Linux Mint

[Lynchmeister]

normallt the cdrom gets recognized, but i suppose that's an old bios.
i'd order them 2,1,0 which is guaranteed to work if the cdrom is one of them.
otherwise you may want to open the case and look at the cables/jumper - some boards didn't like booting off slave drives.

I will try this. Thanks.

[Lynchmeister]

Assemble the necessary hardware.

[Lynchmeister]

Assemble the necessary software.

[rabidpotatochip]

Assemble the necessary hardware.

Looks good. The only item you're missing is the spatula.

:lol: It's hard to look at that picture and keep a straight face...

[Lynchmeister]

Remove battery and wireless card. Ground yourself.

[rabidpotatochip]

I just noticed that you had one of your own posts up on the laptop in that first picture too... talk about shameless self-promotion.

This post brought to you by Rabidpotatochip™. If it's not frothing, it's not rabid.

[Confuzius]

Looks like a recipe for win!

[Lynchmeister]

Remove memory cover.

[Lynchmeister]

I just noticed that you had one of your own posts up on the laptop in that first picture too... talk about shameless self-promotion.

This post brought to you by Rabidpotatochip™. If it's not frothing, it's not rabid.

Self-promotion? *Ahem* I'll pretend I didn't see that...and what the hell is that?!? :lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Unclip memory and remove.

[Lynchmeister]

Install new RAM carefully. Pause to kill off Murphy's and open Goose Island. (Kidding of course, it's only noon!!! I'll save the real boozing for after lunch. :wink: :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

And we're done! Replace cover, battery, and WiFi card, boot up, and you're in bidniss! You may have noticed that there were two RAM cards in there...I was only expecting one, but now I have 632MB according to my system profile, so...there ya go. :biggrin:

[rabidpotatochip]

Self-promotion? *Ahem* I'll pretend I didn't see that...and what the hell is that?!? :lol::lol::lol::lol:

Usually I go with my "The Chip that Bites Back", but it just didn't feel like it'd work for that post. :rolleyes:

[Lynchmeister]

Usually I go with my "The Chip that Bites Back", but it just didn't feel like it'd work for that post. :rolleyes:

Now you got me thinking that I should change my name to Hasselhoff...I'd love to be able to use the line:

Don't hassle the Hoff!

I suppose we all have to play the hand we're dealt, though...

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Mr. Gillette]

German men in speedos DIG David Hasselhoff!

[rabidpotatochip]

Now you got me thinking that I should change my name to Hasselhoff...I'd love to be able to use the line:

Don't hassle the Hoff!

I suppose we all have to play the hand we're dealt, though...

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Well... I guess you could go with "Don't Lynch Cory"... :tongue:

[RichGem]

Well, the only smart comment I can add at this point is....

thank you for NOT including a pic of your install "uniform" and your chosen method of self-gounding.

This post brought to you by RichGem: A (linux-powered) multi-national corporation with offices located where you least expect them.

[rabidpotatochip]

Well, the only smart comment I can add at this point is....

thank you for NOT including a pic of your install "uniform" and your chosen method of self-gounding.

This post brought to you by RichGem: A (linux-powered) multi-national corporation with offices located where you least expect them.


Heeey... you gave me an idea. I'm going to buy advertising space in other people's signatures. :biggrin:

[RichGem]

Heeey... you gave me an idea. I'm going to buy advertising space in other people's signatures. :biggrin:

I can be bought for shaving soap and possibly other shaving supplies.

[Lynchmeister]

Well... I guess you could go with "Don't Lynch Cory"... :tongue:

:eek:


Heeey... you gave me an idea. I'm going to buy advertising space in other people's signatures. :biggrin:

Finder's Fee!

Oh, and Richard? You're welcome.

:biggrin:

[rabidpotatochip]

I can be bought for shaving soap and possibly other shaving supplies.

Well, I have a lovely injector I'm planning to sell... but that doesn't count as buying you if you have to pay for it, does it? :tongue:


:eek:

I admit it was a bit of a stretch, but you didn't give me much to work with. :wink:

[RichGem]

That is a sweet looking injector there, Chip (saw the pic in the other thread). Alas, I'm not one for injectors.

[rabidpotatochip]

That is a sweet looking injector there, Chip (saw the pic in the other thread). Alas, I'm not one for injectors.

Can you find me someone who is? If I don't sell it soon, I'm worried people will think I have a collection. :tongue:

[Mr. Gillette]

YDNTUGZGTARM? = Why don't you guys get a room?

[rabidpotatochip]

YDNTUGZGTARM? = Why don't you guys get a room?

Because then you'd be banging on the door complaining we locked you out. :tongue:

[RichGem]

Because then you'd be banging on the door complaining we locked you out. :tongue:

:lol:

true dat.

[Lynchmeister]

:lol:

true dat.

:yesnod:

[Lynchmeister]

I don't know about the other distros, but when you open a terminal window in Mint, you get some clever opening dialogue, a famous quote, etc.

I'm going to work out of my "Teach Yourself C" book now and I just opened up a terminal. Here's a screen shot. While I hold no stock in such things, it was kinda depressing, given the weekend I've had. :frown:

Edit: Just realized it's near impossible to read. It says, "You will be divorced within a year." WTF?

[rabidpotatochip]

I don't know about the other distros, but when you open a terminal window in Mint, you get some clever opening dialogue, a famous quote, etc.

I'm going to work out of my "Teach Yourself C" book now and I just opened up a terminal. Here's a screen shot. While I hold no stock in such things, it was kinda depressing, given the weekend I've had. :frown:

Edit: Just realized it's near impossible to read. It says, "You will be divorced within a year." WTF?

:lol: It's called fortune. It displays a random quote from the fortune file. Some of them are pretty good, some are... mixed at best.

Edit: Here's a good one: "You will pay for your sins.If you already have please disregard this message."

Edit 2: type /usr/bin/fortune into the terminal for more.

[Lynchmeister]

:lol: It's called fortune. It displays a random quote from the fortune file. Some of them are pretty good, some are... mixed at best.

Edit: Here's a good one: "You will pay for your sins.If you already have please disregard this message."

Edit 2: type /usr/bin/fortune into the terminal for more.

:biggrin:

I remember during installation I was given the option to disable them. I thought, "Oh. That's fun. Let's leave 'em." Oh well, guess you can't win them all. :001_rolle


"You will pay for your sins.If you already have please disregard this message."

:lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Oh, and I'm digging the new RAM. Even my wife commented after 5 minutes of use during her lunch break that it was much quicker and more responsive. :thumbsup:

[Confuzius]

By the way, Congrats on your successful ram install Cory!
You can also just set a static message about how awesome you are or something like that too.
IIRC "gedit .bashrc" and you can play around with it, although I don't know how well it will play with Fortune.

[RichGem]

Cory,

Glad the RAM upgrade went smoothly. 'Tho I must admit, I was hoping to up my post count a big more over it. :biggrin:

-- Rich

[rabidpotatochip]

Oh, and I'm digging the new RAM. Even my wife commented after 5 minutes of use during her lunch break that it was much quicker and more responsive. :thumbsup:

My wife says the same thing about me after I've had my morning shower. :biggrin:

I'll give you an interesting tip, by the way... sometimes alcohol and upgrading do mix. I've found rubbing alcohol is the best thing to clean old thermal grease off a processor.

[Lynchmeister]

Cory,

Glad the RAM upgrade went smoothly. 'Tho I must admit, I was hoping to up my post count a big more over it. :biggrin:

-- Rich

Have no fear, Richard, I'm experiencing some graphic issues (even in safe mode) with the desktop...I've sold the old lady on Linux! *high five*

I'm pretty sure I've figured out the problem (because you guys have taught me so well :thumbsup:), but there's always hope that it will go oh so terribly wrong. :lol:


By the way, Congrats on your successful ram install Cory!
You can also just set a static message about how awesome you are or something like that too.
IIRC "gedit .bashrc" and you can play around with it, although I don't know how well it will play with Fortune.

Thanks! Yeah, I think had my car not been broken into yesterday, the message of impending marital doom would have gone over a bit better, so for now I'll let it be.


My wife says the same thing about me after I've had my morning shower. :biggrin:

I'll give you an interesting tip, by the way... sometimes alcohol and upgrading do mix. I've found rubbing alcohol is the best thing to clean old thermal grease off a processor.

Good tip! Now...if I just knew what thermal grease and processors were (let alone looked like), I'd be on it. :biggrin:

[Confuzius]

What type of graphics does the laptop have?
I just found out today that Envy is shipped with mint and that excited me abit.

[rabidpotatochip]

Have no fear, Richard, I'm experiencing some graphic issues (even in safe mode) with the desktop...I've sold the old lady on Linux! *high five*

I'm pretty sure I've figured out the problem (because you guys have taught me so well :thumbsup:), but there's always hope that it will go oh so terribly wrong. :lol:

Thanks! Yeah, I think had my car not been broken into yesterday, the message of impending marital doom would have gone over a bit better, so for now I'll let it be.

Good tip! Now...if I just knew what thermal grease and processors were (let alone looked like), I'd be on it. :biggrin:

If you've convinced your wife to go Linux I don't think you have to worry about what the fortune cookie told you, even if it's delicious.

As for the other things... processor = CPU = brains of the operation, after you of course. Thermal grease, aka thermal paste aka thermal compound is the grey goo that sits between the CPU and its heat sink to help the transfer of heat between the two of them. Any time you apply a new heat sink you have to apply a new batch otherwise you may not get full contact and release the magic blue smoke instead.

In case you're wondering, the magic blue smoke is what powers all electronics and it's very rare that they work once it's escaped.

[RichGem]

"And now you know." (TM)

Congrats on converting the wife. Don't ever let her hear you call her the "old" lady or else that fortune cookie, pizza eating, carless, hand-wiping on cat fortune may come true. :yikes:

[gugi]

Oh, and I'm digging the new RAM. Even my wife commented after 5 minutes of use during her lunch break that it was much quicker and more responsive. :thumbsup:
Man, that was at least 10 posts after the actual upgrade.... You must've really been bummed out by that prophesy. But fear not, after you get Mrs. Lynch's computer to be Linux, she'll be so dependent that when she leaves you she'll go to another dork. At least she's doomed to remain in geekland and you can always penetrate her computer. Life ain't so bad after all....

Anyways, 632MB ain't that much RUM, but you can always plug another 512. BTW you could save quite a bit of money by not buying your RUM from Dell.
Let us know when you decide to upgrade your harddrive. You probably want this (http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2681333&jumpid=ex_r2910_performics/k4720/DDI%20Link) one.

[rabidpotatochip]

Man, that was at least 10 posts after the actual upgrade.... You must've really been bummed out by that prophesy. But fear not, after you get Mrs. Lynch's computer to be Linux, she'll be so dependent that when she leaves you she'll go to another dork. At least she's doomed to remain in geekland and you can always penetrate her computer. Life ain't so bad after all....

Anyways, 632MB ain't that much RUM, but you can always plug another 512. BTW you could save quite a bit of money by not buying your RUM from Dell.
Let us know when you decide to upgrade your harddrive. You probably want this (http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2681333&jumpid=ex_r2910_performics/k4720/DDI%20Link) one.

MB = Mini-bottles? Even then... I'd say that's plenty of rum! :tongue:

If that wasn't amusing enough, I'll try this one: 632MB ought to be enough for anyone!

[Confuzius]

MB = Mini-bottles? Even then... I'd say that's plenty of rum! :tongue:

If that wasn't amusing enough, I'll try this one: 632MB ought to be enough for anyone!
Enough?!!?
And you call yourself Canadian, Hrumph!

[rabidpotatochip]

Enough?!!?
And you call yourself Canadian, Hrumph!

I was going to make a comment about being able to drink you under the table, but I see you're Canadian too... :tongue:

[Lynchmeister]

"And now you know." (TM)

Congrats on converting the wife. Don't ever let her hear you call her the "old" lady or else that fortune cookie, pizza eating, carless, hand-wiping on cat fortune may come true. :yikes:


Man, that was at least 10 posts after the actual upgrade.... You must've really been bummed out by that prophesy. But fear not, after you get Mrs. Lynch's computer to be Linux, she'll be so dependent that when she leaves you she'll go to another dork. At least she's doomed to remain in geekland and you can always penetrate her computer. Life ain't so bad after all....

Anyways, 632MB ain't that much RUM, but you can always plug another 512. BTW you could save quite a bit of money by not buying your RUM from Dell.
Let us know when you decide to upgrade your harddrive. You probably want this (http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2681333&jumpid=ex_r2910_performics/k4720/DDI%20Link) one.


Somehow I think you and Richard managed to "one-up" it. :tongue_sm

Oh, and could you repost that link? It didn't want to load up for me.

[Lynchmeister]

Just found Firestarter and got a firewall up and running. Anyone know what the point of locking it is? I locked it and then the internet went bye, bye. Unlock and all was well again...

[gugi]

here's the link again http://www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2681333
(well the relevant portion of it)

here's what i found on the state of the firewall
http://www.fs-security.com/docs/status-page.php
why would you like it locked - I could imagine it allows you to play some nice tricks to Mrs. Lynch for example

[RichGem]

Just found Firestarter and got a firewall up and running. Anyone know what the point of locking it is? I locked it and then the internet went bye, bye. Unlock and all was well again...

To deny total access to the internet... such as when Jr. Lynch (btw, the only acceptable names will be Tux, Linus, Chip, or Richard) comes along or in case you should find yourself actively under internet attack... just lock eveyone out.

[gugi]

(btw, the only acceptable names will be Tux, Linus, Chip, or Richard)
yeah, good thing you didn't suggest gugi, as that'd have qualified as uttering God's name and you may have gotten immediately struck by a lightning....

[RichGem]

yeah, good thing you didn't suggest gugi, as that'd have qualified as uttering God's name and you may have gotten immediately struck by a lightning....


Indeed. :wink:

[Kairtane]

Man, I get busy on a project at work and missed the whole thing! Congratulations Cory on your first attempt at hardware surgery! :thumbup: The only thing I've found to be more dangerous is flashing ROMs.

[OldSaw]

Happy 800!!! Woo Hoo! I might even learn something about Linux and convert.

