Back as a Newbie/New PC/DSL Issue
 

I am back here almost as a newbie. Forgot a lot of Linux stuff I have learned before. Recently, I decided that I need to get a new PC asm ycurrent PC is wayyy too old.

I bought a New Dell PC. Thing is it doesn't come with an installation disk. Came with Windows XP, don't wish to do a full disk erase just in case anything happens. Want to partition it and load Linux on it and then wish to connect to DSL. Presently, still using dialup, wish to start using broadband internet. (Then need to backup everything from my older to my newer PC.)

Not sure hot to connect to DSL with Linux. (Still need to contact provider and get DSL service by the way.) Would appreciate any tips in this regard.

This is not an upgrade for fun but rather out of necessity. Feeling overwhelmed by it all. Whew !! Whew !!

:newbie:

The easiest thing to do is to get a DSL router, rather than a modem. This will enable you to connect any computers you have to the Internet without having to install drivers on them at all. Most include wireless as well.

A router will also provide you with at least basic firewalling due to NAT. Systems connected to the Internet for long periods of time are also much more "visible" to scans, so exposing a dedicated router to the the Internet rather than a regular computer provides a significant level of security.

DSL modems really are a false economy all round, IMO.

What DSL modem you have there. Nowadays these modems often have built-in NAT and DHCP server. These features may be not activated though.

A lot of this is going to depend on what DSL rtr/mdm you do get. For example... I work for a Telco on the DSL helldesk. Our DSL mdm's are actually rtr's with NAT, and Firewalls. They also have DHCP and port forwarding abilities among other things.
:twocents:

Sorry, I didn't respond to all the friendly, helpful responses to my original post. Having quite a hard time with this PC actually. The DVD Drive of this PC will not allow me to burn DVDs. Before it used to allow me to burn but didn't read 8+ burnt DVD. They asked me to download a driver lastly, did it and try to run it, said it doesn't support my drive !

Dell doesn't give CD with OS installed anymore. The OS restore is a hidden partition in the HD. The OS install CD costs $15 extra !!

I tried to do a Knoppix HD install. For this I have to run fdisk. I did fdisk /dev/hda3
made sure it was mounted. Says can't fdisk /dev/hda3 !!!

Moreover, unable to read the windows partition from knoppix live cd. All it says for this partition is src1, src2 ...src5 This is the /dev/hda3 with about 70 Gigs of space. Also asked Dell Customer Service, they said Dell doesn't support HD partitioning as it corrupts the OS.

Reason I was looking to try to preserve the XP OS was because, it is good to know it for work sometimes. Also, Linux seems to have a hard time reading some CDs, hence unable to rip them for music. But Windows reads them very well !!

I am typing this with my older PC with Linux on it, seems more peaceful using it for what it does.
There is certainly a need for me for a better PC for now, hence the new purchase.

Also wondering how to burn a Video file like mpg in Linux so that my DVD player can play it ?

Lastly, Dell forgot to include the power chord with my order, my Local shipping company is giving me such a hard time with having it delivered to me (Purolator).

Whew !! Whew !! Whew !!

Vijay

For my reference:
Knoppix Changing Screen Resolution
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...ght=resolution

Knoppix Hard Drive Install
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...260&highlight=

Hoping I will be able to use these on my new PC. By the way, there is a real long hold and lots of transfers before being able to reach a person for Dell Tech Support, specially the first time.

Whew !!

Had to use the command
#sudo fdisk /dev/hda3
this worked and glad I figured it out. Made a partition /hda3p2
However, unable to mount it. Now to figure this one out. I added a line to /etc/fstab about this partition but this doesn't seem to help.

You are not supposed to make partitions on partitions ...
You want to run fdisk /dev/hda (not hda3).

Thanks. This is good to know. Then how can one make an extended partition within a primary partition ? I am confused about this.

Revised the Partition making section of Rute's Tutorials. With regards to some critical aspects of Linux I was and am still lost. Slowly revising it all again. Now partitioning is much clearer to me.

Vijay

I got acceptance from Dell that my Warranty is not void if I install Linux. Then installed Knoppix 3.6 to HD after making the partitions.

Here are the drawbacks, after HD install there were about 8 error messages on the screen. Rebooted machine and tried, OS loads OK. However, the following don't seem to be recognized:
1) Sound Card (Unable to play sound files)
2) Video Card/adapter (Unable to change LARGE resolution, unable to play Video DVDs)
3) DVD ROM (Able to read but says unable to burn 8+ DVD, requests 16+/- DVD

Appears that perhaps if I use a newer OS, the above issues can be better handled. Comments welcome from all.

Vijay

DVD/Audio/Video Card Info. for this system:

16X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) Drive
Integrated Intel® Extreme Graphics 2
Intel® Celeron® D Processor 325 (2.53 GHz, 533 FSB)
Integrated 2.0 Channel Audio

Now to try either XF86Config or to get a new version Linux OS on CD.
Also, will try to burn DVD from commandline. This might eliminate some of the errors encountered.

