Right. This has been done a million times, and now it's been done a million and one. I'll document my progress with this Linux experience, if for no other record than my own.
Day one saw the install of SuSE 10.1. As one would expect after the number of Linux has been around now, the install progress is no longer the total bitch that it used to be. Important things are done for you (Correctly) with the option to change the recommended settings and config as you go. I did a custom install and added a few bits. All the hardware was detected correctly. I've had nightmares in previous years with sound and graphics cards.
The machine is an old HP Omnibook 6000 (PIII 800, 128 MB of RAM at the moment, a 10 GB HDD). I've had it for years but haven't been doing anything with i cause the battery was naff and a replacement was $400 till I found a good laptop battery source on TradeMe (Plug plug! Laptop Battery NZ). $120! Not bad.
Unfortunately after the install, when the machine would boot and X Windows would start, the screen would just fade to solid white (Or grey as I was calling it at the time). Starting with the boot option "vga=normal" would get me in. And all the graphics options seemed correct. I could test at 1024 x 768 in 24-bit colour. But restart and *bleah*! No screen output. I tried Googling, but didn't really know what to look for. Was it a machine problem, a settings problem, a Linux problem, a driver problem, a SuSE problem? I feel stupid as in the end I checked with a work colleague in Dunedin who is a Linux user (And Micro$oft BASHer...;-) and he pointed me to an article mentioning a graphics option in the BOS of the HP Omnibook 6000 that I needed to change. I was annoyed, but also happy to get around the issue.
So the next thing I wanted to do was update Firefox from 1.0.7 to 1.5. Still haven't figured this out. Not as simple as logging in as root, and running SETUP.EXE...:-) Had a quick look at the release notes, and it looks like it might just be a matter of extracting the tarball over the existing copy of 1.0.7. But wouldn't that leave behind old files and stuff, if a newer file has a different name? Looks like I can use RPM (Haven't tried when I've been a home and haven't got the machine's proxy settings working at work (Authentication failure for some reason. Another colleague says there's a trick to it).
Happily plugging in my USB IDE drive works off the whack and auto-runs with Konqueror, and my M3Us play right away with amaroK. Trying to play some other media (Videos) and it seems I'm missing some codecs (Event MPEG2. Would have though that would work out of the box). Get to figure out how to install those.
My colleague also has a little network monitor thing in his system tray which I don't and he doesn't know what it is or how it got there (Need to take a sec to find out what it is).
Today I found that eth0 doesn't automatically release/renew its DHCP address when unplug/plug in the network cable. So when I plug in at work it still has my address from home. So I restart and it gets an address. And when get home, it's got the address from work. I only noticed this today. So back to Google to find Linux's equivalent of IPCONFIG. Turns out it's IFCONFIG. But IFCNFIG doesn't have a release or renew switch. Fortunately I found someone pointing out DHCPCD, and -f and -n. Sweet (If annoying. I'm sure this behaviour had be changed in some config file and all the Linux nuts would say "See how powerful it is", and my response is "No. See how annoying it is" and they'd counter with "You're just used to Windows doing everything for you" and I'd be like "Yeah. Saves time for more important things...". Oh. Don't forget to SU first :rolleyes:
Got the right address wherever I go now, rather than dragging around my last IP address when I switch networks, so I'm able to rdesktop to a Windows Terminal Server to get access to the tools I need. Outstanding tasks include:
* Updating Firefox (Will try to update via RPM when I get home)
* Accessing a Windows share
* Authenticating to Active Directory (Either mine at home or at work)
* IMAP address to my Exchange mailbox at work.
* Sourcing a 802.11g NIC that supports Linux (I don't know if I want the hassle of dealing with the ndiswrapper)
* Getting a Telecom T3G (Sierra Wireless CDMA1X/EVDO) PCCard working
Others at work are looking to play with Linux to get their working knowledge up. So they can learn from my pain, and we'll see how we come out the other end...
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