Windows Refugee - Linux as a beginner

Belkin 54g USB Wireless Adapter

2008-05-08T19:23:00.003-04:00

For some reason that is beyond me now, about a year and a half ago I decided to purchase a bargain-basement Dell notebook, the model B120, that has no built-in wireless. The computer is what I expected for $500 dollars and it performs decently enough, for what it is. As of late, however, I have become annoyed at the fact that it has no built-in wireless, and I am regretting not adding it to the original purchase. Now I am in a situation where I actually need the wireless connection, and in the interest of time and saving money, I decided to try out the Belkin 54g USB adapter.

I knew that the USB adapter would work in Windows, which was what I would be using most frequently, but I was very skeptical about it working in Linux. Fortunately, from the Kodak camera incident a few months ago, I learned an important lesson: Just Plug it in And Try It!!!

At first, there was nothing, not even an indication that Mandriva had recognized a piece of new hardware. Before getting too frustrated, however, I decided to look at the hardware information applet in the control center.

Listed right under the network adapter section was the Belikn 54g. Thinking it was working, I opened Firefox, though I did not expect much, because I had not configured the adapter yet. I was correct, there was the standard "page not found" message.

My next move was to open the network applet in the control center. i noticed that the USB wlan was disabled. After enabling the adapter, and connecting to the wireless router, it worked like a charm. Upon reboot, the network was automatically connected.

Compared to how the Belkin works in Windows, its performance in Linux is very hassle-free. In windows, Belkin includes its own program to connect with access points. That program does not do a very good job at maintaining a connection, and if you choose to use the built-in zero configuration program of Windows, the Belkin program tends to interfere with the connection and it must be shutdown.

So, in conclusion, once again, with Linux, if it is recognized, the hardware just works... No problems...

Acronis Disk Director Suite

2008-04-30T17:54:00.005-04:00

As I have been experimenting with different Linux distributions, while still holding on to Windows for certain programs, I soon came to the conclusion that there must be a better way to manage the boot process than with the GRUB or LILO boot manager. For one thing, it is text based, and the boot options can be very confusing to understand. In addition, each version of Linux that is installed wants to use its own bootloader, often overwriting other boot loaders on the system. Finally, when one bootloader is overwritten, it can be hard to add the first version of Linux to the new Linux's bootloader menu.

After a little bit of research, I began to try out various boot loaders, but very few had all of the obtions I was looking for. Then, in some random forum, I came across a posting that advocated the use of the Acronis O.S. Selector, which is part of the Acronis Disk Director Suite. I looked it up online, and found that, unfortunately, it is not a freeware application, like many of the programs I had been trying, but that it was priced at 49.99. After reading the features, however, I decided to give the 15-day trial version a shot.

Included in the Acronis Disk Disk Director suite is the O.S. Selector, a partition manager, a partition recovery tool, a disk editor, and a tool that creates a rescue disk.

My immediate focus in testing was the O.S. Selector. I installed it on my computer that had, at that time, Windows and a copy of Mandriva on it. I then ran the O.S. detection wizard included in the suite. To my disappointment, the wizard only discovered Windows. after a few more attempts, I realized that it was not happening. I was expecting that, however, because the person who had recommended the software said specifically to install it FIRST. [A while later I would find out that it was not the software's problem, but an error in the way I had partitioned my drives.] I then went on to install a fresh copy of Mandriva, which was no big loss since the installed copy was only a day or two old.

I was very pleased with the results. On boot, there is a typical Windows-looking dialog box, with icons representing each installed operating system, plus any bootable external media connected to the computer. The program provides its own mouse drivers, and the user simply can double click the desired O.S. icon to boot the machine For security purposes, the program can be password-protected, and, for convenience, a default operating system can be booted after an adjustable timeout period.

