On Wednesday 28 December 2005 04:51 pm, Paul M Foster wrote:
> SOTL wrote:
> > Thanks for your help.
> >
> > This is getting damn flustering.
> > The objective was to make a small MySQL server of basely a telephone
> > directory of clients for our business.
> >
> > What I have firmly established is that doing such with the current
> > disarray in Commercial Linux distributions, Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandriva,
> > that that is not possible for anyone on the lass that guru level.
>
> Not true at all, and you know it.
>
> Here's what should happen. I'm in the middle of doing this exact thing
> right now on a new desktop machine. This is a Debian Sarge install,
> using the new Debian installer.
>
> 1) You've downloaded and burned a CD that gets you a base Debian
> installation (which would not include a GUI). That's the first CD of
> Debian. This should be all you need to bootstrap an network install. But
> in order to do a network install, Debian has to install a base system on
> your hard drive. No other choice.
Good that happened.
> 2) You've installed "successfully" from that distro. That means you've
> answered the questions and come up with a base system, and were told to
> take the CD out and reboot.
Good that happened.
> 3) Once rebooted, Debian should, instead of giving the normal login
> screen, start asking you questions about the roles you want your
> computer to play. Two of the choices should be "Desktop" and "Database
> Server". You should select those.
I tried to select two and could not.
I selected Desktop on my first try, system installed command line system.
I selected Manual Package selection on second try, system installed command
line system.
My assumption at that point was that I did something wrong in both cases so I
tried both over several times with equal results.
At that point I decided that I simply was more wiped out that I believed and I
do mean physically so I went home.
Returned bright end early the next morning and repeated all of the above doing
4 or 5 installations. The very speed of the installations is telling me there
is something wrong. To install a SuSE, Mandrake, or Red Hat system from disk
it normall takes me approximately 1 to 2 hours. The Debian download
distributions were taking 15 minutes or so. Just does not compute to me.
> DO NOT select manual package
> selection, as you don't know enough at this point to do this without
> getting confused. You can install things later, but for right now, just
> select roles, not packages. Debian will pull in packages it needs from
> the net to fulfill those roles.
>
> 4) You may in fact need to answer some questions about your network
> card, the netmask and such, in order to actually get on line. Debian's
> gotten much better about auto-detecting things, but you may still have
> to answer some questions.
Did that.
> 5) At some point in all this, Debian will have all the information it
> needs and will get online, contacting the Debian mirrors and downloading
> packages. Once all the downloading is done, it will start asking you
> configuration questions about some of the packages it downloaded.
Exactly what happened.
> 6) Once all packages are configured, it will tell you you're done and
> present you with a login screen.
Exactly what happened.
> If it managed to detect your video card
> and monitor properly, it will present a graphical login. If not (as in
> my case), it will tell you it can't figure it out and present you with a
> console login. In that case, you'll have to do some more work to get
> your system configured so it will come up in X properly.
No GUI portion of the system appeared to have been downloaded.
Why haven't got a clue.
Did not receive a error message.
Got a fully running command line system.
Did not get a GUI system.
Two possibilities
1. I am doing something wrong. Don't believe this but it is possible.
2. There is something wrong with the download procedure that precludes a GUI
instillation.
Frank
> Incidentally, "It didn't work" isn't really helpful. Error messages or
> specific detailed machine behavior would be useful.
>
> <snip>
>
> > I will state one thing though that is sure to get me flamed but from the
> > user perspective unless SuSE, Mandriva and Red Hat clean their act up
> > fast. Consider the typical small business is the group that could benefit
> > most from using Linus and that the typical small business is composed of
> > 5 to 10 office level personnel that would utilize computers. I personally
> > can not imagine any business type to switch to Linux until issues such as
> > this are resolved. No small business personnel is going to waist the time
> > that I have put into this in the last 2 weeks. Believe me they are not
> > going to do it nor allow any of their employees to do it either. Things
> > are simply going to have to work. ODBC and JDBC Connectors when install
> > are going to have to connect [Mandrake]. MySQL when started will not give
> > error messages indicating MySQL Server is not installed by will actually
> > function [SuSE]. Kfish and Kbear will work [Red Hat] {Did not even bother
> > to check any futher with Red Hat it is still so screwed up by the Blue
> > Curve that I can not imagine anyone using Red Hat.]
>
> Hundreds or thousands install Linux every day without these kinds of
> problems. So it's absolutely possible to do so. Just because you can't
> do it doesn't mean it requires guru level experience. But I've told you
> before, Debian (despite the nifty new installer) is not a distro I would
> recommend to people who don't have experience with Linux distros. That's
> why they make things like Linspire and Mepis and Xandros, all of which
> are based on Debian. The installs are nice and GUI, and you're asked a
> minimum of hard questions. They have little one-click software
> installers that make it easy for users to install or upgrade software.
For the above you are mixing two concepts. Well actually I mixed them but I
was trying to show a migration.
What I am observing is that Commercial Linus is NOT living up to expectation
of making a quality product that quasi technical people can use since it is
full of bugs that is way above the level of the quasi tech types to handle.
The second part of that is that my technical competence has increased to the
point that I am trying to install a much more techie distribution whose first
try was by a download installation of Debian which so far has not proved
successful but that is to be expected on a new venture.
As far as SuSE, Mandrake, & Red Hat are concerned when you give them the money
what you are buying is quality. That programs will work out of the box. That
is what the money is for. You certainly are not giving the commercial vendors
money for GNU/Linux. What you are paying for is the integration and full
operation of GNU/Linus. Since the commercial linux distributors are not
providing that quality what is happening is that you are being cheated. Just
as if you bought a new car in which would not go since it has a burned out
clutch. You was cheated.
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