[RichGem]

Man, I get busy on a project at work and missed the whole thing! Congratulations Cory on your first attempt at hardware surgery! :thumbup: The only thing I've found to be more dangerous is flashing ROMs.


I thought that was illegal in most states. :eek:

[Kairtane]

Man, I get busy on a project at work and missed the whole thing! Congratulations Cory on your first attempt at hardware surgery! The only thing I've found to be more dangerous is flashing ROMs.
I thought that was illegal in most states. :eek:

No, no, no, that's flashing PROMs. :biggrin:

[Lynchmeister]

I thought that was illegal in most states. :eek:


No, no, no, that's flashing PROMs. :biggrin:

Both are legal (and a hell of a lot of fun) in Wisconsin. :biggrin:

[RichGem]

Both are legal (and a hell of a lot of fun) in Wisconsin. :biggrin:

Yes, but only while wearing a fake wedge of cheese on one's head. Otherwise, all bets are off.

[Lynchmeister]

Yes, but only while wearing a fake wedge of cheese on one's head. Otherwise, all bets are off.

Well, yeah...that's a given though. We never take them off. :wink:

[RichGem]

Well, yeah...that's a given though. We never take them off. :wink:

And yet, you were worried about static discharge. :tongue:

[Lynchmeister]

And yet, you were worried about static discharge. :tongue:

Well...ah...how can I put this...?

You see, I have this friend, well, had this friend, and uh...cheese is a much better conductor than one might think. :w00t:

We miss ya, Billy!

[RichGem]

Ya realize, cheese wedge + polyester leisure suit (do NOT post pictures) + ya playaz shorts (double do NOT post pictures).... you're just a walking fire bomb. yeesh. it's a wonder your closet doesn't just spontaneously combust (sp).

[OldSaw]

Yes, but only while wearing a fake wedge of cheese on one's head. Otherwise, all bets are off.

And yet another reason why I am moving to Michigan.

[biomesh]

It's always great to wake up and see another (few) dozen posts on this thread.

[Lynchmeister]

Ya realize, cheese wedge + polyester leisure suit (do NOT post pictures) + ya playaz shorts (double do NOT post pictures).... you're just a walking fire bomb. yeesh. it's a wonder your closet doesn't just spontaneously combust (sp).

It's really no trouble at all. :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

It's always great to wake up and see another (few) dozen posts on this thread.

..

[Confuzius]

I'm starting to plan my reformat for when 8.04 goes final.
My list of to-do's is growing, I'm welcome to suggestions.

Full reformat with fresh install of Ubuntu 8.04 with /home on it's own partition, leaving a blank parition to install a KDE 4.1 distro come july.

Grub with GFXboot for a pretty distro chooser.

EnvyNG to get my Nvidia working propperly with dual monitors, and adding meta-modes so I can game full screen with no trouble.

compiz-fusion with working fusion-icon to control it from the taskbar.

Finally getting my Logitech MX510 mouse working with all the buttons. Including back and forward in Firefox and Nautilus.

I might consider evolution instead of thunderbird for better gnome integration.


Also anyone have a reccomendation for a Gnome burning program that's as good as K3B? I'm trying to stick to GTK as much as possible, but K3B is just too good.

[Lynchmeister]

I'm starting to plan my reformat for when 8.04 goes final.
My list of to-do's is growing, I'm welcome to suggestions.

Full reformat with fresh install of Ubuntu 8.04 with /home on it's own partition, leaving a blank parition to install a KDE 4.1 distro come july.

Grub with GFXboot for a pretty distro chooser.

EnvyNG to get my Nvidia working propperly with dual monitors, and adding meta-modes so I can game full screen with no trouble.

compiz-fusion with working fusion-icon to control it from the taskbar.

Finally getting my Logitech MX510 mouse working with all the buttons. Including back and forward in Firefox and Nautilus.

I might consider evolution instead of thunderbird for better gnome integration.


Also anyone have a reccomendation for a Gnome burning program that's as good as K3B? I'm trying to stick to GTK as much as possible, but K3B is just too good.

Jordan,

You bring up a great point and one I've given a little bit of passive thought myself. What exactly are one's options when a new version is released? Do you:

1)Keep what you're running and don't fix what isn't broken?

2)Do a fresh install and start from scratch? or

3)Somehow migrate your files/settings/etc over to the new version and do a fresh install to avoid some of the potential problems of simply updating old versions via Synaptic?

Mint is still in its infancy, so I'm anticipating several updated versions to be coming down the pike.

Thanks!

P.s. I hope I don't detract from Jordan's questions above. :smile:

[Confuzius]

Generally you can just upgrade through synaptic or whatever, although I'm ditching windows on this go around, so I figured that I'd start from scratch.

Normally update manager will tell you, "There is a Distro Upgrade available, would you like to upgrade"

The only time you'll run into problems is if you have any custom repos in your sources file, so just open your software sources, take out anything non-official, then go ahead with the upgrade. I went from Ubuntu 7.04 to 7.10 like that with no problems, except needing to find a few new repositories.

But I'm taking the plunge and ditching windows this time, seeing as how I haven't booted it up in ages anyways, this will force me to get guitar hero working in wine :-P

You can probably expect a Mint Distro update in a month or 2, Ubuntu 8.04 hits April 24th I believe, and once mint finished mintifying ubuntu you should get a distro upgrade shortly after.

[rabidpotatochip]

I keep seeing Gnome and KDE... what do you people have against XFCE?! :mad: *ahem* Sorry, had to get that out of my system...

Anyway, I thought 8.04 was scheduled for April 8, or 8 April (8/04) for the Europeans and some of the Canadians. If you use LIRC with a serial IR blaster, don't upgrade to 8.04 since the new kernel breaks the timing. It took me a week to realize this... I thought I'd done something horrible.

Further, I'm upset they didn't call it Hungry Hippo.

[Confuzius]

8 04 would be April 2008 ;-)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyReleaseSchedule

I used lirc with the MCE Remote v2, but never set up the IR blaster, full MythTV setup will come when either my girlfriend or I get a new computer and one of the current ones will move to the TV room.

Indeed , Hungry Hippo would have been pure awesome, but I don't know how well the trademarked name would have panned out.

I will be playing with XFCE closer to the spring when I set up my parents backyard media/jukebox computer. It's got vanilla Ubuntu on it now, but gnome is abit sluggish on the PIII 733 (Might even be P2 500ish) Once the shed is tidy I'll be commiting myself to the XFCE media box project. Works out pretty well, their entire backyard is rigged for sound, mp3's hosted on the main computer and the PIII in the shed connected to an old stereo with a circa 1988 drunk-proof keyboard attached to it.

[gugi]

Also anyone have a reccomendation for a Gnome burning program that's as good as K3B? I'm trying to stick to GTK as much as possible, but K3B is just too good.
The answer is 'Yes' - cdrecord from the gnome-terminal, you're very welcome :lol:


I keep seeing Gnome and KDE... what do you people have against XFCE?! :mad: *ahem* Sorry, had to get that out of my system...

Nothing against it. It just isn't the default. It's like asking a windows person what do they have against Linux :) My parents' linux has developed some issues (it's probably just / needing a good fsck) and they've been booting Windows - my dad's words: 'The other thing was much better, can we have it again?'. Needless to say when they got the computer they were worried about it not having windows on it (so my brother in law installed xp for them as a dual-boot option that rarely got used).

[Lynchmeister]

Still plugging away in my "Teach yourself C" book and while the going is slow, I'm steadily learning and picking it up. With that being said, I've come across a question. (Don't laugh) One of the end of chapter 1 (again, don't laugh) assignments is to create a program that converts ounces to cups (for the non-Americans, it's 8oz to a cup). Ok, so I've written the code and the program works, but it's asking me to input the value for ounces twice. Any thoughts? Here's the code and output.



#include <stdio.h>

int o_to_c();

int oz;

int main()
{
int oz;
oz = o_to_c();

o_to_c();
printf("Equals %d cups.\n", oz);

return 0;
}

int o_to_c()
{
int oz;

printf("Enter number of ounces: ");
scanf("%d", &oz);
return oz/8;
}


and the output...


cory@cory-laptop:~$ ./cup
Enter number of ounces: 80
Enter number of ounces: 80
Equals 10 cups.
cory@cory-laptop:~$

[RichGem]

HAI
DONT NO SEE
BT SOMTING BROK
KTHXBYE

(sometimes I just slay myself. :lol:)

[grayraven]

Here is the problem:

You are calling o_to_c twice in main.

int oz;
oz = o_to_c();

o_to_c();
printf("Equals &#37;d cups.\n", oz);

Removing the second call fixed it. Good luck with the C it just takes time.

[Lynchmeister]

Here is the problem:

You are calling o_to_c twice in main.

int oz;
oz = o_to_c();

o_to_c();
printf("Equals &#37;d cups.\n", oz);

Removing the second call fixed it. Good luck with the C it just takes time.

Awesome, thanks! So, to clarify, is the following logic correct?

When I state oz = o_to_c(); it is assigning the returned value from the the function to the integer named oz and also calling the function simultaneously, which is what created the redundancy?

Yes, it's definitely a slow learning experience, but a rewarding one.

[rabidpotatochip]

Awesome, thanks! So, to clarify, is the following logic correct?

When I state oz = o_to_c(); it is assigning the returned value from the the function to the integer named oz and also calling the function simultaneously, which is what created the redundancy?

Yes, it's definitely a slow learning experience, but a rewarding one.

It's not calling them simultaneously, it's doing one after the other. Man, I get to be pedantic everywhere today! :biggrin:

When you give the compiler a line like "variable = function();" it'll run the function and dump it into the variable. It's a great shortcut.

[Lynchmeister]

It's not calling them simultaneously, it's doing one after the other. Man, I get to be pedantic everywhere today! :biggrin:

When you give the compiler a line like "variable = function();" it'll run the function and dump it into the variable. It's a great shortcut.

Cool. Thanks.

I was staring the damn code for what seemed like hours before I thought, "Aha! The immortal Linux Mint thread will hold the answers I seek."

:tongue_sm

[Lynchmeister]

Hmm...another observation I've made since switching to Linux is with the WiFi strength. I can't break the 50&#37; signal strength mark. Is this a possible side effect of not using the original driver? I'm literally 15 feet away from the router, so I'm a bit stumped...

Thanks.

[rabidpotatochip]

Cool. Thanks.

I was staring the damn code for what seemed like hours before I thought, "Aha! The immortal Linux Mint thread will hold the answers I seek."

:tongue_sm

I read that as immoral at first. "I thought we left the goats in the other thread... :001_huh:"

Anyway, I haven't really had to write much code beyond SQL statements in the last few years, but half my degree involved programming in some way or another, so helping you with basic C shouldn't be a problem. Hell, helping you with BASIC shouldn't be a problem either... :biggrin:

[Lynchmeister]

I read that as immoral at first. "I thought we left the goats in the other thread... :001_huh:"

Anyway, I haven't really had to write much code beyond SQL statements in the last few years, but half my degree involved programming in some way or another, so helping you with basic C shouldn't be a problem. Hell, helping you with BASIC shouldn't be a problem either... :biggrin:

So in your opinion, is C a good starting point for the average Joe Schmoe (read: me) to lay down a programming foundation before branching out into other languages?

[rabidpotatochip]

So in your opinion, is C a good starting point for the average Joe Schmoe (read: me) to lay down a programming foundation before branching out into other languages?

I do. I'd avoid BASIC and COBOL though... and FORTRAN... anything with more than three capitalized letters really. Well, avoid ASM too... unless you're masochistic.

Anyway, if you learn C, then C++ (which will build on your C skills) it'll lay a good framework for other object-oriented languages like Java. You'll also start to notice that most languages look very similar if you follow that route.

[RichGem]

HAI
DEF AVOD SMILY LANG
KTHXBYE

(man, i'm just way 2 giddy 2day)

[Lynchmeister]

HAI
DEF AVOD SMILY LANG
KTHXBYE

(man, i'm just way 2 giddy 2day)

:biggrin:

[gugi]

I can't break the 50&#37; signal strength mark. Is this a possible side effect of not using the original driver? I'm literally 15 feet away from the router, so I'm a bit stumped...



O HAI
NO WRYZ
WNDZE SX
KTHXBYE


So in your opinion, is C a good starting point for the average Joe Schmoe (read: me) to lay down a programming foundation before branching out into other languages?
ok, you were Corey, then you were George, then you were Lynchmeister, then you were Elaine, and now you're Joe Schmoe! You're definitely getting menopausal.....
It's just a language - C is fine - when you get bored of the extra typing you'll probably want something else, but for learning anything will do.

[RichGem]

Hmm...another observation I've made since switching to Linux is with the WiFi strength. I can't break the 50% signal strength mark. Is this a possible side effect of not using the original driver? I'm literally 15 feet away from the router, so I'm a bit stumped...

Thanks.

EM interference from elsewhere in the room/house/immediate neighborhood?

[Confuzius]

Python seems easier to me, but then again, I don't know squat about programing, but python seems to "make more sense" than C.
Plus you can make screenlets!
And no compiling!

[rabidpotatochip]

EM interference from elsewhere in the room/house/immediate neighborhood?

Must be the extra brainpower required to run Linux.

[RichGem]

O HAI
NO WRYZ
WNDZE SX
KTHXBYE
ok, you were Corey, then you were George, then you were Lynchmeister, then you were Elaine, and now you're Joe Schmoe! You're definitely getting menopausal.....
It's just a language - C is fine - when you get bored of the extra typing you'll probably want something else, but for learning anything will do.


menopausal? hmm... I'm thinkin' horribly confused. Anyhow, funny you should mention this... tonight's rerun episode of Seinfeld featured a plot line of Kramer shooting "glamor shots" of George. Hilarious. Unfortunately, I kept thinking of Cory's "George" avatar during the scene. I think I need some industrial strength brain bleach now. :tongue:

[Lynchmeister]

menopausal? hmm... I'm thinkin' horribly confused. Anyhow, funny you should mention this... tonight's rerun episode of Seinfeld featured a plot line of Kramer shooting "glamor shots" of George. Hilarious. Unfortunately, I kept thinking of Cory's "George" avatar during the scene. I think I need some industrial strength brain bleach now. :tongue:

That's a great episode!

