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Linux mint. Installer confused - giving up

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The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 23, 2012, 2:56:45 AM10/23/12
to
Version 13 has to be about the worts peice of crap I have ever tried to
isntall. NOTHING worked.

4 hours and simply gave up on the laptop. Too many install errors. Might
have been a bad DVD drive so switched to a usb pen drive. After an hour
still flashing away. Gave up.

Tried this machine. Installed but no X. rebooted debian found that
nvidia needs some custom magic. Tried that, got X, looked at MATE and
thought 'no virtual screens'.

Its AWFUL.

Tried to get DVB going..total disaster. dvb-daemon simply crashes or
totem crashes. Got one channel omnce after an hour Got VLC working..that
doesnt USE dvb-daemon.

three years on and its worse than Debian lenny.

No wonder linux has a bad name.




--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

Bobbie Sellers

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Oct 23, 2012, 10:04:55 AM10/23/12
to
On 10/22/2012 11:56 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> Version 13 has to be about the worts peice of crap I have ever tried to
> isntall. NOTHING worked.
>
> 4 hours and simply gave up on the laptop. Too many install errors. Might
> have been a bad DVD drive so switched to a usb pen drive. After an hour
> still flashing away. Gave up.
>
> Tried this machine. Installed but no X. rebooted debian found that
> nvidia needs some custom magic. Tried that, got X, looked at MATE and
> thought 'no virtual screens'.
>
> Its AWFUL.
>
> Tried to get DVB going..total disaster. dvb-daemon simply crashes or
> totem crashes. Got one channel omnce after an hour Got VLC working..that
> doesnt USE dvb-daemon.
>
> three years on and its worse than Debian lenny.
>
> No wonder linux has a bad name.
>
>
>
>
Description of hardware if you are interested.

Linux has a bad name(?) but it ain't Windows and is much
less expensive to acquire than Mac 10.x. You have to have
time to invest if you are a hobbyist. In the near future getting
Linux on newer hardware will be less simple. If you have
Windows of course all you need is Cash to have technicians solve
your problems.

Why not try a Unix release?

Not all Linux distributions are suited to all hardware
and not all hardware is able to run Linux. Proprietary chipsets
from people who design and build the hardware can present
great problems.

nVidia driver installation is tough to do especially
if the wrong driver takes control. The right driver has to
be in place with a lot of supporting files on my machine
and the bad driver has to be blacklisted. You can usually
find out these details by using Google to find what had
been done to solve the problems in the past.

I have had horrible problems with upgrades from
Mandriva PWP 2010.2 to Mandriva PWP 2011. I am holding
back from further attempts until I have dealt with the
overheating I was seeing earlier in the year.

bliss

GangGreene

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Oct 23, 2012, 10:24:20 AM10/23/12
to
On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:56:45 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Version 13 has to be about the worts peice of crap I have ever tried to
> isntall. NOTHING worked.
>
> 4 hours and simply gave up on the laptop. Too many install errors. Might
> have been a bad DVD drive so switched to a usb pen drive. After an hour
> still flashing away. Gave up.
>
> Tried this machine. Installed but no X. rebooted debian found that
> nvidia needs some custom magic. Tried that, got X, looked at MATE and
> thought 'no virtual screens'.
>
> Its AWFUL.
>
> Tried to get DVB going..total disaster. dvb-daemon simply crashes or
> totem crashes. Got one channel omnce after an hour Got VLC working..that
> doesnt USE dvb-daemon.
>
> three years on and its worse than Debian lenny.
>
> No wonder linux has a bad name.

ROFLMAO.....

Wow, the one that criticizes me and he can not get mint installed...poor
baby.

