Moving to Linux (Doing Homework)

[Oaf357]

Hopefully someone can give me a yes or no answer to this.

I'm going to be making the move to Linux soon (Moving to Linux) and have a question about a Promise hard drive controller on my Asus A7V mobo. Is it compatible with the 2.4.x kernel?

I know two years ago there were patches available but I'd like to make sure that those patches were incorporated into the kernel. I'm going to assume yes but we all know what assume means.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Welcome to the world of Linux! I made the transition a little while ago, so I know what your "going through". What distribution are you planning to install? I checked the supported hardware list for you at Mandrake.com for Mandrake Linux 9.1 (which runs kernel 2.4.21), and the only 3 supported Promise controllers were SCSIPlus, SCSIUltra40, and SCSIUltra80. I guess you will have to patch the kernel. I'm pretty new at linux though, so maybe someone with more experience with kernel rebuilding can help . Good luck with your move!

 

[cleverhandle]

I assume you're talking IDE here. Promise IDE controllers (RAID or non-RAID, onboard or offboard) are supported, though depending on your distro and controller, they may take some fussing around to get working properly. It depends on whether you're using RAID, booting to the drive, and so on.

 

[StuckMojo]

as long as you're not using the raid, the promise controller on that board will work fine.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: StuckMojo
as long as you're not using the raid, the promise controller on that board will work fine.

Even if he's using RAID, it should be fine - most Promise controllers are supported in RAID mode. A bit more effort is required, but it will work.

 

[StuckMojo]

i was posting from a non-frambuffer console, cus X was tied up D/Ling a big Wolfenstien map, so i cut it short.

i've never personally used the raid, but i have used the controllers in non-raid mode. works fine.

 

[Oaf357]

Thanks for the help. It's a non-RAID IDE controller.

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: SpeedFreak03
Welcome to the world of Linux! I made the transition a little while ago, so I know what your "going through". What distribution are you planning to install? I checked the supported hardware list for you at Mandrake.com for Mandrake Linux 9.1 (which runs kernel 2.4.21), and the only 3 supported Promise controllers were SCSIPlus, SCSIUltra40, and SCSIUltra80. I guess you will have to patch the kernel. I'm pretty new at linux though, so maybe someone with more experience with kernel rebuilding can help . Good luck with your move!

I'm trying to find a feature by feature comparison of Red Hat and Mandrake. I'm leaning more towards Red Hat 9 at the moment because of the Bluecurve desktop.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Oaf357
I'm trying to find a feature by feature comparison of Red Hat and Mandrake. I'm leaning more towards Red Hat 9 at the moment because of the Bluecurve desktop.

You're thinking too much. Just pick one. Nobody's life is at stake, and you'll probably reinstall within a week anyway.

 

[Buddha Bart]

Clever's right, if you're leaning RH9, jump right in.

Just be prepared for some extremely frustrating afternoons. There are thousands of little intangibles that make linux a pretty poor desktop OS. If you're of the moral variety that actually pays for your MS software, then I can imagine the shortcomings will be easy to put up with for the price.

If you go redhat without a doubt make sure to sign up for the free RHN account. If you like it enough, you should honestly consider paying.

bart

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: Oaf357
I'm trying to find a feature by feature comparison of Red Hat and Mandrake. I'm leaning more towards Red Hat 9 at the moment because of the Bluecurve desktop.

You're thinking too much. Just pick one. Nobody's life is at stake, and you'll probably reinstall within a week anyway.

The idea is to not have to reinstall. I did away with the annoying once a month format and reinstall Windows 98 idea a while ago and never really liked doing it (but there was a performance gain).

How do you know someone's life isn't at stake?

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: Buddha Bart
Clever's right, if you're leaning RH9, jump right in.

Just be prepared for some extremely frustrating afternoons. There are thousands of little intangibles that make linux a pretty poor desktop OS. If you're of the moral variety that actually pays for your MS software, then I can imagine the shortcomings will be easy to put up with for the price.

If you go redhat without a doubt make sure to sign up for the free RHN account. If you like it enough, you should honestly consider paying.

bart

I've already considered it. It would make sense to become a paying member (especially before the ish hits the fan).

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Buddha Bart
If you go redhat without a doubt make sure to sign up for the free RHN account.

Better yet, install apt-rpm, configure it only to search the "os" and "updates" directories, and set up a cron job to dist-upgrade every night.

cost = free

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Oaf357
The idea is to not have to reinstall. I did away with the annoying once a month format and reinstall Windows 98 idea a while ago and never really liked doing it (but there was a performance gain).

That's well and good - I've been running my Linux installation for the last six months or so, and Nothinman, for example, has had the same Debian install for years. But I guarantee you that your first Linux install will not be your last.

How do you know someone's life isn't at stake?

Just a guess, but if you're dumb enough to risk someone's life on your first Linux installation, I don't feel bad for misleading you...

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: Oaf357
The idea is to not have to reinstall. I did away with the annoying once a month format and reinstall Windows 98 idea a while ago and never really liked doing it (but there was a performance gain).

