Hi,

I'm sure I'm being a complete newbie, but I'm having a rather odd
problem.

I've been programming for many years, but this is my first serious
venture in Linux, so please be gentle!

Over the weekend I dual booted my ThinkPad R52 from my sarge DVD iso's
I burnt a few weeks ago.

Things didn't go too bad, grub dual booted it fine, and after a bit of
a battle I have finally managed to get my ethernet working (not going
anywhere near the centrino wifi for now, I've seen the scary
webpages!).

BTW I'm running the 2.4 kernel.

Now comes the fun bit... I had to manually add tg3 to the modules to
get my lan working, and I suspect because this wasn't discovered
correctly in the install, I have something crucial missing, just no
idea what.

I setup my ip etc in /etc/network/interfaces

I manually edited /etc/resolv.conf to
Nameserver 192.168.1.1
Which is my router, and the setting that works fine in XP

I can ping my lan.

I can ping the outside world

I can dig URL

I can nslookup URL

BUT (big BUT), in Konqueror I can't browse web pages by URL, only by
IP. If I try urls I get "unknown host www.myurl.com"

I get the same problems with apt-get, it says it can't resolve the
url's, even though manually typing them into nslookup will return the
correct ip's

any ideas?

Ta

Dodgy.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES

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After takin' a swig o' grog, Dodgy belched out this bit o' wisdom:

> I manually edited /etc/resolv.conf to
> 	Nameserver 192.168.1.1
> Which is my router, and the setting that works fine in XP
>
> I can ping my lan.
> I can ping the outside world
> I can dig URL
> I can nslookup URL
>
> BUT (big BUT), in Konqueror I can't browse web pages by URL, only by
> IP. If I try urls I get "unknown host www.myurl.com"

Go to your router's configuration page and look to see what DNS
server(s) it is using.

Add in the DNS values from the router, here's mine:

domain launchmodem.com
nameserver 192.168.109.254
nameserver 205.152.37.23
nameserver 205.152.132.23

In the above, the 192 IP is the DSL router (your 192.168.1.1), and the
other two I got from the router's config page.

I'm not sure if this is optimal, but it works for me.

Chris

--
Sandbox your Windows environment in a QEMU virtual machine.

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On Wed, 16 May 2007 01:43:45 GMT, Linonut <linonut@bellsouth.net>
waffled on about something:

>After takin' a swig o' grog, Dodgy belched out this bit o' wisdom:
> 
>
>Go to your router's configuration page and look to see what DNS
>server(s) it is using.
>
>Add in the DNS values from the router, here's mine:
>
>   domain launchmodem.com
>   nameserver 192.168.109.254
>   nameserver 205.152.37.23
>   nameserver 205.152.132.23
>
>In the above, the 192 IP is the DSL router (your 192.168.1.1), and the
>other two I got from the router's config page.
>
>I'm not sure if this is optimal, but it works for me.
>
>Chris

Ta for that Chris, but it didn't seem to change anything.

It's very odd... How can nslookup resolve a URL, and ping
www.something.com not be able to :-/

Anyway as this was a fresh install I decided I'd install it again, and
with the aid of hindsite select tg3 in the network drivers. Which
seems to have done the trick... apt-get can now retrieve installs from
the web, which is a big improvement!

The install failed when I tried to select "desktop" as the type of
system I wanted so I'm now battling through a whole heap of other
problems!

Dodgy.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

After takin' a swig o' grog, Dodgy belched out this bit o' wisdom:

> Anyway as this was a fresh install I decided I'd install it again, and
> with the aid of hindsite select tg3 in the network drivers. Which
> seems to have done the trick... apt-get can now retrieve installs from
> the web, which is a big improvement!
>
> The install failed when I tried to select "desktop" as the type of
> system I wanted so I'm now battling through a whole heap of other
> problems!

"tg3" rings a bell.  What kind of computer is it?

I've gotten a couple of different DELL centrino laptops with Intel
wireless.  It is painful to get the wireless working, especially in the
/later/ version, where you have to deal with (1) the driver itself; (2)
the regulatory daemon; and (3) getting the firmware loaded, and, of
course, you need to compile the driver against the kernel source.

Bleh!

--
Microsoft are just like other totalitarian regimes: to remain at the top,
they need to exert absolute control, ruthless suppression of anything
remotely resembling competition, an army of astroturfers, and a
well-oiled propaganda machine. -- Richard Rasker, 4 Oct 2006.

