The Linux Distro Thread (maybe)

[ej-solutions]

Thought I'd start this one off, rather than continue on another thread.

As a quick catch up for others:

Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).

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[ej-solutions]

Assuming your Linux Mint / is on the 1st partition of your second drive, boot your Live CD. Then try:

sudo su
mkdir /tmp/temproot
mount /dev/sdb1 /tmp/temproot
chroot /tmp/temproot
update-grub
grub-install /dev/sda
exit

Note: traditionally /boot was a separate file system, normally bfs (boot file system, naturally). It doesn't have the overhead of journalling etc. and in days of yore (probably still does marginally), made booting quicker. Typically only a few megabytes in size - enough to accommodate the kernel itself, a few modules and boot scripts.
Note2: /tmp (along with swap and optionally /var) is useful to have on a different drive to /home. If they can be separated from / even better but rarely done.

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[otherego]

Interesting. As soon as I tried update-grub, it asked for / to be mounted. It wouldn't mount /dev/sdb1 - I think 'cos it was relabelled sdb1 /tmp/temproot, according to GParted.

Of course, now I'm intrigued and have forgotten all about plans to be up and doing stuff bright and early.

All hope of an early night gone, I messed about for a while - eventually went back to the internet, and among others, found this:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=50937&start=0

It did the trick - to save you looking, these were the relevant commands:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

Reboot

(Refresh the GRUB 2 menu)
sudo update-grub

In my case, /dev/sdb1 is where Mint is installed; Windows lurks on /dev/sda.

I think where I originally went wrong with my attempts to put together odds and ends was simply not mounting sdb1 from the live CD before trying to install GRUB, and botching the GRUB install command itself. (Not sure of the necessity of running the update-grub command again - does no harm, I suppose.)

So - another late night, but interesting and entertaining - and the machine's working properly again.

Bed-time!

[otherego]

Partly a bump, as I'd hate to see this most useful of threads vanish in the reorganisation - wonder why it's slipped so far down?

Could it be that the few Linux users around encounter fewer serious and difficult-to-resolve problems? Or is there something about Linux that encourages its users to actually seek solutions and to try things out?

Surely not?

And now a quick whinge. The only wireless dongles available locally seem to be made by Edimax. A couple I've used on Linux machines have been fine.

In the process (which is taking forever - my fault) of getting my latest eBay acquisition up and running, the only dongle I could find was an Edimax EW-7711UMn.

According to the box, it should work with Linux. (It works on the Windows XP partition, albeit through the unpleasant accompanying software - still haven't found a way to install just the driver and let Windows handle everything else.)

Mint doesn't even see it.

*Sigh*

There's one more place in town which just might sell dongles - so off I go for a look. Given my predilection for messing about and reinstalling, it would be so much easier not to have to try to find a driver every time.

I suppose there's not sufficient demand to justify keeping a Linux Compatible Hardware thread alive - I suppose it would be up to us to bump it occasionally - but does anyone see any point in starting a thread on which we list hardware that does/doesn't play nicely with Linux?

I know these exist elsewhere, but tend to be very distro-specific - it would be useful to have it all in one place, and could just be a useful guide for those shopping for computers here - a quick glance at such a thread might reveal a particular machine/accessory to be suitable or not, rather than missing the end of the auction while googling - or doing an otherego, and only discover after committing to buying the wretched thing that it's not Linux-friendly.

[grumpy-cook]

OE, have you tried using ndiswrapper?

still haven't found a way to install just the driver and let Windows handle everything else

What I always do is to insert the cd and dismiss any autorun. Then plug in the dongle and let Windows search - it invariably finds the driver.

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[otherego]

I've not tried ndiswrapper yet but will do so if all else fails. Attempts to use it some time ago were unsatisfactory but hopefully I've learned just enough to figure it out this time.

Still easier if I can find a dongle that just works - just located an elderly Edimax, which I'll try a little later. For some reason, the older ones have worked for me before - 'tho not quite as ancient as the one I located (half-price, fortunately.)

I tried the CD as you described - for some reason, Windows just couldn't find the driver on it. Very odd indeed. It's one of the things I've previously found Windows quite good at. Doubtless I did something wrong - just not sure what.

Something to play with later.

[otherego]

The new/old Edimax dongle is working beautifully with Mint. When I get back, I'll see whether it also makes friends with Windows.

Interesting - I running a Mint live CD. With Firefox - just this tab, at the moment - plus the Open Office word processor, spreadsheet, drawing and presentation apps all open, the system monitor shows just 325 MiB of RAM in use. (CPU use is showing about 10 to 12 % - a 2.8GHz P4 with hyperthreading - nice by my standards, but hardly state of the art.)