At the time, I was only running Windows and Linux, but after I purchased a copy of the program, I did some more experimenting. I found it was very easy to run multiple distributions of Linux. For those that are more daring, the program can also be configured to run with a wide array of other operating systems. For instance, I installed a version of OSX on my Dell notebook [Thanks to OSx86project.org], and the O.S. Selector recognized it as a bootable operating system and allowed it to boot, even though it did not actually recognize the operating system or file structure.

Beyond the O.S. selector, I found that the other tools in the suite proved quite useful, as well. The included partitioning tool recognizes Fat16, Fat32, and the NTFS file system for Windows, and it also supports and works with Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux Swap file systems as easily as it does with the Windows file systems. It can create, delete, format, stretch, shrink, split, and merge partitions, and it can even defragment the file system. In addition, the program can hide partitions and change the drive letter of a Windows device.

The bootable media builder can create a restore disk for the O.S. Selector on several types of media, just in case an operating system that is newly installed decides to overwrite the MBR. I have not had the need to use the disk editor, but it is capable of fixing many problems with the file system, or, if one is not careful, destroying the file system.

All in all, I am very happy with the Acronis Disk Director Suite, and while there may be many freeware tools out there that can perform the same functions, I feel that the software is easily worth the 50 dollars I spent, and the fact that all of the tools work together as one application is a great bonus.

USB MidiSport UNO

2007-10-23T14:45:00.000-04:00

Recently, my installation of Mandriva started to boot up really slowly, hanging for nearly a minute at the "setting hostname" message during the boot process.

Some research concluded that it could be a USB device causing the system to hang, and by unplugging one device at a time and rebooting, I tracked the problem down to my USB MidiSport UNO. I had not even considered looking for drivers for the unit, because the available software for producing music under Linux is not very mature yet, unfortunately, and that is one of the reasons I continue to have Windows installed on my machine.

After doing some research, however, I realized that there is actually a driver for the device, and it is included in the Mandriva package manager. It is called ezusbmidi, and after installing the package, my boot problem went away. I have yet, however, figured out how to actually use it in LMMS to receive MIDI signals. That is a project for another time I guess.

GNOME 2.20 officially released

2007-09-20T08:33:00.000-04:00

GNOME 2.20 officially released: "The GNOME community announced a new release today after six months of development. GNOME is a desktop environment primarily used on Linux and other open-source platforms. GNOME 2.20 includes numerous improvements and new features that benefit users, administrators, and developers.

GNOME's image viewer features a significantly improved image collection interface and a new Open With menu. The Nautilus file manager can now display a disk usage pie chart in the filesystem properties dialog. Desktop search integration, which first appeared in Nautilus in GNOME 2.14 and can optionally leverage the Beagle and Tracker indexing systems, has now been added to the GNOME file dialog."

Being that I am a Windows user, I prefer the look of KDE over GNOME's MAC-like appearance, though I have been thinking about installing a version of GNOME. I am still a newbie in Linux and I want to experiment some more before I settle on what distribution and GUI combination I will use permanently....

KDE 4 Live CD

2007-09-20T08:16:00.000-04:00

Well, I downloaded the image of the lice CD and burned it to disk. It is based on OpenSUSE, with KDE 4 as the GUI. The OS booted, and I logged in, but unfortunately, several components crashed. This left KDE running but severely crippled. In fact, I could do nothing useful at all.

Perhaps it does not agree with my hardware. Maybe I will actually install a version on my machine, if that is possible, but until then, the review of KDE 4 is on hold...

KDE 4: The Shiny New Linux (and Windows) Desktop

2007-09-19T08:42:00.000-04:00

KDE 4: The Shiny New Linux (and Windows) Desktop: "Linux users are as evangelical about desktop environments, the all-encompassing graphical user interface software responsible for providing everything from taskbars to office suites, as they are about operating systems. It shouldn't come as any surprise, then, that the first major release in over five years of the most popular desktop environment available is causing quite a stir. Due to be released on December 11th, KDE 4.0 is bringing exhilarating graphical, usability, and functionality improvements to the Unix-like systems it is designed for—and Windows users will get a taste, too."

