So, after about 2.5 years of messing with linux, I thought I'd finally settled on the distro I really like.

Gentoo

Well, how mistaken I was. i managed to get it installed, thought I was really starting to learn. Wrong.

Now I can't even get the bugger to start in any kind of graphic mode. Which means somewhat depressingly, it's back to the easy standby, Mandrake.

To explain a little, I did the gentoo install, following their instructions/handbook, decided that the "easy" stage 3 +GRP (precompiled packages) would be the way ahead.

The first stumbling block being that, after asking both here, and at the gentoo forum's, it seemed like an excellent idea to have a separate /home partition i.e. if/when I have to do re-install's it would be a luxury not to loose any of the user data type stuff (even e-mail address etc etc).

But, try as I might, I couldn't find anyone who could explain exactly how this actually works. By that, I mean that if the /root partition is where all the program's/software/packages live, then does the system have 2 copies of the install, 1 for the root partition and 1 for the users /home ? or is it linked in a way that I don't understand.

It was really weird. With an init 3 login, if I logged in as root, i'd get one type of prompt (and I don't mean the difference between # and $) and if I logged in as user, then it would show differently. But I could still log in as user in both.

Well, I never did find a solution, but as I could get in as user and then su if I wanted to install or do whatever I figured thing's must be working ok (because even trying $PWD in a console only tell's you that you are in, say /home/john or whatever, not the exact disc space or partition place you are at).

So, after that, I managed to get thing's running ok. I then hit the wall when trying to configure printers. Gentoo have, what appears to be, really good documentation. But then you start to see "holes" in it.

For instance, to install/configure my inkjet and laser printer. The inkjet is connected to the system via a parallel port, so they (gentoo) say just "emerge cups, foomatic, etc etc" (in my case I'd have needed the hpijs package as well as it's an hp deskjet 840c), but then they say just go to the parallel port and do whatever. Bang! (that was me hitting the wall). How the hell to I just "go to a parallel port". I could find absolutely no suggestions or idea's at either the gentoo doc's or the gentoo forums (and yes, some of you may think "stupid git", but I honestly haven't got a clue).

Anyway, when you "emerge" some of these packages, at the end, you get this really nice pointer that there are however many "etc-update" waiting for update, and if you look into that, you find a nice explaination of what this is. But if, like me, you follow the instructions, but make 1 small? typo, you're totally screwed.

You haven't just hit the wall, you're buried underneath it. It had "auto emerged" the etc/config files (i.e. installed them) and bingo, no desktop system, just init 3 login, and absolutely no idea where to go from there.

It had hosed my fstab, my rc.conf, my XF86Config and probably lot's of others, but I've got no way of finding out, because even though I've managed to put these back to what I understand is correct, I still can't get any kind of graphic desktop running.

So what?, I can hear you say. Well, It's taken nearly a week to get as far as this, and while I don't have anything against microsoft per se, I really don't like having to use windows (where I'm reduced to, to post this), whether it's to surf, or do other stuff.

I've sort of come to the conclusion, that it's "par for the cause" that most doc's, help, instructions, etc etc for linux are written in either geek or nerd (i suspect that I might have been guilty of this myself), but it's just not there.

Developers just don't seem to understand that those of us who need "spoon fed" type assistance, need it written in english (because it would be easier to understand/follow, but also to translate into other languages), those who have got some idea of what they're doing can probably scan read the info and have a pretty complete picture of what they are doing, or want to do.

