My Ubuntu install thread

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

However, running update-grub produces an error stating that there is no Grub directory. Is this because it expects to find itself on / and not on media/disk? I get the feeling the mount point is the problem.

Yup it's trying to update the grub config for the LiveCD and there probably isn't one since most of them use syslinux.

Another way to work around that would have been to chroot yourself to the other installation's root directory. Running 'chroot /media/disk' would have started a new shell with it's root at /media/disk so every command in there would have been as if it was running from that installation.

I saw some references to that and almost gave it a try, then ran into a blog entry that mentioned how to use the options edits at boot time. Thanks for the explanation of how that works, since I can see it being very valuable.

Slick piece of work, Ubuntu. Shame it struggles with hardware compatibility, but it takes a lot of money to buy your way over that hurdle.

 

[Nothinman]

I saw some references to that and almost gave it a try, then ran into a blog entry that mentioned how to use the options edits at boot time. Thanks for the explanation of how that works, since I can see it being very valuable.

Setting up a separate chroot is how most AMD64 Linux users get flash to work, it's simple to use something like deboostrap to install a second copy of Debian to a directory inside the first installation and run 32-bit iceweasel+flash from there.

Slick piece of work, Ubuntu. Shame it struggles with hardware compatibility, but it takes a lot of money to buy your way over that hurdle.

Your hardware issues with this Compaq are really strange, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. It really depends on the hardware, I've got 4 completely different machines using 3 different architectures and Linux runs just fine on all of them. The only thing I can think of that doesn't work is the SD reader in my notebook and that's because the SD people seem to think that the "secure" in SD means "release no specs". Overall I'd say that Linux supports a lot more hardware than Windows and in general the support is better, it's just that what Windows supports is more mainstream and every piece of hardware comes with a Windows driver disc no matter how poor the drivers on there might actually be. Although Linux is now at the point where most things work just fine, with a few exceptions like Broadcom wifi but even that works pretty well now.

And then you have cases where Linux supports something before Windows and that causes problems. Like Message Signaled Interrupts, Windows didn't support MSI until Vista so there were a number of firmware bugs and manufacturers weren't exactly motivated to fix them because it was simpler to just disable them in Linux.

 

[Markbnj]

Your hardware issues with this Compaq are really strange, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. It really depends on the hardware, I've got 4 completely different machines using 3 different architectures and Linux runs just fine on all of them.

Agreed, but that's really my point. Pushing compatibility out to the edge of the distribution curve where the rare cases lie is expensive and time consuming. I don't doubt that the ACPI issues I ran into are related to the obscure configuration of this bastard Compaq with an almost unknown MSI motherboard (try to find MS-6577 on their website), and over time that will be happening less, I expect.

 

[Markbnj]

Btw, got Samba up and working in no time. Linux seems much faster at propagating hist and share names on the network than windows.

 

[soonerproud]

I applaud your persistence in getting Ubuntu up and running. In the early days of Ubuntu I had the same persistence that gave me valuable knowledge that helps to this day. Most people would run screaming Linux is not ready for the desktop the first time they ran into a problem.

Linux has a lot of potential and is very close to being able to fully compete with Windows on the desktop space. People like you are going to help make that a reality sooner than later.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Btw, got Samba up and working in no time. Linux seems much faster at propagating hist and share names on the network than windows.

Indeed. Sometimes my network Explorer windows just freeze at 99% CPU (forever). And that's when I'm trying to use Windows in VMware...

Originally posted by: soonerproud
I applaud your persistence in getting Ubuntu up and running. In the early days of Ubuntu I had the same persistence that gave me valuable knowledge that helps to this day. Most people would run screaming Linux is not ready for the desktop the first time they ran into a problem.

Linux has a lot of potential and is very close to being able to fully compete with Windows on the desktop space. People like you are going to help make that a reality sooner than later.

Yup. :thumbsup: As for the others who instantly quit trying, their blood pressure is probably better off.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Btw, got Samba up and working in no time. Linux seems much faster at propagating hist and share names on the network than windows.

Indeed. Sometimes my network Explorer windows just freeze at 99% CPU (forever). And that's when I'm trying to use Windows in VMware...