Will also Google posts by other Dimension 1100 users who have installed Linux on their system and how they overcame their challenges.

Lastly also, need to get my Monitors Sync Rates, Model #AOC 7ELR.
Horizontal: 30K-69KHz
Vertical: 50 -160Hz
Also need to learn, Linux Networking.


Vijay

I noticed carefully again when Knoppix was loading. The Video and sound card are detected, I used different cheat codes and tried to change resolution etc., Also read the XF86Config file. What I have is a low end monitor with a low end Video Card. This Video Card is unable to handle the Sync. Rates of my monitor and hence the issue. If I try to force anymore, appears that I might damage the hardware.

Also tried, expert mode bootup. When I tried Soundconfig, it said I need to use a Kernel that supports Sound. Smile)

When it comes to hardware, Linux is demanding and having real low end hardware seems to be a real limitation. I expected today's hardware to be much better than yesterday's hardware, however this seems to be true just for Processors. For the rest, low end, always seems to be low end. Quite an interesting experience indeed and a lot to reflect about.

Vijay

This is hardly the case unless you have some really ancient piece of hardware. Every video card out there works with vesa driver and does nicely 800x600 at 70 or 75 Hz and every CRT monitor can take it. All this can be easily set in xorg.conf, vesa driver comes with every binary distro. I'm sure you can do even better and find a driver for your card which enables higher resulotions.

One of the sync rates for my monitor is 30 to 69. so even 70 is pushing it.
Incidentally, my older PC runs Knoppix 3.6 and doesn't have this problem, it is able to find a resolution at a safe rate.

At starters, I see it trying 800x600 but it becomes blurry and so it switches to a lower resolution.

By the way, I found only XF86Config only in /etc/X11/ there is no xorg.conf
but everyone mentions this file.

Got the hardware info. during Knoppix Bootup:

Video Card: Intel Corp|82865G Integrated Graphics Device, Using XFree86(i810) Server
Monitor EPI770F
DVD Philips 8801
Sound Card: 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI

Now to google for info. on the above.

By the way, I got the Windows XP install CD from Dell

Above Video Card related sites:
Info.
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...hts/252514.htm
Driver Download
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...ProductID=1044
Related post by Another User:
http://beau.org/pipermail/whitebox-u...ly/002568.html
From this post, Red Hat and Suse support this, maybe I need to try those Distros
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/.../msg01641.html


A Driver download/supported OSes:
4. Running any of the following distributions and kernel versions
a. Redhat Enterprise Linux WS v3 with kernel 2.4.21-4.EL or kernel 2.4.21-4.ELsmp.
b. SuSE Linux Professional 9.0 with kernel 2.4.21-144-default
c. SuSE Linux Professional 9.1 with kernel 2.6.4-54-default or kernel 2.6.4-54-smp
d. SuSE Linux Professional 9.0 with kernel 2.6.8-24-default or kernel 2.6.8-24-smp
e. Mandrake 10.0 with kernel 2.6.3-7mdk or kernel 2.6.3-7mdksmp
f. RedFlag Linux Desktop 4.0 with kernel 2.4.20-8 or kernel 2.4.20-8smp
g. TurboLinux Desktop 10.0 with kernel 2.6.0-6 or kernel 2.6.0-6smp

Source:
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/df-s...ENG/readme.txt

Info. on Debian Driver for this device at:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...cat/187/page/1

A related SOlution for Fedora:
http://users.tkk.fi/~tkarvine/dell-o...ora-linux.html

Now For Sound Card

82801EB Info. from Intel:
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...hts/252516.htm

Related Sound Blaster Problem
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=228788

Lots of threads on related issues at LQ:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...earchid=701422

Debain 82801EB Sound Card Related Support:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/deb...er-needed.html

Philips DVD Burner 8801 related threads:
http://forums.support.roxio.com/lofi...php/t5400.html

Another Dell User on this Burner (Wow !)
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/343688

Nothing on google surprisingly on this Burner.

Adding all these threads here as Dell sells several of these machines. So apart from for my reference/research, this thread might beenfit others in a similar situation.

Vijay

I was talking about refresh rate, it is measured in Hz. For example:
VertRefresh 60-75
The other frequency is horizontal sync rate, measured in kHz. For your monitor:
HorizSync 30-69

So 70 Hz is not pushing it. ;)

From what I have read if monitor Horiz. Sync rate is 30 to 69, then using 70 is dangerous. It might damage the monitor/video card. But this is just theoratical knowledge.

Vijay

No, this is not knowledge, this is bulls***. You really should use reliable sources for your studies. 70 Hz at 800x600 requires Horisync 44.4 kHz - well within limits, 70 Hz at 1024x768 requires Horisync 56.5 kHz - still within limits. Same at 75 Hz -> Horisync 60.7 kHz, still won't break anything.

That's the correct file, then. Newer distros use X.org as their implementation for X, while older distros (generally) us XFree86. Both xorg.conf and XF86Config have the same syntax.