That's well and good - I've been running my Linux installation for the last six months or so, and Nothinman, for example, has had the same Debian install for years. But I guarantee you that your first Linux install will not be your last.

How do you know someone's life isn't at stake?

Just a guess, but if you're dumb enough to risk someone's life on your first Linux installation, I don't feel bad for misleading you...

It won't be my last. There will be upgrades, there will be other computers I install Linux on and there might be a change in heart as to which distro is for me. What I don't intend to do is to install Linux then a few days later, wipe the drive and "try again". Sorry to disappoint, but that's why I'm doing the research now as opposed to reading a text file after install later.

 

[Buddha Bart]

Better yet, install apt-rpm, configure it only to search the "os" and "updates" directories, and set up a cron job to dist-upgrade every night.

*shrug* If I wanted debian, I'd have installed debian.

bart

 

[Nothinman]

The idea is to not have to reinstall. I did away with the annoying once a month format and reinstall Windows 98 idea a while ago and never really liked doing it (but there was a performance gain).

Unless you get everything right the first try you'll end up reinstalling a few times, it's part of the learning process. Like cleverhandle said my current Debian install is around 4 years old and that includes staying up to date with Debian's 'unstable' tree.

*shrug* If I wanted debian, I'd have installed debian.

apt4rpm is a godsend. RH's free up2date servers are always full when new updates come out, the apt servers from freshrpms work flawlessly.

What I don't intend to do is to install Linux then a few days later, wipe the drive and "try again". Sorry to disappoint, but that's why I'm doing the research now as opposed to reading a text file after install later.

You'll probably end up doing both, infact you'll have to read a lot of text files after the install just because you have to RTFM in Linux. You can't just poke and hope like in Windows.

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

The idea is to not have to reinstall. I did away with the annoying once a month format and reinstall Windows 98 idea a while ago and never really liked doing it (but there was a performance gain).

Unless you get everything right the first try you'll end up reinstalling a few times, it's part of the learning process. Like cleverhandle said my current Debian install is around 4 years old and that includes staying up to date with Debian's 'unstable' tree.

*shrug* If I wanted debian, I'd have installed debian.

apt4rpm is a godsend. RH's free up2date servers are always full when new updates come out, the apt servers from freshrpms work flawlessly.

What I don't intend to do is to install Linux then a few days later, wipe the drive and "try again". Sorry to disappoint, but that's why I'm doing the research now as opposed to reading a text file after install later.

You'll probably end up doing both, infact you'll have to read a lot of text files after the install just because you have to RTFM in Linux. You can't just poke and hope like in Windows.

Neither you nor cleverhandle must have clicked the link in my first post.

I'm not worried about staying up on patches yet, to do that I'd need to have software that needed patching. I won't be installing Linux for quite some time so I can worry about that after installation. The idea with patching should be to make the process as simple and streamlined as possible. That holds try for any software.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Oaf357What I don't intend to do is to install Linux then a few days later, wipe the drive and "try again". Sorry to disappoint, but that's why I'm doing the research now as opposed to reading a text file after install later.

OK, not to argue with you specifically, but just to make a general point -

There is no right way to use Linux.

Coming from Windows, one always looks for the "right way." If you don't install perfectly, things will get messed up down the line and you have to start over. If you try some tweak and it bombs, it might very well take your system down with it. If you don't install drivers in the right order, you end up with mysterious issues a month later. And so on... Furthermore, you don't often learn anything substantial from these mistakes. All you can say is "I f*cked up, better not do that again." Linux is fundamentally different:

1) Very few errors or missteps are unfixable. Some take more work than others to correct, but there are no hidden components of the system that you cannot revert to their original state.

2) When you do screw up, you generally learn something. For example, if LILO doesn't work right, you learn about lba32 addressing and will have some knowledge about whether or not to use it in future installs. Or if you try to run something as root from "su" rather than "su -" and get errors, you learn about $PATH and shell startup scripts.

In Windows, you prove knowledge by not making mistakes, guided by the advice of others. In Linux, you learn by making mistakes, using your own reasoning and research to improve your skills.

You cannot learn Linux without getting your hands dirty and making mistakes. If this troubles you, don't use it, because you will not be happy.

 

[Nothinman]

I apologize, it seems like you're as prepared as you're going to be. Pretty much everything has gotten easier since 1999, if you were able to get it installed and running then you should have no problems now.

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: Oaf357What I don't intend to do is to install Linux then a few days later, wipe the drive and "try again". Sorry to disappoint, but that's why I'm doing the research now as opposed to reading a text file after install later.

OK, not to argue with you specifically, but just to make a general point -

There is no right way to use Linux.

Coming from Windows, one always looks for the "right way." If you don't install perfectly, things will get messed up down the line and you have to start over. If you try some tweak and it bombs, it might very well take your system down with it. If you don't install drivers in the right order, you end up with mysterious issues a month later. And so on... Furthermore, you don't often learn anything substantial from these mistakes. All you can say is "I f*cked up, better not do that again." Linux is fundamentally different:

1) Very few errors or missteps are unfixable. Some take more work than others to correct, but there are no hidden components of the system that you cannot revert to their original state.

