Regrettably, Win 98SE for a while yet

[Efwkub at aol.com]

Hi
I decided to try to learn to use Linux this year. Research indicated that 
hardware compatibility might be an issue so to try to avoid problems I chose an 
HP nx5000 as these have been sold with SUSE on them (in parts of the world 
other than the UK, where I am). Then bought SUSE as it should work on the laptop, 
and comes with support, was well established, widely used, plenty of info 
about. Unfortunately never got SUSE 9.2 Pro to load and run reliably (I gave up on 
SUSE help after some time. They tried, and they made various sensible 
suggestions but they were slow and uninspired, they missed some points that were 
obvious even to me, and had me do un-necessary work).

Second choice Kubuntu (not Ubuntu because I have made a start at learning my 
way round KDE). Still problems. Thus the finger of suspicion starts to move 
towards the laptop, though apart from any amount of hassle with Linux it has 
given no other indication of being faulty and - apologies - it will be partly my 
lack of knowledge, but there are some problems and items I would welcome 
comments on. 

Please note that I appreciate all the work that has gone into K/ubuntu (as I 
do with SUSE). But if I had not been trained by MS to think of software as 
something very problematic and troublesome which never works properly, and never 
works at all for long without all sorts of knowledge and fiddling, rebooting 
and reloading I would soon have rejected Linux, and a lot of time and effort 
has not got me far with it yet. I can see that Linux is at least designed to 
work, at least people are trying to make it work, and care about it working. 

Once I have completed a project to make some space I plan to get one or two 
more PC’s to run Linux on in case a lot of the problems I have had are the 
fault of the laptop. Also I now consider that just as with Windows it is best to 
have several PC’s if you wish to have one that works. As with Windows, I shall 
have a system of removable hard drive cartridges, so that I can have two or 
more separate installations per PC. I am hoping that thereafter I shall have one 
or more working systems reliably present, and will be able to move on to 
sorting out a broadband ISP and learning to use apt-get and all that. And focus 
more on learning to use applications. (I had a cunning plan to use the second 
drive (in the laptop’s multibay) as an alternative booting drive for when the 
installation on the main hard drive didn’t work. Kubuntu switched to using Lilo, 
then stuck at the CUPS stage (as above) then there was "filesystem not clean" 
and "problem installing, one or more packages failed to install" so I plan 
now only to use alternative hard drives in the laptop’s main hard drive bay.)

There are several points below. Some are more in the way of observations, but 
if anyone is kind enough to respond to any of the questions perhaps it would 
be best to start a fresh thread per topic? 

I have searched about before asking for help and if I have missed something 
more apologies, by all means please refer me to existing url’s, documents, etc. 


Regards, Edward Fowler-Wright

1.  Having used Windows for many years I am fanatical about backing up. I 
thus bought an Advanced Port Replicator. I have a second hard drive in the 
MultiBay in the laptop, and the DVD drive and a floppy drive in the APR. (This 
post-dates my SUSE problems, I used the standard setup with that). Kubuntu is not 
good at recognising the floppy drive. It is better at handling an external USB 
floppy on one of the USB 2 ports. I tend to end up with several floppy icons, 
sda to (e.g.) sdg, one of them being the ext USB, the rest the APR one. I can’
t always get to them, especially the one in the APR. Currently in /media I 
have 9 entries: "External Floppy Drive". When loading Kubuntu it is best not to 
have a floppy in the drive or it may spin the floppy continuously, until I 
eject the disk. Another problem is that on loading a floppy disk it may be spun 
continuously but is not mounted. On one occasion a "1.5M Removable Media" was 
claimed to exist. But usually I can eventually get to one or other floppy.

2.  Kubuntu sometimes stops when loading, at the stage "Restarting Common 
Unix Printing System: cupsd". I can then force the laptop to switch off but that 
leads to "file system not clean". Or I can use SysRq keys, but in view of 
various items below I lack confidence that Kubuntu has installed properly. (Though 
I lack this in any event).  

3.  Once I got as far as being told to take the CD out, then got a blank 
screen with  no response to mouse or keyboard. Eventually I forced the laptop to 
switch off. Then on again, to get Grub error 17. I didn’t try to sort this 
because if the installation process doesn’t go smoothly I prefer to do it again as 
I am suspicious that there may be hidden imperfections. 

