Linux: My Story

Discussion in 'Software' started by Fergal1982, Oct 27, 2007.

  1. Bluerinse
    Honorary Member

    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

    8,878
    181
    256
    Congrats Fergal :)
     
    Certifications: C&G Electronics - MCSA (W2K) MCSE (W2K)
  2. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

    13,493
    180
    287
    Great news, Fergal. Freddy has a lot more Debian desktop experience than I and while I've gotten Debian up and running on a few desktops including in VMware, I've never really considered it the ideal home desktop distro (Freddy will disagree with me on this one). My main issues with Debian is getting it to work properly with my wireless mouse. If the pointer device isn't set up properly, you'll get all kinds of problems with X-Windows (GUI). That said, I just *love* the apt software management system. Once you get used to it, you never want to use anything else. I've tried the default software management systems in Red Hat/Fedora and SUSE and they seem like absolute slugs by comparision. Apt is extremely easy to set up and use which is probably one of the main reasons why I use Debian-based Ubuntu on my main desktop machine.

    I love Debian for learning Linux in general and as a server distro. Besides, it has that "old school Linux' mystique that can only be rivaled by Slackware and which makes the rest of the major distros look like kids not old enough to shave yet. :wink:
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  3. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

    4,196
    172
    211
    I'll keep this going for a while, with any ongoing experiences I've had.

    Firstly, having some troubles getting the Wireless up and running, even with manual editing of the config files (cant remember which one off hand). iwconfig is reporting the card, so the system is seeing it, its just not firing it up properly.

    I manged to get the touchpad issue sorted. After toying with a couple of packaged utilities (GSynaptics and another CLI utility), I got annoyed that the changes werent taking effect. So I got down and dirty editing the /etc/Xll/xorg.conf file, adding in some options for Min and MaxSpeed. Although I didnt really notice much difference playing with the values in these options, I did get it a hell of a lot more sensitivity (maybe slightly too much, but I can live with that).
     
    Certifications: ITIL Foundation; MCTS: Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Administration
    WIP: None at present
  4. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

    4,196
    172
    211
    Success: After much rooting around, I found a HOWTO on forums.debian.net. Following this, and the card now has life in it. Seems a little slow compared to what i was used to in windows, but who knows. its working, thats the main part.

    It still fails to power off during a reboot, but I can live with that. It operates fine using shutdown, and thats the important part.
     
    Certifications: ITIL Foundation; MCTS: Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Administration
    WIP: None at present
  5. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

    13,493
    180
    287
    Glad you got those issues sorted for the most part. :D
     
    Certifications: A+ and Network+
  6. VantageIsle

    VantageIsle Kilobyte Poster

    446
    8
    49
    A thoroughly entertaining thread , thanks for sharing your not so smooth journey into the world of Linux Fergal.

    I have a spare Desktop I plan to install a version of linux on, I think I'll go for debian to avoid a bit of stress after reading the above!
     
    Certifications: A+, ITIL V3, MCSA, MCITP:EST, CCENT, 70-432-SQL, 70-401 SCCM
    WIP: MCSA upgrade MCITP:SA then EA
  7. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

    3,661
    106
    167
    Fergal,

    What wireless card are you using? Are you using ndiswrapper? Are you using wpasupplicant? Is your wireless router secured or open?
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  8. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

    4,196
    172
    211
    Ended up having to use Ndiswrapper to get it up and running. Its a BT Voyager 1065 (Broadcom 4318 Chipset). The wireless is WPA2-PSK, with a 63 character encryption key.

    Its possible that its slow because of a different location in the flat though. My spare room is where I do most of my computing, and I'd initially set it up hardwired into my router. So testing the wireless out was done in there. But I normally use the laptop in the sitting room, where the AP is sitting in the hallway directly behind me, so only one thin wall between us.
     
    Certifications: ITIL Foundation; MCTS: Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Administration
    WIP: None at present
  9. newkoba

    newkoba Byte Poster

    144
    2
    24
    grats on getting your linux box up and running for the most part fergal. i have used fc6 and 7 on a couple of boxes but i primarily stick to ubuntu, because "it just works" :biggrin currently i have a box running backtrack2 which is a security tool distro based off of slackware and i would not recommend it for a beginner of linux. i'm no pro, but i have a couple of exceptionally smart linux guys working here with me so if i have questions they're just a stones throw away.
     
    Certifications: Security + and CEH
    WIP: CWNA and CWSP
  10. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

    3,661
    106
    167
    Yeah, the Broadcom 4318 is a very difficult card to get going. Broadcom just refuses to work with the open source community so all development work has to be done by reverse engineering. Plus this card uses software firmware so that makes it even harder to work with.

    Have you blacklisted the bcm43xx kernel module so it isn't fighting with ndiswrapper? If you haven't, you need to edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and just comment out (#) the line that says bcm43xx and reboot.

    The other thing I've noticed about the 4318 is that it has a very short range. I have a Netgear usb wireless module and it consistently shows a stronger signal being picked up than the Broadcom does by about 15-20%.

    Also what does iwlist show? It's a very good troubleshooting and set up tool. One other tool you might like is found in the KDE gui. (Just apt-get install kde and you'll more than double the amount of software installed on your system.) The wireless monitoring tool in KDE is called KWifi Manager. It will show you all reachable networks, their signal strengths, give you the ability to switch between them(as long as they aren't encrypted and you're not set up to be encrypted).