This new version of KDE is looking pretty interesting so far, though it appears as though there may be a bit of a learning curve with the re-design. Right now, I am downloading the Live CD so that I can check it out for myself. I will come back with a general review of the new system...

Linux.com :: It's official: ATI Radeon drivers to be open sourced

2007-09-14T10:22:00.000-04:00

Linux.com :: It's official: ATI Radeon drivers to be open sourced: "AMD briefed Linux.com this morning on a pending announcement regarding the open sourcing of drivers for ATI graphics cards. It's official -- AMD will make code and specifications for ATI graphics cards available on the Internet on September 10."

This is absolutely great news for anyone who is running Linux and is stuck with the current available drivers for ATI cards. If all goes well, perhaps we will actually be able to use our cards to their full extents, at the very least in 2D mode. Apparently, they will have issues with the 3D side, because some of the 3D instructions are based on closed-source software...

I would be extremely happy if I could just be able to use the TV out function the way I would like to. Thank you AMD/ATI, and the open-source coders who will contribute to this project.

Success, I have printed from Linux!!!

2007-08-17T14:22:00.000-04:00

No matter what I tried, I could not get my printer working. The other day, I was in Linux, and needed to print something. I could not wait for windows to boot, so I turned the printer on. Much to my surprise, there it was, ready to go. I did nothing more to fix it, since my last post about the printer. I can only imagine that one of the automatic updates fixed it.

One more piece of hardware down, before I fully switch to Linux...

On another subject, I had hoped this blog would be filled with more stories about the difficulty of the Linux transition, but, in reality, it just works. Hardware problems aside, that is, and that falls into the hands of the hardware vendors themselves.

So, support Linux, you hardware people!!!!

I am very happy...

2007-06-22T12:57:00.000-04:00

I now have the time problem solved, and I plugged my Kodak c310 into my computer under Mandriva, and it was recognized. The pictures I had taken were transferred successfully...

That means that I am one step closer to switch to Linux permanently.

Users of similar cameras take note: The camera must be in the Auto picture taking mode, in order to be recognized by the digicam application. The camera will not function as a drive/storage device, however. (That is the way it works in windows)

Fixed Windows clock update...

2007-06-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

It turns out that ZoneAlarm was blocking the incoming transmissions from the server. Once I added the server to the trusted zone, the clock could update. I also edited the registry so that the clock will sync every 5 minutes. Now all I have to do is boot into Mandriva and set it up for internet time sync. Hopefully I will no longer be ripping my hair out in frustration...

Frustration, yet again

2007-06-22T09:41:00.000-04:00

Well my clock problem reared its ugly head again. Switching off GMT apparently did not work in Linux. I would just use internet time servers in each OS, but, for reasons I have not yet discovered, the clock in Windows cannot sync with the time server.

On the hardware side, I am also having no luck with my Kodak digital, as far as official drivers go. I have not tried just plugging it in yet, however. There are also no official drivers for my hauppauge card, though there is a project going that has unofficial alpha drivers available. Hopefully that will pan out in the future.

And... No Success

2007-06-21T22:16:00.000-04:00

I just did a quick search for drivers that will run my Visioneer 4400 USB scanner, and by all accounts I have read so far, it is not supported. Another instance of a hardware company that does not care about Linux users. They are out for a quick profit, and Windows is the easiest OS to profit on... Linux has too small of a market share.

Ok, success...

2007-06-21T22:01:00.000-04:00

I managed to get my Brother HL-240 cheapo, old laser printer working under Mandriva. Every time I tried to use the "Set up printer" wizard, it would report that CUPS could not be installed. After trying many things, I found Brother's driver page for Linux, and downloaded everything they have. Then I turned the printer on, and ran the wizard again. It worked. Why couldn't the error message have said "hey idiot, you have no drivers." I was under the impression that it was a problem with the CUPS program itself, since it would not install.