I don't handle stress well, at all. So bollocks to gentoo. I've just admitted defeat, and ordered the power pack dvd of mandrake 10 official. I suspect that I'll still want to have a go at learning about other distro's but I'll have to get a second pc/laptop/whatever, so I can still enjoy using a linux based system, but can just plug it into my home network and still have a graphic desktop system that I can get to for help/assistance, and if thing's go "pear shaped", can just switch off whatever it causing me the stress.

long live mandrake and their ease of use policy/approach.

regards

John

p.s. this isn't meant, in any way, to be a critique of gentoo. It's just that I'm starting to learn, just how much prior knowledge you need to get one of these so called "power distro's" up and running. I should also point out, that when it's installed and running, gentoo is totally brilliant. From a management point of view, the ability to use command's like "emerge", and you get whatever package you are looking to install, and all the dependencies etc, make it a breeze. It's just to get to that stage properly, I just don't seem to have anywhere near enough "prior knowledge"

wow, got a lot of your chest there :)

I'll be the first to admit that mandrake is nice and very easy for any one to pick up and use. I'm glad that you've settled on a distribution that you're comfortable with, that's what linux in my opinion is about, choice!

I left mandrake, not because it didn't work, but because I didn't feel I was learning anything, it simply installed and that was it. I went to slackware and am very happy with it, mainly because it is as difficult as you want it to be, you either install a slackware package or compile from source etc...

That's certainly an excellant way to learn, you can easily format if things go wrong and start again, even with another distro. Once you've sorted out your main machine, get a second one (it doesn't even have to be that powerful!) and play around with it, install what distro you want or even LFS it :)

Steve

I find it somewhat paradoxical that many of the same people who lambaste distros that are easy to setup are also proponents of automagic installers like urpmi, apt-get and emerge. Call me backwards, but I'd rather be up and running quickly and take my time researching and testing updates, especially when dealing with shared libraries which can have effects far beyond the app you're currently installing. The nice thing about boxed distros is all the pieces have been tested together, which makes conflicts between components much less likely.

yeah man, i really think you'd like slackware's simplicity...

http://www.slackware.com


everything you need to know to get started with slackware can be found right here:

http://www.slackware.com/book


slackware was voted distro of the year 2003 here at LQ:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=116355

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles Bigjohn. I've thought about trying Gentoo a few times but after a couple of hours reading the documentation I feel the will to live slowly ebbing away so even though I have the CD's, I've never done it. I have, however, whilst doing Linux From Scratch, several times I've done stupid things which have made the system unbootable. But with LFS, you always start from a working linux system so there is always the option to boot Mandrake or whatever, mount the broken LFS partition and do brain surgery on it's config files whilst it's asleep. This is why I'm so keen on Grub, as it allows me to boot several different distros. It's a safety net.

Edit - as for the depression in the title, don't give in, think positively. Every error is a chance to learn.

I've promised myself I'll get around to doing an LFS for some time now, but I keep putting it off :(

I guess there is this fear within me, worrying about the fact that I could spend say 30 hours putting together a system the way I like it, then me making a mistake and watching me have to reinstall "from scratch".

Still...one of these days ;)

Steve

Persistance will pay off! I've been using Linux for a few years now and I'm still learning. Having tried various distro's I ended up with SuSE7.0 from a magazine cover, upgraded to 8.0 and now 9.0. Anyway, instead of forking out for another pc you could just get another hard drive. I have two installed, both with four partitions. I have left the first partition of the first hd (10 Gb) empty in case I install XP (may need it for work), and the last partition of the second hard drive (40 Gb) is for playing with. At the moment it has SuSE 8.0 on it, but I'm thinking of LFS when I get brave enough!

@ bigjohn, sorry about your current troubles, if i understand correctly you had no graphical environment. did you try reconfiguring your xserver? i ask because the last couple of days i've been wrestling freebsd to the death, one of the problems i had was with the xserver. on a hunch i decided to just try from the cli as root

xf86config

to my amazement that's all it took. i ran the configuration just like any linux distro i've installed and x works great now. ok, ok, the relevance here, i'm pretty sure i read somewhere that gentoo is much like the bsd family, so, w/that in mind, and my recent experiences, running your x configuration may have solved the problem. just something to keep in mind if you decide to try gentoo again.
good luck.

Well I've tried PEACEDOG's idea and rerun the xf86config, but still zero.

