Mandrake yet? If you are using the stable version of Debian then it won't include the latest available packages. For that you would need to install the testing/unstable version (which is misleading because it's actually very stable!)

I'm sure other people will help you if you ask about installing. Read this http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php...review-debian2

If you get fed up try another distro or stick with Windows?

[jaguardriver]

Did you try Redhat 9 or Fedora Core 1 ??

Without any Linux knowledge I installed RH9 and had only some difficulty with the Nvidia driver (how to install it). After some months, I upgraded to FC1 (clean install) and no new problems...

And I assume others have good experience with other distros. So, perhaps your Debian problems are related to a specific release??

[Chris H]

John, it does seem you have been having trouble. But stick with it. IMO the distro that's best for those who are new to linux and just want something that works is Suse 9.0 pro. Give that a try. I'm sure it'll be working without too much fiddling under the bonnet.

[e_Linux_Newbie]

I reccomend Mandrake 9.2, I installed it before 2 weeks, without previews experience with linux without any problems. Ah, I used a guide from the net. Why don't you try one too?

[Chris H]

I also tried Mdk 9.2 but the cd I had didn't include the kernel source so I couldn't compile me nvidia driver. Otherwise it did look nice.

[johngrinham]

Thanks guys, a bit of moral support goes a long way. Being in Australia makes it a bit difficult, there are very few outlets for linux products. RH9 failed with rpms and my memory stick, but I can't find any Aust site offering fedora.
Only after I got debian did it become obvious that only older file systems are catered for (I guess the programs on the cd are usable tho ??? does apt work for other distros) Knoppix actually seemed to work ok but there were very few programs with it, could it use the debian cds???, (it is based on debian after all), it also looked for a smp which I don't have, does that matter.???
Gentoo looked very nice and very promising, but it wouldn't complete the install. Perhaps I should wait for 2.6.xx because ALSA is built in.

Does anyone know how to install a memory stick in knoppix ????
I tried the standard /dev/sda1 /mnt/thumb etc etc in the fstab file
Is there an alsa-kernel for knoppix or would it require a recompile ???

So many questions, good thing I don't have a lot of hair to pull out.

[Chris H]

For a usb mem stick, try this link which i found today

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...129TX1K0000532

I've got knoppix as a live-dvd version and there's shedloads of progs with it. I'm certain you can use the debian cds as the source for knoppix.

Dunno what smp is?

You tried installing Gentoo? </faints>

Suse 9.0 Pro comes with ALSA. Have you tried ebay aus for suse, or for any distro?

[johngrinham]

For a usb mem stick, try this link which i found today

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...129TX1K0000532
I'll try this address
I've got knoppix as a live-dvd version and there's shedloads of progs with it. I'm certain you can use the debian cds as the source for knoppix.

Dunno what smp is? (apparantly multiple processors)

You tried installing Gentoo? </faints> Is it that hard ???

Suse 9.0 Pro comes with ALSA. Have you tried ebay aus for suse, or for any distro?

Ebay ??? No, I hadn't seriously considered ebay yet !!

[fingal]

I'm running Knoppix on my second h/d. Ironically the website where I learned how to put it on my h/d is Australian! Can't seem to find it now. Once installed, you can add the packages from the Debian cds into your distro. I haven't tried this yet, but Knoppix is very good once installed.

Perhaps try http://www.freenet.org.nz/misc/knoppix-install.html

It's great having a distro which is so stable, though a few of the packages are quite buggy, and some won't work at all on my system.