One piece of hardware down, 4 to go... I think my scanner can be fixed in the same manner, so that's next.

I wish I could dump Windows...

2007-06-21T20:05:00.000-04:00

I really like Linux, and it has defiantly come along way. I would love to transfer my files over, and format the rest of my drives to EXT3 Partitions, but I cannot do that just yet.

I enjoy watching some internet content, such as free network TV shows, and such on my 52 inch TV through the TV out. Unfortunately, the TV out on my ATI will not work correctly, and so far, I have not been able to get it working. I think the only solution is to set the monitor to a 640*480 resolution, and that will just not work for me.

Then, my Hauppauge TV card will not work. I do not do a lot of TV watching on it, but I do like to record the occasional program, and I would like to be able to use it's remote control functions in a Media Center-type application.

Also, my USB printer and scanner are not working, though that is likely an easy fix. I have not bothered with them yet. I also have yet to try my Kodak digi cam in Linux.

I really wish the hardware vendors would try to help us out, at least. Hauppauge, for example, is flat-out refusing to write Linux drivers. How lame is that? And the drivers that are out there tend to be very buggy. That is because they are written by 3rd party programmers, and thank god that someone is devoting their free time to that. Some of the software, as well, is quite buggy, but at least there are many different applications available out there.

So please hardware vendors, get your stuff in order... I want to see no more windows, without having to spend more money on hardware!!!

Clock Issue-Next attempt

2007-06-21T19:59:00.000-04:00

Well, I did a little more research, and found that the problem should be as easy as setting Linux to use local time. I must have answered the question wrong when KDE asked me if the hardware clock uses GMT or not. I set that, and I will see if it works over the next few boots into Windows and Linux. Seeing as it takes almost 5 minutes to boot into Windows, I really do not feel like doing that right now...

Dual Booting and Clock Issues

2007-06-21T14:13:00.000-04:00

I had an interesting issue with the time on my computer. When I would boot into windows, the time would be 4 hours off. I would reset the clock, then boot into Linux. The Linux time would then be 4 hours off.

After a while of setting the clock every time i booted into the other operating system, I started getting really annoyed. It turns out that Windows and Linux use and store the time differently, and they change the computer clock every time they boot.

I managed to find this page, which shows detailed steps to fix the problem in windows. So far, it seems to be working...

Update: No, it is not working, darn.

I am a moron...

2007-06-16T10:50:00.000-04:00

I have been playing around with a few other distributions besides Mandriva over the last couple of weeks. Except for the bootloader changing when another distribution was installed, Mandriva was running fine. Then I decided to play with Fedora. When it's boot loader was installed, it was not nice enough to leave entries for mandriva, however. No big deal, I could just edit the settings for Grub.

Before I did that, however, I decided to try the proprietary ATI driver for my video cards in Fedora, since only one of my monitors was working. Well, of course, when I rebooted, Fedora would no longer boot.

No problem, I thought. I would run the live version of Mandriva, and use it to reinstall the Madriva Grub bootloader so that I could run Mandriva again. Well here is where I became a moron.

I successfully installed the Mandriva bootloader, but I put it on the disk that Mandriva was installed on. The problem, however, was that the bootloader needed to be installed on another disk, the one set up in the BIOS as the boot disk. Duh!!!

Unfortunately, I did not realize this stupid mistake until after I had reformatted the Mandriva partition and reinstalled it. (I don't know enough about Linux yet to do much else.) So, I had to go through and reconfigure everything to my liking again and reinstall the programs I use. All because I selected the wrong drive when installing the bootloader.

Well, I guess I won't make that mistake again, lol.

linux vs. windows

2007-06-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

More and more often, I find myself using Linux over windows. I have not timed it, but it takes about 15 seconds for linux to boot. With windows, it takes 2 minutes or more, when it boots correctly. Right now, windows is having an issue with my choice of anti-virus, and the program manages to crash drwatson. So i have to end drwatson forcibly, before the boot will finish. Linux just boots, and I don't have to wait. Then, the programs rarely crash in linux, where as a program crashes in windows at least once a day.