On checking the /var/log/XFree86.0.log it says about loading the nvidia module, then not being able to start the nvidia module, then unloading the module and it finishes off with that old favourite

FATAL SERVER ERROR:
NO SCREENS FOUND WITH USABLE CONFIGURATION

which is the real f****r, because it's the identical set of numbers that I've always used with this graphic's card and monitor.

I did try the "emerge nvidia-glx && nvidia-kernel" again, but that didn't make any difference (and yes I did also re-run the xf86config afterwards).

I suppose that's one of the downsides of having got rid of the mandrake to do the repartitioning and just try to have gentoo as my sole distro.

At least when I had dual booted mandrake and gentoo, I could go into the mandrake, copy the XF86Config-4, and move the copy to the gentoo install (obviously renaming it to XF86Config), because I knew that that worked. It's got to be something else.

But what? god alone knows! It's gotta be something else, but I've not intention of doing a re-install, because one of the things that's always pissed me off with gentoo, is that for reason's that I don't follow, I've never actually managed to use/install the precompiled packages on the second install disc - I've always had to do "emerge kde" and the 15 hour download/compile is too much of a downer

I suppose that rather than depressed, now I'm just tired. Tired of having to re-invent the linux wheel, every time I want to try something. At least the depression of not being able to fix this, has been replaced with the tiredness (and maybe a little relief that the mandrake 10 official is in the post).

I suspect that when the mandrake arrives, I'll repartition (again) so I've got a spare partition to meddle with, but I think that I'll end up having to make a /boot/john/copies directory, so at least I can copy all the boot files that I have with whatever bootloader I decide on (actually one of the minor successes of this gentoo based depression is that I've managed to get grub working, and now sort of follow the grub /dev/ naming conventions).

So at least that will enable me to get the mandrake up and running, then keep a copy of the lilo or grub config seperate to prevent the agro of not being able to boot the mandrake if I try gentoo again (or even slack' for that matter - though a brief "flirtation" with a coverdisc of slack a year ago, ended in failure - again).

We'll see eh?

Until then, I recommend:-

1) A good brand of hand rolling tobacco (because it the nicotine isn't enough to calm you down, you could always try a little grass - joke - but it goes further than normal tailor made cig's).

2) An Italian blend of espresso (sorry all of you in the US, but whenever I've been over your side "of the pond", the coffee's all tasted, as weak as piss, and stewed to death by leaving it on the heat too long), to keep you awake.

3) Rabeprozole Sodium tablets (available from your doctor), to control the stress related indigestion/heart burn

4) Some relaxation tapes/disc's to listen too when things get too "down"

5) Some absolutely "kickin" metal,to listen too, for when things are going well.

and

6) a 1kg (2lb) bricklayers "club" hammer, for those final adjustments

regards

John

p.s. and the mandrake is in the post (rather than download), because it's the powerpack dvd. With all those nice easy little commercial extra's (nvidia drivers, realplayer, adobe acrobat, etc etc) precompiled/installed/configured).

p.p.s. For those of you who understand and follow where I'm coming from, here's some links for "light refreshment/enjoyment" and it gives you an idea of my type of humour.
rathergood.com
happytreefriends
and
Joe Cartoon

You WILL need flash installed!

"...not being able to start the nvidia module..." Do you have this line in /etc/modprobe.conf?

alias char-major-195* nvidia

Then run depmod

Regarding stuff that is hard to use....

I had slackware 9.1 installed on my computer, I was liking it, even if it was tricky to get it all working properly (in fact I never did get sound working 100%). In order to solve my problems I decided to upgrade my kernel, from here on in it went really badly, I didn't enable reiserfs support in the new kernel, so i couldn't boot. Booting to the old kernel which I had backed up now didn't seem to work either. I had to use windows again for a while, since I had a lot of uni work to do and didn't have time to mess around.