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 23, 2012, 10:57:27 AM10/23/12
to
Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> On 10/22/2012 11:56 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> Version 13 has to be about the worts peice of crap I have ever tried to
>> isntall. NOTHING worked.
>>
>> 4 hours and simply gave up on the laptop. Too many install errors. Might
>> have been a bad DVD drive so switched to a usb pen drive. After an hour
>> still flashing away. Gave up.
>>
>> Tried this machine. Installed but no X. rebooted debian found that
>> nvidia needs some custom magic. Tried that, got X, looked at MATE and
>> thought 'no virtual screens'.
>>
>> Its AWFUL.
>>
>> Tried to get DVB going..total disaster. dvb-daemon simply crashes or
>> totem crashes. Got one channel omnce after an hour Got VLC working..that
>> doesnt USE dvb-daemon.
>>
>> three years on and its worse than Debian lenny.
>>
>> No wonder linux has a bad name.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> Description of hardware if you are interested.
>
> Linux has a bad name(?) but it ain't Windows and is much
> less expensive to acquire than Mac 10.x. You have to have
> time to invest if you are a hobbyist. In the near future getting
> Linux on newer hardware will be less simple. If you have
> Windows of course all you need is Cash to have technicians solve
> your problems.
>
> Why not try a Unix release?

Look I was really looking at it as this Debian lenny system is getting
tired and I wanted to see if it was worth going for a newer flashier
release. The short answer is NO..

It looked 'modern' but teh one thionk I use above all others - vuirtual
screens - was totally missing.

The X speed seemed faster once I got the latest Nvidia drivers..but then
I just installed the latest on the lenny and that's now got faster as well.


It was like installing windows - lots of flashy slide shows and 'let me
do that for you, sir' - but when I fired up what would be Synaptic in
lenny/gnome, 90% of the apps weren't there. Only teh ones someone
thought some noob might want.

I really wanted to see in Maya or Mate or whatever it is was any better
than gnome 2: frankly its worse,.


>
> Not all Linux distributions are suited to all hardware
> and not all hardware is able to run Linux. Proprietary chipsets
> from people who design and build the hardware can present
> great problems.

Oh come on. Bog standard INTEL chpsets and Nvidia card?
And 5 years old at that.

>
> nVidia driver installation is tough to do

No, it was a totall doddle since te Ubuntu repos had it all there, the
problem was the install didnt probe the hardware and at least get a
basic working screen - although it managed at the install stage. That's
just sloppy,.

And likewise having downloaded 'latest mint' at 885MB!!! I expected that
the first apt-get update/upgrade would at most replace only one or two
packages..blimey over 3000 packages needed upgrading!


especially
> if the wrong driver takes control. The right driver has to
> be in place with a lot of supporting files on my machine
> and the bad driver has to be blacklisted. You can usually
> find out these details by using Google to find what had
> been done to solve the problems in the past.
>
> I have had horrible problems with upgrades from
> Mandriva PWP 2010.2 to Mandriva PWP 2011. I am holding
> back from further attempts until I have dealt with the
> overheating I was seeing earlier in the year.
>
I am so glad I have debian. Its always just worked, or could be worked
around.

Anway MATE is off the window manager list. Maybe try KDE next..but I
dont really like te visuals very much.



> bliss

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 23, 2012, 10:59:13 AM10/23/12
to
Oh I got it installed, eventually, only to find its buggy as shit.

Not on the laptop. That simply would not go. Loads of error messages
trailing off the DVD drive and the file system.


Never mind. It works fine on squeeze.

Aragorn

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Oct 23, 2012, 11:52:48 AM10/23/12
to
On Tuesday 23 October 2012 16:57, The Natural Philosopher conveyed the
following to comp.os.linux.setup...

> [...] Maybe try KDE next..but I dont really like te visuals very much.

I've tried all sorts of window managers and desktops a long time ago,
and eventually I decided on KDE, and stuck with it throughout its
evolution.

At present, I am running Mageia 1 here, with KDE 4.6.5, and although a
lot has changed in KDE over the years, the one thing that has definitely
remained is its great ability to be customized and configured, both on
account of the looks and on account of the feel - by which I mean "the
way it works".