"Come on, George! You're not playing the game...the timeless Art of Seduction?"

I toyed with using the "chaise lounge" photo as an avatar for a while as, surprisingly, pictures of George are hard to come by...but I figured it may cause blindness in some individuals.

:lol:

[Lynchmeister]

I read that as immoral at first. "I thought we left the goats in the other thread... :001_huh:"

Well some would question the morality of this thread...:rolleyes:

*Admittedly, a shameless jump-start for the thread today.

:whistling:

[Ltltony]

I think it's time to
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3885599/2/istockphoto_3885599_pull_the_plug.jpg

on this thread

[rabidpotatochip]

I think it's time to
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3885599/2/istockphoto_3885599_pull_the_plug.jpg

on this thread

Ah, what a clever metaphor! The extension cord being held so tightly represents the fact that we must grip the moment and extend it as far as possible!


I do agree that this thread could probably spin off into a few smaller, more manageable ones though. :wink:

[Lynchmeister]

Hint taken. It's been a good run.

[gugi]

I think it's time to
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3885599/2/istockphoto_3885599_pull_the_plug.jpg

on this thread
i sense somebody feel threatened by threads having more posts than their own....

i have no problem with extending the thread indefinitely. and for your pleasure, here's the parametric representation of it:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Moebius_Surface_1_Display_Small.png

[gugi]

and for all the envious: threads quit when they are supposed to quit, not when the jealous bystanders decide

so, corey, are you ready for repartitioning of the laptop and an install on the desktop?

KTHXBYE

[rabidpotatochip]

i sense somebody feel threatened by threads having more posts than their own....

i have no problem with extending the thread indefinitely. and for your pleasure, here's the parametric representation of it:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Moebius_Surface_1_Display_Small.png

You know it's bad when gugi whips out a Möbius strip. :biggrin:

[Lynchmeister]

and for all the envious: threads quit when they are supposed to quit, not when the jealous bystanders decide

so, corey, are you ready for repartitioning of the laptop and an install on the desktop?

KTHXBYE

Yes! Let's do it! :biggrin:

A positive spin off from having my car broken into is that in addition to my 5-day weekend starting on Saturday, I've now taken tomorrow and Friday off as personal days because I have to deal with a claims adjuster, clean millions of glass shards out of my car, and get a window replaced, so yay 7 day weekend. (I have a weird schedule).

Oh, and I do have some similar video issues to work through on the desktop, but it should be no sweat. Basically, the graphics are doing funky things (even when booting in safe graphics mode).



You know it's bad when gugi whips out a Möbius strip. :biggrin:

Yeah! I'm not gonna be getting in his way today. :tongue_sm

[OldSaw]

You guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work. For a minute I thought you might deprive me of the opportunity to make the 900th post if I am so lucky to be online when it comes around. And if I could manage to snag post #1000 as a guest reader of this thread and contributing absolutely nothing to the Linux portion, well that would just make my day. Can you tell my wife is out of town and I am bored? :lol:

[gugi]

Dennis, we absolutely welcome freeloaders. Plus your contributions have been exceptional so far and you promised to get even better ones - a 1000 post - oh, my.... :)

The only regrets I have is that I miseed to make post 666 - i was watching it approaching, but then everybody got hyperactive all of a sudden.

Back to Corey - the solution with the videoproblem on the desktop may be slightly different than on your laptop - it's probably different videocards.

But on the positive note 7 days may get us enough time to surpass that other 1k aproaching thread and actually have your desktop be running linux, while mrs. lynch is going over the divorce papers with her lawyer :p

since it's not a brand computer you should try to find out what is the videocard. windows has something called a control panel i believe.

[Lynchmeister]

You guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work. For a minute I thought you might deprive me of the opportunity to make the 900th post if I am so lucky to be online when it comes around. And if I could manage to snag post #1000 as a guest reader of this thread and contributing absolutely nothing to the Linux portion, well that would just make my day. Can you tell my wife is out of town and I am bored? :lol:

Dennis, your x00 posts have such a comic timeliness, which gives me the strength to perservere. I'm rooting for you to 900 and...dare I say, 1000?

[Lynchmeister]

Dennis, we absolutely welcome freeloaders. Plus your contributions have been exceptional so far and you promised to get even better ones - a 1000 post - oh, my.... :)

The only regrets I have is that I miseed to make post 666 - i was watching it approaching, but then everybody got hyperactive all of a sudden.

Back to Corey - the solution with the videoproblem on the desktop may be slightly different than on your laptop - it's probably different videocards.

But on the positive note 7 days may get us enough time to surpass that other 1k aproaching thread and actually have your desktop be running linux, while mrs. lynch is going over the divorce papers with her lawyer :p

since it's not a brand computer you should try to find out what is the videocard. windows has something called a control panel i believe.

So that's why she's pushing for a desktop install...she's looking for suitable grounds...

:tongue_sm

[rabidpotatochip]

Dennis, your x00 posts have such a comic timeliness, which gives me the strength to perservere. I'm rooting for you to 900 and...dare I say, 1000?

:lol: I just had a funny thought... what happens when a thread reaches 10,000 posts? I'm not planning anything... it's just one of those things I'm curious about. :biggrin:

Edit: Another funny thought... gugi used a M&#246;bius strip to represent this thread... does he really have that little faith in your Linux skills? :tongue:

[Ltltony]

and for all the envious: threads quit when they are supposed to quit, not when the jealous bystanders decide

http://www.steveaddison.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/flogging&#37;20dead%20horse.jpg

If you feel it's absolutely necessary

[RichGem]

Hint taken. It's been a good run.

That's what Chip thought once about Limecat and look where he ended up.

Anyhow, so long as we're not posting just for the sake of posting, I say hell no to letting it die until we get to 1k. (see the naysayers are good for something.)

So let it be written. So let it be done.

[Lynchmeister]

http://www.steveaddison.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/flogging%20dead%20horse.jpg

If you feel it's absolutely necessary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalomania)

Look, I try very hard not to be a dick, but is this really necessary? You come blazing in here with your cute little illustrations, which basically say that we're all wasting our time here with this thread. I ask you what you've accomplished in doing so? The answer is nothing.

Here's what I've accomplished:

*Successfully installed Linux with absolutely no prior knowledge.
*Entertained a few people.
*Sparked a curiosity within myself to learn a programming language or two.
*Become passionate (to a degree) about computers.
*Made some good friends.
*Witness an extremely generous outpouring of time and patience by some very fine gentlemen.
*Had a lot of laughs, and even more frustrating moments. It was worth all the frustration.
*Converted my wife into a Linux Believer.

If you wish to contribute to the Linux or programming discussion, then great! I would sincerely like that. If you don't know anything about either topic, you've come to the right place!

If you want to blow off some steam and crack some jokes or go in an off topic rant, great! Just please don't do it at my or any of this thread's participant's expense. Poor form. Doubly poor form coming from someone whose only contribution to said thread was to suggest that it should cease to be.

There. I'm done.

[RichGem]

+1 million to everything Cory said.

To Cory.... THANK YOU. It needed to be said and I've been resisting the urge since I didn't start this thread.

To the naysayers (you know who you are)... if you don't like this thread so much, move on. There's plenty else in other threads to read. Feel free to add us and/or this thread to your ignore list. I will remind you that we have the blessing of the mods to talk linux as we chose to.

My piece has been said.

[gugi]

http://www.steveaddison.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/flogging%20dead%20horse.jpg

If you feel it's absolutely necessary. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalomania)
I think you guys are being extremely harsh on Tony. He has pushed us forward a whole 2 posts. Plus with his condition you've gotta be a bit more sensitive and gentle with him.

Tony, I, for one, understand, you don't need to be ashamed of your diagnosis. No need to hide it in a little fullstop link, feel free to show us the full paperwork from your doctor. We're all friends here, we'll support you.
And, again, thanks for stopping - you're the greatest, smartest and the most insightful person to ever post in this thread.

[Ltltony]

Look, I try very hard not to be a dick, but is this really necessary? You come blazing in here with your cute little illustrations, which basically say that we're all wasting our time here with this thread. I ask you what you've accomplished in doing so? The answer is nothing.

Here's what I've accomplished:

*Successfully installed Linux with absolutely no prior knowledge.
*Entertained a few people.
*Sparked a curiosity within myself to learn a programming language or two.
*Become passionate (to a degree) about computers.
*Made some good friends.
*Witness an extremely generous outpouring of time and patience by some very fine gentlemen.
*Had a lot of laughs, and even more frustrating moments. It was worth all the frustration.
*Converted my wife into a Linux Believer.

If you wish to contribute to the Linux or programming discussion, then great! I would sincerely like that. If you don't know anything about either topic, you've come to the right place!

If you want to blow off some steam and crack some jokes or go in an off topic rant, great! Just please don't do it at my or any of this thread's participant's expense. Poor form. Doubly poor form coming from someone whose only contribution to said thread was to suggest that it should cease to be.

There. I'm done.


I apologize if I offended you, it was not my intention. I am a big fan of Linux, I have used it for years, and have read this thread many times. It was not my intention to imply that I thought this thread was useless or that you guys were waisting your time. The first post was meant only as a joke in response to your saying "*Admittedly, a shameless jump-start for the thread today.'" as I know you guys are trying to see how long you can get the thread.
I only posted the second one after gugi called me "jealous", "threatened", envious". I thought those to be joking taunts so I tried to play along. I certainly didn't expect all the hard feelings that were shown in the subsequent posts. Again I apologize for the misunderstanding and any offense.

[Lynchmeister]

I apologize if I offended you, it was not my intention. I am a big fan of Linux, I have used it for years, and have read this thread many times. It was not my intention to imply that I thought this thread was useless or that you guys were waisting your time. The first post was meant only as a joke in response to your saying "*Admittedly, a shameless jump-start for the thread today.'" as I know you guys are trying to see how long you can get the thread.
I only posted the second one after gugi called me "jealous", "threatened", envious". I thought those to be joking taunts so I tried to play along. I certainly didn't expect all the hard feelings that were shown in the subsequent posts. Again I apologize for the misunderstanding and any offense.

Apology accepted.

In addition, there's still just a bit more I need to say, which is not directed at any particular person. I just feel it needs to be said.

As far as the reasons behind my reactionary post above go, it was the result of a bad week (garage was broken into and car was vandalized and burgled) and several negative posts towards this thread both in this thread and in other non-barbershop forums. That surprised me. Is this thread that notorious? And if so, why?

Yes, this thread has gone on for way longer than I could ever have anticipated and yes, some of the content is off topic, but I just don't feel that it's the place for non-contributors to the thread to be commenting on such things. If people are still reading it, but not contributing, it must hold some interest to them, so what's the problem? Nobody is forced to read anything here. An example for me is the "Badgers for brushes" thread. I read a few pages, did not watch the video, decided the discussion was too graphic for me, and I stopped reading it. Problem solved.

Tony, had you contributed in the Linux/programming/RAM upgrade discussions (and I hope you do in the future as you're familiar with both Linux and this thread :wink: ) within the thread, your jokes would have gone over much better. I can appreciate them now and I'll be the first to admit that my track record for a)staying on topic in any thread is spotty at best, and b) sarcasm, irony, and poking harmless fun are not lost on me. Again, though, hindsight is always 20/20. With that being said, if I came off as harsh or offensive, it was certainly with only half of the story and for that, I apologize.

[rabidpotatochip]

:001_huh:

So, uh... group hug?

And while I'm in here, anybody know a reliable/easy way to get the latest RadeonHD driver?

(It's too early in the morning for me to be pissed off and then apologizing... :tongue:)

[RichGem]

I apologize if I offended you, it was not my intention. I am a big fan of Linux, I have used it for years, and have read this thread many times. It was not my intention to imply that I thought this thread was useless or that you guys were waisting your time. The first post was meant only as a joke in response to your saying "*Admittedly, a shameless jump-start for the thread today.'" as I know you guys are trying to see how long you can get the thread.
I only posted the second one after gugi called me "jealous", "threatened", envious". I thought those to be joking taunts so I tried to play along. I certainly didn't expect all the hard feelings that were shown in the subsequent posts. Again I apologize for the misunderstanding and any offense.


Maybe next time a few "jk" or :lol: or :biggrin: etc. in your post(s) would be helpful to avoid another misunderstanding. I try to read everything from the best possible point of view and just wasn't getting that from your post and those of a one or two others (in other threads). So, apology accepted and we start with a clean slate.

[Ltltony]

Apology accepted.

In addition, there's still just a bit more I need to say, which is not directed at any particular person. I just feel it needs to be said.

As far as the reasons behind my reactionary post above go, it was the result of a bad week (garage was broken into and car was vandalized and burgled) and several negative posts towards this thread both in this thread and in other non-barbershop forums. That surprised me. Is this thread that notorious? And if so, why?

Yes, this thread has gone on for way longer than I could ever have anticipated and yes, some of the content is off topic, but I just don't feel that it's the place for non-contributors to the thread to be commenting on such things. If people are still reading it, but not contributing, it must hold some interest to them, so what's the problem? Nobody is forced to read anything here. An example for me is the "Badgers for brushes" thread. I read a few pages, did not watch the video, decided the discussion was too graphic for me, and I stopped reading it. Problem solved.

Tony, had you contributed in the Linux/programming/RAM upgrade discussions (and I hope you do in the future as you're familiar with both Linux and this thread :wink: ) within the thread, your jokes would have gone over much better. I can appreciate them now and I'll be the first to admit that my track record for a)staying on topic in any thread is spotty at best, and b) sarcasm, irony, and poking harmless fun are not lost on me. Again, though, hindsight is always 20/20. With that being said, if I came off as harsh or offensive, it was certainly with only half of the story and for that, I apologize.

I'm really glad we got it all straightened out!!
As as side note, it's Thursday again, have you tried the MX2 yet? :biggrin:

[Confuzius]

:001_huh:

So, uh... group hug?

And while I'm in here, anybody know a reliable/easy way to get the latest RadeonHD driver?

(It's too early in the morning for me to be pissed off and then apologizing... :tongue:)
I'm using Nvidia and have had great success with Envy
http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html
And his recent versions also support ATI.
I havn't tried envy with ATI, but I got so sick of using ATI in linux that I traded machines with my girlfriend, just to get the Nvidia video card.

