The Great Linux Adventure : Gung Ho Installation

Well, I had not luck getting the standalone broadband adapter to work (it seems to connect to a wierd other network) and the defrag would not completely compact my hard drive even when I ran it in safe mode.

So, what the hell, I left the PCI DWL-G520 in the machine and put the first SuSe 10 CD in...let's see what happens...

- it boots from the CD and tells me "You are about to install 32-bit software on a 64-bit computer"...OK, I know...let's "Continue"
- ah, the mouse and keyboard don't work :-)
- lets try a PS2 mouse and keyboard instead, rebooting
- still no mouse action, but the keyboard works now
- ran a "memory test" just for the hell of it, seemed to know what chip and memory I had, but got bored when it had taken a minute to run 1% of its test, rebooting
- picked "Installation" and it loaded a Linux kernal and started to analyse my system hardware
- through a few screens (P2 mouse works) of basic questions
- perhaps foolishly I plugged the USB keyboard and mouse back in during the "system analysis" and (amazingly) they both camie to life :-)
- picked Gnome rather than KDE for my desktop
- now the critical bit ... it suggests a Windows of partition of 124.6 GB but then a swap partition of 1.0GB and a root partition of 108.0GB ... the Windows partition should include all the files that would not defrag but I don't want a 108GB Linux partition
- into "Change..." button ... scary .. OK, on the basis that I would rather keep a usable system let's stick with the recommendations
- no, wait though, the "resize" button for my windows partition has a friendly slider which I have used to knock Linux back to 20GB
- oops, that got rid of the Linux partition ... I am starting again
- well, I resized Windows to 200GB then added a root Linux partition of 25GB by hand, when I clicked Finish it said I should add a swap so I did, but it did not work
- did a hard reset
- last try now as I am a third of the way through a bottle of red and need to go and watch England scrap out a nil-nil win vs Poland leaving us in seeding limbo from 2006 (sigh)
- this time I really will take the defaults and see what happens..gulp, here goes...
- and it is off, let's pop out and see what our brave boys in red are up to
- (turns out - brave boys in white)
- well, it has "shrunk my Windows partition" let's hope that worked and is now working its way through CD 1
- and now an "intial boot", intriguing, it did not tell me to remove the CD 1 from the drive but now it seems to have booted from it and started the whole installation process again, let's take it out and hit reset
- straight back into Windows XP (good in a way :-) - at least it hasn't done a Kill Bill yet)...kicked off a chkdsk...which called for a reboot when it was done
- and back into Windows XP, which does now think the C drive is 120GB
- one last reboot with CD 1 and a selection of "installation" - let's see if it knows it is already half way through...
- on an instinct I put CD 2 in instead...it says "insert CD1 and press a key to continue"...so I do
- then I chose "installation" and it proceeds to inspect my system
- but this takes us right back to the start...I chose my region, agree to a licence agreement...ah and now it says "new installation" or "update"...I chose update...it seems to know I have SuSe 10.0 installed...this must be a booting problem...it seems to know I need to "update" 436 packages and install 348...lets try "accept"ing...I am going to spurn England and see what it actually says when it is done with CD 1 this time...and it rattles through the CD 1 packages - they must already be installed
- it does all that and then it reboots itself...straight back into the main CD menu
- let's try "Boot from Hard Disk" then...aha now I see SuSe Linux 10
- and now we are in to Linux (leaving me wondering...will I have to put the Suse CD in the drive whenever I want Linux?)
- now it asks for CD 2...and all is well until "installation of package libgtkhtml-2.6.9.3.i586 failed" (a library for HTML support in GTK2.0 apparently)...retry...failed...ignore...carries on...
- lovely deft flick by Michael Own makes it 1-0
- now "libgail-gnome-1.1.1" (GNOME Accesibility Implementation Library...) has failed to install...ignore...
- a slightly odd request for CD3 phrased as an error next, with a button to "eject" CD2 and I popped CD3 in and was faced with "OK","Abort","Skip" and "Eject"...OK
- and we are off with CD3 (perhaps a "Retry" would have worked here?)
- now we hit the same error dialog, but this time I am wise, whip CD4 in and hit OK
- I'm an old hand as we hit the "ERROR(Media:file not found)" dialog again and enter the final CD, CD5...an estimated 12 seconds only left with the install...as Alan Hanson agrees England have played well..."Spot On"...
- now we are "Writing the system configuration"...and a quick look at the release notes...
- some notes about my ATI Radeon (does not support "suspend") and it looks as if my Wi-Fi card will require more work (assuming it is covered by Atheros WLAN)...I hit "next"...
- it says I am all done, after I click "Finish" I can log on to the system...I click "Finish"...
- hmmm, a "username"...I try ""...nothing..."root"...nothing...intriging as the manual suggested I would be asked to set up a "root" account at the end of installation..."admin" just for luck...ah, now it wants a password..."" fails...my Windows admin password fails...my windows username and password fail..."admin,admin" fails...
- well, that is enough for tonight, just time to remove CD5 and reboot and see what happens...
- straight back in to the Windows "panic boot menu"...I chose "start Windows normally"...and arrive back in my original Windows set up...