On my system here, I have installed the Bespin theme, which allows you
even greater customizing ability on account of the looks. Just about
every aspect of an application window can be tailored esthetically, and
the Bespin theme can also be used together with a Plasma applet called
XBar.

If you add the XBar applet to a secondary panel at the top of the
screen, you then get a Mac-like "global menu", albeit that this only
works on dynamically linked KDE/Qt applications, not in GNOME/GTK+ or
other widget library-based applications. In older KDE versions - i.e.
prior to KDE4 - this function was already available as a style option in
the default KDE settings, but for KDE4, due to the nature of Plasma,
this now requires the XBar applet and the Bespin theme.

Of course, customization goes way beyond that. Just about everything
can be customized. Mouse behavior - one of the first things I do is set
it to single-click instead of double-click - as well as window focus,
taskbar behavior, you name it. Window decorations galore, and almost
every single one of them can have custom window buttons and button
positions. Panels can also be added (and sized) as desired,
applications can be grouped together via the Activities - an alternative
approach to organizing open application windows across virtual desktops,
although the traditional virtual desktops remain in use as well - and
alongside of the traditional Konsole, there is also Yakuake, a drop-down
terminal emulator window which can be called up by pressing F12 (or
whatever shortcut key you define for it).

KDE is not without its issues, though. Nothing ever is. Still, I find
that it offers me the greatest ability to customize it to my
preferences, and by a huge margin compared to any other desktop
environment or window manager I've tried so far, albeit that
Enlightenment is also quite flexible, and especially E17.

But in the end, as they say, your mileage may vary. ;-)

--
= Aragorn =
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

Charlie Gibbs

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Oct 23, 2012, 1:33:21 PM10/23/12
to
In article <k66b8o$thg$1...@news.albasani.net>, t...@invalid.invalid
(The Natural Philosopher) writes:

> Maybe try KDE next..but I dont really like te visuals very much.

I ran KDE on my Slackware box for a while (Blackbox was a bit
too stripped down) - but its everything-including-the-kitchen-sink
approach was starting to bother me. It was when I discoverd that
it was kicking off all sorts of background processes that were eating
my machine alive that I got rid of it. I'm now running Xfce -
lean and mean.

My wife's laptop is running Gnome (Ubuntu 10.10), which gives her
ease of use without too many hassles. My laptop is currently running
Mint 12 with LXDE - again, pretty stripped down, but efficient.

--
/~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 23, 2012, 1:08:23 PM10/23/12
to
well lets say that at this very moment Debian 7 IS installing itself
adequately on the laptop.

The problem is, I am not sure where on the disk it is going. That's the
worst part of a debian install. You can set up partitions - there was
one there for the aborted MINT install - but I have no idea how to tell
debian to use it

We will see. Its a disposable OS on there anyway. If it gets totally
wiped no big deal.

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 23, 2012, 1:10:09 PM10/23/12
to
Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> In article <k66b8o$thg$1...@news.albasani.net>, t...@invalid.invalid
> (The Natural Philosopher) writes:
>
>> Maybe try KDE next..but I dont really like te visuals very much.
>
> I ran KDE on my Slackware box for a while (Blackbox was a bit
> too stripped down) - but its everything-including-the-kitchen-sink
> approach was starting to bother me. It was when I discoverd that
> it was kicking off all sorts of background processes that were eating
> my machine alive that I got rid of it. I'm now running Xfce -
> lean and mean.
>
> My wife's laptop is running Gnome (Ubuntu 10.10), which gives her
> ease of use without too many hassles. My laptop is currently running
> Mint 12 with LXDE - again, pretty stripped down, but efficient.
>
I'm going for gnome3 next. I will either love it or loathe it I think.

Not ideal for the laptop as a final system, but I should be able to see
what a sexy 'Mac' style desktop looks like and behaves like, even if its
dog slow.