Envy got my dual monitor setup working no sweat, compiz support flawless. Give it a shot, but remember, YMMV.

[Lynchmeister]

I'm really glad we got it all straightened out!!
As as side note, it's Thursday again, have you tried the MX2 yet? :biggrin:

No, not yet. In fact I don't have any CAO's in the humidor...:frown: After spending the whole morning cleaning millions of glass shards out of my car, maybe a trip to the tobacconist is in order. :w00t: Oh...wait a minute...I don't have a drivable car. :tongue_sm

A cigar will be smoked at some point today, though. :thumbsup:

[rabidpotatochip]

I'm using Nvidia and have had great success with Envy
http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html
And his recent versions also support ATI.
I havn't tried envy with ATI, but I got so sick of using ATI in linux that I traded machines with my girlfriend, just to get the Nvidia video card.

Envy got my dual monitor setup working no sweat, compiz support flawless. Give it a shot, but remember, YMMV.

Yeah, my mileage is certainly varied. :tongue:

The problem is that I'm using the RS690 chipset, so support for anything appears to be lacking. I haven't tried Envy out yet, but I'll give it a shot this weekend when my wife's out. At this point, I'm half ready to put a Voodoo 3 (that's right) into my box to see what happens. :biggrin:

[Confuzius]

Ahh voodoo, I remember when I got my first "3d Card" and had to hook it up daisy chain style
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/3dfxvoodoo1diamond.jpg/722px-3dfxvoodoo1diamond.jpg
Thank you Wikipedia

Envy seems to be able to work magic, either way, nothing that "sudo dkpg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" won't "fix"

My first big leap into being comfortable with linux was figureing out how to fix stuff that I invariably screwed up.

[rabidpotatochip]

Ahh voodoo, I remember when I got my first "3d Card" and had to hook it up daisy chain style
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/3dfxvoodoo1diamond.jpg/722px-3dfxvoodoo1diamond.jpg
Thank you Wikipedia

Envy seems to be able to work magic, either way, nothing that "sudo dkpg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" won't "fix"

My first big leap into being comfortable with linux was figureing out how to fix stuff that I invariably screwed up.

:lol: Hoo boy. You have no idea how many people get into computers in general for that reason... I was an expert at reinstalling Windows in my younger years. :biggrin:

[gugi]

:001_huh:

So, uh... group hug?

Not me, I only hug fellow HOMOs



And while I'm in here, anybody know a reliable/easy way to get the latest RadeonHD driver?

No. I've gotten the ati drivers to work multiple times in multiple ways, but i wouldn't call any of them 'easy' or 'memorable'. I think one of the last times i did it there was an installer in ubuntu or something. Certainly it's convinced me that the proper handling of this issue is 'buy intel'.

[RichGem]

Don't look :sneaky2: now, but that "other" thread just hit 979 1002. So, um Cory, could ya hurry up and break something? :innocent:

[OldSaw]

Don't look :sneaky2: now, but that "other" thread just hit 979 1002. So, um Cory, could ya hurry up and break something? :innocent:

What other thread? Is there another one I can freeload on? I like this one though, as I am somewhat intrigued by the topic and have toyed with the idea of running Linux. I prefer to let others go first though.

[RichGem]

What other thread? Is there another one I can freeload on? I like this one though, as I am somewhat intrigued by the topic and have toyed with the idea of running Linux. I prefer to let others go first though.


The "other" thread is non-linux related, but is the longest running thread (ie: greatest number of posts) here @ B&B.

[Confuzius]

What other thread? Is there another one I can freeload on? I like this one though, as I am somewhat intrigued by the topic and have toyed with the idea of running Linux. I prefer to let others go first though.
Go for it, its free, just grab a livecd and check it out...
It's like hard drugs, the first one's free then... well, umm yeah, the rest is free too :D

[OldSaw]

The "other" thread is non-linux related, but is the longest running thread (ie: greatest number of posts) here @ B&B.


Go for it, its free, just grab a livecd and check it out...
It's like hard drugs, the first one's free then... well, umm yeah, the rest is free too :D

I went and checked it out. It's a lot like a thread on the Sailnet forum called "name this place", or something like that, which is over 2000 posts. So I could see that one going for quite some time. It really doesn't interest me, so I will keep my freeloading confined to this thread for now.

I really am interested in seeing how this works out for Cory. Maybe someday, after I finish selling nearly all my assets I will toy with this Linux stuff as I am sailing around the world. For now I will just observe.

[RichGem]

I went and checked it out. It's a lot like a thread on the Sailnet forum called "name this place", or something like that, which is over 2000 posts. So I could see that one going for quite some time. It really doesn't interest me, so I will keep my freeloading confined to this thread for now.

I really am interested in seeing how this works out for Cory. Maybe someday, after I finish selling nearly all my assets I will toy with this Linux stuff as I am sailing around the world. For now I will just observe.


The good part of the live CD set up is that (while it will run a lot slower) you can toy with Linux and not permanently change anything on your computer. Just boot off the cd and viola, Linux. Pop the CD, reboot the computer and back to windoz (or whatever you have on your hard drive).

[gugi]

we're well on schedule, nothing to worry about. we're supposed to catchup at about 1400 posts, so just keep coming here.
plus corey's got a 7-day weekend, i'm sure we'll get a big boost over it.

one thing to make clear - all programming related to corey should stay in this thread. i'm well aware of the temptation, but no, it shouldn't go to that 'other' thread that's in it's early toddler stage. that one is likely to die in a day or two anyways.

so, fear not, have hope and take your mints regularly.

[Lynchmeister]

:lol:

Well, day two of seven and I'm gettting a bit of a slow start. Yesterday morning was mostly dealing with my car and the insurance guy, then by the afternoon my wife was home, so no Linux time then (although, surprisingly she did ask me when it was being put on her computer). Today, the plate is still pretty full, but she's at school all day, so if I can get everything done with time to spare, we'll be on our way.

As far as the coding thread goes...I've been reading it with interest, but there are so many differing opinions flying around about what's the best language for a beginner and what's the best language period, that it's a bit discouraging for myself as oftentimes C/C++ is neither. Also the "if you've been programming for 10 years, then you can maybe think of yourself as an OK programmer" talk doesn't help. Please understand that I have no dillusions of becoming some rich, high profile programmer, but aren't the horses they're on a little bit high?

At any rate, if when time allows today, I'll check in and we'll see about solving the video/graphics issues on the desktop. :thumbsup:

[rabidpotatochip]

As far as coding goes...I've been reading it with interest, but there are so many differing opinions flying around about what's the best language for a beginner and what's the best language period, that it's a bit discouraging for myself as oftentimes C/C++ is neither. Also the "if you've been programming for 10 years, then you can maybe think of yourself as an OK programmer" talk doesn't help. Please understand that I have no dillusions that of becoming some rich, high profile programmer, but aren't the horses they're on a little bit high?

At any rate, if when time allows today, I'll check in and we'll see about solving the video/graphics issues on the desktop. :thumbsup:

If you think the "best programming language" thing is bad, try starting a "vi versus emacs" thread (I use butterflies). :tongue:

Anyway, I think everyone has a different definition of a good programmer. Some people think you're not a programmer if you don't have a degree, some people think you are a programmer as long as you can write something that works. I fall somewhere in the middle; self-teaching is the best way to learn, but "hello world" doesn't make you a programmer yet (sorry Cory). The real question is this, what are you aiming for? Do you want to write the next big crypto library or do you just want to be able to write the occasional program that fills a gap at work or at home?

I consider myself a competent programmer, even though I haven't written much in the last few years, because I can still get the computer to do what I need/want it to. I know beyond doubt that there are people way better than me out there, and I think that's great, but I'm still happy with my level of skill. No matter what language you pick up just make sure that you enjoy the experience and keep experimenting. As long as you don't accidentally perform a low-level format you can always go back and undo your damage.

Computer and Internet culture are really weird in the sense that there are a lot of elitists, more than you would think since we're all here for a good time, not a long time. So have a good time, the sun can't shine every day. Sorry, that song was on the radio on the way to work. There are people who think Linux should be hard to install, that you need to spend hours manually editing config files too. You know what I say to that? Linux has been around a looong time, by this point it should be easy. The biggest barrier is that there are people who will tell you not to waste your time, but there are a lot of people willing to lend a hand out there too... it just involves a lot of sifting.

Anyway, you're learning, and there's no wrong way to learn. Just do what you want to do and make sure it's something you're proud of. :biggrin:

[RichGem]

:lol:

<snip>

Please understand that I have no dillusions of becoming some rich, high profile programmer, but aren't the horses they're on a little bit high?

At any rate, if when time allows today, I'll check in and we'll see about solving the video/graphics issues on the desktop. :thumbsup:


lol. You'll seldom meet a more opinionated (and thick-headedly at that) group than a bunch of computer nerds. Everyone's own way is not only the "best" way, but it's the "only" way. One nice thing about the *nix "philosophy" is that there are many ways to do the same thing equally well. That, however, doesn't solve anything as far as people being opinionated. lol.

EDIT: all that said, we all know that the correct and only answers are: bash, KDE, and vi. :biggrin:

[RichGem]

we're well on schedule, nothing to worry about. we're supposed to catchup at about 1400 posts, so just keep coming here.
plus corey's got a 7-day weekend, i'm sure we'll get a big boost over it.

<snip>



1013 over there.

[Confuzius]

I kept thinking about thsi webpage, but couldn't remember it.
Try ruby!
http://tryruby.hobix.com/

Kinda fun.

EDIT:
Here's a program that I wrote to convert dimensions into part numbers for work. In reality I could have done the same thing just as easily in a spreadsheet, or just with a calculator, but it gave me a project to do and I learned something. This was done in VB.net

[rabidpotatochip]

lol. You'll seldom meet a more opinionated (and thick-headedly at that) group than a bunch of computer nerds. Everyone's own way is not only the "best" way, but it's the "only" way. One nice thing about the *nix "philosophy" is that there are many ways to do the same thing equally well. That, however, doesn't solve anything as far as people being opinionated. lol.

EDIT: all that said, we all know that the correct and only answers are: bash, KDE, and vi. :biggrin:

That's why it's the only way. :biggrin:

Speaking of opinionation... KDE?! Oh man... I still get no XFCE love... just give me XFCE and fluxbox anyday.

[grayraven]

EDIT: all that said, we all know that the correct and only answers are: bash, KDE, and vi. :biggrin:

Ofcourse it is! I mean I keep hearing mumblings about other ways, but can be better that that setup. :biggrin: Granted, this is coming from a man who now daily has to go code in Windows... :frown:

[gugi]

Granted, this is coming from a man who now daily has to go code in Windows... :frown:
Yeah I hear KDE would do that to you :tongue:
OK, I'll try to bridge the other gap - most of the time I use emacs, but for quick edits it's either sed, awk or vi - how about that :)

[analog_kid]

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/9631/postcountyb5.jpg



http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/c3922e57/i_see_what_you_did_there.jpg

[grayraven]

Yeah I hear KDE would do that to you :tongue:
OK, I'll try to bridge the other gap - most of the time I use emacs, but for quick edits it's either sed, awk or vi - how about that :)

Quite nice, nothing beats a little command line text manipulation! Actually, I just could never get the whole emacs key stroke combinations. There was a guy at my old office who was lightning fast with emacs, but I have been a vi guy since college. *nix much like wet shaving is very much a roll your own experience which is why I love both. :001_smile

[RichGem]

That's why it's the only way. :biggrin:

Speaking of opinionation... KDE?! Oh man... I still get no XFCE love... just give me XFCE and fluxbox anyday.

If it makes you feel any better, Chip, I do on occasion use fluxbox (when I'm in a minimalistic mood). I don't mind XFCE, but it's a huge number of packages to install in Fedora and I don't feel like taking the time to configure menus, task bars, etc. etc. all over again.

[RichGem]

Ofcourse it is! I mean I keep hearing mumblings about other ways, but can be better that that setup. :biggrin: Granted, this is coming from a man who now daily has to go code in Windows... :frown:


Men have quit jobs for lesser reasons than that. :tongue:

[RichGem]

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/9631/postcountyb5.jpg



http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/c3922e57/i_see_what_you_did_there.jpg

Big Brother is watching. :sneaky: (How'd u do that?)

Hmmm... hard to believe that I'm just ahead of Chip in post numbers... he's usually way ahead of me.

[rabidpotatochip]

Big Brother is watching. :sneaky: (How'd u do that?)

Hmmm... hard to believe that I'm just ahead of Chip in post numbers... he's usually way ahead of me.

I know! I saw that and was like "WTF?" I wanted to say "O RLY?" but it was taken... but then he could come back and say "YA RLY"... :biggrin:

[RichGem]

I know! I saw that and was like "WTF?" I wanted to say "O RLY?" but it was taken... but then he could come back and say "YA RLY"... :biggrin:

SYTX EROR: U 4GOT "OHAI" & "KTHXBYE"

[Lynchmeister]

SYTX EROR: U 4GOT "OHAI" & "KTHXBYE"

OHAI

CNT U PPL DU NYTHNG RGHT????

ANSWR == NO

KTHXBYE

[rabidpotatochip]

IM IN UR SYNTAX THROWIN AN ERRUR.

(And apparently posting in all caps puts it in title case heh)

[RichGem]

OHAI

CNT U PPL DU NYTHNG RGHT????

ANSWR == NO

KTHXBYE

2MENY ?S4ME. DOZ NOT COMPUT.

[Kairtane]

Time for me to put this thread back on its rails.

After the Linux Mint splash screen starts, everything halts and I get a couple screens of errors. The first one is:

GDM could not write a new authorization entry to disk. Possibly out of diskspace. Error: No space left on device.

I hit enter and get the following:

Could not start the X server due to some internal error. Please contact your system administrator or check your syslog to diagnose. In the meantime this display will be disabled. Please restart GDM when the problem is corrected.

I hit enter and get dropped out to the console where my only option is ctrl-alt-del.


I am able to enter X in recovery mode.

[rabidpotatochip]

Time for me to put this thread back on its rails.

After the Linux Mint splash screen starts, everything halts and I get a couple screens of errors. The first one is:

GDM could not write a new authorization entry to disk. Possibly out of diskspace. Error: No space left on device.