    One other thing you might try is dist-upgrading to Lenny(testing). It has a newer kernel, thus better hardware support, and more advanced versions of all the software you have installed. It's not normally recommended to newbies as it is not an official release rather one in which development takes place, but you're not a normal newbie from what I've seen so far. You are able to figure out a lot on your own, and how to research and find out what you don't know. But, it would give you newer versions of the wireless modules, tools, etc... and that area of Linux is under heavy development. The strides made in the wireless area in the last 6-12 months have been pretty significant. If you feel really adventurous you could even dist-upgrade to Sid.... :twisted:

    BTW, to dist-upgrade to a newer release you would have to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file and change etch to lenny or sid depending on how froggy you're feeling. If the url's contain the word "stable" you would change those to testing or unstable, respectively. Once you do that you apt-get update, and then apt-get dist-upgrade release_name. If you move to Sid just comment out the line for security.debian.org. It isn't used in Sid.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  11. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

    4,196
    172
    211
    Thanks Freddy. I'll probably stick with the stable release for now, rather than getting onto an unstable release just yet. Everything I've done so far has been following instructions found on the web. I'm confident enough to get in about the files when I have guidance, but I couldnt just delve right in there myself. Once I get a bit more confidence with the Filesystem/commands/etc, I may upgrade to an unstable - but the purpose of the lappy is for web browsing for me and the other half - its more important for it to be stable than cutting edge as you can imagine.

    I did blacklist the bcm driver, so that should be ok.

    I've actually never been a fan of KDE. It was ok, but I far prefer the Gnome interface. Shame there isnt an equivalent app on Gnome...
     
    Certifications: ITIL Foundation; MCTS: Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Administration
    WIP: None at present
  12. nicolinux

    nicolinux Byte Poster

    149
    1
    20
    I would say Fedora if you want to play, CentOs if you want to work.
     
    Certifications: mcse win2k3, mcts x4. mcitp enterprise admin
    WIP: 70-680
  13. BosonMichael
    Honorary Member Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

    19,183
    500
    414
    Holy moly... I just put my card in Windows and it works. :blink

    I can do all that stuff in Linux... and I enjoy doing it... but I'm a tech. I dig that stuff. But until the hassle described above disappears, Linux won't gain a noticeable foothold in the desktop market. Most people don't want to have to deal with all that.
     
    Certifications: CISSP, MCSE+I, MCSE: Security, MCSE: Messaging, MCDST, MCDBA, MCTS, OCP, CCNP, CCDP, CCNA Security, CCNA Voice, CNE, SCSA, Security+, Linux+, Server+, Network+, A+
    WIP: Just about everything!
  14. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

    3,661
    106
    167
    I'm no KDE fan either. I never boot into it, I just like some of the apps and tools, and since I can use them from inside Gnome I just install KDE to get the apps it has.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  15. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

    3,661
    106
    167
    There are a lot of cards that "just work" with Linux too, it just seems that Broadcom has gone out of their way to make it difficult for the open source community to use their hardware.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  16. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

    3,661
    106
    167
    If you're interested in a good book....

    Take a look at "A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming" that's published by Prentiss Hall. You will have all you need to really familiarize yourself with the most common tools, the text editors vim and emacs, the basics of awk and sed, and the basics of shell scripting. It will provide you with enough knowledge to get acclimatized very quickly. I have it and have used it quite a bit.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  17. BosonMichael
    Honorary Member Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

    19,183
    500
    414
    Yeah, true. Too many of those difficult ones, unfortunately. :(

    One of these years, when I've got time, I need to build me a Linux box. Haven't done so in several years.
     
    Certifications: CISSP, MCSE+I, MCSE: Security, MCSE: Messaging, MCDST, MCDBA, MCTS, OCP, CCNP, CCDP, CCNA Security, CCNA Voice, CNE, SCSA, Security+, Linux+, Server+, Network+, A+
    WIP: Just about everything!
  18. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

    4,196
    172
    211
    I've been thinking that the best way to learn my way around Linux is to try to do something with it. Since I'm running this on a laptop, and I'm not really using it for much, I'm going to spend some time ripping out anything I dont need from the build.

    I'm also wanting to reduce the load time of Linux as much as I can. There are several articles on the web relating to this, so I may just take a look at it. Ideally I'd love to get it from power on to login in under 10 seconds, but the best I've seen on the web so far is 25.

    That said, I was also looking at DSL this morning. Interestingly, it can run entirely in Memory if you have at least 128MB of memory. Very interesting. I think I'll have to have a play with it in VMWare at some point.
     
    Certifications: ITIL Foundation; MCTS: Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, Administration
    WIP: None at present
  19. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

    3,661
    106
    167
    DSL is a pretty cool little distro. When I say little that's exactly what it is. I've run it on machines with 32 megs of ram, a 400mhz Celeron, and it was fast. It only used about 15 megs of ram when installed to the hard drive and I had a browser open. It wasn't exactly dog slow when run from the live cd on the same machine either.

    It is based on Debian so it has a very solid foundation, but you'll find the amount of software you have is pretty limited, and it definitely has its own way of installing software. It's not all that difficult, just very different from anything else I've seen.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1
  20. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

    3,661
    106
    167
    You're definitely correct to say that the best way to learn Linux is do things with it. Try setting it up as a file server for your Windows machines using Samba. That's always a fun project.

    If you're going to start removing software packages and stripping it down, make sure you're willing to completely rebuild if you mess up. Most errors are recoverable, but some aren't, at least not without a whole lot of work so it becomes easier at some point to just rebuild. Another one of the really fun projects I did when I first started out was to compile my own custom kernels from source. It teaches you a lot when you start researching all the different kernel flags and options you run into when making the choices of what you want, and don't want, in your kernel. I think I'd try that before I tried stripping down a distro. At least this way if you screw up all you have to do is boot back into your old kernel and you have a working machine again.
     
    Certifications: MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA, A+
    WIP: LPIC 1

Share This Page

Loading...
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.