Re:
 

If you'll allow me to post (yes I'm new to Linux). KimVette you sound like you know your way around Linux pretty good.

I can't compile, write code, build a driver....nothing, yet! I can put the cd or dvd in, boot the cpu, install the os and hopefully have a running machine in about 40 minutes. Such was my experience installing Suse 9.1 and 10. I was psyched when the pc booted to a desktop. I was prepared to start learning.

I wanted to share my net connection with my other XP machine (both were XP Pro). I wanted to see what the Bluetooth thing on my cell phone was good for, so I went and bought a usb bluetooth adapter for like 20 bucks. I discovered quickly that I could use a pair of Bluetooth adapters to share net connectons. I got my, what now is my Suse 10, box to share a bridged connection and had about 400 kbs transfer speed and internet to boot. That cost me a little over 40 bucks total and I was satisfied with it completely. Going to Suse and trying to get a net connection was futile. So I get some Linksys stuff, a wireless card and a cool wireless router. NOW I had to learn ndiswrapper and all sorts of cli stuff just to get that to work, And now it does. The whole essence of anyone having a pc today is to have internet access. With XP I spent 40 bucks and with Linux I spent 240 bucks. Oh, but the software was free, you may say. And if I didnt mind cat5 all over the place I could have had net access pretty painlessly with Linux.

Now, I have Firefox (which I absolutely think is cool) and have people at work using on their Redmond boxes. It's on my Suse box too. But being me I Have to upgrade. I can't get Java to work on the installed version, I cant get Java to work on the installed version after doing the online updates, I can't get Java to work, period! Sun's java checker craps out. I got stressed posting and reading and trying this and that. I shut the box down for a few days. I wait for answers to my posts to stream in, "Oh it's This Easy, You do THIS".....fughettaboutit, no answers to a very valid question. I'm the only person with a fresh install of Suse 9., then 10, who can't get Java to work? My install was fresh and now I have no clue if I should start from scratch because I screwed up the os somehow.

It needs to be easier. I'm all for people hailing any form of Linux to saying how it's so secure, how you dont get viruses, how this and how that....and I'm new here. I can say that if you get a virus or if you get adware or if you corrupt your os with (whats that you call it?) $S (moneysoft?) theres plenty of products to at least get you so you can backup your documents and stuff and wipe the drive and reinstall the os. Installing the apps is easy as pushing the cd drawer closed and answering a few questions. Not painful, really. Sometimes a pain, yes.

All I'm saying is that I chose a Linux version from a reputable firm. It does work, it takes alot of cli stuff that I have no clue what I'm doing as of yet but I will as my skill becomes more refined. It definitely is not easy. Stuff doesn't work. To make it work you have to type for a week and then it may, then you have to learn and remember it. Without internet access I would have never gotten this far. Unortunately I'm posting this on my moneysoft box that works so slick. My eyes hurt and my fingers hurt from the box that sits in my back room, damn computers!

Programs. Where's my programs? I posted on how I could access the files on my two 60 gig drives that I plugged into the Suse box. I suppose it was such a stupid question that everyone stayed out to lunch because I never got a reply for days. Then someone replied that I had to mount the drives. You think with the GUI there would be a plain as day way to mount a drive. Oh yeah, NEVER log in KDE or Gnome as root...which I did (I log in as Administrator in my "easy" os quite frequently) or you'll screw everything up. OOPS! bad messages that wont go away and no reason why, except for a reply to never ever log in as root.

I downloaded Java 1.5.whatever in Yast after putting in a source. I thought it installed. I couldn't find anything resembling Java 1.5 at all anyplace to do the symbolic link thing in the plugins of Firefox (and Mozilla because I thought That would at least work). I discovered that even though I updated online I had to now install the package. I thought that was what updating was all about.

I haven't but scratched the surface of Linux. I'm sorry but i'll have to stand firm and someone will have to convince me that it's "Better". Server 2003 is rampant, it's easy...it works....you tell it how you wish for it to be configured and answer the questions...and, as Kelly Bundy said, "Viola". I have an os, a wireless internet connection establisned on it, I have a few browsers, I can finally at least see files, I need codecs to see some other files for a media player that only plays 1 file at a time (Real), I have several web browsers that none have working Java on (did I mention that yet?). I followed the instuctions to a 't' for installing the apps and I always need to install some other files from the Suse cd's.

You experienced folks know what I mean. What's better if I get gray hair learning how to get simple things to work? Grrrr, dont even dare tell me to get a MAC!

Alan

Alan,

New things can be hard to deal with -- to start they're different. I had my problems when I 1st tried Linux. Being stuborn, I kept at it until it worked. One recommendation I have for you is trust YaST for configuration. If something needs to be set in multiple places it knows and does it. Some distributions almost require CLI and they are much harder to use. Some people help by sending you to CLI -- that's what they know. There are subtle differences between distros and some times even releases of the same distro. Look at things with CLI to learn but in the beginning set with YaST. It will save you much grief help to insure success. As time goes on you will probably use CLI more and more.

Good Luck,

Thanks!
 

Wordy as I may be I thank you for the encouragement. I shall wipe my drive and start from scratch. Seems crazy but now I have many populated and unpopulated Java, Jre folders. Nothing I do works. Now when I check about plugins, mozilla crashes. Firefox isnt much better, It just bounces the ball and eventually does nothing until I delete the symbolic link. then it will launch at least. As for running firefox or mozilla from the cli in terminal, as su....nope, not happening. I type in mozilla and enter and nothing, same for firefox.