- in summary, I believe I now have ... a Windows C Drive half the size I started with ... a successful Linux installation I do not know how to boot into and do not know a username and password for ... off to see how England do in the second half and some internet searching tomorrow I feel ...

Goodnight,
Pete

The Great Linux Adventure : Pre-Installation

I have been toying with the idea of a switch to Linux for ages and yet, somehow, have never gotten around to it. I've had copies of Red Hat, I bought a copy of SuSe 9.3 and yesterday a copy of SuSe 10.0 from The Linux Shop arrived. CJ was running Linux on a dual boot system before he switched to a Mac (and hence OS X) and I've decided the time has come to try to set my machine up dual boot as a first step on the potential road to weaning myself away from the Microsoft teat.

Normally I am pretty gung-ho about installing stuff and seeing what happens but I think a Linux dual boot install might need to be treated with a little more respect so, right now, I am writing this from Camie's machine (fortuitously they are both sitting in the erstwhile Dining Room while we redecorate our studies) as my machine backs up to the Western Digital external drive I purchased to keep our data off site whilst we were away on our world trip.

Second step of preparation is probably to audit the hardware I have in my machine (in theory to check drivers exist).

And the third, related step, is to unplug things that are not essential and then drop them back in as required until everything breaks :-).

NN

Hardware Audit for Thor
Component	Make and Model	Unplug?
Case	Qbic Soltek EQ3801M Mini Case	N
CPU	AMD Athlon 3400+ 64	N
Memory	1GB PC3200 400DDR
Primary Hard Drive	250GB Maxtor 7Y250M0 7200rpm 8MB Cache SATA	N
Secondary Hard Drive	120GB Maxtor 6Y120L0
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon 9800 Pro	N
Monitor	Iiyama Vision Master Pro 452	N
Optical Drive	Lite-On SOHW-812S DVD-RW	N
Keyboard	Microsoft Internet Keyboard Pro USB/PS2	N
Mouse	Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 USB/PS2	N
Network	DLink DWL-G520 Wireless Adapter	N
Printer	Epson Stylus Color 600	Y
External Storage	Western Digital 250GB	Y
USB Key Ring	IOmega Micro Mini 64MB	Y
P800 Cradle	SonyEricsson ??	Y

Finally, I've dropped the first Suse CD into this machine to take a gander at the "docu" directory and copy the docs across to this machine's hard drive, let's take a look...

OK, so I have a single 250GB NTFS partition on my primary hard drive. The manual states that it needs to be error checked and then defragmented including moving all the files moved to the start of the disk before using Yast (the Suse partitioning tool). Let's get that started...