Originally posted by: soonerproud
I applaud your persistence in getting Ubuntu up and running. In the early days of Ubuntu I had the same persistence that gave me valuable knowledge that helps to this day. Most people would run screaming Linux is not ready for the desktop the first time they ran into a problem.

Linux has a lot of potential and is very close to being able to fully compete with Windows on the desktop space. People like you are going to help make that a reality sooner than later.

Yup. :thumbsup: As for the others who instantly quit trying, their blood pressure is probably better off.

I do appreciate the compliments, but here's the reality: I've been doing systems programming and systems admin in DOS and Windows for 20 years, and general application design and development for much of that time. So I'm not really a good indicator of the experience a general user would have, if only because I have access to you guys here . Furthermore, the general user population is much more likely to have a machine like the one I was working with in this thread, i.e. a bundle-box from some discount retailer with God-knows-what in it.

I think it's obvious that the general non-tech user would have given up on this install. Windows XP would have, and has, been installed on this same box without error or any technical user intervention. For my part, as I said earlier, I believe this has nothing to do with the quality of the implementation, and everything to do with having resources available to test out to the hairy edges of the hardware population. When you have billions in cash resources, and the industry clout to set standards and bring all OEMs to the table, you can make that happen.

Ubuntu has a ways to go in this regard, as do probably all the distros. I like to think that over time hardware issues like this will become even more rare, but will that happen because the Linux community gains more testing resources, or hardware vendors make more standardized and compatible machines? I don't know. I do expect hardware to make a lot less of a difference in computing in general decades from now, and that's good news for Linux.

Now I'm off to see if I can get that PCI FX5500 working, since the onboard only has 8 megs of video ram (ouch).

 

[Nothinman]

Furthermore, the general user population is much more likely to have a machine like the one I was working with in this thread, i.e. a bundle-box from some discount retailer with God-knows-what in it.

No, I really doubt many people have a machine like that one. I've installed Debian on lots of bundle-boxes with god-knows-what in them from Compaq, HP and Dell and they've all worked relatively fine, none had any issues like you ran into. You own the proverbial exception to the rule.

I believe this has nothing to do with the quality of the implementation, and everything to do with having resources available to test out to the hairy edges of the hardware population. When you have billions in cash resources, and the industry clout to set standards and bring all OEMs to the table, you can make that happen.

Actually it's the opposite, I'd guess that MS has never even seen one of those boxes and that the OEM did all the testing. That's also one of th reasons why ACPI sucks so bad, OEMs only tested on Windows in the past and Windows didn't do much with ACPI so all of the implementations were a little bit different. But now that Intel and a number of the OEMs are working closely with the kernel developers things have settled down a bit.

 

[Markbnj]

Actually it's the opposite, I'd guess that MS has never even seen one of those boxes and that the OEM did all the testing. That's also one of th reasons why ACPI sucks so bad, OEMs only tested on Windows in the past and Windows didn't do much with ACPI so all of the implementations were a little bit different. But now that Intel and a number of the OEMs are working closely with the kernel developers things have settled down a bit.

Yeah, I agree with that point about the OEMs. That's why I mentioned industry clout. Being the standard tends to help you stay the standard. Your point about ACPI is well made too. Anyway, I'm really enjoying playing around with Ubuntu. Samba totally impressed me with how easy it was to set up. The partition editor beats anything in the Windows world (as GParted users already knew). I'm getting a kick out of the o/s components and associated services, but I don't know that I will use the productivity apps any time soon.

 

[nweaver]

Yeah, I think this is a corner case (and I wonder if you would have many issues installing 2k/XP/Vista on that machine). I like Linux because out of box most of all my stuff "just works". Like my laptop, D810 had native res (no 3d Accel), wireless, wired, and everything else. The only thing I'm not sure about is modem, as I don't even know if that works in windows, lol.

Contrast that with my XP install on the same laptop. No native res until I installed ATI drivers, no wireless, no ethernet, no sound.

If you keep playing, I think you will find that linux hardware support is actually VERY good.

 

[Markbnj]

Well I have an old Dell I'm going to do the same thing to, so it will give me a chance to test it on another out of date garbage box.

