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Migrating newby looking for help - Forums Linux

Migrating newby looking for help - Forums Linux

Migrating newby looking for help

Posted: 06 Jul 2009 07:22 PM PDT

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:41:16 -0400, RFR <con> wrote:
 

Btw, looks like your clock is set wrong.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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USB installation - MD5s for RHEL 5.3 Fail

Posted: 04 Jul 2009 08:06 PM PDT

On Wednesday 08 July 2009 03:55, someone identifying as *Sidney Lambe*
wrote in /comp.os.linux.setup:/
 

First of all I would like to say that I have not been following the
entire debate into detail because of health issues, and although the
word "troll" has come up a few times in this part of the thread, I have
now chosen to - even if only for a short while - put in my two cents
worth, with respect to both parties, as I see valid points in both of
them.

Sidney, I can feel your frustration over the "Windowsization" of
GNU/Linux, and to a large degree, I even share it. However, I think
you are being so frustrated about it that you are generalizing and
polarizing your views to extents beyond reality. Allow me to
explain...

There is indeed a tendency to make GNU/Linux more Windows-like, but I do
not believe that this tendency is as fierce as you yourself are
describing it, and what bothers me the most in this is that this
tendency has arisen from the demands of GNU/Linux newbies who of course
all come from the Windows world.

I myself have once been a newbie too, albeit that I was never that
Windows-conditioned as I already knew of other operating systems long
before I had a computer of my own. I only used MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows
3.x for about five or six months on my own first computer as it came
with those pre-installed and I was awaiting the commercial and stable
release of OS/2 2.x, which I have subsequently used for over five
years. On my next machine, I have used Windows NT 4.0 Workstation for
two years, but back then I was not all that seriously into computers
yet as I have become since I installed GNU/Linux for the first time,
late 1999. I have never used anything other than GNU/Linux since, and
wouldn't want to if my life depended on it. (In fact, I think I'd
rather have my life depend on GNU/Linux than on any other operating
system. ;-))

Now, I was a newbie too back then, albeit with some minor UNIX knowledge
and free from the Windows-isms like "folders" and /sea-drives./ I have
always found the UNIX methodology far more logical and transparent.
But as a newbie, KDE - back then still at version 1.1.1 - was a very
welcome environment as it facilitated getting acquainted with all
aspects of the operating system. I did however check out many of
the /man/ and /info/ pages from the start, read the /HowTos/ and of
course, prior to even installing the operating system, the printed
manual - it was a shrinkwrapped retail version of Linux Mandrake 6.0
Powerpack, which was back then basically a copy of RedHat with KDE
added, because RedHat refused to supply KDE due to the fact that KDE
1.x was built using non-freely licensed Qt libraries. Another
difference was that Mandrake 6.0 came with kernel 2.2.9, whereas RedHat
still carried 2.2.5.

I am a big fan of KDE, and more specifically KDE 3.x. I find KDE 4.x to
be promising, yet at the same time daunting because it's obviously
still very experimental and so far I haven't heard of any distro that
has managed to iron out the problems KDE 4.x poses. KDE 3.5.10 on the
other hand, although no longer maintained by the KDE developers
themselves, is stable and fully functional.

I also don't make it look like Windows - and I hate that distro vendors
do that - because I don't find the Windows GUI all that intuitive. On
my system, it looks a bit like the GUI of a MacIntosh, but not with the
intent of duplicating it. I have not set it up to look like anything
that exists, but rather like something that I can use and that feels
good for myself, not for everyone else. But even in its default look &
feel, I don't consider KDE 3.x to be a Windows clone, especially not if
you consider LXDE (which *does* look like Windows XP) or the Vista-look
of KDE 4.x - if I ever do switch to using KDE 4.x, then that will be
the first thing I change - or even the perversions of whatever UNIX
desktop environment is used by Linspire and the likes and have been
completely converted to the look & feel of Windows, desktop wallpaper
included.

So I do use KDE, and I like it. But don't let that statement fool you,
because I keep a terminal window open at all time and launch additional
terminal emulators when needed, and I do most of the stuff from the
commandline. It's just that when handling graphical objects a lot, it
is easier if you get to see a preview, and graphical manipulation of
photos et al does require running X11 anyway, and these days, diskspace
and RAM are cheap, so there's no reason for me to run a CLI-only system
- not for a workstation anyway. But I copy, move, delete, create and
otherwise manipulate files from the commandline. My filemanager only
serves so as to get a clear overview of the thumbnails. Being autistic
however, I really do like the aesthetics of (my customized version of)
KDE 3.x.

However, there is another angle to the Windows-ism story, in which you
are partly right, i.e. commercial distributions need an income, and
that income comes from selling a distribution of GNU/Linux in a
computer market segment that is for most part occupied by Windows. And
Microsoft has gone to great lengths at hiding what a computer really is
and what it does from its users, presenting them with their own
"Microsoft logic", in which thinking for yourself is strongly
discouraged. As such, the new batch of IT professionals gets trained
on using Microsoft stuff only, and as such, a new generation of idiots
is produced.