GangGreene

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Oct 23, 2012, 3:44:56 PM10/23/12
to
On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:08:23 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

[putolin]


> The problem is, I am not sure where on the disk it is going. That's the
> worst part of a debian install. You can set up partitions - there was
> one there for the aborted MINT install - but I have no idea how to tell
> debian to use it

Geez you really must be a neophyte

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 23, 2012, 4:18:49 PM10/23/12
to
Well No. I have been installing Unix systems for 20 years and Linux for 7.


(Not that I enjoy installing OSes and messing around with them
particularly. Its a job for geeks with acne, not human beings.)

And that particular part of Debian installation is totally opaque.

Anyway it coughed and spluttered but wheezy got on OK. despite the
installation lying to me 'no other OS' found' 'I will wipe grub
configuration'

But when grub came up it had in fact installed in the right place. And
Lenny was still; there.. Hmm.


Shame it doesn't WORK of course. Lovely pretty screen with icons all
over it, but application windows are entirely blank.

It's an old bug in the Gnome shell that even testing hasn't got around
to bringing up to date.

Oh well. I'll guess I'll give up on MAYA and Gnome3 for now. .

Maybe I'll try unstable just in case by some miracle it actually works
on my exact hardware..


Frankly this stuff is all too bleeding edge and is riddled with critical
bugs. :-)

Bob Martin

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Oct 24, 2012, 3:37:34 AM10/24/12
to
in 534803 20121023 075645 The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Version 13 has to be about the worts peice of crap I have ever tried to
>isntall. NOTHING worked.
>
>4 hours and simply gave up on the laptop. Too many install errors. Might
>have been a bad DVD drive so switched to a usb pen drive. After an hour
>still flashing away. Gave up.
>
>Tried this machine. Installed but no X. rebooted debian found that
>nvidia needs some custom magic. Tried that, got X, looked at MATE and
>thought 'no virtual screens'.
>
>Its AWFUL.
>
>Tried to get DVB going..total disaster. dvb-daemon simply crashes or
>totem crashes. Got one channel omnce after an hour Got VLC working..that
>doesnt USE dvb-daemon.
>
>three years on and its worse than Debian lenny.
>
>No wonder linux has a bad name.

My experience has been exactly the opposite.
I had two desktops and two laptops with a mixture of Ubuntu 10.04, 11.04 and 11.10.
Support ends this Sunday for all but 10.04 and that ends in April so I have been
looking to update.

I hate Unity with a passion so tried CentOS (too raw) and other Debian based stuff.
Eventually tried Linux Mint 13 MATE and loved it.
Within 24 hours I installed it on the other 3 machines - all running perfectly and the
first time I've ever had all four at the same level.

(Ubuntu 12 refused to boot on my IBM T41 'cos it doesn't have PAE)

Bob Martin

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Oct 24, 2012, 3:39:11 AM10/24/12
to
in 534813 20121023 211849 The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>
>Oh well. I'll guess I'll give up on MAYA and Gnome3 for now. .
>

Mint 13 MATE is a fork of Gnome 2

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 24, 2012, 6:02:36 AM10/24/12
to
That why I tried it..but no virtual desktops, it seems. At least gnome3
has that.

The problem is that the way I work is geared around that. I like to
switch between screens with several windows that are related to a single
task. So if I am e.g. writing something - the research sections for that
are all open in one context, one click away.

Email and news is left on its own screen. So I can rapidly react if mail
comes in, and so on.

My problem is simple: Some of the applications I use are getting long in
the tooth, and later versions with less bugs would be nice. So I need to
contemplate an upgrade at some point. Lenny is simply too long in the tooth.

The problem is that going up a step pretty much means no more gnome 2. I
am not in love with gnome2, but I am used to it.


Mint looked OK, but its buggy as hell as are a lot of the new Gnome
apps. I simply couldn't get Totem on Mint to work properly with the TV
card, and that's a must for me.

That's a Gnome-dvb-daemon issue Ok VLC worked because it goes direct to
the tuner driver, and doesn't use the daemon,. but its an ugly program.

I'll have another look because it seems that MATE may have workspace
switching..