I wish you had seen that file. It have hsync as well as vsync. Each was a different number, hsync was out of the range for all except one resolution, that was the lowest.

I called Dell yesterday and they helped me to install XP on the system. However, they don't support mutliple partitions and made me erase everything. Moreover, no Modem/net on that other machine.

Otherwise, I would have shared that file here and got everyone's opinion on it.

Vijay

Solutions so far:
I am using Linux live CD initially.
1. Used QPARTED to make multiple partitions in the Windows Primary Installed partition.
2. Tried using cheat code of depth=16, didn't work.
Then set mobo Memory Buffer to 8MB for this need to press F2 at boot to enter the setup screen. The Default was 1MB, no wonder it was not working and was frustrating.

Good to luck to all the others interested in this. Now to get the Audio Driver.

Vijay :)

Posting this from my New Dell. There was a slight issue with modem detection, tried Com3 instead of Com1, this worked well !!

Now an Issue with the Sound Card:
I typed soundcardconfig as root, followed instructions and came to this error page:

Error: No Sound Modules found

You don't seem to be running a kernel with modular sound enabled. │
│ (soundcore.o was not found in the module search path). │
│ To use sndconfig, you must be running a kernel with modular │
│ sound, such as the kernel shipped with Debian GNU/Linux or a 2.2 │
│ kernel, and sound must be compiled as modules.

Also here are the results of following the instructions for Debian SOund Card support:
(Referece: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/deb...er-needed.html)

root@box:/home/vijay# apt-get install alsa-base alsa-utils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
alsa-base is already the newest version.
alsa-utils is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
root@box:/home/vijay# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.17 (root@Knoppix) (gcc version 4.0.4 20060507 (prerelease) (Debian 4.0.3-3)) #4 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 10 13:53:45 CEST 2006

I did a search and there are no alsa modules for 2.6 Kernel.

Seems like catch22 situation. Comments/tips welcome.

Thanks.

Vijay

Some related commands/steps that I tried for the Sound Card:

vijay@box:~$ /proc/asound/version
bash: /proc/asound/version: Permission denied
vijay@box:~$ cat /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.11rc4 (Wed Mar 22 10:27:24 2006 UTC).
vijay@box:~$ cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [ICH5 ]: ICH4 - Intel ICH5
Intel ICH5 with AD1980 at 0xfeb7fa00, irq 21
vijay@box:~$ lspci | egrep audio
0000:00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
vijay@box:~$ /dev/sndstat
bash: /dev/sndstat: Permission denied
vijay@box:~$ cat /dev/sndstat
Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v1.0.11rc4 emulation code)
Kernel: Linux box 2.6.17 #4 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 10 13:53:45 CEST 2006 i686
Config options: 0

Installed drivers:
Type 10: ALSA emulation

Card config:
Intel ICH5 with AD1980 at 0xfeb7fa00, irq 21

Audio devices:
0: Intel ICH5 (DUPLEX)

Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG

Timers:
7: system timer

Mixers:
0: Analog Devices AD1980
vijay@box:~$ alsaconf
You must be root to use this script.
vijay@box:~$ su
Password:
root@box:/home/vijay# alsaconf

Terminating processes: 13672 13792.
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-ac97-bus snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-timer snd-page-alloc (failed: modules still loaded: snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-ac97-bus snd-pcm snd-timer snd-page-alloc).
Building card database...

Running update-modules...
Loading driver...
Setting default volumes...


===============================================================================

Now ALSA is ready to use.
For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.

Have a lot of fun!

The Often asked lspci -v

root@box:/home/vijay# lscpi -v
bash: lscpi: command not found
root@box:/home/vijay# lspci -v
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Capabilities: [e4] #09 [1106]

0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Memory at feb80000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
I/O ports at ed98 [size=8]
Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 1

0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
I/O ports at ff80 [size=32]

0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
I/O ports at ff60 [size=32]

0000:00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
I/O ports at ff20 [size=32]

0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
Memory at ffa80800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [58] #0a [20a0]

0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=32
I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff
Memory behind bridge: fea00000-feafffff

0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at <ignored>
I/O ports at ffa0 [size=16]
Memory at feb7fc00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]

0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 3
I/O ports at eda0 [size=32]

0000:00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
I/O ports at ee00 [size=256]
I/O ports at edc0 [size=64]
Memory at feb7fa00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
Memory at feb7f900 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

0000:01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82562EZ 10/100 Ethernet Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 01d5
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 20
Memory at feaff000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
I/O ports at df40 [size=64]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

root@box:/home/vijay#

Sound started working suddenly. Looks really interesting. :)

https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/wi...roubleShooting

I couldn't install the 865patch for the Video Driver. Here is the result below:

root@box:/home/vijay# apt-get install 865patch
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package 865patch
root@box:/home/vijay#

I signedup for DSL today finally. Also bought a DSL modem. They said it takes 6 days to activate the DSL line and then I can log in. It was a big step and I was really concerned a lot but finally I broke the ice today. Hope in six days everything is fine.

Vijay