Hi!

I've used the Search and Find Similar Threads options, so hopefully this isn't a repost that I just didn't see... but.

My computer has, for the past several months, been continually literally dying out over and over with Windows XP Professional. I use a Gateway Laptop, AMD Turion 64 processor, ATI Radeon Express 200M graphics card... everything seems to check out. A few months ago, however, I attempted to use Linux for the first time.

So I started with Ubuntu, using the Feisty distro (newest one at the time.) It worked well enough for graphics and sound, but my wireless card (Realtek RTL-8185 IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Controller) was completely incompatible. Following advice I'd received from another person on an IRC channel, I attempted to use ndiswrapper, as he'd indicated, but almost eight hours later, there I was; still without wireless. The best I could manage was to get the card to start up, then discover that, less than a foot from the wireless router (which was working perfectly,) I had no connection speed and 30% connection strength.

I promptly did away with Ubuntu, but knowing I desperately needed to replace Windows (I use the computer for schoolwork, chatting (Pidgin/MSN,) music (RealNetworks Rhapsody service,) and web browsing, so losing all my data time and again was starting to get crippling,) I decided to try the next distribution I saw that was free (considering I had never used Linux, and especially with the Ubuntu experience to be thinking about, I was less than willing to pay money for a distribution.)

This happened to be the Ubuntu-based distro "Mepis". Mepis was brilliant at first. It quickly found and activated my wireless card following startup, and before long, I was enjoying Linux's security, speed, and stability while chatting with friends and browsing the internet. But I still had one more problem. In order to access my music service of choice (again, RealNetworks Rhapsody,) I needed to get WINE to work.

Two days were spent on IRC, Firefox, and the command box itself, with constant error messages (I don't remember them very well at this point.) I ultimately deleted Mepis, and returned to Windows XP Professional. Since then, my computer has "died" on me more than three times, and I strongly wish that I could get a Linux distribution to work for me, with the tools I need to make a smooth transition possible.

So, today, I decided to do more research, and I wound up here. I opted to make myself a registered user, and see if anyone could help me find a Linux Distribution that would let me escape from this vicious cycle of Windows XP dying continuously.

Mepis is a fine distro(so is Ubuntu actually)... This is a wine issue, not an issue with your distribution of choice... You don't mention what version of Rhapsody you have, but looking over the wine application database, it doesn't look to promising you'll get it to work. Unless you're using Rhapsody.com, which is rated Platinum.

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=1876

So, to me, the natural progression would be to use Codeweavers Crossover Office. Obviously this is a commercial application, and I'm not sure if you'd be willing to pay for a program to handle this. Regardless, doesn't look like Codweavers has any joy with Rhapsody either.

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibi...me/?app_id=182

Sounds to me, like you're going to have to either 1. Dual Boot to use Rhapsody, which would suck. 2. Read about VMWare Server, and use it to run Win2k in a virtual appliance. Then install Rhapsody inside of Vmware. When you want to run Rhapsody, fire up Vmware, do your business, then shut it down. I'm not really familiar with Vmware and Windows, as I've only ran a few other Linux distros in it, but it worked quite well for me. I'm actually surprised it wasn't suggested to you in the IRC channels. Mepis should probably have pre-configured packages for this in its repositories. If not, I imagine you could add an Ubuntu repo, and install it from there. I'm not 100% sure on that, so you'll want to verify it. I think the current version of Mepis should interact nicely with Ubuntu Edgy repos.

Thats the only suggestions I can offer...

Good luck

IGF

I have no experience with the Rhapsody service, but their web site does list the minumum requirements for Linux as follows:


" * Linux Fedora Core 4 and SuSe 9.3 and above
* Firefox version 1.5 and above
* glibc (gnu C library) version 2.3 and above
* 350MHz Intel Pentium II processor or equivalent
* 64MB of RAM
* 4.5 MB available disk space
* 16-bit sound card and speakers"

These are for the Rhapsody Player Engine Plug-in, not the software. Have you tried using the service with just the plug-in? I imagine you could run it from any distro as long as you have at least Firefox 1.5 or above and glibc 2.3 or above.

The software is only supported for Windows, of course, and WINE is not a perfect program - not every Windows program is going to run smoothly.

Hope that helps

Blah.

I only say this because I actually need it more for my MP3 player than for the program itself, which, as far as I know, is not supported by the website's plugin. I was using the version that was bundled with the MP3 player itself, which is a SanDisk Sansa e200R player with bundled firmware for Rhapsody support.

I appreciate the prompt help, however, and I have to say that if anyone can recommend me to another similar service that DOES work with Linux, I'd appreciate it a ton.

As for the second post- that specifically mentions Fedora Core and SuSe. I'm interested in Fedora after examining it; is it worth giving it a try?

