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Advises needed
by Lim Cheng Siong 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

Hi There, I am new to Fedora Linux and have just installed and get in running. Have a couple of questions and would like to seek your advise... 1. I am using GNOME and wondering when I download program like Real Player, how do I install the program like what we did in Windows where the icons will appeared in desktop and in the Start menu? 2. Is there something in GNOME or in Linux like uninstall once we no longer required that program? 3. What's the different between RPM and Package? 4. Does anyone encounter 'hang' when you try to update the patches from redhat?

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old hardware (should have read the fine thread)
by Bailey, Michael L [NTK] 15 Jan '05

15 Jan '05

>Brian Kelsay said: >I have a little adapter, that can be had for a few bucks, that allows me to >put a laptop HDD in a desktop PC. Helps for transferring files to/from a >laptop without network, damaged network stack, missing a driver, no floppy >or CD, dead LCD screen, etc. 40-pin IDE to 44-pin laptop HDD connector. >http://www.cablesonline.com/44pinto40pin.html that should fix my problem. Thanks!

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OT: State of the IT market in KC?
by Brian Densmore 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

I know there were a number of IT people on the list who have in the not too distant past been looking for IT jobs. As I am likely to be in the looking for a job market soon, I thought I'd ask what the current market is shaping up as. I'm more interested in how the local programming market is. What types of jobs are available, qualifications, etc. Any Linux related programming jobs? It would be interesting to see those. Brian Densmore

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RE: booting old hardware
by Bailey, Michael L [NTK] 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

-----Original Message----- can't install from newer OpenBSD cdroms. So I have to use a floppy Jonathan ------------------ and then, On Friday 14 January 2005 07:44 am, Bill Cavalieri wrote: > Just use a usb cdrom then, and if the box doesn't support that, > then it should be given to Hal :) My situation: IBM ThinkPad 760E CDRom - Pentium I SUSE 2.3 (the book says Pentium I & 32megs is all it needs, and has a CD) floppy drive is bad (floppies good elsewhere look bad to this machine) And Jonathan also wrote > I think booting to a CD on a PCMCIA adapter would be unlikely. That's what I was going to try if I could get a driver installed... So if that won't work, would a USB CD drive (using some kind of adapter, the 760E has neither CD drive nor USB port) boot? Alternatively, maybe I should give it to Hal (? "open the pod bay door", that Hal?)

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RE: Pressing a button in linux is too complicated
by Brian Densmore 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: Brian Kelsay > > Some helpful hints. Use them or not. > > 1) The drive, cable or drive controller may be bad or going > bad. Make sure the drive is not set to cable select. Check > cable for nicks or cuts. Try another CD drive in it. Not that, or that, or that. No that either. Nope, the cable is fine. Nope happens with many different CDs. And the ones it happens to work fine in other CDs. It could be related to being an "old" cheapo CDROM. > > 2) Hold down the shift key ... but each Winders is a bit > different so I can't give more detail. Exactly. > > 5) Ctl-Alt-Esc on NT/Win2k/XP, end any process that is not > responding. NT may want to reboot depending on what was > frozen, the other 2 recover semi gracefully. If you are > using a 95/98/ME version, or you can't follow any of this > free advice, my rates are..... Only works if the application is accessible in the tree. Some applications are hidden or run with administrator privilege and an "ordinary" user can't stop them. Also some applications simply won't allow you to stop them. So this has limited usefulness. True, there are some 3rd party utilities that can overcome this, but you have to know what they are and have them installed on your box.

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RE: Pressing a button in linux is too complicated
by Brian Kelsay 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

Some helpful hints. Use them or not. 1) The drive, cable or drive controller may be bad or going bad. Make sure the drive is not set to cable select. Check cable for nicks or cuts. Try another CD drive in it. 2) Hold down the shift key when you insert a disk to stop this. To permanently disable autoplay, right-click the drive and under properties, disable autoplay. You should be able to figure it out from there, but each Winders is a bit different so I can't give more detail. 5) Ctl-Alt-Esc on NT/Win2k/XP, end any process that is not responding. NT may want to reboot depending on what was frozen, the other 2 recover semi gracefully. If you are using a 95/98/ME version, or you can't follow any of this free advice, my rates are..... 3,4,6) true Brian Kelsay >>> "Brian Densmore" <> 01/14/05 10:16AM My thoughts on the ease of use of Linux and devices, versus Windows. 1) Windows doesn't always allow you to eject a cd, even if it is only CDROM drive. I have constant problems with the older CDROM on my office PC. Sometimes, it will take in a cd and then the entire CDROM will disappear from the filemanager. And if I ask it why, it says something like 'there is no CDROM on the computer, please reboot'. 2) Windows will sometimes annoyingly run anything I insert into my cdrom, even if I've just taken the CD out and reinserted it to get the software key off of it, without asking me first. 3) I generally do not have any problems using a CD or DVD on my Linux desktop. If I insert a CD all I do is click on an icon and "presto chango" the cd mounts and opens up a file manager or starts xine or plays the music on it. Actually that last statement isn't strictly true, because it autodetects and plays music CDs. 4) occasionally, I will come across a rogue application that locks the CD and I have to ps search it out and kill it. 5) Occasionally a rogue windows program will lock the CD and refuse to release it and refuse to allow me to find the culprit and kill it. Forcing me to reboot or at the least log off and back on to free it up. 6) The problem with Linux ease of use is the all too frequent spreading of Linux Usability Myths.

