The fun of reorganizing a PC

[Al_Havemann]

MichiganMan; I agree! - WinMe was the worst but I have to support everything out there and I don't control what os gets loaded in a home machine when they buy it. I'm lucky if I get to load a firewall and virus program along with the VPN support they need. Sometimes I don't even get to do that.

We have attorneys that would still use DOS with WordPerfect 4 if they could. I don't have a great memory for every switch or screen of every version of Windows so having a VM of each is an enormous help when I get a call at 10pm from an attorney at home who's got a problem connecting or getting a file he/she desperately needs to modify before tomorrow morning's trial. That machine might be anything from Win95 up.

I've got to have the tools to be able to fix anything including the crappy home machines attorneys log in with. Not only fix them but check them out for worms, viruses or anything that might get into our network and cause trouble.

Consider that what kind of use a home machine gets when there are three kids loading games, browsing the net and all and you'll see that I need every tool I can get or build to manage it all.

If I could destroy Outlook that would eliminate 80% of the support trouble I get. In my office we use Lotus Notes, which isn't susceptible to Active X controls and viruses really can't be run from it. Attachments aren't a problem like they are in Outlook. Unfortunately, lots of home users do use Outlook and, predictably, they get bitten by it as well.

We also use Novell NetWare for our file servers and there's never been a successful virus written for Novell, probably because NLM's are such a ***** to write and physical access to the server would be needed to install a worm or virus. Not easy.

Al

 

[LukeK]

Well folks I got Mandrake Linux installed without any problems. It truly was an easy installation. Since then I've just been trying to install a few things and change other settings around. As it is now, my normal user can't modify anything but files in it's own 'home' folder. This is a pain since to even install skins for xine I had to log into the root GUI (the console won't let me log into root) to move files around. Is there a way to increase the users ability without making him root?

 

[The_LED_Museum]

I've got Win XP Home on this computer, Win 98 on both the lab computer and the laptop, and Win NT 4.0 on the backup lab computer. The programs I need to run all require Windows, so putting Linux on any of these systems would make things a real pain in the toliet muscle.
This will probably be my only post in this thread. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

 

[was_jlh]

Hi Luke, I install items as root, not logged in as root though. Start the appropriate package program ( or go thru mandrake config ), and it will ask you for the root password. You can change rights on directories, files, etc., but usually not needed.

If you're running a GUI and want a terminal with root access, start your fav terminal program, type "su" and enter the root password.

Joe

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Well, I got mandrake 9.1 installed, via a clean install. now to configure it to my tastes. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[LukeK]

thank you, was_jih, for the instructions. I'm starting to get the hang of Linux, especially the command line terminals. So far I'm really enjoying it. I haven't booted to Windows XP since I installed linux hehe (Saturday).

 

[was_jlh]

Glad it's going well, Luke.

Another good site that I don't think I mentioned :
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/index.php

Joe

 

[LukeK]

Thanks for the link! My next project is to find out how to change the sound card drivers (involves re-compiling the kernel I hear) so that it produces 4.1 sound (instead of only the fron 2 channels).

 

[was_jlh]

Research first, Luke. I would really be surprised if you had to recompile the kernel for 4.1 sound.

Which sound card you using?

Joe

 

[LukeK]

I'm using the onboard CMedia 8738 chip. I've done some light googling and haven't come up with too much but, again, I haven't done much yet. By the way, I appreciate your help and suggestions very much.

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

I found a nice forum for mandrake linux users via http://computing.net/

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/

I joined it the other day, and the people are like those here on CPF: not a bunch of flamers, and helpful.

 

[was_jlh]

No problem, Luke, glad to help. Search for 8738 on the justlinux site I mentioned, looks like several discussions of the card.

Joe

 

[Eugene]

To the rest running Linux, do you partition your drive. Do you have /boot /usr /home on seperate partitions or do you make just one big partition. I just ordered a new hdd and I am going to put it in the laptop and install clean then mount my old one externally and copy my home folder over to kind of practice DR. I'm trying to decide how to set up the new drive.

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Well, I joined justlinux this evening. When I figure out how to make my cd burner work as a burner in mandrake, and if a certain experiment works, then I can see my way clear to linux only, as native boot. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[was_jlh]

Eugene, I've done it both ways. On my desktop and laptop, I've split it up into separate partitions. On the third pc, an old IBM Pentium I use just as a file server and internet radio player, I only made the swap and root. I ~believe~ the more thorough partioning helps when upgrading / moving systems, so that you don't have to overwrite /home, etc.

Charles, I'm using Arson with good results in both my machines that have burners.

Another good forum to watch :
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/unixdsl
The "Tips and Tricks" sticky has good info.

Joe

 

[was_jlh]

Luke, are you using Alsa? That looks like the way to go for that sound card. Did a quick "8738 linux" in google and came up with two interesting threads quickly.

Joe

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Well, good news: I got Poser 4.03 (3D CGI) running in win4lin version 4.

 

[was_jlh]

Congrats, Charles, don't know what Poser is, but I'm glad it's working for you.

Joe

 

[LukeK]

was-jlh -- Poser is a 3d graphics program. Anyhow to answer your question, yes I am using ALSA. The sound works fine right now, I just want four speaker output. The thing is I know how to change it to surround sound, I just can't find where the sound drivers are supposed to go. The maker of the onboard sound card wrote up installation directions, but they say to look in /usr/linux/sound to find the original drivers (to backup and replace). I have no such directory. I've done a search for config.in, which they say exists and is part of the driver system, but the search resulted in nothing. I'm sure in time I'll figure it out but it is a still a slow process for me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[was_jlh]

Hi Luke, call me Joe, much easier to type.

Going off the top of my head from what I remember of the searching I did on this -
from what I understood, you should not have to install drivers for this card, alsa should support it, and you should be able to get 4 channel sound by changing parameters.

Did you do the "8738 linux" search on google? There were a couple of related threads.

Post the contents of your /etc/modules.conf file.

Will be in and out all weekend, will check this thread to see if I can be of any help.

Joe