- Scan Disk completes with no errors

- Defrag shows that my swap file is scattered around my disk and the manual indicates this should be removed before the defrag. (Control Panel\Advanced\Performance Settings\Advanced\Virtual Memory). Done and system restarted. OK, I still have one slice of "unmoveable files". Let's try a defrag and consolidate anyhow.
It also states that one will only have read-only access to NTFS from Linux, well let's worry about that one later.

It seems to think 4GB is a generous portion for a Linux partition and Windows reports 162GB free so I guess I'll give Linux 25GB to be going on with.

Almost forgot to take the wireless network card out...I'm going to start with the external adapter that plugs into the motherboard ethernet adapter instead I think.

Well, the defrag is still running and I am having trouble getting the wireless adapter to work so I am going to post this and take a break. More soon.

Forgiving SonyEricsson vs Getting a Blackberry vs Waiting

I bought a SonyEricsson P800 about a couple of years ago (the fact that I can't actually remember how old the phone is is one of the very reasons for this blog - assuming searching within it starts working) and since then it has been a bit of a mixed bag.

I absolutely love the ability to write on the screen with good text recognition for SMS's, tasks, contacts calendars and the only real alternative, the PocketPC based phones like the O2 Xda are too big for my trouser pocket.

On the downside - the firmware is ropey and not user-upgradeable (almost unforgivable in my mind) and the flip is a flimsy plastic design with tiny, fragile tabs that break off rendering it useless (I am on my third replacement).

So, the choice is whether to upgrade to the P910i and forgive SonyEricsson these faults (after all - I was an early adopter) or to jump ship back to Nokia (I had one of those matrix phones - again I wish the blog had the model number which, to be fair, also broke 5-6 years ago now).

To complicate matters, I heard from CJ yesterday that they are releasing a P990 in Spring 2002 which is cooler, faster and handles Blackberry style push email (do I even want that?). And, the SonyEricsson 750i which CJ has just moved to (he misses the character recognition on his old P800 too and, yes, he broke his flip as well) is pretty cool and has a half-decent phone with an (admittedly LCD) flash.

Hmmm, I guess contary to all my leaping to a new gadget instincts I am going to try to hold off on this decision for a while...the master reset I did on my phone a couple of weeks ago seems to have got the battery life back above 6 hours and the synchronisation issues with Outlook sorted out too...

Ford Focus vs Renault Megane Sport vs Audi

Got back from our seven and a half month round-the-world trip a couple of weeks ago (well more like a month if we are honest I suppose) and, with Camie going back to work in a week or so, our thoughts have turned to a new car.

We test drove a couple of very different beasts today.

This morning an unexciting but perfectly capable Ford Focus 2.0TDci 5 door Diesel Hatchback in, suitably enough, dull grey. It did the trick and had a little bit of poke heading up the hill around the ring road and would be the cheapest option we'd go for with a base list price of £17,220. We also heard of the new model Ford Focus ST which sounds a bit more like it...

To be honest though, at lunch time we went out in a RenaultSport Megane 225 and, short of getting another Audi TT, it leapt straight to the top of the class. With a base price of £18,650 the comparison was a bit of a no brainer...it even has rear doors and four seats for those "customers" I am likely to need to be interacting with...

We test drive a basic Audi A4 and, just in case we are tempted, an Audi TT 3.2 Quattro on Friday and then need to make a choice...and chose wisely...

In the Beginning...

Well, it seems as if everyone and, probably, his dog has a blog these days and I did enjoy posting from my round the world trip with Camie so I figured "what the hell" and started an account on Blogger.

Hopefully, I will avoid this becoming too narcisstic by the simple expedients of

1. Not publishing the URL until I am sure I have something worthwhile to say
2. Using the blog to keep track of something useful to myself...

Namely gadgets. I love gadgets, I keep acquiring them and then...being gadgets...a year later they have broken and I have forgotten their model number, serial number, website and/or why the hell I bought the damn thing in the first place.

So, without further ado, welcome to my small, very humble corner of cyberspace...