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RE: Pressing a button in linux is too complicated
by Brian Densmore 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

> -----Original Message----- > From: jeffslists > > I had to laugh when I started to read the thread "unmounting > a volume" > This complicated button reminds me of a very short story, "King's > Advisors and the Toaster" > (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/6271/compu034.html) > In this > story an engineer and a computer scientist are asked to design a > toaster. > ... > > In windows or any other sane desktop operating system if I > want to open > my cd-rom drive I press a button and it always opens, unless > I'm burning > a cd, and even then getting the drive to open is no problem. > But with > all linux distros, AFAIK, pressing a button can be very > complicated. In > order to get my cd I have to search through processes using > 'ps' and try > to determine what process is locking my drive. What a total waste of > time. Even though I have a B.S. in computer science I don't care to > waste my time searching through processes in order to > retrieve my cd. My thoughts on the ease of use of Linux and devices, versus Windows. 1) Windows doesn't always allow you to eject a cd, even if it is only CDROM drive. I have constant problems with the older CDROM on my office PC. Sometimes, it will take in a cd and then the entire CDROM will disappear from the filemanager. And if I ask it why, it says something like 'there is no CDROM on the computer, please reboot'. 2) Windows will sometimes annoyingly run anything I insert into my cdrom, even if I've just taken the CD out and reinserted it to get the software key off of it, without asking me first. 3) I generally do not have any problems using a CD or DVD on my Linux desktop. If I insert a CD all I do is click on an icon and "presto chango" the cd mounts and opens up a file manager or starts xine or plays the music on it. Actually that last statement isn't strictly true, because it autodetects and plays music CDs. 4) occasionally, I will come across a rogue application that locks the CD and I have to ps search it out and kill it. 5) Occasionally a rogue windows program will lock the CD and refuse to release it and refuse to allow me to find the culprit and kill it. Forcing me to reboot or at the least log off and back on to free it up. 6) The problem with Linux ease of use is the all too frequent spreading of Linux Usability Myths. JMHO, Brian Densmore

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Re: Pressing a button in Linux is too complicated
by Brian Kelsay 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

I have a little adapter, that can be had for a few bucks, that allows me to put a laptop HDD in a desktop PC. Helps for transferring files to/from a laptop without network, damaged network stack, missing a driver, no floppy or CD, dead LCD screen, etc. 40-pin IDE to 44-pin laptop HDD connector. http://www.cablesonline.com/44pinto40pin.html Brian Kelsay >>> Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins(a)tarcanfel.org> 01/14/05 09:39AM In order to give it to Hal, I have to wipe the hard disk. In order to wipe the hard disk, I use a floppy. My wife's laptop doesn't even have a USB port, I think booting to a CD on a PCMCIA adapter would be unlikely. (Fortunately her CD drive still works.) Sigh. Some people have too much money to spend on toys.

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Re: Pressing a button in Linux is too complicated
by Brian Kelsay 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

The reason the conversation was complicated and required crawling the process tree was that Duane was using some experimental software. It was unknown what was locking the process. This is something he will have to battle if he wants to live on the edge. In order to streamline the OS, all drives are treated the same. You can't pull a hotswap SCSI or eject a CD until it is unmounted. You definitely don't want to eject a CD-R when you are in the middle of burning, so the burning process locks the drive. If you remove a USB HDD or flash drive without unmounting, you risk data loss or corruption. Sounds reasonable to me. So that's why, let's look at how. On Knoppix, Mepis, DamnSmall, Mandrake, Redhat, hell all current desktop distros I have loaded in recent memory, if you are in X, you most likely will have an icon on the desktop that looks like a drive. Right click on it and you can mount and unmount to your hearts content. Left click or double click, depending on how your GUI environment is configed, and you mount and open a file browser in the same motion. Dead easy. Knoppix has an extra wrinkle to get write access to the drive so you don't accidentally fubar the drive, but that is another discussion. There has to be an easier way. For any complicated system that the computer scientists give us, some kind programmer will come along and simplify the process for the average user. Probably when they get tired of giving complicated answers to seemingly simple problems. Lucky for me, I also know how to type the mount and unmount commands. At least we don't have to drag the drive to the trashcan. Whatever Apple weirdo thought that was good interface design should be shot. To me that says, "I'm going to throw out your data now." relevant snips included. Brian Kelsay >>> jeffslists <> 01/13/05 01:21AM >>> I had to laugh when I started to read the thread "unmounting a volume" This complicated button reminds me of a very short story, "King's Advisors and the Toaster" <snip> It seems that no one on this list offered a good solution to unmounting the volume. I read solutions that would work in theory, but I didn't see anyone give an easy and fast solution that would always work. <snip> A while back I read that retrieving your cd can be really complicated because Linus wants the computer to be treated as a server and volumes must be unmounted safely. <snip> I didn't write this to complain I'm just making fun of Linux distros. Next time you can't get your cd out you should read the story about the King and the toaster and laugh like me. :) <snip>

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Re: Pressing a button in Linux is too complicated
by Brian Kelsay 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

The distros I mentioned create an icon on the desktop for each non-root partition not required at boot time. Windows (fat16/fat32/ntfs) partitions, USB devices, ext3 (/extra, /data), etc. Brian Kelsay >>> Jonathan Hutchins <> 01/13/05 02:56PM >>> There is also the argument about whether a "user" should be able to mount and umount filesystems, or if this privilage should be reserved to the root operator. To me, that's a non-question, it should be specific to a given filesystem. No, the user can't unmount "/". Yes, they can mount a CD or a network share to their userspace.

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