Re: Talked into installing Red Hat 8.0

[Bob McClure Jr <robertmcclure earthlink net>]

Just one request: please have your mailer wrap lines every 72 chars or
so.

On Sat, Dec 28, 2002 at 04:50:50PM -0600, Luke wrote:
> ...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.
> 
> -------------
> 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?

I'm guessing you have a Winmodem.  If it's internal and PCI, it
probably is.  There may be hope, though.  First do "lspci", and scan
through the output looking for something that looks like a modem.
Then go to:

http://www.linmodems.org/

and see if a driver is available for your modem.  If so, download and
install it.  Some are easy; some are not so easy.

Or you can go buy a decent external modem that is almost certainly not
a Winmodem, and will be supported out of the box.

> -------------
> 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.

That's correct.

> 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)

What type are the partitions according to fdisk?  ("fdisk -l" to see.)
The swap partition should be type 82 and hda5 should be type 83.  If
that's all OK, show us the contents of /etc/fstab or the output of
"df".

> -------------
> problem number 3:
> -------------
> <Re: can't play mp3s, skipped for lack of expertise>
> 
> -------------
> 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?

Is there an analog audio cable running from the CD to the sound card?
Many Windoze apps don't need it, but most Linux apps do.

> Will the mp3 media player work once I get MP3 files to load?

Probably.

> -----------
> 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 take it you have found the manuals at

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/

The Linux Documentation has a fine repository of HOWTOs at

http://en.tldp.org/

> I appreciate the time it took to read this, and thanks in advance for your help!
> 
> -Luke

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
robertmcclure earthlink net  http://www.cumbytel.com/~bobcatos/
Linux: because I want to get there today.  Without rebooting.