I've noticed before that Mint seems to be lighter on resources - RAM, at least - in live CD sessions that it is once installed. Presumably the installed version pre-populates (or whatever the correct term is) the RAM with whatever is most likely to be needed?

[otherego]

Ouch - sorry about all the typos.

And I paid over five quid for this keyboard, too!

[ej-solutions]

There is a misconception about RAM usage in general and viewing its' use in Windoze terms is different than in *nix.
Linux tends to allocate all of (well most, with a wee reserve) available memory, to limit the amount of disc swapping required.
Even my server provider's helpdesk personnel get this wrong - too many years with Windoze.
You can see this in action as follows:
Open a terminal.
free -m
The first line is what people mistakenly think is what has been used/is left. It's not, see the second line, which takes into account buffers - this is the amount actually 'used'/free.

I suspect this memory mapping is partially the reason behind Firefox memory discrepancies (though haven't looked in any depth).

Live sessions do have a different memory mapping architecture. They need to take into account the lack of disc swap space, in most instances.

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Diminished responsibility

[grumpy-cook]

Interesting EJ, thanks.

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[otherego]

Here's mine:

free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2012 704 1308 0 49 264
-/+ buffers/cache: 390 1622
Swap: 2149 0 2149

Also interesting the way Linux seems to avoid using swap unless it's absolutely necessary - or if a particular app expects it, perhaps?

VBox always seems to bring swap to life.

I don't have a Vista computer to hand (nor the energy to do battle with one right at the moment *hic*), but this seems to compare pretty favourably. Even with its clever pre-fetching or whatever, Vista seems to guzzle more RAM and then take longer to find anything than Mint. This is subjective, and I'm definitely open to correction.

[ej-solutions]

2Gb! Rotter.
1622Mb free.
Must be the Vbox memory management or is it actually replacing the buffers/cache?
Try doing the same with a virtual machine opened, bearing in mind the amount of RAM allocated to the VM. In a huff, 'cos you could easily allocate a gigabyte to it. ;)

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Diminished responsibility

[otherego]

Good grief, I lied. Probably haven't look since I upped the RAM from 1GB to the max possible. (Had to think about that - quite an investment for the old Optiplex GX260, even using second-hand stuff):

free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2012 1538 473 0 61 564
-/+ buffers/cache: 912 1100
Swap: 2149 0 2149


That's with VBox running PCLinuxOS (Gnome) with 512MB RAM - and I've not tried allocating 1GB RAM yet (but have a vague suspicion that a little more playing will now precede the planned early night.)

I guess the performance bottle-neck is now the 2.0 GHz P4.

Amazing how a little more RAM can compensate for a lack of skill in optimising one's computer - what a shame the stuff ain't free.

[ej-solutions]

Interesting. It's not even breaking a sweat in terms of RAM usage.

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Diminished responsibility

[otherego]

Funny - I've been messing about with VBox, and quite often end up with 1GB RAM in use (leaving a gig free) - and about 2.5MB of swap in use. (Except when I remember to try to capture it to put it here.)

Hardly serious - I just wonder why it sometimes seems to allocate itself this tiny chunk of swap.

Since I'm running out of my day's allocation of posts (is it ten in 24 hours? Ten from midnight to midnight? Might work up the enthusiasm to tackle the "help"), forgive occasional failures to respond to responses from now on.

The burning question of the day - does Linux (specifically Mint) include a simple disk checking/error correcting utility along the lines of Windoze's checkdisk?

Every thirty-odd starts, it seems to run a disk check, but goodness knows what it actually does. I must say, I tend to cancel it more often than not - impatience on my part. And I've not found anything in the menu enabling it to be run on demand.

Everything I've googled so far seems to involve the use of the command line, something called single user which seems to mean launching the distro without a graphic shell, and a fair number of dire if non-specific warnings.

Most of what I've found is old, and the single-user thing seems mostly to refer to LILO - although there seems to be a slightly long-winded means of invoking it in GRUB - select a kernel boot, type e and then enter the required command - I think.

I do realise that Linux file systems are unlikely to need disk checking in the way their Windows counterparts do from time to time, but I'd be curious to see what Mint makes of the hard disk on a laptop I'm playing with. I fitted a larger hard drive - actually purchased a brand new one ages ago, and have, of course, lost all the paper work. I tried to pre-partition it for a Windoze reinstallation to a presized partition using an Easeus bootable CD and frankly wasn't terribly impressed. I think GParted is clearer and simpler.

