[Sheflug] SuSE 8.2, Debian and XP

[Lesley Anne Binks <lesley.binks [at] xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello 

Thought I'd post my recent experiences to see if anyone can shed some light on any of the problems I have experienced (apart from criticisng a lack fo preparation perhaps :) ).

I upgraded my venerable Celeron box to run SuSE 8.2 only about 12 months ago.  I'd been dual booting with XP and SuSE 7.3 before that. 

Things toddled along nicely for quite a while.  I used to on line update service and trusted it to perform whatever upgrades where required.

I was actually extolling the virtues of Linux to a Windows using friend about 2-3 weeks ago.  This was around the midnight hour, .  We chatted on and I said I'd get a URL for her.  Came to the machine to find out I'd been chucked out to the login prompt. This was at about 0010 hours to be exact and I think my updates took place about midnight. Located an oops in the syslog file.  First oops I've ever had. I ran a new copy of memtest to check for hardware faults and all was hunky dory. Or at least it reported it so.

I then made the mistake of attempting some networking about 6 days ago.  The simple plan was to connect up my laptop via a x-over cable and transfer some data over so that I could install Debian on it.

SuSE 8.2 threw out my ethernet card driver, 8138too, and it failed to show at all on an lspci command.  This was rather annoying.  

I then compounded these errors by backing up my data and attempting a Debian install.  Except I didn't have sarge I had woody, and it was r2 not r3 (which has recently been issued).  I haven't traced the bug, and I am not likely to bother tracing the bug, but there seems to be a problem with the XFree86-4 config file (name might be slightly out there).  It recognised my Voodoo 3dfx driver well enough, but failed to provide any GUI at all, running out modes of all things.  

I am aware of the problems with this config file, having since searched through the debian lists on the topic and I have read the advice to use sarge, which is now reasonably stable. 

Unfortunately, I thought I'd backed up my data sufficiently well, but I missed out some vital component of my Alcatel Speedtouch modem, (like the instructions and not /usr/lib/speedtouch/firmware.bin) so when I re-installed SuSE 8.3 I couldn't get an Internet connection up.  Couldn't remember the hoops I had to jump through or the order of them so it was a no-go.

No internet connection to download sarge or anything else for that matter.

Rightio : this old Celeron box used to have XP installed on it.  So I tried to install XP.  Got the 'setup is looking at your computer ...' text message and then nothing, zilch, system hangs.  But this doesn't happen with Debian or SuSE.

The only thing I can trace this behaviour to is that I'd rather stupidly mistakenly overwritten my MBR while using  GRUB in a rather ridiculously positive mode of thinking that Debian woody r2 would install on a system that was built in mid 1999.  It appears XP won't talk with GRUB. *sigh*

Fortunately I have another box, slightly more up to date, with an Athlon XP2K+ sitting in the corner.  So I opened the box up, sorted out at least some of the jumper settings so the thing would boot without IRQ conflicts (Promise RAID versus IDE mostly but have to check usb stuff too )

I've had to install XP, SP2, spybot and a firewall and I will have to buy a virus checker to check this system out before I use it with any vengeance.

I have enough room to install Linux on this hard disk but I am disappointed at the prospect of going dual boot again.

Due to this experience I hesitate to go fully Linux again.  
It's cost me 3 days in locating faults and deciding strategies to overcome it, with the last resort being going back to Windows. :-(  I can't afford that time, especially when the 'problem' seems to have stemmed from an update to software from SuSE with a version they should be dropping soon.  

I've wanted to compile some kernels for a while now... an odd aim in these days of Windowising Linux for the mainstream.  This strange feeling that my life would be incomplete without a manual compile of at least one or two kernel has made me think about moving away from SuSE anyway.
They kindly provided a pre-release v3. gcc in 8.2 with no way to get to a v2.95 *and* the source provided on the CD's would not compile with this compiler.  So there was no way to even trim the existing kernel let alone come off the branch they issue at release time.

Coming off the release branch would have been useful because my modem's drivers are actually included in later versions of the 2.4.x series (>2.4.24 IIRC) and were backported about a month after I got the thing working on the Linux box.

My feelings on SuSE now are that I feel it's reasonable not to support a version of the distro after a while and I am aware that 9.2 beta came out on 29th October.  It's not reasonable to restrict Linux users to one branch of the kernel that they cannot re-configure.  Nor is it reasonable to provide updates for something they are no longer going to support - especially when those updates cause problems.     

For now, I am keeping XP.  I will be getting back to Linux asap, because I prefer the control element, controlling what's happening to my box and what it is doing.  But I will probably steer clear of SuSE.  I'll take a look @ 9.2 when I get it but I suspect, if I can get a stable Debian system with GUI going, before 9.2 gets here, I might not even open the box.

Regards

Lesley





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