ratcreature | computer woes, continued

So yesterday I tried whether my desktop might be able to use the DSL modem directly, and that wasn't it, i.e. that didn't work with either the onboard ethernet or the network card. So the problem is definitely that for some reason OpenSuSE won't handle either ethernet controller right, actually I think since they are both Realtek they might use the same driver module. Anyway, today I got a couple of distros as Live Linux CDs to see whether another distro would cause less problems.

The good news is that Kubuntu 6.10 (i.e. the KDE version of Ubuntu) worked with the onboard ethernet out of the box, connected to my router automatically and I had internet access without doing anything (which is as it should be if you plug in your computer to your router), so the chances are that if I installed Kubuntu permanently it would work too.

However, I have never used Kubuntu or Ubunutu, which as I understand it uses a different packaging system than the RPM based OpenSuSE, I think it's those Debian packages, and a different installation interface, and I have used some version of SuSE ever since I switched to Linux many years ago (in 1998, iirc), so I'm kind of anxious about having to get used to another distro. Then again, there are significant changes between releases of the SuSE distro as well, and since I have no idea what I could still try to make the ethernet work, I think I will go ahead and just try Kubuntu.

So does anyone on my f-list use Ubuntu? Is it easy to get used to? Comfortable?

ETA: WTF?!? The Kubuntu Installer won't find and configure my network even though the Kubuntu LiveCD (same Kubuntu version) did? This all sucks so much. Why can't the frelling computer just work? Argh.

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*hugs*

I used Ubuntu for about a month or two last year, and dabbled in Kubuntu for short one-hour stretches while installing Ubuntu (read: threatening it into submission and herding it onto my laptop).

As for comfyness/ease of use, Ubuntu gets a rating (from me :P) of about 8 on a scale of one to ten for daily ease of use, i.e. after configuration. Configuration can range from startlingly easy to ridiculously complex depending on your hardware. Online tutorials are plentiful, and the forums are excellent for finding solutions to any strange problems that crop up. The packaging system is easy to navigate and use, and comes with a well-designed GUI to help you through weird spots. Installing through the terminal is fairly easy, too- the guide I remember being the most helpful is here (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installingsoftware).

And that's basically my big bit of advice: if something's not working and you don't know why, go directly to the Ubuntu (www.ubuntuforums.org) (or, in this case, Kubuntu (http://kubuntuforums.net)) forums and search about it. The only reason I got my wireless card playing nice with Ubuntu was following a fairly comprehensive tutorial I happened across on the forums. If you're not using a computer you've built and configured from scratch, it is highly likely that someone else out there has tried to install Kubuntu and come up against exactly the same problem.

As for the network problems, that does sound seriously weird. I would try going into the system settings menu and checking out anything that looks vaguely network-related, then turning on the eth0 or eth1 interface, as I think K/Ubuntu requires that you do that before it recognises anything. I could be talking out of my arse, but I do remember having to turn that on when I was using Ubuntu. Hope all this helped!

Oh, and link here to my pitiful collection of ubuntu links: linky linky (http://del.icio.us/babydont/ubuntu).

Well, I've not built my computer myself, but rather paid the shop €10 to build it from the parts I selected (last time I put together my PC myself and that was a hassle, so I picked the easy option this time rather than the ultra-miserly one), but all are quite standard components. :)

The network thing is very weird, because the hardware works in principle, and there apparently is a driver for the card and once that was the case, plain ethernet connections have never caused me any trouble in the nearly ten years I've used Linux (and I've installed some when it was far less comfortable and far more technical but it's not as if I look back *fondly*, you know?). But this seems as if for some reason sometimes the handshake between the card and router (or DSL modem directly as I tried both) works and sometimes not as if there wasn't a connection available to anything, only not completely randomly (or not at all) as it would be if it was the cable or something (not that I haven't tried three different ethernet cables, and also tested them with my laptop to exclude the kind of thing where you try finicky software things for three days and in the end you find that your cable has a loose contact or something).

I mean, at some times in the past with linux, I had weird problems with unusual hard disk configurations, with power management, with proprietary graphics card drivers, with audio, with various external hardware from scanners to graphic tablets, to printers, to usb card readers (a pain a few years and major kernel releases ago when USB support wasn't integrated in the standard kernel but experimental and you had to compile all kinds of kernel stuff yourself). I've had trouble with the WLAN in my laptop, and ultimately had to use that kernel wrapper module that uses the windows driver for linux... So by now I'm fairly good at finding solutions either by myself or with online forums (actually I've used the Ubuntu forums in the past and transferred solutions to my distro when I couldn't find something on the help forums for mine). I've compiled programs, and kernel drivers and even a kernel or two once for really obnoxious systems, I know all the major log and configuration files lying below the graphical set-up interfaces, I know what kernel boot options are and how to use them, I have reconfigured my X server configuration file by hand a few times when the various graphical and/or automated setup tools broke things and X wouldn't work anymore (though that hasn't happened to me for a while)... it's still much nicer when it just works and you don't have to do the "uphill through the snow! *both* ways!" thing.

I managed to find the option in the Kubuntu LiveCD to install itself, and that resulted in system that so far reliably has a connection even after rebooting and after turning it completely of and then on again. The other hardware seems to work so far, but I have not yet tried to install the 3D acceleration of the ATI graphics card with the proprietary driver (but unlike OpenSuSE Kubuntu gives me a decent monitor resolution even without the proprietary driver, so I may not bother with the 3D acceleration, considering that it can wreck my xconfig or cause various trouble, though the installer provided by the manufacturer worked without problems on SuSE. I also haven't yet tried my printer or my graphics tablet yet, but I have some experience installing the wacom stuff by hand if necessary. I find that the Ubuntu system that you do root tasks as user via sudo and giving your regular password rather than by becoming root takes some getting used to though.

computer woes, continued

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