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GnomeEGGS |
Choosing a Distribution, Part VII
Xandros is another distribution aimed at beginners. This one comes with support for Windows built in to help people with the transition, in the form of CodeWeavers products like CrossOver Office and CrossOver Plug-in. If you ever used Corel's Linux distribution, Xandros is the company that Corel licensed that product to when it gave up on doing a distribution. This distribution's hardware requirements are lower than those in Lindows, so my laptop actually meets them.
Once again, I'll put on my newbie hat and see how it goes with my laptop. Time to open the box! Now there's a good sign. This one actually comes with a manual. Not just one of those tiny quick start guides either. But, hey, I'm an end user. I don't read manuals. So, let's open up the disk pouch and get started.
On the back there's a sticker that includes a link so you can read the full EULA (which is also in the box on its own sheet of paper) before opening up. That's cool. Now what's inside? Two CDs, one installation disk and one "technology review for advanced users," along with a registration card with the info I'll need to register the product. I'm not wearing my advanced user hat so I'll stick with the Installation Disc. Let me pop that into the CD-ROM drive and reboot the machine.
There's the Xandros installer's boot screen. It gives me a steady stream of information so I know that it's still starting the installation routine, which is good. Eventually I reach the pretty blue Xandros Installation Wizard's Welcome screen. I click Next to proceed, accept the EULA, choose the Express Install (why make my life difficult?), enter the administrator password, and change the name used to identify the machine to something I like better.
It's suggested to create a user account as well, so I do that too. After clicking Next, I get a summary of my setting, and a scary flashing red warning that my disk will be wiped once I click Finish. That's fine, that's the point! At least if I wanted I could click Back to check out my other options. There's the usual handy explanation text as the installation progress bar marches on, and then I'm offered the chance to create a rescue disk or reboot. I'll just reboot. Who needs a rescue disk? (Always create one! says the advanced user.)
This installer also gives me a big screen that says to remove the CD and then press Enter to restart. Smart stuff. I do so, and when it restarts, it gives me the option for the desktop, safe video mode, and configure (expert). No way do I want the expert! When I don't touch anything it proceeds with the desktop boot. There's a couple of beeps during hardware detection that I hope are a good thing, and then I ultimately see the login screen.
Time to try out my user account! I choose it from the handy drop-down list box, enter my password, and click Login. There's even music as the desktop finishes loading.
So what have I got here? Ah, the usual First Run Wizard thingie. I tell it what hand I use my mouse with, set the usual language and keyboard information, select my location for the date and time information and tell it to automatically change the time when I change a time zone (pretty cool). After this, I come to the printer setup section. I have a printer but it's a network printer. Let's see if this works.
I click Add, tell it that this printer's over the network, select Next, and it needs some information that I can only get from my (mythical) 13 yr old network administrator, so I'll Cancel out of that for now. My mouse is giving me trouble so this is a bit of a chore, but I manage it and proceed to the System Behavior section. It seems I can tell my Linux system to behave like various operating systems, but I got Xandros so I could run Linux so I'll stick with the defaults.
Next is registration. I'll skip that for now. Then I see the Finish dialog. This offers me a chance to open the control center, to update the installation, or to finish the wizard. Let's see if I can fix this mouse problem in the control center. I think a mouse is a peripheral, so I click on the Peripheral Devices menu item to see if it's in that list. Yup, there it is.
I have to say that for a system that meets the minimum recommended hardware requirements, it's pretty painfully slow!
Ah, there's the mouse menu. There's a second tab called "advanced" that I can try, so I'll nervously look at that. Hmm, I don't see anything useful there. I know I have a USB mouse, so maybe under USB devices in the Hardware Information section. I can't find anything and the mouse is working, it's just really slow and jerky, so I decide it must just be the slow machine.
After selecting File | Quit I'll try the Xandros Networks update button. It seems to start, I get a little planet icon and everything, but then it seems to die. I'm not sure what's going on there, but I guess I'll just click Finish and get on with my life. I think I'll start by surfing the web. Let's see if that works. It doesn't, and I'm wondering if this is a problem with the slow as hades laptop, so I'll go try it on the faster machine I'm setting up for something else.
Boy, is that better! Works great. The Quick Start Guide has a nice Xandros tour, everything works as it should, and the installer finds that machine's serial mouse with no problems. So, if you're going to use Xandros, don't use a lowly PII 450 laptop! Use a more modern machine.
Next week: What readers say about their Lindows experiences.
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GnomeCHICKS |
Compiling Software from Source, Part XI
Isn't this a long series? Let's see if we can get past the vexing problem that pounced me last time. It hit when I was trying to autoconfigure gnome-media. Since I'm a glass-half-full optimist, I'll give that another try. Dang, of course it doesn't work.