I can get wireless working. Good!
I can mount my drives and see the files in them. Good

Seems like in a fresh install Java would at least work, which it never did, not even in konquerer.

Thanks

Alan

teething troubles
 

hello,
i agree that that not all in suse is paradise, but most is and you will get used to it...remember xp it isn't. I am also a very new user of linux, and a steep learning curve it has been, and not all too pleasant either ! However i needed an operating system to hold my dslr(pro photo) and other work files that would absolutely not crash/become infected/was secure/etc. I am having to learn allot, and as i am what is known as "thick" it is sometimes too much. So i have a break, go on this forum and generally the very kind/very patient more technically minded translate my gibberish into a problem solved. I have successfully loaded a very powerful and secure operating system on to my pc, got internet connection, sorted the printer, loaded all my image files ready to be edited by a hugely powerful(and free) gimp, enabled dvd movie play(Shhhhhh, you didn't here that) and i have even managed to get windows xp games to play. It was all to do with the linux(suse) community and me having to be patient....but trust me if you stick with it you will be amazed as i am, i hope. good luck !

supwiddiss>

Actually SuSE 9.1 and 9.3 worked very well. SuSE 9.1 had some samba issues and webmin was broken but otherwise it worked very well out of the box, and YaST updates took care of those two problems.

9.3 was by far the best SuSE release I've tried. I should have stayed at 9.3 rather than upgrading. I have been struggling and struggling with Evolution to find a way to get it to connect without resorting to IMAP (I finally decided to use IMAP via KMail, or vice-versa). I finally got KDE<->Samba integration to work last night - it wasn't just plug and play like 9.2 and 9.3. :( Samba worked DAMN well in 9.3

10 should never have been released as it exists. I want to downgrade back to 9.3 but getting back to where I was would easily take a week, between downloading updates, compiling various source packages, etc.

As it is I am still not where I was. I now do not have Cinelerra (need to download source and compile again), I do not have a working WINE (the build of WINE they shipped sucks ass) and I do not have Audacity, which was included in previous releases. :(

--Kim

Good sport
enjoy
standing bye

Kim - thanks for posting your comments.

Hi guys, I am an ex WinBlows user. I've been a programmer for over 30 years now, but an applications coder, I am no OS expert. I made the jump to RedHat twice, once at v7.3 and once again at v9. I sort of liked v9, but when RedHat cut the project to run their biz like Microsoft, I dumped it. 2 months ago I installed SuSE 9.3, and loved it. First off, MOST Windows users don't install their own OS. If they did, they would find SuSE easier, especially since it is plug-n-play now, and all apps you need are included. I installed on a notebook that I couldn't find "tried and tested" info on anywhere. It is a Sony Vaio PCG-K17. Installation went flawless. I picked the apps I wanted, and YaST did everything. Then, I plugged in a USB mouse, keyboard, and a firewire harddisk. All were accurately detected, first time, and used internal drivers... no CDs or downloads like MS. Even USB Brother HL-1440 and Epson Stylus Photo R300 printers detected and ran with internal drivers.

Then, last week I bought 10.0, to get the FULL DVD. Upgraded with no issue at all. Everything came up running. I don't use Evolution, so I have no valuable input here. But Kontact works flawlessly.

I added Skype, with USB camera (Logitech Notebook Quickcam Pro)... and again flawless.

Then, I upgraded Xine to play DVDs, MP3s, and even MS videos. All is working well.

You don't even need to know how to handle zip files, like you do in Windows to do some installs. The RPMs will install direct from Konqueror.

Replace the Windows desktop... any day with SuSE anyway.

Hope this helps our cause for those on the edge.

Marc

Well I think this weekend I am going to do another clean install of SuSE 10. I just want to rule out stupid details I may have overlooked because I'm running into other issues I never encountered on SuSE 9.3 (or any other distro either for that matter).

This weekend I may also be installing SuSE v10 on an experimental box just to see how it goes. Kim if you have additional comments about xine issues (or lack thereof) please post any comments. I'll likewise post back if/when I finish it

Could you try this if you do?
 

J.W.

If you do the install would you check to see if Java works in any of the browsers when you get a connection to the net? Please? And if not, and when you do, could you reveal the steps you performed to get it working?

P4 2.4ghz , 512meg ram, MSI VIA based board, Nvidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400, 80 gig, 2 X 60 gig, Plextor RW, Linksys WMP54GS wireless.

Alan

If you used the OpenSuSE install, java will not work. This is because it is not installed. If you chose another version, like the eval, it will only be installed if you selected the java installer package. Either way, you can install it now by following The Jem Report which shows you how to install java, pdf viewers, flash, and shows you how to fix all your multimedia to view/play every type out there from quicktime, to divx, including mp3.

I got DVDs working fine off the SuSE 10 install by doing the following installs on top of SuSE:
1. libxine1-1.1.0cvs-051002.i686
2. xine-ui-0.99.4-0.pm.1.i586.rpm
3. w32codec-0.52-1.i386.rpm
4. libdvdcss-1.2.8-2.network.i386.rpm
Make sure to install them in this order though.

libdvdcss2-1.2.9-1.i386 is available.
w32codec-all-20050412-0.pm.0.i586 is also available.

I keep up to date with the latest in DVD on http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/ and it has served me well.

Great, thanks for the update.