I hit enter and get the following:

Could not start the X server due to some internal error. Please contact your system administrator or check your syslog to diagnose. In the meantime this display will be disabled. Please restart GDM when the problem is corrected.

I hit enter and get dropped out to the console where my only option is ctrl-alt-del.

Ooh. Sounds like a fun one. Are you running the LiveCD? It's possible that you don't have enough memory for it to successfully load into a RAMdisk.

[RichGem]

Time for me to put this thread back on its rails.

After the Linux Mint splash screen starts, everything halts and I get a couple screens of errors. The first one is:

GDM could not write a new authorization entry to disk. Possibly out of diskspace. Error: No space left on device.

I hit enter and get the following:

Could not start the X server due to some internal error. Please contact your system administrator or check your syslog to diagnose. In the meantime this display will be disabled. Please restart GDM when the problem is corrected.

I hit enter and get dropped out to the console where my only option is ctrl-alt-del.


I hate to sound like Mr. Obvious, but do you, in fact, have enough disk space? This could also mean that you're low on RAM or swap space. Only a guess, but it's the best one I've got at the moment. I suppose it could also mean that X can't even best guess your video card and so gave up.

[rabidpotatochip]

I hate to sound like Mr. Obvious, but do you, in fact, have enough disk space? This could also mean that you're low on RAM or swap space. Only a guess, but it's the best one I've got at the moment. I suppose it could also mean that X can't even best guess your video card and so gave up.

I'm sticking with the RAM theory for why X couldn't start. There probably wasn't enough memory left over for it to successfully load.

Of course... he needs to post hardware stats so we can flex our mighty brain muscles! :tongue:

[Kairtane]

I am not running live. When I entered X in recovery mode, it had a popup about disk space also. I will research that more when I get a chance. Right now, I'm stuck on a conference call.

[RichGem]

I'm sticking with the RAM theory for why X couldn't start. There probably wasn't enough memory left over for it to successfully load.

Of course... he needs to post hardware stats so we can flex our mighty brain muscles! :tongue:


And bump up our thread/post counts (oh yeah, and help him solve his problem too). :lol:

[rabidpotatochip]

And bump up our thread/post counts (oh yeah, and help him solve his problem too). :lol:

Oh hey... that reminds me. Well, I'm reminded to tell you rather...

My wife's gone from tomorrow to Wednesday, so I think the gap between us will probably widen a bit more during that time*. :biggrin:

*Unless I successfully acquire a Wii tomorrow.

[RichGem]

Oh hey... that reminds me. Well, I'm reminded to tell you rather...

My wife's gone from tomorrow to Wednesday, so I think the gap between us will probably widen a bit more during that time*. :biggrin:

*Unless I successfully acquire a Wii tomorrow.

In that case, I'm 120&#37; in favor of you (probably going against the wifey's wishes) going out and buying a WII and playing it until you have a serious, glass shattering accident with the controller. :biggrin: Just, please do not come to me for marriage counseling afterwards.

ps/edit: I think it's hilarious that the system actually warns you to use the wrist/safety strap and to stand back from the t.v. Ya just know some lawyer came up with that one.

[gugi]

I am not running live. When I entered X in recovery mode, it had a popup about disk space also. I will research that more when I get a chance. Right now, I'm stuck on a conference call.

post the result of the following command (in a terminal)


df

[gugi]

OK, I've gotta do this on behalf of OldSaw, since he seems unable to do it at the moment:

900!!!!!!

and now that this is taken care of we can continue with the useless stuff

[RichGem]

OK, I've gotta do this on behalf of OldSaw, since he seems unable to do it at the moment:

900!!!!!!

and now that this is taken care of we can continue with the useless stuff

:incazzato: How did I miss that?

[Lynchmeister]

OK, I've gotta do this on behalf of OldSaw, since he seems unable to do it at the moment:

900!!!!!!

and now that this is taken care of we can continue with the useless stuff

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

[OldSaw]

OK, I've gotta do this on behalf of OldSaw, since he seems unable to do it at the moment:

900!!!!!!

and now that this is taken care of we can continue with the useless stuff

Thanks for posting for me. I was visiting with my nephew and his wife. Besides, I usually don't get on here until after 4 PM on weekdays.

[Kairtane]

Ok, I have no idea what was using all the disk space. I ran the df command Gugi suggested and it showed that the / file system was at 100%. I was also seeing a file system error when booting in recovery mode. I tried running a file check only to have it error out due to a disk space error. Now I'm getting a GRUB error on boot.

I've turned it off and am going to walk away until I feel like reinstalling. I'll get back to you after a trip to the local wing establishment.

[Lynchmeister]

Ok, I have no idea what was using all the disk space. I ran the df command Gugi suggested and it showed that the / file system was at 100%. I was also seeing a file system error when booting in recovery mode. I tried running a file check only to have it error out due to a disk space error. Now I'm getting a GRUB error on boot.

I've turned it off and am going to walk away until I feel like reinstalling. I'll get back to you after a trip to the local wing establishment.

It's good that you've recognized the importance of decompression this early in the game. It will be invaluable later. :ihih:

[rabidpotatochip]

Ok, I have no idea what was using all the disk space. I ran the df command Gugi suggested and it showed that the / file system was at 100%. I was also seeing a file system error when booting in recovery mode. I tried running a file check only to have it error out due to a disk space error. Now I'm getting a GRUB error on boot.

I've turned it off and am going to walk away until I feel like reinstalling. I'll get back to you after a trip to the local wing establishment.

It's possible that a log file got filled up maybe.

Try running the following commands:

cd /
find . -printf '%s %p\n'|sort -nr|head
That'll put you into the root directory and print your ten largest files. If any of them are logs you can safely delete them. If your system isn't bootable at all, download and burn the system rescue CD on another computer and boot it on the patient. You'll have to mount the hard drive and mess around with it from there.

[RichGem]

It's possible that a log file got filled up maybe.

Try running the following commands:

cd /
find . -printf '%s %p\n'|sort -nr|headThat'll put you into the root directory and print your ten largest files. If any of them are logs you can safely delete them. If your system isn't bootable at all, download and burn the system rescue CD on another computer and boot it on the patient. You'll have to mount the hard drive and mess around with it from there.


Good idea Chip. I hadn't thought of that (Fedora limits log file size and trashes them automatically when too big).

[grayraven]

Ok, I have no idea what was using all the disk space. I ran the df command Gugi suggested and it showed that the / file system was at 100%. I was also seeing a file system error when booting in recovery mode. I tried running a file check only to have it error out due to a disk space error. Now I'm getting a GRUB error on boot.

I've turned it off and am going to walk away until I feel like reinstalling. I'll get back to you after a trip to the local wing establishment.

You may be able to get around having to reinstall if you grab a live boot CD. It should clear you of the GRUB error. Then you can mount the volumes, and run the commands the other guys suggested. Usually with Linux you can fix most things without having to re-build. Good luck and let us know how it goes. :001_smile

[Kairtane]

You may be able to get around having to reinstall if you grab a live boot CD. It should clear you of the GRUB error. Then you can mount the volumes, and run the commands the other guys suggested. Usually with Linux you can fix most things without having to re-build. Good luck and let us know how it goes. :001_smile

I have a live CD and can boot it with no problem. I don't understand how that will fix my GRUB error though. Isn't there something I need to do to repair it?

[RichGem]

I have a live CD and can boot it with no problem. I don't understand how that will fix my GRUB error though. Isn't there something I need to do to repair it?


Don't worry about the GRUB problem for now. Clear the logfiles (go live cd, mount your volumes and follow the commands above). Then reboot into your harddrive and see what happens. The GRUB error may clear as well.

[Kairtane]

I am unable to mount the volume where Mint lives so I'm unable to run any commands. Right now I am running reiserfsck --rebuild-tree on that partition to see what It can find. I'll be back with results in a while.

Ok, rebuilding the file system fails due to lack of file space. I'm unable to mount the partition to delete anything. I can only boot my system using a live CD. Any ideas?

[gugi]

i'm not sure how much stuff is on the cd, but what i'd look into first is
(1) fsck (you're doing it, i'm not sure what the --rebuild-tree option does as i gave up on reiserfs a while ago).
if you can't get fsck to fix the partitions, things start to look pretty bad, then
(2) check the hardware i.e. S.M.A.R.T status of your disk - here's where the question of what's shipped with the LiveCD becomes important.
From what you've posted things look like may be hardware trouble, so you may want to try (2) first.

again, unless you can get to fsck cleanly no point of any further suggestions, if you can get past the integrity of the filesystem, checking for big files could be useful. my bet is on not finding anything suspicious so 'du -sh /*' would be my next level of trying to track where's the disk space.

Reinstall is the easier, windoze-like approach, and when you feel you've gotten sick enough of this, or don't really want to be learning stuff is certainly a way to go. But if you have hardware problems you want to diagnose and fix them. And I'd stay away from reiserfs in future. It has some niceties, but at the end of the day it's just a filesystem, ext3 does the job just fine.

[Confuzius]

Does the live CD have the disk usage analyzer? Or was that already tried and failed.
Can you manually mount the drive from the livecd?

[rabidpotatochip]

Good idea Chip. I hadn't thought of that (Fedora limits log file size and trashes them automatically when too big).

The only reason I know that one is because I ended up with something like a 10 gig log file after my mythbox couldn't properly mount the DVD drive and wrote about a line a second about it. :cursing:

[RichGem]

The only reason I know that one is because I ended up with something like a 10 gig log file after my mythbox couldn't properly mount the DVD drive and wrote about a line a second about it. :cursing:

Holy penguin crap! On the upside, lol, if this were windowz, it'd be labeled as the new "disk capacity testing feature."

[Kairtane]

i'm not sure how much stuff is on the cd, but what i'd look into first is
(1) fsck (you're doing it, i'm not sure what the --rebuild-tree option does as i gave up on reiserfs a while ago). if you can't get fsck to fix the partitions, things start to look pretty bad, then
(2) check the hardware i.e. S.M.A.R.T status of your disk - here's where the question of what's shipped with the LiveCD becomes important.
From what you've posted things look like may be hardware trouble, so you may want to try (2) first.

again, unless you can get to fsck cleanly no point of any further suggestions, if you can get past the integrity of the filesystem, checking for big files could be useful. my bet is on not finding anything suspicious so 'du -sh /*' would be my next level of trying to track where's the disk space.

Reinstall is the easier, windoze-like approach, and when you feel you've gotten sick enough of this, or don't really want to be learning stuff is certainly a way to go. But if you have hardware problems you want to diagnose and fix them. And I'd stay away from reiserfs in future. It has some niceties, but at the end of the day it's just a filesystem, ext3 does the job just fine.

fsck was unable to complete the second pass of the --rebuild-tree command due to a disk space error. When using 'reiserfsck --clean' it returns an error of Bad Block 0. Obviously there's a problem with the partition or the disk itself and a disk problem is beyond my ability to repair. It's not a case of not wanting to learn, it's a case of having found a problem with no solution other than starting over. I wasn't aware of any specific problems with reiserfs but I will take your suggestion and use ext3 on the next install.


Does the live CD have the disk usage analyzer? Or was that already tried and failed.
Can you manually mount the drive from the livecd?

The disk usage analyzer is on the live CD but will not run on any filesystem other than the one currently in use. I am unable to mount the partition manually. I receive the error 'Operation not supported'.

[RichGem]

<snip>

The disk usage analyzer is on the live CD but will not run on any filesystem other than the one currently in use. I am unable to mount the partition manually. I receive the error 'Operation not supported'.

You should be able to get around that using chroot. But, given all the rest, it does sound like a hardware problem and a reformat & reinstall does sound like the way to go.

[gugi]

fsck was unable to complete the second pass of the --rebuild-tree command due to a disk space error. When using 'reiserfsck --clean' it returns an error of Bad Block 0. Obviously there's a problem with the partition or the disk itself and a disk problem is beyond my ability to repair. It's not a case of not wanting to learn, it's a case of having found a problem with no solution other than starting over. I wasn't aware of any specific problems with reiserfs but I will take your suggestion and use ext3 on the next install.

This is more info than before. I'm not worried too much about --rebuild-tree failing due to the lack of disk space. I don't have enough experience with reiserfs and since I'm not interested in learning more about it if it was me at this point I'd start over. But I'll certainly check the hardware start with s.m.a.r.t. then do a low level block check (seagate and maxtor have utilities for that, provided you have a way to write it to a cd or a floppy).

There's no point of looking at disk usage or anything since your filesystem is corrupted so you can't mount it. So chroot is certainly useless here.

I wouldn't waste more time with the software at this point, only with hardware. If you have an external disk (usb or something) with enough space you can make a copy of the partition with dd in case you want to look more into it and possibly recover some of your data.

[Lynchmeister]

Tried booting a few of the different LiveCDs I've accumulated (Bianca 2.2, Daryna 4.0, Ubuntu 7.10) and all seem ok up to the point where I can select the mode to run it in. Both regular and Safe Graphics mode yield blank screens and with Ubuntu, my monitor threw a "Not in range" message.

I went into the BIOS and looked for the video memory in hopes of increasing it, but found nothing even remotely similar. At this point, I'm wondering if downloading a different BIOS is an option. With the laptop, I went to the Dell website, but seeing as how this is a "Frankenputer", I'm not sure about how to properly go about doing it with the desktop. Is there a "generic" BIOS out there for grabs?

[gugi]

Tried booting a few of the different LiveCDs I've accumulated (Bianca 2.2, Daryna 4.0, Ubuntu 7.10) and all seem ok up to the point where I can select the mode to run it in. Both regular and Safe Graphics mode yield blank screens and with Ubuntu, my monitor threw a "Not in range" message.