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On Wed, 16 May 2007 11:07:37 GMT, Linonut <linonut@bellsouth.net>
waffled on about something:

>After takin' a swig o' grog, Dodgy belched out this bit o' wisdom:
> 
>
>"tg3" rings a bell.  What kind of computer is it?
>
>I've gotten a couple of different DELL centrino laptops with Intel
>wireless.  It is painful to get the wireless working, especially in the
>/later/ version, where you have to deal with (1) the driver itself; (2)
>the regulatory daemon; and (3) getting the firmware loaded, and, of
>course, you need to compile the driver against the kernel source.
>
>Bleh!

Thinkpad R52.

The reinstall seemed to do the trick for the network although aptitude
keeps saying anything I want to install will require removal of my
kernel and then a big warning appears saying "this wouldn't be a good
idea!".

Basically it's all acting a bit weird again, but this time the network
works!

It's now booting up to an xwindow logon prompt before going into KDE,
whereas last time it booted straight into the KDE logon prompt which
gave me the option of console.

Having just logged into KDE, I choose logout, which before dropped me
to the console, but now has just left me with a black screen and a
mouse pointer that won't move.

KDE is only running at 800x600 this time. Last time I at least got
1024x768... Pity most of the default boxes for setting up KDE are 600
high so all the OK boxes are behind the taskbar (or whatever it's
called in linux world!).

I found an xorg.conf file online that is supposed to do the R52
1400x1050, but I have an XF86config instead. Looks like the same
layout... So I'm rather confused! (I'm a newbie here remember!).

I think I'm going to do another reinstall from scratch, and hopefully
do the right dance, have the laptop correctly aligned east-west and do
the correct mystic chant.

If not I'll be back into XP and reclaiming that chunk of hard drive
back with partition magic!

Dodgy.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES

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On Wed, 16 May 2007 12:58:07 +0100, Dodgy
<Dodgy@earth.planet.universe> waffled on about something:

>On Wed, 16 May 2007 11:07:37 GMT, Linonut <linonut@bellsouth.net>
>waffled on about something:
> 
>
>Thinkpad R52.
>
>The reinstall seemed to do the trick for the network although aptitude
>keeps saying anything I want to install will require removal of my
>kernel and then a big warning appears saying "this wouldn't be a good
>idea!".
>
>Basically it's all acting a bit weird again, but this time the network
>works!
>
>It's now booting up to an xwindow logon prompt before going into KDE,
>whereas last time it booted straight into the KDE logon prompt which
>gave me the option of console.
>
>Having just logged into KDE, I choose logout, which before dropped me
>to the console, but now has just left me with a black screen and a
>mouse pointer that won't move.
>
>KDE is only running at 800x600 this time. Last time I at least got
>1024x768... Pity most of the default boxes for setting up KDE are 600
>high so all the OK boxes are behind the taskbar (or whatever it's
>called in linux world!).
>
>I found an xorg.conf file online that is supposed to do the R52
>1400x1050, but I have an XF86config instead. Looks like the same
>layout... So I'm rather confused! (I'm a newbie here remember!).
>
>I think I'm going to do another reinstall from scratch, and hopefully
>do the right dance, have the laptop correctly aligned east-west and do
>the correct mystic chant.
>
>If not I'll be back into XP and reclaiming that chunk of hard drive
>back with partition magic!
>
>Dodgy.

Nope, all gone wrong again! lol!

This time I decided to point apt at the ftp sources instead of my
sarge 3.1r5 dvd's, so it wanted to upgrade some serious things which
could nuke my system... This time I let it, and I ended up with a
version 4 system, which was nice... I even got xorg (which I now know
to be the new name for xfree, hence I had the older filename before)
installed, and kde... Which just exploded because of the video
config... A-ha thinks I... I have an xfree.conf file from a nice
website for the R52 on my usb key...

And that's where the trouble started! I couldn't mount the damn key!
lol!
I used to use
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
But now it complains about vfat.. (bangs head against wall).
Interestingly I did get a couple of lines of debug everytime I plugged
in and removed the key. Maybe v4 automatically mounts it somewhere...
No idea where though, nothing under /media or /mnt

Anyway, I rebooted... And oh good, the warning was right, it could
(and did) screw up my system... I had a grub menu with only XP in it!
lol!
At this point I have given up... I tried booting from the DVD with the
hope of finding a way to say "boot from hda3!" so I could attempt a
repair of grub, but I couldn't work out how to do this (I know I used
to do this in Suse many years ago when I last played with linux, but I
couldn't figure it out in Debian).

No more reinstalls for me today or I'll wear out a 60gb hole in the
midlee of my hard drive!

I'm now downloading the debian v4 etch DVD image... It's not the way I
wanted to go... I tend to avoid bleeding edge stuff (I believe it's
called the Vista syndrome). :o)

Having done at least 5 Debian 3.1r5 install attempts over the past few
days I noticed something it always screws up on, the part where you
say what kind of system you want. I always pick desktop, and it always
errors. No details, just said there was a problem. It obviously
manages to install some of the system because when I opted for a raw
base system, 90% of the commands I typed were greeted with "eh? what?
never heard of it" kind of thing...