After a couple of false starts, I decided to wipe the disk with the Western Digital diagnostic CD's zeros to disk facility - foolish. On completion, it showed a disk error -I forget the code. A quick disk check with the diagnostic app was fine; an extended test returned error code 226. According to the WD site, this means "replace the drive." ("Unable to correct the errors found: Sector relocation error - replace drive." Whoopee.) Interesting that this obviously major error only showed up on the extended test, and not the quick one.

For the fun of it, I installed Mint anyway, and it works beautifully. It would be interesting to see what Linux makes of the condition of the drive, although I don't intend entrusting anything important to it - for obvious reasons.

So - how to launch a Linux disk check/repair facility - all suggestions gratefully received!

[ej-solutions]

Use at your own risk (shouldn't harm anything):

In a terminal...

sudo touch /forcefsck (for /)

sudo touch /home/forcefsck (for /home)

etc.

To force a check, with a reboot

sudo shutdown -rF now

[otherego]

sudo shutdown -rF now started off with great enthusiasm, then settled down to a slow march of the little Mint dots from left to right, and a long period with no hard disk activity at all (judging from the hard disk light and lack of noise.)

I did a spot of googling, and it looks as if this might in fact be a bug with Mint9 - it's been mentioned in Launchpad.

Odd that it's not been fixed yet - they're usually onto that sort of thing very quickly.

Still, no real harm - I'll try another hard drive. (Trying to prepare it for a senior rellie - want him to try Linux, if only for the relative safety it affords online banking and such, but will need Mr Ballmer's software available to avoid resistance to my propoganda. Dual-booting on the original 55GiB drive is feasible, but not wonderful - and like the rest of the machine, that drive is pretty ancient.)

[ej-solutions]

My poor old barely used desktop triple boots from it's main 40Gb drive, with stacks of rubbish useful programs still on it.

I've also found Mint9 to hang on startup, during fsck - usually just press Esc whilst there's no disc activity. Not ideal but with 10 around the corner, I'm not going to worry too much. 🙂

[otherego]

At least Mint doesn't seem to encounter as many disk problems as Windows - I think. (Famous last words.)

It's also so much more efficient in terms of disk space useage. Perhaps that's unfair, but I don't think so. I used a 40GB hard drive for ages on this machine. Even when I was within less than 2GB of filling it up, there seemed to be no problems - other than a lack of storage space, of course.

The reason I'm up this late is that I decided to try another hard drive in the old Toshiba.

Do you know how long it takes to download XP's updates from a SP-2 reinstallation??? It's been shutting down for some time...

More importantly, I did repartition the drive before starting all that. (Very unscientific - half for XP, half for Mint). Messing about before, Mint only seemed to use about two and a half GiB for its basic installation - I've allowed it 8GiB this time, but suspect that this is unnecessary. I suspect that for most of us, most of the time, a / partition of 5GiB would do nicely. I've used 3.8GiB on this machine - but that includes all sorts of quite unneccessary stuff that I tried out of curiosity and will never use again.1.52GiB of swap should take care of any hibernation needs with the 1.5GB of RAM fitted - I think.

XP and all the Toshiba odds and ends had used over 7 GiB before I started the updates...

And I'll bet the whole Mint installation tomorrow evening (make that this evening, now) takes only slightly longer than updating Windows. And I haven't even started adding all the necessary apps  - most of which are, of course, included in Mint anyway.

Be interesting to know how much space other people use for their various Linux partitions.

And will help keep this incredibly useful thread afloat on the sea of general selling enquiries threatening to engulf it - I've wasted two of my ten daily posts redirecting folk - only to find that Clifford had already assisted one, who posted twice - whichcaught me out!

[ej-solutions]

Well, I've lumbered m'self with another project - as if I don't have enough to do! This will have to be a pet/hobby project though, at least for now...

Wine Doors

This ever so useful add-on to Wine has stopped working. It turns out that the repository where the applications are held is unavailable. The provider couldn't afford the cost of hosting it anymore and no-one had taken up the reins.

Step in EJ. I've setup a new SourceForge Project, with a copy of the latest/last files. The files are all uploaded but now I need to figure out how to use SorceForge properly. Once done, wine-doors should be back up and running again, if the package is re-installed from SourceForge.

Watch this space.

[grumpy-cook]

Way to go EJ, sounds like a big project. I used Wine Doors on my last Linux install for IE6 and a couple of other things, but haven't bothered on the current one yet as I tend to use Vbox.