I went into the BIOS and looked for the video memory in hopes of increasing it, but found nothing even remotely similar. At this point, I'm wondering if downloading a different BIOS is an option. With the laptop, I went to the Dell website, but seeing as how this is a "Frankenputer", I'm not sure about how to properly go about doing it with the desktop. Is there a "generic" BIOS out there for grabs?

as i said before, that was a fix only for that laptop.
i'm pretty sure i know how to fix the Ubuntu thing.
however before i tell you, please find the video information from windows.
you want to find the videocard make and model and also the resolution you're using (that second thing is in display properties)

[Lynchmeister]

as i said before, that was a fix only for that laptop.
i'm pretty sure i know how to fix the Ubuntu thing.
however before i tell you, please find the video information from windows.
you want to find the videocard make and model and also the resolution you're using (that second thing is in display properties)

I'm trying to get that information, but it's not going very well. First off, I don't know what happened to this computer, but it has drastically slowed down to the point of getting bogged down with 3 windows open. It's making it very difficult to do anything, which is compounding my frustration. Second, I'm not sure if I'm looking in the right places. I scoured the control panel from top to bottom and all I found for you is the resolution, which is 800x600.

[Lynchmeister]

Not sure if this will help also, but the display says:

Default monitor on ABIT Siluro T200

[gugi]

ok, is that 16bit color?
i haven't used windows in really long time, so not sure where exactly is the videocard - it's gotta be somewhere in devices, but also you may be able to see it in the advanced settings of the display - no idea though.

anyways, if you don't want to poke around, what you want to do on windows is when you get the display out of range thing, you'd go to a console ctrl+alt+1
and then you edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf
I think nano/pico is a friendly editor, hope they have it.
remove all resolutions from the Display lines that are not "800x600"
then see if typing /etc/init.d/gdm restart would do it

[rabidpotatochip]

Not sure if this will help also, but the display says:

Default monitor on ABIT Siluro T200

Hrm... according to my 30 seconds inebriated research that video card uses an nVidia GeForce2 MX 200 chipset. It has 32MB VRAM and outputs 24-bit color.

The good (and in plain English news) is that you shouldn't have too hard a time finding drivers because it's technically nVidia. The bad news is that my net connection keeps going down like a French whore, so I probably won't be able to stick around long enough to help out.

[RichGem]

Hrm... according to my 30 seconds inebriated research that video card uses an nVidia GeForce2 MX 200 chipset. It has 32MB VRAM and outputs 24-bit color.

The good (and in plain English news) is that you shouldn't have too hard a time finding drivers because it's technically nVidia. The bad news is that my net connection keeps going down like a French whore, so I probably won't be able to stick around long enough to help out.


30 seconds of inebriated research? Did you not splurge on a WII this week?

[rabidpotatochip]

30 seconds of inebriated research? Did you not splurge on a WII this week?

They're bloody hard to find! I've been looking all over the place but haven't had any luck yet. Stupid Nintendo still hasn't made enough of them. :frown:

I guess plan B is to just keep harassing the stores until they decide giving me a Wii is the fastest way to get me to leave them alone. :biggrin:

[RichGem]

They're bloody hard to find! I've been looking all over the place but haven't had any luck yet. Stupid Nintendo still hasn't made enough of them. :frown:

I guess plan B is to just keep harassing the stores until they decide giving me a Wii is the fastest way to get me to leave them alone. :biggrin:

Plan C: pay the outrageous eBay prices. But, that's just plain :crazy:


Would you believe... there's a Wii comercial on TV at the moment and I've got Rush in the CD player? :cool:

[rabidpotatochip]

Plan C: pay the outrageous eBay prices. But, that's just plain :crazy:


Would you believe... there's a Wii comercial on TV at the moment and I've got Rush in the CD player? :cool:

Actually, plan C was to collect money playing darts in Wario Party. I'm a natural pro and figure I could shark some of my brother's friends. :devil:

[rabidpotatochip]

Yeah, I'm double-posting, but it's been at least half an hour in between.

Cory, this one's for you: "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."

[Lynchmeister]

Hey guys, just checking in before I hit the sack...I accomplished basically nothing today on the Linux front. Last night we were out with some friends and ended up crashing at their house because one turned into several. Then of course there was the obligatory "Why did I do that to myself?" period today, followed by a nap on the couch, before heading off to the house of another married couple we're friends with. They recently acquired a second guitar, microphone, and drum kit, so we were playing Rock Band and drinking Cabo Wabo Reposado...'nuff said. :biggrin:

[rabidpotatochip]

Hey guys, just checking in before I hit the sack...I accomplished basically nothing today on the Linux front. Last night we were out with some friends and ended up crashing at their house because one turned into several. Then of course there was the obligatory "Why did I do that to myself?" period today, followed by a nap on the couch, before heading off to the house of another married couple we're friends with. They recently acquired a second guitar, microphone, and drum kit, so we were playing Rock Band and drinking Cabo Wabo Reposado...'nuff said. :biggrin:

Three words: Frets On Fire (http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/). I've never played Rock Band, but if it's anything like Guitar Hero you'll get a kick out of this game too. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac so you have to have something it'll install on. :tongue:

Anyhow, I came here to post something interesting. This is probably old news to half the Linux people here, but Wine (http://www.winehq.org/) will (finally) be hitting 1.0 this summer. If you're looking for a new challenge you should try installing some Windows stuff on your Linux box.

Lastly, my awesome bit of Linux news.... the next release of Ubuntu will properly support serial IR transmitters. In one month I'll be able to use a stable driver instead of that poorly compiled (by me) beta that adds five minutes (seriously) to my boot time and occasionally blocks my remote! Not just that, but it'll be easier to install RadeonHD and I'll be one step closer to having xVideo working! This is a happy morning. :biggrin:

[gugi]

ok guys, you're throwing off my calculations. A whole day and a single post only!!!!
corey, this drinking excuse will not stand! you've earned your first warning. don't make me pull out the klein bottle on you!

[Lynchmeister]

ok guys, you're throwing off my calculations. A whole day and a single post only!!!!
corey, this drinking excuse will not stand! you've earned your first warning. don't make me pull out the klein bottle on you!

See kids? This is what alcohol will do to you. :a17::wacko::sleep12: Be cool. Stay in school!

Oh, well yesterday the weather here in Western Wisconsin was absolutely gorgeous. 50 degrees, sunny, no wind...perfect for a little pre-season grilling, which is exactly what my wife and I did. Pulled out the Weber, dusted it off, fired it up, and slapped a couple half-pound burgers on it. Again, as you can imagine, with a half pound of grilled beef in the belly, about the only thing I could do after lunch was...:sleep12:.

What was it that I was saying about Midwestern weather up above? Oh yeah, it's in the low 30's now and snowing...a lot! So, after I pick up some more food for the pooch, I'm hoping to get this ball rolling again.

I do have a question or two for you guys to chew on though. I can't seem to let the dream of the Netflix Instant movie player die and I was fiddling around with the desktop a little bit yesterday. I mentioned that it was slower than frozen molasses and I did get rid of a bunch of "junk" programs that mysteriously found there way on there, but that didn't do anything in terms of speed. Then it hit me. Duh! What did I just do to the laptop? Installed more RAM. What is RAM? Random Access Memory. What is my wife's computer plagued with? Stupid messenger programs, weather bug, etc. So I uninstalled AOL messenger...nothing. Then I noticed that it was still running in the background and using up more RAM than any other program. I killed the process and it was an instant 180!

(Finally) here's the question. While I was searching for updates (specifically) WMP 11, I started getting these messages saying that "I may be a victim of software counterfeiting as my copy of XP is not genuine." Well, like I said, it's a frankenputer and we had assumed as much from the beginning, but now we're stuck in the mud because it won't let us update it. I have all of the recovery discs for my Dell laptop. Theoretically, could I install XP on the desktop with the discs for the laptop? (Please know that the installation of Mint on the desktop is still full steam ahead!)

[rabidpotatochip]

See kids? This is what alcohol will do to you. :a17::wacko::sleep12: Be cool. Stay in school!

Oh, well yesterday the weather here in Western Wisconsin was absolutely gorgeous. 50 degrees, sunny, no wind...perfect for a little pre-season grilling, which is exactly what my wife and I did. Pulled out the Weber, dusted it off, fired it up, and slapped a couple half-pound burgers on it. Again, as you can imagine, with a half pound of grilled beef in the belly, about the only thing I could do after lunch was...:sleep12:.

What was it that I was saying about Midwestern weather up above? Oh yeah, it's in the low 30's now and snowing...a lot! So, after I pick up some more food for the pooch, I'm hoping to get this ball rolling again.

I do have a question or two for you guys to chew on though. I can't seem to let the dream of the Netflix Instant movie player die and I was fiddling around with the desktop a little bit yesterday. I mentioned that it was slower than frozen molasses and I did get rid of a bunch of "junk" programs that mysteriously found there way on there, but that didn't do anything in terms of speed. Then it hit me. Duh! What did I just do to the laptop? Installed more RAM. What is RAM? Random Access Memory. What is my wife's computer plagued with? Stupid messenger programs, weather bug, etc. So I uninstalled AOL messenger...nothing. Then I noticed that it was still running in the background and using up more RAM than any other program. I killed the process and it was an instant 180!

(Finally) here's the question. While I was searching for updates (specifically) WMP 11, I started getting these messages saying that "I may be a victim of software counterfeiting as my copy of XP is not genuine." Well, like I said, it's a frankenputer and we had assumed as much from the beginning, but now we're stuck in the mud because it won't let us update it. I have all of the recovery discs for my Dell laptop. Theoretically, could I install XP on the desktop with the discs for the laptop? (Please know that the installation of Mint on the desktop is still full steam ahead!)

It's hectic here so sorry for the short answer. No, you can't. The recovery discs are not install discs in the conventional sense; they're more of an image.

Also, only half a pound of meat? C'mon, I ate TWO POUNDS at the Mongolie Grill... but their camera was out of film so I got free beer instead. :biggrin:

[RichGem]

Cory, next time you make burgers, try mixing half a can of beer in with the ground meat. The patties will be a bit wetter and harder to manage, but the taste will be worth it. You'll want (probably) a non-light beer. The darker the better.

[Lynchmeister]

It's hectic here so sorry for the short answer. No, you can't. The recovery discs are not install discs in the conventional sense; they're more of an image.

Also, only half a pound of meat? C'mon, I ate TWO POUNDS at the Mongolie Grill... but their camera was out of film so I got free beer instead. :biggrin:


Cory, next time you make burgers, try mixing half a can of beer in with the ground meat. The patties will be a bit wetter and harder to manage, but the taste will be worth it. You'll want (probably) a non-light beer. The darker the better.

@Chip:

Bummer. I had a feeling it wouldn't be so simple. Thanks for the explanation as to why.

Two pounds?!? I tip my hat to you, sir. :biggrin:

@Richard:

Really? I'll do that next time for sure...when Mrs. Lynch is not looking, or better yet, in another room. :wink:

Usually I'm all about (sorry for the impending Emeril catch phrase) kickin' things up a notch, but yesterday it was all about simplicity:

A pound of 85/15 ground chuck, salt, pepper, and a perfect bed of coals nestled in the bottom of the Weber grill.

...I'm still thinking about that meal. :001_wub::drool:

[RichGem]

@Richard:

Really? I'll do that next time for sure...when Mrs. Lynch is not looking, or better yet, in another room. :wink:

Usually I'm all about (sorry for the impending Emeril catch phrase) kickin' things up a notch, but yesterday it was all about simplicity:

A pound of 85/15 ground chuck, salt, pepper, and a perfect bed of coals nestled in the bottom of the Weber grill.

...I'm still thinking about that meal. :001_wub::drool:

You may have to experiment a bit with the ratio of beer to meat, but the recipe works well, imho. Just be careful, Mrs. Lynch might be so impressed with your grilling prowess that you'll be bbq-ing forever (even in the Wisconsonian snow). Oh, and just in case you're worried, most of the alcohol cooks off.

I'm sorta drooling over your meal too. Damn, wish it would warm up enough here.

EDIT/PS: You will, of course, want to finish the beer burgers off with a nice cigar and perhaps a glass of sangria (home made).

[Lynchmeister]

Hrm... according to my 30 seconds inebriated research that video card uses an nVidia GeForce2 MX 200 chipset. It has 32MB VRAM and outputs 24-bit color.

The good (and in plain English news) is that you shouldn't have too hard a time finding drivers because it's technically nVidia. The bad news is that my net connection keeps going down like a French whore, so I probably won't be able to stick around long enough to help out.

Between loads of laundry and working with C today, I'm hoping to make some progress on the desktop. So the consensus is that I need to download an nVidia driver?

Chip, I hope your net connection issues concluded with a happy ending...

...sorry, couldn't resist that one! :lol:

[gugi]

(Finally) here's the question. While I was searching for updates (specifically) WMP 11, I started getting these messages saying that "I may be a victim of software counterfeiting as my copy of XP is not genuine." Well, like I said, it's a frankenputer and we had assumed as much from the beginning, but now we're stuck in the mud because it won't let us update it. I have all of the recovery discs for my Dell laptop. Theoretically, could I install XP on the desktop with the discs for the laptop? (Please know that the installation of Mint on the desktop is still full steam ahead!)
Ah, so not only you've got bugs on your computer, but they are also illegal ones. And you're asking us how to illegally replace them with other ones. Forget the windows, get the linux going and that should solve most of the problems.
But yes as chip said you can't install from your dell recovery disks. the problem is not that they are image, but that they will check if your hardware is a dell laptop and refuse to continue when the hardware doesn't match. dell pays $50 per windows license so they have to restrict these installs to only the computers they have assembled themselves.




Between loads of laundry and working with C today, I'm hoping to make some progress on the desktop. So the consensus is that I need to download an nVidia driver?


I haven't had any problems with nvidia, but it's been only a couple of installs and few years ago, so i can't help with specifics. methinks that the installer ought to pick the right driver and if it's getting confused it's fairly straightforward to make it do it (the same way we did it on your laptop).
The procedure will be the same - boot in the safe graphics mode or whatever is that called which uses the generic VESA driver, then you edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and replace "vesa" with "<whatevernvidiadriveriscalled>".
Now as far as I remember you're getting a blank screen. You've gotta find what's the problem and you can look at /var/log/Xserver.log or something like that for clues.
The more promising path is to go with ubuntu as you know what the problem is - it's trying very high resolution and doesn't fallback to the 800x600. Read my post from few pages ago for how to fix this. Also you can try the pre-release of 8.04 ubuntu, in case the installer there is better.
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/beta

[Lynchmeister]

Ah, so not only you've got bugs on your computer, but they are also illegal ones. And you're asking us how to illegally replace them with other ones. Forget the windows, get the linux going and that should solve most of the problems.
But yes as chip said you can't install from your dell recovery disks. the problem is not that they are image, but that they will check if your hardware is a dell laptop and refuse to continue when the hardware doesn't match. dell pays $50 per windows license so they have to restrict these installs to only the computers they have assembled themselves.