As I'm not some kind of linux command line guru, I was at a complete
loss how to proceed with a system in that state, short of configure it
as a firewall with a few iptables! (My only other experience with
linux).

Oh well, we'll see tomorrow when the 1st etch dvd finishes and I can
have another go at screwing up my machine!

So all in all dual booting with XP is a doddle, no worries on that
front.
Everything else goes by the motto of "if it can go wrong it will"!

If this learning curve gets any steeper I'd need pitons and
karabiners!

Dodgy.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES

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On May 16, 5:14 pm, Dodgy <D...@earth.planet.universe> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 May 2007 12:58:07 +0100, Dodgy
> 

There is a good wiki site for IBM Thinkpads.  <http://
www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ Installatio...kP
ad_R52>
This is also lots of information about Thinkpads: <http://www.linux-on-
laptops.com/ibm.html>
(They hade <http://www.flaggnet.co.uk/debian/
debian_etch_ibm_r52.html> as installation instructions for your
computer)
[vbcol=seagreen]
> Nope, all gone wrong again! lol!
>
> This time I decided to point apt at the ftp sources instead of my
> sarge 3.1r5 dvd's, so it wanted to upgrade some serious things which
> could nuke my system... This time I let it, and I ended up with a
> version 4 system, which was nice... I even got xorg (which I now know
> to be the new name for xfree, hence I had the older filename before)
> installed, and kde... Which just exploded because of the video
> config... A-ha thinks I... I have an xfree.conf file from a nice
> website for the R52 on my usb key...

You should use Debian/Etch (which is the new stable).  Especially on
desktop and laptops.

> And that's where the trouble started! I couldn't mount the damn key!
> lol!
> I used to use
> mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
> But now it complains about vfat.. (bangs head against wall).
> Interestingly I did get a couple of lines of debug everytime I plugged
> in and removed the key. Maybe v4 automatically mounts it somewhere...
> No idea where though, nothing under /media or /mnt

Do "tail -f /var/log/syslog /var/log/messages" and put your memory
stick
into your computer.  There it will tell you which /dev/sdXY device it
is you find it on.


> Anyway, I rebooted... And oh good, the warning was right, it could
> (and did) screw up my system... I had a grub menu with only XP in it!
> lol!
> At this point I have given up... I tried booting from the DVD with the
> hope of finding a way to say "boot from hda3!" so I could attempt a
> repair of grub, but I couldn't work out how to do this (I know I used
> to do this in Suse many years ago when I last played with linux, but I
> couldn't figure it out in Debian).

Should be a "rescue" menu.

> I'm now downloading the debian v4 etch DVD image... It's not the way I
> wanted to go... I tend to avoid bleeding edge stuff (I believe it's
> called the Vista syndrome). :o)

Hmmm.  Debian/Etch is not bleadning edge.  It is stable Debian.
You do run MS Windows XP and not MS Windows 98, don't you 

> Having done at least 5 Debian 3.1r5 install attempts over the past few
> days I noticed something it always screws up on, the part where you
> say what kind of system you want. I always pick desktop, and it always
> errors. No details, just said there was a problem.

Of course.  Try install plain old MS Windows 98 or MS Windows XP,
and you have same problems with more modern hardware.

> As I'm not some kind of linux command line guru, I was at a complete
> loss how to proceed with a system in that state, short of configure it
> as a firewall with a few iptables! (My only other experience with
> linux).

If you want to reconfigure a package (like X-server), try this
command:
dpkg-reconfigure -plow xserver-xorg
Which reconfigure debian package xserver-xorg, which is the xserver
Xorg used by Etch.

> Oh well, we'll see tomorrow when the 1st etch dvd finishes and I can
> have another go at screwing up my machine!

You realy only need first CD to boot and install if you have Internet
connection to download packages you need for installation.  Otherwise
I guess you only need one DVD or 2-3 CD to make a common installation.

> So all in all dual booting with XP is a doddle, no worries on that
> front.
> Everything else goes by the motto of "if it can go wrong it will"!

Yes, I know the feeling.  Like running MS Windows XP... 

> If this learning curve gets any steeper I'd need pitons and
> karabiners!



With Debian/Etch you should have a much more easy installation
experiance.