2) When you do screw up, you generally learn something. For example, if LILO doesn't work right, you learn about lba32 addressing and will have some knowledge about whether or not to use it in future installs. Or if you try to run something as root from "su" rather than "su -" and get errors, you learn about $PATH and shell startup scripts.

In Windows, you prove knowledge by not making mistakes, guided by the advice of others. In Linux, you learn by making mistakes, using your own reasoning and research to improve your skills.

You cannot learn Linux without getting your hands dirty and making mistakes. If this troubles you, don't use it, because you will not be happy.

There is never a right way to use any operating system. However, unlike a lot of people making the move to Linux that don't do the right research first they find themselves making "hard to fix" mistakes. Research before making the move will obviously eliminate some of those mistakes. I've always told myself that when Linux is ready for my hardware then I'll be ready for Linux. Well the time has come. But, the adjustment will, needless to say take time. During that time though I'll be a "learning user" on the way to "Linux administrator". I don't intend to setup Linux one day and then the next day create a multi-user, disk space quota, server environment.

I'll be using Linux on a desktop for desktop usage. The biggest first step will the the research, the next biggest step will be the install of the distro I decide to use, the step after that will be establishing a simliar environment to that I (and many other people) have grown accustomed to in Windows. I'm creating a list of things that I do in Windows. When I say things, I mean, everything. From using the calculator to burning CDs to playing games to DV editing. Setting up an environment that I can do all these things in is priority one. From there I will try "new" things. Obviously, there will be obstacles that have to be overcome in building up that functionality. Nevertheless, that's why I'm doing extensive pre-install research, so that I may be able to identify potential obstacles. Then the implementation of that "functionality environment" will be a serious effort in familiarization. Once that environment is established (it won't happen overnight) then the "extra" things will be equally researched and implemented in the same manor.

You can rant and rave that I'll install Linux numerous times before getting it working all you want (I've been there and done that, 5 years ago). You can even attempt to discourage me from installing Linux. That won't change my mind that I should only need to "install" Linux once.

 

[StuckMojo]

DV editing will be hard to do in linux.
just FYI. at this point it's in its infancy.

image editing on the other hand is great, Gimp rocks

 

[Buddha Bart]

hey oaf, i got an idea.

You clearly seem to be approaching this very seriously, why not sorta document the whole thing?

I'm thinking like sign up for one of those free blog pages, and just post every day or so how things go. Like "Installed redhat 9 today, i liked blah blah blah. On the other hand I found blah blah blah to be a bit blah blah etc." Then just keep going on.. cover all the little things like "freakin gAIM runs a randomizer on my buddy list every time i load it"

bart

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: Buddha Bart
hey oaf, i got an idea.

You clearly seem to be approaching this very seriously, why not sorta document the whole thing?

I'm thinking like sign up for one of those free blog pages, and just post every day or so how things go. Like "Installed redhat 9 today, i liked blah blah blah. On the other hand I found blah blah blah to be a bit blah blah etc." Then just keep going on.. cover all the little things like "freakin gAIM runs a randomizer on my buddy list every time i load it"

bart

That process has already started to a certain extent. The article I referenced in my first post is the first in a series of articles that I'll be writing about my migration to Linux. Yes, I am taking it quite seriously because it will affect things I do everyday.

Right now I'm still researching. I've created a list of all the hardware that has to be compliant (thanks to this thread and a few other forums and newsgroups across the web) all my hardware compatibility questions have been answered. Now, I'm moving into figuring out what software will meet my needs. As mentioned in my article I want to have a "cruthless" transition. But, CrossOver Office seems to be a viable solution for software from Macromedia that I have been using for years. I have just gotten started with software research so every day I'll learn more and more and take notes on it. The more notes I collect, the more complete thoughts I'll have, when timing and research is allows it another article will be written. I'm trying to do as much research as possible so when I do write a "pre-Linux" article I don't look like an idiot.

Articles will come though. Write now I could write an article about hardware compatibility but I'm going to continue to do research and when certain things hit me ("seeing the light" effect) I'll write another article about the research. It's going to be quite some time before I upgrade (I have to get home first). But hopefully by the end of the summer I'll have completed the migration.

 

[Oaf357]

Originally posted by: StuckMojo
DV editing will be hard to do in linux.
just FYI. at this point it's in its infancy.

image editing on the other hand is great, Gimp rocks

I know that DV editing is possible in Linux (there are forums and help/support sites out there for it). To what extent I'm not totally sure but I haven't done any extensive research in that department. It will come though and there will probably be a pre and post installation article about DV editing in Linux on my web site.

As for the GIMP I've used it in the past (almost 5 years ago) and found it quite cumbersome. I'm sure it has come a long way like a lot of other things but it will face tough competition from PhotoShop, ImageReady, and Fireworks (the tools I use in Windows for graphics design/editing). I mention ImageReady because I have yet to found anything that's as easy to use for simple web optimization of graphics. I've recently discovered that Fireworks also does an outstanding job of Web optimization. GIMP isn't too difficult to use but it's the features that I'm interested in.