I haven't had any problems with nvidia, but it's been only a couple of installs and few years ago, so i can't help with specifics. methinks that the installer ought to pick the right driver and if it's getting confused it's fairly straightforward to make it do it (the same way we did it on your laptop).
The procedure will be the same - boot in the safe graphics mode or whatever is that called which uses the generic VESA driver, then you edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and replace "vesa" with "<whatevernvidiadriveriscalled>".
Now as far as I remember you're getting a blank screen. You've gotta find what's the problem and you can look at /var/log/Xserver.log or something like that for clues.
The more promising path is to go with ubuntu as you know what the problem is - it's trying very high resolution and doesn't fallback to the 800x600. Read my post from few pages ago for how to fix this. Also you can try the pre-release of 8.04 ubuntu, in case the installer there is better.
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/beta

Ok...

Well, I wasn't asking anyone to do or suggest anything illegal. If I did, rest assured it was not intentional. I figured if the copy of Windows for my laptop worked, then, since I own the license for it, I could install it on the desktop. Now I realize that I own the license to install it on one computer, but it makes no difference now as Chip already pointed out that it wouldn't work.

Second, I'm puzzled as to how I'm going to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and replace "vesa" with "<whatevernvidiadriveriscalled>" because I can't do anything as Linux won't boot up.

Third, since all I get is a blank screen, how can I look at /var/log/Xserver.log? When I say a blank screen, how does one work with that? The only thing I can think of is booting Windows and changing configurations that way.

Fourth, Ubuntu doesn't work either, so again, how can I use something to search for clues that doesn't exist?

[Confuzius]

Generally if you get a blank screen in linux you can press CTRL+ALT+F1 to get to a terminal window.
From there you can edit your xorg.conf by typing
"sudo pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf"
although you should probably back it up first.
"sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.bak"

Or you can try the good ole reconfigure
"sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" (not 100&#37; on that, but its along those lines, been mentioned in the thread before, I'm sure someone can correct me, I'm at work)

As a side note, on Thursday I made Turkey burgers and stuffed them with stovetop stuffing before I grilled them. That was a burger full of win, and still moderately healthy.

Also I got frustrated with tab not autocompleting my /etc/X11/... while posting =\

[Lynchmeister]

Generally if you get a blank screen in linux you can press CTRL+ALT+F1 to get to a terminal window.
From there you can edit your xorg.conf by typing
"sudo pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf"
although you should probably back it up first.
"sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.bak"



Thanks, Jordan. When I read this, something registered in my brain as being familiar. My apologies to gugi, as he already suggested I try this a few pages back. :redface:

Ok, I'm off to see what I can do. I'll report back with what I did and the results.

[Lynchmeister]

ok, is that 16bit color?
i haven't used windows in really long time, so not sure where exactly is the videocard - it's gotta be somewhere in devices, but also you may be able to see it in the advanced settings of the display - no idea though.

anyways, if you don't want to poke around, what you want to do on windows is when you get the display out of range thing, you'd go to a console ctrl+alt+1
and then you edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf
I think nano/pico is a friendly editor, hope they have it.
remove all resolutions from the Display lines that are not "800x600"
then see if typing /etc/init.d/gdm restart would do it

Here's where I'm at. ctrl+alt+f1 did in fact bring me to a terminal window.

I tried to edit the file by typing:


gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and got this output:


cannot open display:
Run 'gedit --help' to see a full list of available command line options.
mint@mint:~$

I did look through the gedit --help, but didn't find what I was looking for, which was how to correctly enter the command. Then I opened a terminal on the laptop and browsed the help there in regards to gedit and from what I found, I am entering the command correctly. Of course I could be wrong in that assumption...

While I await everyone's knowledge, I'm going to poke through the man pages on gedit.

[RichGem]

Here's where I'm at. ctrl+alt+f1 did in fact bring me to a terminal window.

I tried to edit the file by typing:


gedit /etc/X11/xorg.confand got this output:


cannot open display:
Run 'gedit --help' to see a full list of available command line options.
mint@mint:~$I did look through the gedit --help, but didn't find what I was looking for, which was how to correctly enter the command. Then I opened a terminal on the laptop and browsed the help there in regards to gedit and from what I found, I am entering the command correctly. Of course I could be wrong in that assumption...

While I await everyone's knowledge, I'm going to poke through the man pages on gedit.

don't bother with man pages for this one. gedit won't run in that environment b/c it's a text based enviro whereas gedit works only in a graphical one. Replace the "gedit" with "vi" or "vim" or "emacs" depending which you know and you should be in business to edit.

[Confuzius]

For what it's worth I find pico way easier to use than , vi, vim or emacs.
From a pure noob point of view.

[Lynchmeister]

don't bother with man pages for this one. gedit won't run in that environment b/c it's a text based enviro whereas gedit works only in a graphical one. Replace the "gedit" with "vi" or "vim" or "emacs" depending which you know and you should be in business to edit.

Ok, this makes sense.

Sub-question: you said, "Replace the "gedit" with "vi" or "vim" or "emacs" depending which you know and you should be in business to edit." I don't know any of them...any advice on most "user friendly"?

[Lynchmeister]

For what it's worth I find pico way easier to use than , vi, vim or emacs.
From a pure noob point of view.

Just saw this after I posted and thought to myself, "Ya know what, I'm sure someone already explained this to me...maybe I should go back and look."

Sure enough...:redface:

Thanks.

[Lynchmeister]

Hmmm...pico opened the file, but nothing is in it. Also the option to exit on the bottom of the screen doesn't work. I had to reboot.

I'll try one of the other editors and see what happens.

[RichGem]

Hmmm...pico opened the file, but nothing is in it. Also the option to exit on the bottom of the screen doesn't work. I had to reboot.

I'll try one of the other editors and see what happens.

did you do "sudo pico" or just "pico"? If the second, that's why you got a blank file. quit without saving and then do the sudo first.

[rabidpotatochip]

Ha! I just got a funny joke...

Nano is also a good text editor, but I assume pico is better... or smaller anyway. :wink:

Cory, did you use proper case? Try this on for size:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And check for typos. :smile:

[Lynchmeister]

did you do "sudo pico" or just "pico"? If the second, that's why you got a blank file. quit without saving and then do the sudo first.

Nope, I just did pico.


Ha! I just got a funny joke...

Nano is also a good text editor, but I assume pico is better... or smaller anyway. :wink:

Cory, did you use proper case? Try this on for size:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And check for typos. :smile:

Yep, I did use proper case.

Alright, back in a flash.

[rabidpotatochip]

did you do "sudo pico" or just "pico"? If the second, that's why you got a blank file. quit without saving and then do the sudo first.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sandwich.png

[Lynchmeister]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sandwich.png

:lol:

Ok, so nano worked, but I did not find any display information other than "VESA", which gugi mentioned on pg.47 in post 939.

I'm currently doing laundry and making dinner while juggling this, so I may have missed something. I will go through it again in a minute and also check out /var/log/Xserver.log for any clues, like gugi suggested.

[gugi]

i'm glad the rest of you guys took over while i was away. i thought pico was as easy as nano, but who knows. perhaps you didn't know that the ^ in the shortcuts on the bottom means the ctrl key - you shouldn't need to reboot.

i think the best way is if you understand what's going on, so let me explain why some of the things you were planning won't work.
when you boot off the cd, the linux makes an install in a virtual disk that lives in your RAM, everytime you reboot you loose it. so you can't edit files from windows as they don't exist. the idea is that you would use this temporary RAM install to play around and eventually install on your harddrive, which is nonvolatile memory.
as far as vi and emacs go, stay away from them for now. they are much better and faster editors, but there's a learning curve you don't want to deal with right now. pico/nano is the way to go. Ah and if you want more than one console you can switch between with ctrl+alt+f1/f2/f3 etc. The install CD's give you 3 of them, once installed linux usually has 6 (up to f6). To get to the GUI you'd use ctrl+ald+f7/f8/f9 - it's usually on one of them. You can try it on your laptop.

what else - yeah somebody with nvidia card should be able to tell you what's the driver called. I don't have time to look it up. And yes you can also use the 'dpkg --reconfigure xserver-xorg' which has curses based interface (yeah i know - we need to make sure you keep picking up more lingo). that thing writes a new xconf.org file, you'll still want to restart the xserver (the gui) (you may be able to do it with pressing ctrl+alt+backspace while in it).

lastly you don't need an editor to look at the content of files. Try
'more filename'
or since often less is more
'less filename'
i doubt you have most, but may be on your laptop 'most filename' could do it too :)

i think that may be getting a bit overwhelming so i'll let you finish the laundry

[Lynchmeister]

Does anyone have any advice on where to look for the nvidia driver name? Is this something that can be found in the BIOS or in the scrolling text while the computer is booting? If I can find the name of the driver, then I think I'll be able to move forward with this, but I'm clueless as to where to look.

Thanks.

EDIT: I froze the screen while it was booting and did not see anything that jumped out at me in regards to to nVidia or its driver.

[Lynchmeister]

I may be on to something...

By using this link http://www.pcmech.com/article/for-the-windows-xp-gamers-update-your-nvidia-drivers/, I was able to deduce that my nvidia card is an ABIT Siluro T200. With this info, hopefully I can find the name of the driver.

[gugi]

I may be on to something...

By using this link http://www.pcmech.com/article/for-the-windows-xp-gamers-update-your-nvidia-drivers/, I was able to deduce that my nvidia card is an ABIT Siluro T200. With this info, hopefully I can find the name of the driver.
it's probably called nv, but i don't know.
why don't you try to install ubuntu as this seems the easiest (you just need to force the resolution tp 800x600). once you have an installed linux you can play with X11 all you want.

[Lynchmeister]

it's probably called nv, but i don't know.
why don't you try to install ubuntu as this seems the easiest (you just need to force the resolution tp 800x600). once you have an installed linux you can play with X11 all you want.

Definitely worth a shot. Remember, though, that Ubuntu yields the same issues as Mint, so I'm assuming that "forcing the resolution" is something that can be done from the command line (?) (if it isn't one and the same as what I was trying to do earlier in Mint).

[gugi]

it does? i thought you were getting an 'out of range' message there, which you didn't get with the others.
and yes you do it from the command line - see the back post where i wrote the details on editing the xorg.conf file

[Lynchmeister]

it does? i thought you were getting an 'out of range' message there, which you didn't get with the others.
and yes you do it from the command line - see the back post where i wrote the details on editing the xorg.conf file

Yes. As it turns out, both Mint and Ubuntu yield an out of range screen on the monitor.

I will go through the motions with Ubuntu and see about editing that file.

[Lynchmeister]

Ok, similar to Mint, the X11 file in Ubuntu does not have any display lines be it 800x600, or anything else for that matter.

I'm going to try
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg.

[Lynchmeister]

Ok, similar to Mint, the X11 file in Ubuntu does not have any display lines be it 800x600, or anything else for that matter.

I'm going to try
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg.

I was able to go through the configuration steps by running the above command and in doing so, I chose 800x600 as the only resolution, but there were a few variables within that that I wasn't sure about, so I went with the default selection.

Once that was complete, it spit me back out to the command prompt. I then entered
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart if only because I was instructed to do so earlier in the event that X11 was successfully modified (which for all I know at this point, it was). Plus it seemed logical to restart with the new settings. It threw an error, which I unfortunately didn't write down, and I ended up just rebooting with
sudo reboot

Any advice if I were to try
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg again?

Also tomorrow, I'm going to try installing with the alternate Ubuntu CD that has since turned up.

Thanks guys!

[gugi]

ah, ok corey, it makes sense now - i thought mint is essentially ubuntu with a different color theme but the guts are really ubuntu (which is really debian, but ubuntu does some important patching on their own).

anyways, reread my last few posts and you'll know why reboot doesn't work

i guess they don't use gdm on install (it was a shot in the dark from me anyways). after you have the file you need to restart X. ctrl+ald+f7 (or f8 or f9) should get you back there, and ctrl+alt+backspace should restart it.

try it first w/o changing the configuration to make sure it works. if it doesn't come up, go on one of the consoles and try 'startx'. i can't run an installer now and see what's going on - may be one of the others can do it and check the process that starts the gui installation

not finding any lines with "800x600" in xorg.conf would explain why you're getting out of range error. i am surprised they aren't there though. You will find lines with other resolutions though - replace them with "800x600".
Or reconfiguring X as you did oughta do it.

one last thing - check that after you reconfigure X, your /etc/X11/xorg.file is changed. (at some point you in the old days the actuall configuration was done by dexconf, so you had to run dexconf at the end).

yes the alternate cd is another option - you can install the system and then play with X. However, you should realize that you'll have only the curses interface. the only important part is the partitioning, but you already have some experience with the gui, this time it'll be all text based, so a bit different.

[RichGem]

You should be able to start/restart X from a command prompt by typing... wait for it.... startx :wink:

[gugi]

and what's up with the avatar?

[Digit01]

Bah! what happened to the days of doing everything via the CLI anyway? Pffft. :lol:

Good to see some linux users here.

[gugi]

what happened to the days when counting started from 0?

[rabidpotatochip]

Bah! what happened to the days of doing everything via the CLI anyway? Pffft. :lol:

Good to see some linux users here.

Bah! What happened to the days of charging the capacitors in the RAM by scuffing your feet on the carpet and zapping it?! Back in my day it took half an hour to refresh the screen! Pffft... kids these days have it so easy.

[RichGem]

Bah! What happened to the days of charging the capacitors in the RAM by scuffing your feet on the carpet and zapping it?! Back in my day it took half an hour to refresh the screen! Pffft... kids these days have it so easy.

Ya mean they finally got you away from the paper terminals and having to program in hex?

