PCMCI Help

[shaun bokowski]

Im on a Sony laptop
Debian version 2.2 
and how do you get
dhcpcd , dhcp , etc 
for internet connection
going or how to configure.
PLease let me know. My 
problem is I have a old
march 2ooo laptop or does
it matter. Let me know!
Thanks!

I say this.....

[shaun bokowski]

Dont mess with propriety 
software unless you have a 
lawyer on hand . PERIOD>
 
 
Shaun B

Re: kernel

[BlueRaven]

On Mon, Mar 25, 2002 at 09:01:20AM -0500, Derek Broughton wrote:

> > Grab the kernel-image package. It covers the details of what it can do.
> kernel-package :-)

Thanks a lot to both of you, guys! :-)
I'll dig the docs and find my way.

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Se non e' tutto chiaro, regolate i parametri di brightness
e contrast della vostra mente ( Simon ).


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Debian is my aeroplane

[shaun bokowski]

I can't find 
a thing to
complain.
Its my
aeroplane.
 
Debian is my
aeroplane.
 
Shaun Bokowski
 

Periodic distro question

[Tom Allison]

I guess this is really just a vent/rant but...

I am a current user of Debian.
I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install 
process than slackwares.  Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware 
because I was always RTMing.  Debian makes it easier to not do that.


I also picked it because the defaults were more secure (than other 
options at the time) and it was an excellent choice for getting 
notebooks configured with apm & pcmcia.


But there are a few specifics that are really bothering me and now I'm 
wondering if there are not other distros which would keep me happy.


ALSA, or any realiable sound support is probably the one thing that 
has never worked on this IBM A21m.


At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to SlackWare or 
possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that 
Debian has shown and the latency of the distributions.


One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian 
Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet. 
Technically, I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.


But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated 
packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This 
really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued 
abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting harder to use 
Debian and understand other distributions as well.  This niche 
specialization may have won arguements with Debian, but it's at a high 
price with respect to interchangeable configurations.  I may be able 
to fix something on Debian, but not on any other distro.


Is this a common digression between the distros?

I know that years ago, when I used Suse, I saw the same level of 
abstraction creeping in and promptly dumped it when I was unable to 
keep anything configured with the Suse Configurator.  I don't know how 
this has changed in the three years.


RedHat had a similar problem.  Slackware was just very hand-rolled.


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Re: Periodic distro question

[Marco Fioretti]

Hello,

not to drop gasoline on the fire, but, as an user of another distro
intending to try debian, I am obviously interested in the issues you
raise.

May I ask you to clarify a bit more what you mean by

"the extensive bloat that Debian has shown"

and "the continued abstraction levels of Debian"?

(remember, personally I know well other distributions, not
debian yet: I subscribed to debian-laptop because it is my
intention to try it on an old laptop I have).

TIA,

Marco Fioretti


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problems with filesystem

[Luis Mendes]

Hi, 

I am running woody on a Toshiba 1800-314. I decided to compile a new
kernel to fine tune a few things, include fb support and upgrade to
2.4.17 (previously I was using the kernel image 2.2.20). The
compilation process was quite straightforward and after
installing the new kernel and runing lilo
the booting process seemed to be goign as expected, including the fb
penguin. At some point however, when the root partition was being
checked I got an error message about my root partition not being
recognized as an ext2 filesystem or. That was the end of it. using
the old kernel booting is just fine and there is no error about
unrecognized or corrupt filesystems. I am using fsck 1.25 (this came
with my distribution whihc is already a couple of months old) and I
was wondering whether upgrading to the current version shipped with
woody (1.27, I think) I woudl solve the problem. Has anyone
experienced this before? Is the upgrade the solution to my problem or
is this a more serious thing?

Any help on this woudl be appreciated, 

Cheers, 

Luis 

__
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   Luís E Mendes  Imperial CollegeTel. +44 (0)20 7594 7539
  Blackett Laboratory Fax. +44 (0)20 7594 7541
  Prince Consort Road
  London, SW7 2BW
  United Kingdom
__





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Re: Periodic distro question

[Gustavo Felisberto]

> ALSA, or any realiable sound support is probably the one thing that
> has never worked on this IBM A21m.

If alsa does not work probably the problem is with alsa and not with debian
dont you think ? (Just asking i have no idea of what sound card you have).

> possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that
> Debian has shown and the latency of the distributions.