The confusing thing is that the configuration tool is looking for gstreamer-0.5.pc, but the gstreamer I installed is 0.6. It's also looking for gstreamer-libs-0.6.pc, however. I try locate gstreamer-libs-0.6 and only find them mentioned in the docs directory of the gstreamer tool. I wonder if somehow the packages weren't installed properly, or I forgot to install it after compiling? Stranger things have happened. I'll try compiling and installing gstreamer once again. I do the
Once this process is complete, I try configuring gnome-media once again. Once again, it fails. Now I try the following:
In frustration, I look into my RPMs:
So, I could solve this by installing the gstreamer libraries via RPM. I check on my Red Hat CDs and there's a gstreamer-devel package (devel packages often contain libraries), so I use:
Now to try auto-configuring gnome-media once again. That doesn't fix it either! I try the following:
So, the RPM doesn't even contain a gstreamer-libs file. Grumble. Okay, there were some other gstreamer RPMs I think I don't have installed: gstreamer-plugins, gstreamer-plugins-devel, and gstreamer tools. Let's try:
Ah ha! Now I'll be lazy:
Oops, guess it's in gstreamer-plugins-devel:
Now, I'll try configuring gnome-media yet again. Yay, I got past that finally. Now it wants the gail tool. After uncompressing it and unpacking it, that one configures and compiles without a fuss.
Time to try gnome-media again. The configuration actually completes! Now I compile and install it. Phew.
Next week: Will this series ever end?
./configure and then a make clean to make sure I've got a clean slate, and then make and make install.
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GnomePENGUINS |
Getting your email to work on the road, Part II
When people are on the road, they may or may not want to have to deal with an email client. After all, if they're not taking a laptop or are using someone else's machine, this could end up a real pain. One way to deal with this issue is to offer Web-based email, otherwise known as Webmail.
A popular tool for this purpose is Squirrelmail. This one is starting to come with a variety of distributions, such as the current Red Hat Linux beta. It's written in PHP 4, offers both IMAP and SMTP support, and outputs information in HTML 4.0 with no fancy widgets like JavaScript that can cause problems for end users. If you have people who travel a lot, they can even store address books and sort their mail into folders.
In addition to both RPM and DEB packages, the site also offers a variety of Squirrelmail plug-ins, including spam filtering tools.
Alternatives (free and commercial) include the IMP Webmail tool for Apache, Courier, DMail, Recipemail, SuSE Linux Openexchange Server, and webcrossing with the proper plugin.
Have a favorite webmail solution or email service tip or trick? Send it in, and I'll share it next time!
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GnomeVOICE |
Penguin Shell Swag Store Sale: September has been dubbed "Shameless Promotion
Month" on CafePress! Rather than boring you with lots of details, the
Penguin Shell Shopkeep will
just tell you that there's lots of different sales going on! See for yourself, and
use the coupon code "SHAMELESS".
He continues: "Then, after following the ‘compiling from source’ series and your Lindows-distro-as-newbie, it finally happened. Something clicked and I began to be able to work in my new OS. Even though I have RH7.1 I’ve always believed in the command line. And oh, wow, did the floodgates open and everything began to flow. I worked almost non-stop for three days I was having such fun. I put in a 4gig HDD, formatted and then installed a fairly basic setup. Got my sound card working. Got my cable modem working. Mounted my windows drive and transferred all those files, notes, tar balls and rpms I had collected. I moved in and out of multiple terminals and the file system with ease (with the exception of the RH renames lol). I really miss my wheel mouse, but it is an OEM version where the cure seems too much ado about nothing and not worth the hassle. I’d always heard 7.3 was a more stable version and with my new found boldness there was no doubt about what my next step would be – recompile!! Next, I plan to upgrade and/or try different GUIs and Browsers, add Open Office and gimp."
Before signing off, he was sure to say: "ANYWAY, put a big feather in your cap my Canadian friend; I am a true Penguin Shell Success Story thanks to Dee-Ann." And I respond: always happy to hear success stories!
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Lockergnomie Nigel writes: "For those Gnomies who are looking for good, free Web hosting, have a look at Vectorstar. To quote their site: 'Last, but certainly not least, we want to provide an environment in which you can learn things new and old about standards-compliant technology. We run many varieties of UNIX servers, all interconnected, all cooperating with each other. We use standard, open technologies, and promote the use and advancement of Open Source and Free software, standards, and protocols.' It seems that they are speaking our language!" And I respond: Isn't this nice to see? Usually it's "Don't talk to us about Linux."
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A Lockergnomie by the name of Ernest took the time to respond to Stu's question in the issue dated 09/02/2003:
"I, too, use Mandrake, and have used it since about v6.0. What has worked well for me has been to only install the packages I know I will use, such as OpenOffice.org and the KDE desktop, as well as a variety of Shell programs and developement packages [so I can compile new kernels, etc.] at install time.
Then, as I choose to add new software, I handle the dependencies as needed. I use Mandrake's Install package tool to help ease this burden, since it usually informs me of any additional packages which are required, and offers to install them for me (most of the time). If I get dependency errors for packages not in my install set of CDs, I simply go to rpmfind.net and search for any needed packages there. If possible, I try to use Mandrake packages, then RedHat."
Ernest doesn't stop there: "I try to stick to using RPMs as much as possible, since this reduces dependency issues. If the software I want to install is not available as an RPM, then I use chkinstall to get it into my small library of custom RPM'd packages to accomodate future reinstall needs. This way, I do not have a lot of software on my system that I am not using. It is my belief that "KISS" works well, not only in software development, but as a general rule for computer use and security, but that is another topic."
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