So now there are the computer illiterates who only know Windows - and
have never even heard of anything other than Windows because of
Microsoft's monopolizing tactics of pushing a license of Windows with
every new consumergrade computer from a big name brand - and you've got
the Windiots who call themselves IT specialists but only know how to
set up Microsoft software for use by the illiterates. Treat your
customers like idiots and idiots are the customers you'll attract - the
old adage still stands. And that is why distromakers tend to cater to
their Windiot clients.
 

On this I do not agree. I don't think that the technocrats would want
users to be dependent of them at all. In fact, it is my experience -
at least on Usenet, and I tend to follow this tendency myself when
giving advice - that the more technically experienced among us are
trying to teach the newbie how to think for themselves and "RTFM",
instead of thinking that GNU/Linux must behave like Windows.

By the same token, I always advice everyone to ditch the entire HAL
stuff with the automounting features and stick to a traditional and
static */etc/fstab* with manual mounting. Not that I'm conservative,
but I don't like things ing around with system data that should be
kept static and that is known to work, while the automounting stuff
often doesn't.
 

On *that* I agree.
 

The use of pseudonyms is not such a bad idea, provided that one stays
consistent and uses the same pseudonym continuously, or at the very
least, when adopting another one, make an announcement to that regard.

Shifting pseudonyms is rather a habit of trolls or spammers. I use a
pseudonym but I have used this one for many years already. I used to
have another one long before this one, but those who know me know that
this other "person" was me, and why I have chosen a different name -
among other things, I was being stalked by people who knew my pseudonym
and what newsgroup groups I was posting in.
 

I disagree on that. KDE was an effort to build a contemporary graphical
desktop environment for all kinds of UNIX systems - not just GNU/Linux
- and its name is a parody on CDE, the Common Desktop Environment that
shipped with most commercial UNIX implementations. KDE contains
elements of CDE, NeXtSTeP, pre-OS-X MacIntoshes, OS/2 and Windows. The
first iterations of KDE even looked far more like Motif and CDE than
like Windows.

Most (but not all) of the original KDE developers did work at Trolltech,
which produces the Qt widgetset, and hence they also used Qt to build
KDE upon. Originally Qt was not released under a free license, and
this is why the FSF and certain "politically correct wannabe"
distributions like RedHat refused to support KDE, despite KDE itself
being released under a free license. Meanwhile Trolltech has - with
the advice from RMS himself - licensed Qt under a GPL-compatible
license, and so that problem has been eliminated.

I will however agree with you that KDE 4.x does look a lot like Vista in
its default trim with the black panel, and that this is probably done
so as to make life easier for the Windows-to-GNU/Linux crossover
newbie. And I will also agree with you that this was absolutely
unnecessary. Yet that does not mean that I will agree that UNIX must
be a CLI-only operating system. But then again, it should also not be
seen as a CLI-only operating system of course, as the operating system
itself is CLI-only and everything else runs on top of that.

For the record, my system is normally up 24/7, but it boots to runlevel
3 anyway, not to a GUI login screen. I consider X11/KDE an extension
to the system, not an essential component to it. By the same token, I
maintain our not-for-profit organization's servers via /ssh/ - my
colleague is a Windows user and prefers /webmin/ - so I do not need any
GUI tools. It's just that having those tools available (for local
administration) might come in handy sometimes. ;-)
 

That is unfortunately a trend we get to see with lots of commercial
distributions. But there still are non-commercial distributions,
albeit only a small amount. Gentoo for instance, or Debian.
 

I don't understand why you are dissing on KDE so much. As far as my own
experience goes, I find KDE to be far more customizable than Gnome, and
far better integrated with its applications than any of the smaller,
standalone desktop environments or window managers.
 

This is mainly the influence of the distromakers themselves, because
they needlessly complicate things for the sake of branding them with
their own logos. For instance, Mandriva - formerly known as
MandrakeSoft - really goes out of its way in providing customized
versions of - among many others - all kinds of KDE-related things
(including /kdm/) and the fact that their customizations are left
largely undoented seems more like a deliberate decision than a
manifestation of Occam's Razor.
 

There really is a distinct difference between realizing that the
Windows-insanity is trying to take over the GNU/Linux world out of
their inability to understand anything other than the pre-chewed
Microsoft junk, and radically opposing and hating anything GUI-related.
I can make that distinction, but I'm afraid you yourself cannot.

The tens of thousands of CLI-only users you are referring to are mainly
server admins, and for server administration you do indeed not need a
GUI, nor is it desirable to even install anything GUI-related on a
server. However, persisting at running a CLI-only system also causes
you to bypass *almost* everything multimedia-related, such as the
manipulation of graphics via The Gimp - which is one of my favorite
applications and which, despite the condescending remarks from
Photoshop addicts, is quite professional software.