Good luck

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On 16 May 2007 18:26:12 -0700, AJackson <anders.jackson@gmail.com>
waffled on about something:

>On May 16, 5:14 pm, Dodgy <D...@earth.planet.universe> wrote: 
>
>There is a good wiki site for IBM Thinkpads.  <http://
>www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ Installatio...kP
ad_R52>
>This is also lots of information about Thinkpads: <http://www.linux-on-
>laptops.com/ibm.html>
> (They hade <http://www.flaggnet.co.uk/debian/
>debian_etch_ibm_r52.html> as installation instructions for your
>computer)

Hi there, thanks for that.

I did see the thinkwiki page, unfortunately most if not all the pages
were about etch, and I had the DVD's for Sarge 3.1r5... I thought I
should be able to battle through... Silly me!

Thanks to the office internet connection I now have the first 2 dvd's
of etch... hopefully it's like Sarge and the 3rd disk is just updates
and not essential to the base system install... If so with any luck,
apt-get will be getting a hammering in about an hour :-)

Dodgy.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

After takin' a swig o' grog, Dodgy belched out this bit o' wisdom:

> lol!
> I used to use
> mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
> But now it complains about vfat.. (bangs head against wall).

The debian kernel should have a vfat module already, and install
somethign like "msdosutils" (can't remember the name).

Does lsmod show vfat?  If not, what happens when you modprobe vfat?

> No more reinstalls for me today or I'll wear out a 60gb hole in the
> midlee of my hard drive!
>
> I'm now downloading the debian v4 etch DVD image... It's not the way I
> wanted to go... I tend to avoid bleeding edge stuff (I believe it's
> called the Vista syndrome). :o)

Debian etch is /not/ bleeding edge.  For that you want lenny, I think
<grin>.

Anyway, when you reinstall, plug in all of the USB hardware you will be
using, including all extra mice and USB keys.  That way, the install
will set things up for you.

> Having done at least 5 Debian 3.1r5 install attempts over the past few
> days I noticed something it always screws up on, the part where you
> say what kind of system you want. I always pick desktop, and it always
> errors. No details, just said there was a problem.

If that happens, try Ctrl-Alt-F2 (to get to another console).  Debian
will write messages in the background on one of the other virtual
consoles.

> Oh well, we'll see tomorrow when the 1st etch dvd finishes and I can
> have another go at screwing up my machine!

Make sure you can mount the DVD on another machine, first.  Also, if it
asks you to do an integrity check, do it.

> If this learning curve gets any steeper I'd need pitons and
> karabiners!
>
> Dodgy.

You are having a bad experience, I agree.  Lately Debian has gotten,  in
my opinion, as easy to install as its stepchild, Ubuntu.

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On Thu, 17 May 2007 11:10:47 GMT, Linonut <linonut@bellsouth.net>
waffled on about something:

>After takin' a swig o' grog, Dodgy belched out this bit o' wisdom:
> 
>
>The debian kernel should have a vfat module already, and install
>somethign like "msdosutils" (can't remember the name).
>
>Does lsmod show vfat?  If not, what happens when you modprobe vfat?
> 
>
>Debian etch is /not/ bleeding edge.  For that you want lenny, I think
><grin>.
>
>Anyway, when you reinstall, plug in all of the USB hardware you will be
>using, including all extra mice and USB keys.  That way, the install
>will set things up for you.
> 
>
>If that happens, try Ctrl-Alt-F2 (to get to another console).  Debian
>will write messages in the background on one of the other virtual
>consoles.
> 
>
>Make sure you can mount the DVD on another machine, first.  Also, if it
>asks you to do an integrity check, do it.
> 
>
>You are having a bad experience, I agree.  Lately Debian has gotten,  in
>my opinion, as easy to install as its stepchild, Ubuntu.

OMG!

Now that's what I call an OS install! (Well it could be prettier, a
bit less cga style, but effectiveness 11 out of 10!).

Etch, out of the box... First go... Everything up and running! I have
1400x1050 desktop and it even popped up with a very windows "There are
updates" and is now downloading kernel dependency updates.

There was only one scary type message right towards the end, something
about active swap and suspend or something *shrug*, I told it to leave
it alone.

I haven't tried the USB stick yet, as I only needed that for the
xorg.conf anyway, and it seems to have worked out the R52 perfectly!

If I feel brave I might try us hibernate/suspend and other power
management, but right now I'm looking at a lovely hi-res Gnome desktop
(pity it didn't give me a choice between gnome/kde, then again, I
don't really know enough to make an informed choice, and I must admit
gnome does look very sexy).

Okay, I had to try it... Suspend/resume works... Hibernate works...
:-D

And blimee doesn't Etch boot fast compared to Sarge, and I don't just
mean from hibernate, I mean from cold.

OMG, samba's already there... Blimee, this thing is really a user
desktop out of the box!

I'm a very happy man now... I take everything back!

Time to play! :-D

Thanks to all those who endured my rants!

Dodgy.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES

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