It was while using windows that I realised that I was really liking using windows, for one reason, it was easy. I want to install something, just double click the icon, click next and I Accept and then next some more and I was done. The ease of use was great. So I decided that from here on in I was going to use an easier Linux Distro to get to grips with. SuSE 9.1 Pro was that distro. I installed the default packages, and without doing anything it was already working better than slackware. My winmodem (which was giving me hell in slack) was set up nice and easily. My printer took about 20 seconds to set up, same with all my hardware. Things now auto mount, so no need to worry about that. I plug in a new piece of hardware and it comes up straight away, all working nicely. YaST can install packages for me with no fuss and sort out most of my dependency problems. It's great.

Anyway, my point is, you should use something that is nice and easy to use and doesn't keep you up until 3.00am getting to grips with configuring your X Server, or looking for package dependencies. I and probably most people, just need something that works, with no fuss. Although Slackware was great and I learned a lot, the ease of use that I got with SuSE is awesome, I like it so much that I have deleted windows completely.

On my desktop at home I expect 1 ati/nvidia 2 sound 3 software management that works quickly and easily 4 tools 5 online resources when things go wrong etc etc --- but most of all I want ease of use and stability. I have 3 SuSE 8.2 boxes at work --- they have limited "office" functions and they are fine, I have 3 Debian boxes and they do what I tell them (but they don't do much!!) and I have a complex Debian server----- but at home I WANT EVERYTHING NOW!! *right now* I don't want to mess around at 3 am and I want my kids to be able to access www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies when they want to. Mandrake 10 has really really given me everything! Go with Mandrake and "play" on another partition -- if you have time!! I think I understand that you want a "be all" system --- Bigjohn --- don't leave Mandrake!! Enjoy other distros in your spare time.

I have failed to have the blue screen of death in my house for 3 years

@ bigjohn, sorry that my suggestion didn't help. on a side note

1) i agree, i smoke the nonfilter variety, pall mall

2) may i suggest, a freshly, and properly brewed, cup of jamaican blue mountain, from fresh ground beans ofcourse

3) i usually just drink a bottle of pepto bimol

4) this usually does the trick, http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym5.html

5) i just agree w/you here

6) i've got a 1.5 lb rubber mallet for this task.

seriously, though, the great thing about linux is there's a distro for everybody, and every need. if your happy w/mandrake, and, it's a good fit, i say more power to ya. i am sorry that i was no help, hopefully you'll have better luck w/your next go.
good luck.

Since this thread has moved away from being strictly technical - I am moving it to General.

Again, thanks for the vote of sympathy from all who know !!!

Anyway, I just checked out Andrew Benton's suggestion and yes it's there.

Actually the /etc/modprobe.conf says it's an automatically produced file, and go and look at modules.conf, which in turn says the same, but direct's me to the /etc/modules.d/nvidia and the alias char major 195* bit is there so bugger, that's that idea out of the window.

One thing that I found the other day, was something that popped up about the kernel module. Now my original install was built with the e-build for the 4498 (well I think that's the number) and one of the updates was for the latest version 5536 (again, I think that's the number as well), does anyone know how I check to see if for some stupid reason there's conflicting versions in there somewhere - I'm guessing this because If I change the x server back to the generic nv driver, I get a "picture" of sort's, but due to the horizontal scanning lines that appear over the login box etc, it's virtually unusable.

Because if I can get that sorted out, then I'll only have to see why the kde isn't starting.

I'd like to carry on looking, though I'll admit if the mandrake turns up, that'll go straight over the top (for the moment that is, because I'm pretty sure I'll be stupid enough to want to install something else as well ).

Oh, and another Q, one of the chaps at my lug posted something about slackware changing from shipping XFree 4.3.0 to Xorg 6.7.0 - now the question is that if (and when) I've got the new mandrake up and running on /boot, /swap, /root and /home is there likely to be any conflict in the /home, if I make it common to both distro's and have a separate /root for mandrake and another /root for slackware ? Or is the xserver irrelevant? (because I'm not sure how that would work when logging in i.e. if I had that set up, would it offer me the choice of which distro I wanted to log in with? etc etc)

regards

John