On the other hand, all of my hardware works correctly in windows. While in linux, I still have issues with some hardware and its 3rd party drivers. Sometimes, I just have to boot to windows. With luck, some of the programmers out there will engineer drivers that work better some time. Most of the malfunctioning hardware is not necessary, but handy to have working. We'll see how it goes...

NTFS Access

2007-05-30T15:54:00.001-04:00

As it turns out, NTFS support is built in to the operating system, and it just takes a few small tweaks to make it work. For instance, I could log in to Root and mount the drive, but i forgot to set the permissions for my user account to have read access. Once that was done, I could easily go through my windows drives.

That is why I like Linux, it actually supports other file systems besides its own natively. The same is true with OSX. Windows, however, requires that you go and find drivers, like with all of its hardware.

I also managed to transfer files over the network to a windows machine. That too, took a mere tweak in the options to accomplish. I was helping someone with a computer problem, and did not want to reboot and wait the many minutes it takes for Windows to boot.

I am, however, having issues finding things within the directory structure of Linux, but it is just a matter of learning the different structure. I have not tooled around much with the console yet. Once I learn the structures in graphical mode, I will be more comfortable with the console.

Foray into the Linux world

2007-05-23T15:37:00.000-04:00

Switching to Linux from Windows is not for the faint-of-heart. Linux is a completely different world, but with my experience of playing with Linux for a few minutes, removing XP/2000 passwords with a Linux disk, and installing OSX (based on a flavor of Linux) on my Dell notebook, I thought I was ready. Sure, I did it on a whim, having gotten tired of the adware, spyware, and viruses that were targeted at my Windows machine, but I had forgotten how different the Linux command shell is from the old DOS I grew up with.

First, I downloaded Freespire, a stripped down version of Linspire, which was supposed to be very easy for beginners. Well, I burned the ISO to disk, popped it into my CD-ROM with great anticipation, and rebooted.

After several tries, all I could get was a solid underscore, no matter which option I selected from the boot menu. For some reason, it must not have been compatible with my system. Oh well, two hours of downloading for nothing. Once I am set on idea, however, I do not give up. A little more research, and I decided to download Ubuntu. This time, the software ran.

I resized the partition on one of my windows drives, and created the Linux EXT3 and SWAP partitions. If you do not know what you are doing at this step, you can end up with a system in chaos, but I am well-versed in partitioning. So far, so good.

I installed the OS, and, to my amazement, was online in no time. With Windows, you almost always have to install an Ethernet driver, in order to connect to the internet and get the rest of the drivers for your system. Unfortunately, I could not get Ubuntu to run the way I wanted to in an hour of tinkering, and not knowing the commands of the shell certainly helped in that regard. So, I decided that this was not good enough for me, or much less, the average computer user.

So, I booted back into Windows, and 1.5 hours later, I had a copy of Mandriva Linux. After burning it to disc and rebooting, a few minutes later, I had a working Operating System. This time, no drivers were needed. My 2 video cards were detected and supported, as well as my sound card, TV card and other peripherals. Upon first boot, my Ethernet card kept connecting and disconnecting, though could still could go online by refreshing the page several times. Upon reboot, the connection was solid.

Mandrivia has an overly-colorful, gaudy look to it, at least the free version. But a few changes in the settings fixed that. At this time, TV-out on my ATI 9550 is not working correctly, and neither is my Hauppauge PVR-150 TV Card. But, I think I can Solve that with a little tinkering. After all, that is what the Linux OS is all about, tinkering until it fits your liking. From then on, you are running one of the most stable and secure systems on this planet.

Next up- Configuring Mandriva for NTFS access, installing music-creation programs, fixing bugs, and much more.

--Later, Dave, the Linux Wanna-be