I repeat...: I do our server maintenance via /ssh./ I do most of the
stuff on my own workstation computer using terminal emulators. But I
do use KDE and I do use KDE-specific applications. And I also do use a
browser - whichever works - to surf to websites that contain graphical
content.

There's nothing wrong with using a GUI, and one should not have to hate
GUIs or refuse to use them just because there is such a thing as
Microsoft Windows. I hate Windows too. Not because I've had any
problems with it - because I haven't used it for long enough nor
intensely enough to actually have had any significant problems with it
- but because of what it is, i.e. a perversion of what a computer is
and what it's supposed to do, and what it's supposed to allow the user
to do with it (as opposed to what Microsoft allows the user to do with
it). And I hate Microsoft as a company because of all their dirty
tactics and their attempts at disrupting the GNU/Linux community
through publicized FUD and Usenet shills/trolls, and because they are
clearly attempting to further dumb down the enduser so as to beat more
money out of their pockets or simply lead them into dependency.
 

And on today's hard disks with hundreds of GB of diskspace, in today's
computers with several GB of RAM, this matters how exactly?
 

I enjoy learning new stuff about GNU/Linux (or UNIX in general) as well,
but I am not spending my entire days trying to learn something new
about it unless it is something of particular interest to me - e.g.
virtualization with Xen (and no, not with Windows as guests). I have
many fields of interest that I do research about, but I am not going to
go out of my way to become a real guru and/or run a system without a
GUI.

I will however agree that it is better to teach the newbie that
GNU/Linux (or any UNIX for that matter) is an entirely different
operating system from Windows and that they should abandon all they
know about Windows or all they were used to on Windows before
endeavoring into GNU/Linux.

It *is* a different operating system, but I do not buy into the "steep
learning curve" excuse. Someone who's never seen a computer in his
life and who gets to be confronted with Windows for the first time will
have an equally steep learning curve to overcome. The steepness of the
GNU/Linux learning curve is only an imaginary construct used as an
excuse by Windows addicts to adhere to their dumbed-down Windows-isms
and insist that GNU/Linux become "more userfriendly".

GNU/Linux is not user-unfriendly at all; it simply expects the user to
be a little more computerfriendly instead. It is far more logical and
transparent than any other non-UNIX operating system I've seen so far.
Hell, it even makes far more sense than DOS, and that was a
commandline-only system as well.
 

You only get to get technical support if you're using a commercial
distribution, even if the operating system is provided free of charge
by its vendors - e.g. the various Ubuntu-spinoffs. I used to buy
commercial distributions because I wanted to do something back to the
community, but I think I've already helped far more users here on
Usenet than that my money to the distromakers has helped the community.

At present I am still running an old Mandrake 10.0 on this machine -
purchased directly from MandrakeSoft (now Mandriva) itself through
their online store, albeit that this did not quite go as smoothly as
they were pretending - but for my other machine I am looking at Gentoo,
and since this machine here is becoming unstable hardwarewise and will
require a replacement, I will probably be installing Slackware on that
one. I don't know yet. I'll see.

One of the reasons why I won't get involved with RedHat/CentOS/Fedora is
that they refuse to let you install the system on anything other
than /ext3/ filesystems - and by now, probably /ext4/ as well - while I
have always preferred /XFS/ for large systems and /reiserfs/ on smaller
ones. Reiser's conviction for the murder of his estranged wife a while
ago has of course lessened my sympathy for his filesystem, but
technically /reiserfs/ has not given me any problems yet. /XFS/ does
have a far more elaborate toolset, however.
 

This is definitely recommended reading, and so are many of the other
links you've provided, but I don't see the logic in listing all of
those links in every post you make.

However, if I may make a suggestion, take that list of links and post it
on a website somewhere, and then include a link to that website in your
Usenet signature. Saves on bandwidth and diminishes the spam content
score of your posts. ;-)

<snip>

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

I am facing cat /proc/interrupts problems....in linux RHEL-4 ( 2.6Kernel )

Posted: 03 Jul 2009 11:49 PM PDT

mahi wrote: 

My guess is that you're seeing spurious interrupts? That is, the kernel
is disabling the IRQ because essentially the kernel is seeing interrupts
for apparently no reason (?). If so, 9 out of 10 times, this points to a
hardware problem. Problem is likely a card on the PCI/PCIe bus... could
be a problem with the motherboard. Occasionally it's due to a kernel
bug, but last time I tracked one of these down, sure enough, it was traced
to a bad peripheral card (fibre HBA in my case).

RHEL4 is sort of old.... but I wouldn't think there would be any major
issue with that kernel. Are you running the latest version of 4?