Wireless cards is an area where the Linux kernel is being rappidly updated at the moment. I think you should find a distro that use a recent kernel 2.6.21, or even 22 if any of the main ones have a distro with it already.

There is a sourceforge project to write a driver for your wireless card, but you might want to check out ndiswrapper too.

I honestly wish I understood all of that first paragraph, but you lost me after the first sentence. Um... I don't suppose you can tell me what distros I should be looking at? I liked Mepis, but after having trouble installing two different programs (First was WINE, second was a program similar to MSN Live Messenger, I forget the name) I'm really really open to trying something new.

I haven't personally used Fedora, but it's gotten good reviews from other users. You might try downloading some Live CDs based off a variety of distros in order to try out several before making a final choice. Almost any distro is going to require some tweaking to get it to do what you want, some more than others. That's the joy of Linux. If you want a system that more closely resembles Windows, Fedora might be the way to go. If you think you might want something more Unix-like in the end, check out Debian, Slackware, or BSD. These last three have quite a learning curve, however, and will require a lot of post-installation manipulaton through the command line in order to get them to do the kinds of thing you want.

Hope that helps. Have fun

Well, considering I'm currently in three active high school classes (Chemistry, Algebra, and Driver's Education/Traffic Safety) I need something that I won't have to spend hours learning about- Fedora and, despite its somewhat confusing website, Mandriva are both looking like healthy options. I'm mainly making this post to say that I've never really encountered a community as helpful and friendly as the one I've encountered while trying to figure out Linux. Certainly nothing concerning Windows.
Thanks.

I don't know why you're "blah"ing., you're going to have the above issue no matter what distro you use, as its a wine issue, not a distribution issue.

I am slightly confused though, Do you use Rhapsody to purchase and import music to your MP3 player, or do you use it for listening to streaming music, etc? Streaming, I can't help you. As for importing to your MP3 player, I used Rhythmbox with my Sansa e260. Now, I use Amarok w/ my 30gig Ipod Video. I'm pretty sure you can use Amarok w/ the sansa also.

I generally rip the music for my mp3 player from CD's I own, or buy music from alternate online sources. I then import them w/ Amarok, and it works fine.

Although I despise any RPM based distro(especially Mandriva), if I were going to use one, it would be Fedora. Debian's package system, apt-get, etc, is FAR superior to YUM, thus why I've decided to stick with Debian based distros.

Good Luck

IGF

Debian, eh... well, I'll check it out if I decide that I dislike Fedora, but at 56% of a 6-hour long download, I'm not aborting it now.

As for alternative purchasing services, can you recommend any? I have a strong affinity for Rhapsody's service structure (pay $15 a month, listen to all the songs you want that are in their library, put as many of those songs as you want on your MP3 player) and so that's why I'm willing to go to such lengths to get it working.

6hrs?!?!?! Wow.

You likely wouldn't care for Debian, as Debian, is extremely similar to Ubuntu(Ubuntu is more or less a very polished version of Debian). It would also have a lot of similarities to Mepis.

Well, you might end up using more than one service for what you want to do. You can likely use one of several mp3 player managers w/ your player. Rhythmbox, Amarok immediately come to mind as they are my favs, but there's a few others that float around out there. There's also Banshee, and gtkpod(not sure if that will work with the sansa or not).

As for downloading music with your Rhapsody account. Could you use the Rhapsody Firefox plugin, mentioned in the link below? From the looks of it, you'll have to download the Windows version of Firefox, and run it via wine. Then install the Rhapsody plugin inside of the Windows Firefox. Obviously, this will be completely separate from your Linux version of Firefox.

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=4194

Hope that helps...

IGF

Bargh, I could use it for listening, yes, but not for transfer. D: I'll still give it a try. Thanks for your help.

EDIT: As an afterthought, there's supposed to be a program out there that... records music from your speaker output, or something. I think it's called Audacity. Do you know anything about it?

I know with Ubuntu, its in the repositories. Fedora, I don't know.

IGF

I am using Fedora and have installed Audacity from their repositories. Audacity is a very solid audio player.

For the other issues, the problem with MEPIS, looks like the latest version is still only on 2.6.15 for the kernel. Fedora 7 has kernel 2.6.21. The Linux kernel contain the drivers, so to get your wireless to work, your chances are better with Fedora then Mepis. If you still can't get the wireless to work with Fedora, I recon you should look for and install a bit of software called ndiswrapper, it will allow you to use the windows driver under Linux.

According to his first post, Mepis worked fine with his Wireless, Ubuntu had the issue w/ his wireless. Seems his problem is this Rhapsody issue, which changing distros is not going to fix(thus why I didn't understand the switch to Fedora when Mepis was apparently working, but to each his own).

I think the only way to use Rhapsody under Linux, is going to be how I explained it above(FF plugin, and Rhythmbox for his MP3 player). May be another way, but given what he wants to do, etc, I think that will be the only way.

IGF