[plug] Newbys guide

[Timothy White]

Kev wrote:

>
> I have Debian Sarge in at the mo, but it won't recognize my sound card
> or my video card properly.  Sound ->  CMedia 8738 6 channel LX
>                             Video ->  Nvidia Riva TNT2 32meg.
> The OS/2 driver I use for sound is in fact a port of ALSA and is
> arguably the best sound card for OS/2.  All of the card's capabilities
> are supported.  Sarge will only allow me max of 800 x 600 @ 64K
> colours video.

Have you tried alsaconf (IIRC) to see if you can get the sound card
working. This would require alsa to be compiled into the kernel.
Also have your tried the official Nvidia drivers? It's a one file
download that runs and can even compile the module for you if it can't
find one already compiled or on the net. It's worked for me 9/10 times.

>
> Apart from the usual office stuff (and I already use OOo 1.1.4 for
> OS/2) and the usual internet stuff (web, ftp and email and I already
> use Mozilla 1.7.3) I mainly want to record music from records and
> other external sources to create CDs, all sorts of combinations of
> ripping, converting formats and making up CDs, playing all sorts of
> multimedia files and playing Shisen - the most addictive game I've
> ever come across.

Once you get the sound working you should be able to do all of that.
Debian has packages for recording from LP Records and other sources as
well as many for burning to CD's. Also Shisen is available under Debian.

>
> I already know it's possible.  In fact most people in the list would
> laugh at my simple needs, yet I haven't yet found any one distro that
> will configure all my hardware and do that simple list of things.  My
> hardware is VERY garden variety, with absolutely nothing strange or
> odd.  I want reliable USB support and parallel port support for a
> printer. I also want to be able to send and receive faxes.

Not wanting to sound like a broken record but I believe that Debian
should be able to do all of that.

>
> Oh, the other thing I want is HPFS file system compatability, because
> I have so much stuff on HPFS drives, and I have no intention of
> scrapping my OS/2 until I'm comfortable with Linux.  This of course is
> where "re-compile your kernel" is required, at which point I quit.
> Linux has the ability to do so many things so much smarter, but nobody
> does it. Have a look into installable file systems as implemented in
> OS/2 for a glaring example.  And as a specific example of how
> versatile installable file systems have a look at http://www.rsj.de/

I understand how daunting it can be to build a Kernel. Maybe having
someone help you step by step might help? There are of course kernels
already compiled with lots of stuff compiled in but they can become
bloated. The other advantage of a kernel compile is speed improvements.

>
> I currently have a multi-boot system, with OS/2, DOS (for my favorite
> pinball game), Win XP (for my school kids) Debian and another OS/2
> boot which I use as a maintenance partition.
>
>> For those newbie's who want to try Debian but really don't like to get
>> there hands dirty, try Ubuntu. There is an excellent Guide that guides
>> you through difficult areas and because it is aimed only at Ubuntu it
>> works (for the current version at least.)
>
>
> I had a look at Xandros on the web, and figured I'd like to give it
> try, But no Xandros users have got back to me yet.

If you're near Riverton then I can get Ubuntu to you.

>
>
>> My only gripe is because it's so easy to install software that I can end
>> up getting software bloat like I used to do under Windows. I have so
>> much installed that I rarely use. Pity that there isn't a feature that
>> tells you when a package was last used by looking at the atimes of all
>> files in the package and taking the last atime.
>
>
> Well, another thing which should be there is the ability to un-install
> applications just as easilly as installing them.

That's in Debian. "apt-get remove"

Being the broken record I'm going to recommend Debian. If you want help
getting your hands dirty then I'm happy to try and help.

 From what I've read a new 2.6 kernel may help get things working. An
official Nvidia kernel module for graphics and some apt-get should fix
the rest.

Tim

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