Phil Stovell

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Oct 24, 2012, 6:37:53 AM10/24/12
to
On Wed, 24 Oct 2012 11:02:36 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> I'll have another look because it seems that MATE may have workspace
> switching..

Right-click on the bottom panel, add to panel, workspace switcher.

I've been testing Mint 13 Mate in Virtualbox for several months and am
about to replace Lucid with it shortly.

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 24, 2012, 9:01:42 AM10/24/12
to
yerrs. I'm working in it now. Has a few issues, but what doesn't.

Not the least getting used to thunderbird 16..

Plus a few weird lockups. I'll get to those, though.

JEDIDIAH

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Oct 24, 2012, 3:01:34 PM10/24/12
to
On 2012-10-24, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Bob Martin wrote:
>> in 534813 20121023 211849 The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Oh well. I'll guess I'll give up on MAYA and Gnome3 for now. .
>>>
>>
>> Mint 13 MATE is a fork of Gnome 2
>
> That why I tried it..but no virtual desktops, it seems. At least gnome3
> has that.

Are you kidding? I run MATE with the same virtual desktop configuration
I used in Ubuntu 10.04 and GNOME 2.

[deletia]

It's pretty much a 1:1 replacement. That's certainly the case when it
comes to virtual desktops and the pager.

--
Apple: because you really don't want to take any more video |||
than your camera can hold. Really. / | \

Norman Peelman

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Oct 28, 2012, 4:09:54 PM10/28/12
to
On 10/23/2012 01:10 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> In article <k66b8o$thg$1...@news.albasani.net>, t...@invalid.invalid
>> (The Natural Philosopher) writes:
>>
>>> Maybe try KDE next..but I dont really like te visuals very much.
>>
>> I ran KDE on my Slackware box for a while (Blackbox was a bit
>> too stripped down) - but its everything-including-the-kitchen-sink
>> approach was starting to bother me. It was when I discoverd that
>> it was kicking off all sorts of background processes that were eating
>> my machine alive that I got rid of it. I'm now running Xfce -
>> lean and mean.
>>
>> My wife's laptop is running Gnome (Ubuntu 10.10), which gives her
>> ease of use without too many hassles. My laptop is currently running
>> Mint 12 with LXDE - again, pretty stripped down, but efficient.
>>
> I'm going for gnome3 next. I will either love it or loathe it I think.
>
> Not ideal for the laptop as a final system, but I should be able to see
> what a sexy 'Mac' style desktop looks like and behaves like, even if its
> dog slow.
>
>

What are the odds of trying MACPUP v528 (or latest v529) on that
system? Not sure about your software requirements though... take a look
if you haven't though. http://macpup.org

--
Norman
Registered Linux user #461062
AMD64X2 6400+ Ubuntu 10.04 64bit

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 28, 2012, 7:50:28 PM10/28/12
to
Well I got mint running now, but it seems that totem is totally broken
for DVB as is Kaffeine.. banshee proved impenetrable so its back to VLC :-(

Charlie Gibbs

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Oct 29, 2012, 2:21:37 PM10/29/12
to
In article <k6kgc4$jim$1...@news.albasani.net>, t...@invalid.invalid
(The Natural Philosopher) writes:

> Well I got mint running now, but it seems that totem is totally
> broken for DVB as is Kaffeine.. banshee proved impenetrable so
> its back to VLC :-(

I've always considered Totem totally broken, as in 2 frames per second.

The Natural Philosopher

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Oct 29, 2012, 5:55:11 PM10/29/12
to
On 29/10/12 18:21, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> In article <k6kgc4$jim$1...@news.albasani.net>, t...@invalid.invalid
> (The Natural Philosopher) writes:
>
>> Well I got mint running now, but it seems that totem is totally
>> broken for DVB as is Kaffeine.. banshee proved impenetrable so
>> its back to VLC :-(
>
> I've always considered Totem totally broken, as in 2 frames per second.
>
Curiously that is the one problem I never had.

Flash now...
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