 

[nweaver]

nothing like old out of date computers becoming linux machines that do nothing. I have tons of those

 

[Markbnj]

I got the FX 5500 running. Turns out there was a well-known problem with add-on gfx cards over an i845-based onboard solution. The fix was to blacklist the agpgart and intel_agp modules, and edit xorg.conf to the right device parameters. The first time I booted the xorg.conf file was wrong, and xserver puked, so I learned the value of ctrl-alt-f1 and a terminal log-in. Fixed xorg and the system booted right up. Ran nvidia-settings and tweaked everything up. This old PCI FX5500 is running X at 1920 x 1200 on a 2405 .

Color me happy.

 

[Markbnj]

Just dropped Beryl on and configured it. I'm just amazed at how well the eye-candy runs on this POS graphics card. Played around with the cube for a bit. Very neat, but ended up disabling that and wobbly windows to get smoother performance. I'm seriously flabbergasted that it runs as well as it does in 1920 x1200 with this card.

Edit: I have to restart Beryl every time I log in. Is there some way to make it the default window manager, so it starts on login?

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Just dropped Beryl on and configured it. I'm just amazed at how well the eye-candy runs on this POS graphics card. Played around with the cube for a bit. Very neat, but ended up disabling that and wobbly windows to get smoother performance. I'm seriously flabbergasted that it runs as well as it does in 1920 x1200 with this card.

Edit: I have to restart Beryl every time I log in. Is there some way to make it the default window manager, so it starts on login?

You can add it to the start up programs list by navigating to System > Preferences > Sessions and then click the add button. Put beryl-manager in the dialog box and that should do the trick.

If you used the packages in the Ubuntu repos you may want to check to see if beryl-manager is installed first. If not you can just add separately beryl and then emerald and that will start beryl without the manager.

 

[Nothinman]

I thought Beryl was dead in favor of Compiz Fusion?

 

[Markbnj]

Is Compiz Fusion out? I read that they were merging the forks back together, but didn't see anything about release status.

 

[Nothinman]

I saw an ITP bug filed on debian-devel so they must have something, but I have no idea how much from Beryl has been merged.

 

[Markbnj]

Thanks. I'll look into it. Beryl seems to be working well atm, and I am not really using any of the advanced features (I played around with them for fun, but the machine isn't really up to the task of all the eye candy).

After I got the Dell monitor working I installed apache, mysql, php5, and gallery2, and I now have the family creating photo albums to share on the home network. Next is shared calendars and other fun stuff.

I have to say the whole thing is pretty damn slick once you get the system stable and running. The package management process is just sweet. Microsoft should buy Linux . Maybe give every open source dev a million bucks and a home office.

 

[nweaver]

indeed, package management is very very nice.

 

[Nothinman]

The package management process is just sweet.

Yea, it kind of seems like MS tried to rip it off with .MSI files but did it in a horribly broken fashion.

Microsoft should buy Linux . Maybe give every open source dev a million bucks and a home office.

I know you're being facetious but there are kernel devs who won't even let their code be rereleased under the new GPLv3 so I really doubt they'll agree to sell it to MS. =)

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

The package management process is just sweet.

Yea, it kind of seems like MS tried to rip it off with .MSI files but did it in a horribly broken fashion.

Microsoft should buy Linux . Maybe give every open source dev a million bucks and a home office.

I know you're being facetious but there are kernel devs who won't even let their code be rereleased under the new GPLv3 so I really doubt they'll agree to sell it to MS. =)

I did mention the million dollars, didn't I? That compensates for a lot of philosophy

Yeah, just joking, but MS could use an infusion of skills like those, and no doubt they do their best to recruit some.

 

[Nothinman]

I did mention the million dollars, didn't I? That compensates for a lot of philosophy

Go ahead, I've love to see the mailing list archives of yoi trying to convince Al Viro to give up his code to whatever license you have in mind . =)

 

[Markbnj]

Ha. Well there's a lot of cash out there, but maybe for some it really isn't enough. I always suspected that particular beast was mythical, myself.

 

[Nothinman]

Ha. Well there's a lot of cash out there, but maybe for some it really isn't enough. I always suspected that particular beast was mythical, myself.

I would bet any amount of money that no one will ever have enough money to buy out everyone who owns copyrights on Linux kernel code. If cash was that big of a motivator for people like Viro I doubt he'd have been working on Linux back in the early 90s.