[Lynchmeister]

ah, ok corey, it makes sense now - i thought mint is essentially ubuntu with a different color theme but the guts are really ubuntu (which is really debian, but ubuntu does some important patching on their own).

anyways, reread my last few posts and you'll know why reboot doesn't work

i guess they don't use gdm on install (it was a shot in the dark from me anyways). after you have the file you need to restart X. ctrl+ald+f7 (or f8 or f9) should get you back there, and ctrl+alt+backspace should restart it.

try it first w/o changing the configuration to make sure it works. if it doesn't come up, go on one of the consoles and try 'startx'. i can't run an installer now and see what's going on - may be one of the others can do it and check the process that starts the gui installation

not finding any lines with "800x600" in xorg.conf would explain why you're getting out of range error. i am surprised they aren't there though. You will find lines with other resolutions though - replace them with "800x600".
Or reconfiguring X as you did oughta do it.

one last thing - check that after you reconfigure X, your /etc/X11/xorg.file is changed. (at some point you in the old days the actuall configuration was done by dexconf, so you had to run dexconf at the end).

yes the alternate cd is another option - you can install the system and then play with X. However, you should realize that you'll have only the curses interface. the only important part is the partitioning, but you already have some experience with the gui, this time it'll be all text based, so a bit different.

Ugh...yesterday was madness for me. My wife and I hosted a dinner party last night and your's truly was slaving away in the kitchen all day.

Today's my last day off (boo hoo, I know :rolleyes:), and the apartment is looking nice and tidy, so hopefully I'll have some time to work on this. In fact, I think I'll get things going now.

[RichGem]

Ugh...yesterday was madness for me. My wife and I hosted a dinner party last night and your's truly was slaving away in the kitchen all day.

Today's my last day off (boo hoo, I know :rolleyes:), and the apartment is looking nice and tidy, so hopefully I'll have some time to work on this. In fact, I think I'll get things going now.

What do you mean? You didn't try to hack between course?! :nono: :out:
I mean, do we have to teach you everything? :biggrin:

Seriously, hope you had fun. What was on the menu? :chef:
Now get back to work. :biggrin: This thread has a lot of catching up to do.

[Lynchmeister]

While booting up the desktop in the bedroom, I came out to the living room to work on the laptop and I forgot about the desktop for several minutes. I just went in there to start another day of battle and I was confronted with a surprise.

Behind the flashing out of range message on the monitor was, in all it's glory, the mud brown swirl desktop of Ubuntu! Should I try and install and work around the "Out of Range" message until I'm up and running and then reconfigure from there?

I think things are looking up!

[RichGem]

While booting up the desktop in the bedroom, I came out to the living room to work on the laptop and I forgot about the desktop for several minutes. I just went in there to start another day of battle and I was confronted with a surprise.

Behind the flashing out of range message on the monitor was, in all it's glory, the mud brown swirl desktop of Ubuntu! Should I try and install and work around the "Out of Range" message until I'm up and running and then reconfigure from there?

I think things are looking up!

It sounds like X was able to negotiate an "in range" setting for your monitor after some trying. I'd leave it running and edit xorg.conf manually from that desktop then reboot and pray. Or, you can just reboot, pray even harder, and hope that it happens again.... you may not need to manually edit anything at this pont. On second thought, go with the second choice and see what happens. X has probably and properly written its config file at this point.

[Lynchmeister]

What do you mean? You didn't try to hack between course?! :nono: :out:
I mean, do we have to teach you everything? :biggrin:

Seriously, hope you had fun. What was on the menu? :chef:
Now get back to work. :biggrin: This thread has a lot of catching up to do.

The menu for the evening featured my "Clear everyone out of the apartment in no time" steak and chicken tacos. As the name implies, its preparation is very labor intensive...lots of roasted jalapenos and pasilla chiles, garlic, fresh cilantro, a ridiculous volume of fresh squeezed lime juice (my squeezing hand still hurts)...and that was just for the meat marinade! :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

It sounds like X was able to negotiate an "in range" setting for your monitor after some trying. I'd leave it running and edit xorg.conf manually from that desktop then reboot and pray. Or, you can just reboot, pray even harder, and hope that it happens again.... you may not need to manually edit anything at this pont. On second thought, go with the second choice and see what happens. X has probably and properly written its config file at this point.

Ok, cool! Before I do, though, I want to make sure we're on the same page in that I'm using a live cd, so won't any changes be lost? Or not necessarily?

Off to reboot.

[RichGem]

The menu for the evening featured my "Clear everyone out of the apartment in no time" steak and chicken tacos. As the name implies, its preparation is very labor intensive...lots of roasted jalapenos and pasilla chiles, garlic, fresh cilantro, a ridiculous volume of fresh squeezed lime juice (my squeezing hand still hurts)...and that was just for the meat marinade! :lol:

That sounds good. Now, the big question.. how much tequilla did you go through? :w00t:

[Lynchmeister]

That sounds good. Now, the big question.. how much tequilla did you go through? :w00t:

None...everyone but me had to work today. :frown: Possibly a blessing in disguise, though, because otherwise I might not be firing on all cylinders today. :wink:

Ok, so the reboot went well. It looks like I just wasn't giving it enough time to fully load during the previous attempts.

Not only did I forget the desktop a while back, but I forgot the 2 loads of wet laundry sitting in the washing machines that need to be hung to dry. Sheesh, I feel like Little Susie Homemaker. :001_rolle

[Lynchmeister]

Ok, I ended up taking a little different route. Using the toolbar, I went to preferences-->screen resolution and changed it to 800x600 with a refresh rate of 75Hz (85Hz yielded the out of range message) and everything is looking good, with one exception. The mouse cursor response is still very slow. At first I suspected the live cd to be the culprit, but now I'm not so sure because my laptop, while slow at loading things off of the live cd, never had mouse response slowdowns.

What do you guys think?

[RichGem]

I'd forgotten you were still using a live cd, but in any case, you now know what to do... give it time and X can sometimes negotiate a proper (or at least workable) setting. You may then go in and change it manually as you discovered, if you don't like the res, get flicker, etc.

Not sure about the mouse problem other than to suggest checking the mouse config in xorg.conf.... X may have assigned a generic config whereas a specific one might be more helpful.

I couldn't find a "french maid" smiley for you and your laundry duties, so I guess we'll have to take up a collection and send you the outfit FexEx or something. hehehe. Again, do not post pictures, for the love of God.

EDIT: Also first check whatever graphical config tools ubuntu offers for the mouse config. It'll be easier than wading through xorg.conf

[RichGem]

Here's the best I could do (well, and still keep it "G" rated). And now "Leave it to Beaver" staring Cory Lynch as June Cleaver.

http://www.rjscales.com/june_cleaver.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://bp1.blogger.com/_t-uCbIgYDIw/Rndbj--Bf0I/AAAAAAAAAFU/HcJSZG41EWs/s320/june_cleaver-w-blur.jpg&imgrefurl=http://craftydabbler.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-would-50s-housewife-do.html&h=315&w=250&sz=23&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=vFDIOR_ECW9jwM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djune%2Bcleaver%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26c lient%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3Dwy4%26sa%3DN

[Lynchmeister]

I'd forgotten you were still using a live cd, but in any case, you now know what to do... give it time and X can sometimes negotiate a proper (or at least workable) setting. You may then go in and change it manually as you discovered, if you don't like the res, get flicker, etc.

Not sure about the mouse problem other than to suggest checking the mouse config in xorg.conf.... X may have assigned a generic config whereas a specific one might be more helpful.

I couldn't find a "french maid" smiley for you and your laundry duties, so I guess we'll have to take up a collection and send you the outfit FexEx or something. hehehe. Again, do not post pictures, for the love of God.

Yes, that makes sense about the mouse configuration. All of the specs are on the bottom of the mouse, so I suppose having that information is half the battle...now I just need to figure out what to do with it. :wink:

Don't worry, I'll spare ya the photos too. :lol:

[Lynchmeister]

Here's the best I could do (well, and still keep it "G" rated). And now "Leave it to Beaver" staring Cory Lynch as June Cleaver.

http://www.rjscales.com/june_cleaver.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://bp1.blogger.com/_t-uCbIgYDIw/Rndbj--Bf0I/AAAAAAAAAFU/HcJSZG41EWs/s320/june_cleaver-w-blur.jpg&imgrefurl=http://craftydabbler.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-would-50s-housewife-do.html&h=315&w=250&sz=23&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=vFDIOR_ECW9jwM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djune%2Bcleaver%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26c lient%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3Dwy4%26sa%3DN

:biggrin:

And I just saw the EDIT from your previous post. I'll poke around.

[RichGem]

Yes, that makes sense about the mouse configuration. All of the specs are on the bottom of the mouse, so I suppose having that information is half the battle...now I just need to figure out what to do with it. :wink:

Don't worry, I'll spare ya the photos too. :lol:


see my edit above. try to find a graphical config tool first. then hack xorg.conf if you can't find a graphical tool.

[Lynchmeister]

I did find a graphical config tool labled simply enough, "mouse", but it didn't make any noticeable difference. I adjusted the speed and sensitivity, but to no avail.

Yes, the mouse config is generic in xorg.conf. It seems simple enough that I'd be able to just go into xorg.conf via the GUI and modify it that way, but I'm still hung up on what to replace the generic info with.

I'm gonna chew on this for a while and will periodically check back in here to see if anyone's light bulbs have turned on. :smile:

[Lynchmeister]

Here is the mouse info taken from xorg.conf on the laptop running Mint. I know it may not be the same as the desktop running the Ubuntu Live CD, but it's something to look at.


Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"

I'm wondering if the changes will take place in "Identifier," "Driver," or both.

[gugi]

uhm, i'm not sure you can 'fix' the mouse easily. if i were you i'll first install it and then worry about X. You'll have plenty of time to play with it and it's much easier once the system is installed.

[micah1_8]

I've noticed that this thread has uhm... run a little long, and I've not yet chimed in. I'm not sure how I've gone this far without getting in on this sweet post-doping opportunity, so let me just offer this. When all else fails, try puppy linux, it's small, and it's fairly easy to use, plus it works great with older hardware.

[Lynchmeister]

uhm, i'm not sure you can 'fix' the mouse easily. if i were you i'll first install it and then worry about X. You'll have plenty of time to play with it and it's much easier once the system is installed.

I had toyed with this idea and may give it shot next week when I have more time.

[OldSaw]

This whole Linux stuff sounds like a lot of work. Is it really worth it?

Oh... and do you think we will get to 1000 tonight? I don't want to stay up too late. MBW has been hinting around. :wink:

[RichGem]

uhm, i'm not sure you can 'fix' the mouse easily. if i were you i'll first install it and then worry about X. You'll have plenty of time to play with it and it's much easier once the system is installed.

+1. It may take care of itself post-install.

[OldSaw]

Woo Hoo!!! 1000!!!

:a5::a50::a22::a21::a5::jump::thumbup::thumbup:
:thumbup1::thumbsup::badger::thumbsup::badger: :a14: :a14::a29::a29:
:a5::a21::a22::a50::clap::clap::clap::letterk1: :wheelchair::wheelchair::letterk1::punk::punk::a5:

I have to go to bed. Gugi or Corey, will you please quote this and bump it for me at 1000?

Thanks guys you are great.

[RichGem]

This probably belongs in "explain your avatar," please congratulate our own Lynchmeister.


http://badgerandblade.com/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=11872


(running and hiding now)

[micah1_8]

sudo post get 7 posts

:biggrin:

[gugi]

Dennis, many thanks for the thoughtful preemptive post! I will be sure to quote you verbatim on it, when the time comes.
Actually I'm never sure whether to put it on X00 or X01, so I may do both.

It makes me sad that Corey chose to wait another week and slowed down the whole progress we were making. At this point he may as well wait few more weeks and get the 8.04, but if that is much easier that'll be a reall downer on the post count...

So, methinks we've got to find useful tangential plot lines which will converge back later on. The taco derail looks a bit week and not geeky enough, but I'll address it in its own separate post

[gugi]

The menu for the evening featured my "Clear everyone out of the apartment in no time" steak and chicken tacos. As the name implies, its preparation is very labor intensive...lots of roasted jalapenos and pasilla chiles, garlic, fresh cilantro, a ridiculous volume of fresh squeezed lime juice (my squeezing hand still hurts)...and that was just for the meat marinade! :lol:
Indeed compared to the usual menu pizza delivery making tacos is labor intensive.
Corey, I suppose I've gotta keep it G-rated, so I won't go on the squeezing direction I'm thinking, but would say that you oughta consider spending 10 bucks for a juicer. Something like this (http://www.amazon.com/S-CITRUS-PRESS-JUICER/dp/B0002IBOAK/) works quite well, and there are cheaper versions.
When I have tacos with my friends, the procedure is as follows
- the whole group goes to the store
- everybody picks few items (to be agreed upon beforehand) - this saves time and avoids forgetting and important ingredient (say cream chees, or avocado)
- back to the house things get sumultaneously cut by as many people as the counter/table space allows.
- oil in the pan (or two pans) and everybody makes their own taco, and fries it.

Yes not everybody starts eating at the same time (hence the role of the chips and the abundance of beer), but once the transients are gone everybody eats at the same time. It's important to choose the number of pans/skillets accordingly, as you want by the time a person is done eating their taco, to be their turn again.

I know it's not what a family does, but it's way more efficient and the food is eaten properly (freshly cooked to ones desire).

[RichGem]

nice avatar micah.

[micah1_8]

nice avatar micah.

Thanks!

Just wait until I reach "Bruce Lee of Wet Shaving"

[RichGem]

only a few posts to go before the big 1K and I've gotta get some sleep. Well, hopefully, it will be an epic post.

[micah1_8]

By my count, this is 999--- so, next poster, no pressure! Don't choke! Say something monumental for the milestone!

[gugi]

OK, here we are. Personally I like to celebrate 1024, but for the rest of you..... (yeah sorry to bring up the 1024, but you know when you buy a HDD you get totally shafted - we should've stuck with single bits of memory)


Woo Hoo!!! 1000!!!

:a5::a50::a22::a21::a5::jump::thumbup::thumbup:
:thumbup1::thumbsup::badger::thumbsup::badger: :a14: :a14::a29::a29:
:a5::a21::a22::a50::clap::clap::clap::letterk1: :wheelchair::wheelchair::letterk1::punk::punk::a5:

I have to go to bed. Gugi or Corey, will you please quote this and bump it for me at 1000?

Thanks guys you are great.