Help me get my beer! (or: How RH 5.2 made a mockery of me)

[Steve Frampton <frampton alcdsb on ca>]

Hello!

I have a sad tale of woe for you all, one that I hope you will help me to
reconstruct into a happy ending.

I've been using Linux, quite happily I might add, for several years now.
I've often said that it is easy to use and not as difficult to install as
people often think.  To that end, I do plenty of advocating, convincing
computer users whom I come into contact with that there *is* an
alternative to Windows.

I've installed Linux on a myriad of different hardware setups, marvelling
at the Red Hat installation program, and although I've had a minor glitch
here and there (usually with X Window System setup), I'd rather install
Linux than a Windows product.

So when an e-mail arrived in my box saying, "Would you install Linux on my
system for some beer?", I jumped at the chance.  The arrangements were
that for a Linux installation complete with X, KDE, and other goodies, I
would get a 24-case of Sleeman's Silver Creek Lager.  That's not just any
old pond scum, folks, that is *premium* microbrewery beer (if you're ever
in Canada, I urge you to try it).

I sat down at the system -- a fast Pentium II with lots of RAM, lots of
storage devices, fast modems, a nice video card, and a 17" monitor.
"Yes," I thought, "this is going to be enjoyable".

I booted the system with a DOS diskette, ran 'ezstart' from the Red Hat
CD-ROM, partitioned drives (I was *so* surprised to discover that I could
even see the Zip Drive from the installation program!), and installed
Linux.  The final part of the installation process was the configuration
of the X Window System.

Not seeing the card listed, I decided to go with SVGA.  Upon probing the
hardware, the system froze solid and upon rebooting and watching it
install everything again the second time, I had a sinking feeling that I
was in for a rough ride.

Indeed.  Practically *every* aspect of the installation and configuration
process is problematic.  These include:

- When I boot the system, I just get a "LI" prompt and then the system
freezes.  There are two hard drives, both IDE; /dev/hda has 4 partitions
all with Win98 (not FAT32), and /dev/hdb has the partitions I set up for
Linux.  I installed the MBR on /dev/hda -- something I have done countless
times before.  In fact, my own home system has a Win95 on /dev/hda and my
Linux stuff on /dev/hdb and I have no problems.

- I absolutely, positively cannot get X working.  The card is a Diamond
Fire GL 1000 PRO with 8 Mb of RAM.  I upgraded the XFree packages to
3.3.3.1-1 which includes support for that card (from the
XFree-3DLabs-3.3.3.1-1.i386.rpm package).  Typing 'Xconfigurator'
segfaults as soon as I choose the card (er, it actually segfaults on
*every* machine I have tested it on); so I used 'xf86config' to set up the
XF86Config file.  I did this several times, both with defaults as well as
with hand-tweaked XF86Config files, but startx seems to want to run the
vga16 server!  Yet the /etc/X11/bin/X file is symlinked to XF86_3DLab as
it should be.  Guess what happens if I type /etc/X11/bin/X?  I get a nice
1024x768 X display exactly as I tweaked the XF86Config file.  So why isn't
'startx' running the damn correct X server!??!  ;-(

- I can't seem to get the modem working.  It is a U.S. Robotics 56K Voice
PnP modem.  My "client" told me he made *sure* not to get a WinModem, so
I'll have to believe him.  I'm not too fond of PnP modems, but I *have*
gotten one working before.  However, 'pnp_serial' gives me an error 'could
not probe /dev/modem'.  There *is* no /dev/modem -- I tried symlinking
/dev/ttys0 and /dev/ttys1 to it but to no avail.  Minicom won't work
either.  :-(  (The modem is apparently using IRQ 3, 02f8-02ff, on COM2).

- Hmmm...the mouse is a Microsoft IntelliMouse with the little scroll
wheel.  The installation program allowed me to select this, and it works
fine in the console.  But for xf86config, I had to select the 'PS2' mouse;
if I selected 'IntelliMouse' I got a very jerky mouse pointer which did
nothing but jump around the screen.

This experience has embarassed me somewhat.  I feel that my reputation as
a knowledgable Linux user has been sullied.  Of course, I cannot blame Red
Hat's distribution or Linux itself; the blame can rest only on the
hardware manufacturers who do not provide Linux drivers with their
products.  Yet.

I can live with the embarassment -- but there is a more important issue
that I feel I must resolve.  The beer.  I decided it best if I left the
case where it lie until I can get things working properly.

I'm hoping that you, gentle reader, can help me determine what is causing
the above mentioned problems.  I'm going to stay up half the night looking
through Dejanews in the meantime.  :-(

Thanks!

--------------< LINUX: The choice of a GNU generation. >--------------
Steve Frampton  <3srf qlink queensu ca>  http://qlink.queensu.ca/~3srf