Installation problems with Kbutntu 9.04 AND Slackware 113.0
I have tried EVERYTHING I could think of or with reading user posts and FAQs to try to install either Kbutntu 9.04 OR Slackware 13.0 without any success! There are also several problems that persist after a download of OpenOffice 3.1. First of all, let me thank the users that responded to me quite a long time ago with my problems with downloading a distro from a mirror and having no idea what to do after seeing 30 or 40 files staring at me and having no idea about what any of them meant. This is a truly a friendly and helpful users' site - and I appreciate that even being true for newbies.
All right. When I bought a Linux magazine it had a double-sided CD disc in it. One side had a copy of Kbuntu 9.04 and the other a copy of Slackware 13.0. What a nightmare to try to install either one of these. With Kbuntu, I first wiped my single 160GB SATA hard drive completely clean. Then, using the same software that has worked flawlessly for me for years, I used it to verify that "all sectors were clean." Next, I chose the side that had Kbuntu and chose the first option of not to install the distro to my hard drive, but use it as a "Live CD." The distro installed in RAM fine. However, when the Kbuntu installation went fine, and I once again checked to see if my hard disk was still clean, it showed literally thousands of bad or "infected" sectors on the disk again and again. What is going on here??
Attempting to install Kbutntu 10.0 still left me totally confused. When I clicked on the link to do so, all I saw was information that made no sense to me, partly because it was displaying information that I couldn't see what relation it bore to just downloading the distro. Slackware was even worse, since it allowed no "Live CD" option. It talked about "automatically" creating a root and one other partition. Trying to get the command lines straight was nearly impossible for me. All it told me was that I had to mount my Linux partitions until I set them up. Well, that didn't work either. Instead, when I typed in the following command: root@slackware: /# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt -t ext 3, the result was an error message saying: "mount: special device /dev/had1 does not exist." What did I do wrong here?
So, I have given up on Linux distros that I dare try to install in my hard drive for now. For about eight years I never had any problems like this with Windows XP Professional. It worked right out of the box without any installation problems and both service pack updates were no chore at all to download and the installation was automatic an also flawless. NO, I won't dare be a guinea pig for MS with Windows 7 and really loathe Vista. What else can I do now, though? I also refuse to install any distro of Linux that trashes my hard drive's sectors so badly and makes downloading any installation such an onerous chore.
Finally, OpenOffice 3.1 is a dog to me also, and doesn't behave well at all. I mostly try to use the Word Processing program and it nothing but trouble. How are you supposed to maximize a window when there is no button in the title bar to do so?? All you can do it minimize, restore or close the window! What genius came up with that idea? Line/paragraph changes on the fly without any user input and even with that, the setting change acts like it's missing. Try to change the line spacing and not only does the spacing not reflect your change, but the font turns bold and italic without any warning. Good grief, what are the authors of the hundreds of Linux distros trying to do to newbies? Confuse the hell out of them or drive them right BACK to Windows?
All right, long enough post and enough ranting. One final comment. What version of Linux actually works "out of the box" right from the start for a former Windows user? Any at all, or is too much to ask?
clb48
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