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...and I am frustrated as all get out. I do
tech support for internet service, and have worked with windows and macs for the
past 5 years or so, so I am not a complete idiot in those areas, but when it
comes to Red Hat I don't mind admitting that I am pretty close to a complete
moron, so your help here would be GREATLY appreciated.
A friend I work with kept going on about how great
linux is, and that I should really try red hat, so he got me some CD's.
Well, I very much enjoy what works of it (ie - GIMP - I love doing graphics for
webpages, also the desktop switcher thing is great, plus there are lots of other
features that I look forward to using) but there is quite a bit wrong with my
install too (most likely my fault! :grin:.)
Lets see, where to start? I'll give you a
condensed list here first:
------- 1: Getting my dialup working (possible modem driver install issues?) 2: Accessing seperate (data) partitions on my hard drive (one of which is in the NTFS format) 3: XMMS won't load MP3 Files 4: Audio configuration test (the little guitar lick) works, but while audio CD's load and appear to be playing in the CD player app, there is no sound. (already checked volume controls). Have not been able to test out digital music files (see problem #3) ------ If you guys need the brands of the devices, I am guessing here (will write it down next time at home), but I think the CDROM drive is Intel, and the dialup modem is 3Com The computer is one I got from gateway, and my
crappy little system as a 15GIG hard drive, 500 MHZ celeron processor, and 128MB
ram, if you guys need that info.
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problem number 1: ------------- Setting up my Dial Up access. After I started it up, I went to the Network Configuration window, and tried to get the Dialup Access going. I figured if I could get internet access and get onto the support sites, I might be ok. Well...no luck there. I recieved one message about how a modem was not
found (It is there, believe me! :grin:). Somehow, I managed to get
the ppp0 thing into the network configuration window, and I entered in the
dialup number and user/pass, but than I went through hell trying to activate
it. I still don't know if it is right. (I am not even sure if it
really found the modem and the drivers for it are installed correctly.) I
deactivated it, and it said it couldn't deactivate it, but than the listing
switched to "deactivated". I tried to activate it, but when I left my
house after 10 minutes of waiting, it was still trying. So I left it
going. My ethernet card was found and activated with no problems, which is
nice and all, but since I don't have my cable modem service hooked up at the
moment.....
What am I doing wrong here? Is it just that
my modem isn't really installed? (it says generic modem on the drop down box to
select your modem). What can I do to fix this?
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problem number 2: ------------- Before I did this, I had my hard drive partitioned off. One was for the OS, another was a 10Gig partition for my music/movie files, and the other was a 886MB partition that I used at random. (the last two were just data partitions, and were formatted in the NTFS format) When I did the install, I used the 886MB partition
as a swap drive (no longer NTFS format - I allowed it to format ut during the
install)
Now I cannot get into either partition.
Searching through a few help files, I was able to verify that both the
partitions are still there (using sfdisk -l), and are still the same sizes, but
I for the life of me cannot figure out how to access my media files on one of
the partitions, and I am assuming that the partition I setup for the swap I
wont' be able to use.
How can I get access to those partitions, or at
least the one with all my media files on it? (It is listed as hda5)
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problem number 3: ------------- Ok, so I couldn't access my mp3's or movies on the partitions, but luckily I had a bunch of mp3s on Cd that I tried using to test out the Winamp-style media player. Well, first I tried copying one of the music files
from the CD to the desktop, and tried playing the mp3.
I cannot, for the life of me, get the mp3 to go
into the playlist to start playing. I tried using the "add->file"
function, the "add->dir" option, the "Open" option, and dragging the file
onto the playlist. None of those worked. So I tried moving the mp3
file to the folder on the desktop labled "<yourusername> home" - the one
originally on the desktop - and tried repeating - still nothing. I also
tried all those things on files still on the CD - no dice there.
How can I get these files to load into that so I
can play them. From what I hear, ogg is the way to go, but I just want to
be able to hear my music, and watch the movies I have!
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problem number 4: ------------- Sound card issues. Even if I had gotten the mp3 files to load, I still don't know if I would have heard anything. I ran the sound card test, and at first, it didn't want to play the little guitar licks for me. I started up chromium, and I heard music (though the game froze on a black screen), so I closed out of that, and opened up the sound card testing app, and that time I heard the guitar chime. I opened up Maelstrom though, and I had no sound. I could still hear the guitar lick on the testing though. So I pop a CD in, and it starts playing (according
to the CD player app), but I hear nothing. So I try a different CD - same
thing. I checked the volume control, and everything there seems ok,
nothing is muted, and the sliders are all at least halfway up. And yes, my
speakers were on :grin:.
What can I do to get it to play audio CD's so that
I can hear them? Will the mp3 media player work once I get MP3 files to
load?
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I think that about covers the main issues. I beg of you, please, PLEASE help me with this. I like red hat, and I don't mind learning how to work the system, but these things I would like to have going ASAP. I am burning the Manuals onto a CD in all the different formats to have when I get back to my computer, but if you guys have experienced this before, or know how to fix it, please chime in with some help. I appreciate the time it took to read this, and
thanks in advance for your help!
-Luke
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