Welcome to debian. Good luck!

Horror · 02-16-2009, 10:14 PM

Hey all,
Just made the switch to debian(lenny) and im having loads of trouble. Some of the primary things that im trying to deal with now is:

accessing my NTFS partition... It wont mount and wont be found. I believe its at /dev/sda2
but whenever i try to mount it i get a message along the lines of "cant find that in etc" ...
Im probably just used to being pampered with other distros where you dont even have to mount it just auto-mounts all the storage media...

Viewing videos. the SWF player is just plain broken. So i looked for a new version found one and it wont unzip? we dont use gunzip? tar isnt working? i think im just not using the arguments that it wants but being that tar has a 15 page help file with 200 arguments im facepalming.

MY SCREEN IS 800X600! >.< i didnt know any operating system went that low anymore BUT DEBIAN WONT GO HIGHER Im looking for some sort of monitor configuration or screen config or xorg.conf or anything that i might be able to edit and put in a real resolution.

im just feeling disgusted and frustrated with all this nonsense.

Can anyone give me an answer to these problems?

or tell me how you learned to deal with debian? book, sites, people...

or should i even stick with debian is it always going to be this bad? because eventually i will need to do work on my computer that isnt setting up debian...

Simon Bridge · 02-16-2009, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horror

Hey all,
Just made the switch to debian(lenny) and im having loads of trouble.

Hmmm ... it sounds like you are missing some packages. Perhaps you installed the minimum release?

Quote:

Some of the primary things that im trying to deal with now is:

accessing my NTFS partition... It wont mount and wont be found. I believe its at /dev/sda2
but whenever i try to mount it i get a message along the lines of "cant find that in etc" ...
Im probably just used to being pampered with other distros where you dont even have to mount it just auto-mounts all the storage media...

Check the location with fdisk -l and make sure you have installed ntfs-3g.

Quote:

Viewing videos. the SWF player is just plain broken. So i looked for a new version found one and it wont unzip? we dont use gunzip? tar isnt working? i think im just not using the arguments that it wants but being that tar has a 15 page help file with 200 arguments im facepalming.

The way to install software to Debian is via APT. Do not use tarballs unless you really need something which is source only.

You will have access to a gui tool called synaptic. This is much simpler, use that.

Or - look at a tutorial:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/de...l/ch-dpkg.html

for .tar.gz files, you use gnu zip (gzip) to decompress, and tar to unpack. Why not show the commands you are using?

However - the gui system usually has an all-in-one tool which is pretty intuitive.

Why do you think the supplied player is "plain broken"?

Quote:

MY SCREEN IS 800X600! >.< i didnt know any operating system went that low anymore BUT DEBIAN WONT GO HIGHER Im looking for some sort of monitor configuration or screen config or xorg.conf or anything that i might be able to edit and put in a real resolution.

... well, debian has all those things.

Recently, debian and all offshoots have been defaulting to autodetection to get things like screen res right. Mostly it works - but you have a genuine complaint when it doesn't because it's hard to adjust.

The fastest approach is to edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file as usual.

It is unfortunate that your first experience is so bad. It still looks like you have not got a full install. How did you do this? Which distro did you use before?

Simon Bridge · 02-16-2009, 10:56 PM

Related - it occurs to me that you may have been using a non-free OS before.
This may explain a few things... if you have not, then you know this already: feel free to skip.

There are many things which are restricted use in linux. This is because the owners of those things do not want you to be able to do them. An example of this is watch commercial DVDs. It can be done, but the process needed to do so is illegal in some jurisdictions - so the needed tools are not always made available out of the box.

You can watch video - but many formats are proprietary. Royalty-free and open formats are strongly favoured. So you will see ogg/theora strongly supported while wmv and mpeg needs special add-ons. Same goes for mp3. The superior flac and vorbis formats are well supported.

ntfs is an example of a proprietary format file system needing special tools to access.

You will find that some hardware is hard to get working - again, the manufacturer has designed it to be this way.

When you change to a free OS you are encouraged to change to free formats and free devices too. Meantime, there is a concerted effort to liberate non-free devices, formats, etc because - apart from the non-freeness - some of them are quite cool.

Quakeboy02 · 02-16-2009, 10:57 PM

Lenny has got to be the easiest Debian to install, ever. So, I think Simon is right that you don't have a proper install. Could you give us a link to the iso file you installed from?

If you have any sort of good connection to the internet, you should have used the netinst iso.

The problems you are having are clearly fixable, but you shouldn't have had them in the first place. At this point, unless you have data (probably not) I would have already done a re-install from a different iso, were I in your shoes.

jdkaye · 02-17-2009, 04:10 AM

Quote:

MY SCREEN IS 800X600! >.< i didnt know any operating system went that low anymore BUT DEBIAN WONT GO HIGHER Im looking for some sort of monitor configuration or screen config or xorg.conf or anything that i might be able to edit and put in a real resolution.

im just feeling disgusted and frustrated with all this nonsense.

It is generally easier to deal with one problem at a time otherwise you may (I know I do) run around like a headless chicken.

You can feel frustrated. We all sympathise and have felt the same at times (I know I have and still do). "disgust" no, except with myself for not seeing the obvious. Anyway be assured that millions of people use debian and have dealth with all the problems you are now facing and come out the other side with smooth-running systems. If you are willing to do a little work and a little thinking then you'll be quite happy using debian. If not, maybe a proprietary system would be more to your liking.
Assuming the former:
1. What is your graphics card.
2. What monitor do you have and do you have documentation on its ability (maximum resolution, horiz and vert refresh rates, etc.).
3. What video driver do you now have installed?
4. What are the relevant sections of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file? I mean the ones dealing with video. For example, in my xorg.conf I have:

Code:

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Generic Video Card"
	Driver		"fglrx"
	BusID		"PCI:1:0:0"
	VideoRam	256000
# === EnablePageFlip to help dvi ===
#	Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
# === Video Overlay for the Xv extension ===
	Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
# === OpenGL Overlay ===
# Note: When OpenGL Overlay is enabled, Video Overlay
#       will be disabled automatically
	Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
# === Use internal AGP GART support? ===
# If OpenGL acceleration doesn't work, try using "yes" here
# and disable the kernel agpgart driver.
	Option "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Samsung940NW"
	Option		"DPMS"
	HorizSync	30-81
	VertRefresh	56-75
# Testing Modeline
# Modeline "1440x900" 136.49 1440 1536 1688 1936 900 901 904 940 -hsync -vsync
EndSection
Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Device		"Generic Video Card"
	Monitor		"Samsung940NW"
	DefaultDepth	24

	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		8
		Modes		"1440x900" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		15
		Modes		"1440x900" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		16
		Modes		"1440x900" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1400x900" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Once we have that information, it should be quite straightforward to sort out your video problems.
cheers,
jdk

Horror · 02-17-2009, 11:00 AM

Nevermind im an idiot.
I got the NVIDIA working and the resolution is better. Thanks for the help.