4.  When Kubuntu does load OK and then starts up for the first time, or when 
I start the PC from cold thereafter (warm re-starts are sometimes OK) the 
startup procedure goes quite quickly until I enter log on details. Then, often, 
the PC shows the screen which is two tones of blue, divided by a wavy horizontal 
line, with the Kubuntu logo and name but nothing else (after my name, and 
"Initialising system services" has gone). About 10 minutes after this the screen 
goes to blank as if a black screensaver, unless mouse or keyboard input has 
prevented this. If the blank screen appears mouse or keyboard input does not 
clear it. Either way after a total of about 20 minutes there is the short bit of 
music and the taskbar and kicker appear, all appears normal and correct (i.e. 
other than as set out below, and please note I haven’t tried everything yet). 
If I take it that starting the PC may be a 25 minute process this is not a 
particular problem, but it affects my confidence in the system, especially as 
there are other problems. Before I knew that it would eventually complete 
starting up I used Ctrl Alt Backspace. Or Ctrl Alt F1 to get a terminal screen. 

5.  On one occasion Kubuntu did not recognise a FAT 32 partition on hdc so I 
tried to make an entry in fstab. I described the file system as "FAT 32" 
having seen this when partitioning. Various efforts failed, only on a later loading 
did I see in fstab that I should have written "VFAT". Might be useful if, as 
the documentation develops, this is noted somewhere.

6.  When I use the command runlevel, just after starting Kubuntu (i.e. 
without having made any changes to it myself), I get the report: N 2
Is this right?

7.  Ctrl + Esc gets me KDE System Guard. Unfortunately Ithis never works, I 
get a failure warning sound along with the message "Connection to local host 
has been lost". This has been the case every time I have loaded Kubuntu. 

8.  If I try to set up a new user I may get "Root login is not allowed". 

9.  I have a similar problem to Stroller’s "Re: KDE su & Control Centre". 
Things are not greyed out for me, but i get sent round in a circle if I try to 
get into Administrator Mode. I get a screen in the right pane offering the 
options in the left pane. I choose Login manager, in which there is Administrator 
Mode…

10.  If I try to open KPPP I am told that "/etc/resolv.conf is missing or can’
t be read. Ask system administrator to create it with appropriate read and 
write permissions." What type of file should I create, would an OOo text file be 
suitable? and what permissions, please. Hopefully after doing this KPPP will 
recognise the modem. 

11.  Often, in Konsole or using a terminal mode screen I try to move around 
the directory tree. E.g:  /X/Y/Z   I try to cd from Y to Z  but am told "No 
such file or directory". But I know it’s there. I can see it in Konqueror. Answer 
is to go back to X, then can cd two levels at once, straight to Z from X.   

12.  After years of Windows one thing that does work well for me is Windows 
Explorer, configured how I like it. I am used to the keystrokes and can move 
files about easily and rapidly. I have made good progress with Konqueror, and 
would be grateful for any assistance. I have a View Profile I have developed, 
but so far I have to work my way into the menus and select it every time I open 
Konqueror. It would be great to open it, just as I want it, with a keystroke. 
Hopefully I can organise a shortcut etc. in KDE menu editor myself, but what 
would the command be to get it to open with my View Profile please? And is it 
possible to have Directory Tree View but get rid of the Navigation Panel?

13.  A solution to 12. above would sort Konqueror being opened maximised. Is 
there a way to get other KDE apps to open maximised? 

14.  When working in a terminal is there a command that works like "cls" in 
MS-DOS or should I just close the one I have and open another?

15.  Control Centre, Peripherals, Mouse: Sometimes (some of the times I load 
Kubuntu) this won’t load, I get endless "loading". Have to minimise the window 
then right click and kill it.

16. Control Centre, Screen saver. Blank screen, Test. Works OK save that 
mouse movement doesn’t clear the screensaver. 

17.  I set up a root password, having got used to that way of working. I can 
still then use the first user’s  password (i.e. as entered when Kubuntu was 
loaded) for Administrator Mode. I appreciate the choices made re sudo etc, but 
would like to eliminate the initial privileged user. Open KUser, I get 
something like "DCOP communications error (KUser). Error setting up inter process 
communications for KDE. Authentication Rejected… Reason none of the authentication 
protocols specified are supported. Please check that the "dcopserver" program 
is running". This leaves me thinking that there is more than one basic 
problem with the operating suystem installation. I press OK, and am surprised to see 
KUser then start. I emove the first user, then add another, with the same 
details, taking on the home folder. Close KUser, then KUser won’t re-start. (Nor 
will Konqueror - think it is reinstall time again.)

18.  In Storage I see the various drives. Looking at the Properties for the 
DVD drive it is referred to as scd0 with Location / (media). Using Konqueror to 
show what is in / or what is in media, there is no scd0. Could someone 
explain the notation / (media) means please.

To end on a positive note - Only had a few quick looks at it but so far OOo 
1.1 Writer doesn’t freeze and chuck me out with Kubuntu, it quite often did 
with SUSE.
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