What do you mean by bloat? I am using woody, in woody packages are not so
lagged behind. I used Eduard Bloch's woody net install disks
http://people.debian.org/~blade/XFS-Install/ and they worked preatty much
ok. (They will default to a XFS partition attention with that)

> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated
> packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This

When upgradding packges you have always the option of using the new
configuration files or tomaintain the ones on your harddrive.

> really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued
> abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting harder to use
> Debian and understand other distributions as well.  This niche


what abstraction layer? I use debian 70% of the time, the other 30% i use
red hat, digital unix (now compaq true64), mandrake and i have no problem.

Gustavo



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Re: Periodic distro question

[Derek Broughton]

Tom Allison wrote:

I guess this is really just a vent/rant but...

I am a current user of Debian.
I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install 
process than slackwares.  Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware 
because I was always RTMing.  Debian makes it easier to not do that.


Hmmm.  I can't see that.  Do you mean just because we're all so nice and 
helpful?  Because it's hard to use Debian without _some_ source of 
documentation.


At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to SlackWare or 
possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that Debian 
has shown and the latency of the distributions.


Bloat? I'm stunned.  Now, I used KDE2, and that introduces a huge bloat 
factor (though still not on the scale of certain proprietary software) 
but Debian itself is still pretty sparse.  After all, it's a matter of 
picking what you need from a huge list.


One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian 
Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet. Technically, 
I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.


Is true.  But that's considered a feature.  Testing is "stable enough" 
(for me), but if you go that close to the cutting edge, sometimes you're 
going to bleed.  Stable avoids that.


But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated packages, 
many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This really pisses 


That's part of the Testing process.  This should not be happening. 
Debian upgrades should always give you the option to keep or replace 
conf files.


me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued abstraction levels of 
Debian and it is now getting harder to use Debian and understand other 
distributions as well.  This niche specialization may have won 
arguements with Debian, but it's at a high price with respect to 
interchangeable configurations.  I may be able to fix something on 
Debian, but not on any other distro.


Is this a common digression between the distros?


I'm not sure I understand you but I think you're disappointed that 
Debian isn't Redhat, or SuSE, or Slackware.  Which one do you think we 
should slavishly imitate? :-)  I can only say that imo it _must_ be a 
common digression between distros.  We all try to do things consistently 
where possible, but surely it's more important to do things _right_ than 
to be consistent with Redhat if Redhat does it wrong (which happens :-))

otoh, maybe I just don't understand what you mean by abstraction...
--
derek


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Re: [ltp] Periodic distro question

[Tod Harter]

Personally I'd have to say that basically Linux has gotten HUGELY more 
complex than it used to be. I remember back in the days of the 0.99 series 
kernels, when Yggdrasil was THE only "distribution" and then Slackware came 
along and everyone thought that was complex and unwieldy!

The point is, back then Linux fit on about 12 diskettes and it was 100% 
tarballs. There were only something like at most 100 "packages" and most of 
those were pretty basic stuff. Now even Slackware must have upwards of 1000 
packages, and Mandrake 8.1's BASIC install is 2049 RPMs.

Even this wouldn't be so bad if that was where complexity ended. The problem 
is we ask our systems to be so much more flexible nowadays than ever before. 
I have an A20p for instance, and I expect it to work reliably in the office, 
at home (on my home LAN), and on the road connecting to things via the net 
using dial-up. I've got USB devices that appear and disappear, CD-R/W and DVD 
drives that can added or removed, PC Cards, wireless LANS that come and go, 
etc etc etc. There must be dozens of different possible configurations my 
system routinely finds itself in. Thats not even to mention all the 
possibilities of suspending at the office and resuming when I get home or 
whatnot.

The answer my friend is that you are just going to have to live with it. ALL 
the distros are complex. Given the open source nature of Linux and the way 
distros are put together its not ever going to be possible for them to button 
all this stuff down into one tight little box the way MS tries to with 
Windows either. Notice, they TRY to, and they have always failed even so! 
Same with Apple. MacOS and now the new OS X are just as ugly and complicated.

My bet is that someday each hardware will simply have its own specific 
distribution built by the hardware vendor from a common "core" and you will 
just go to whomever you like to have core functions updated. Even so the 
config things will remain.

It would be nice (and it may happen) that Linux will get some sort of more 
advanced conventions on configuring all the subsystems together. That would 
be nice, but I won't hold my breath.

On Wednesday 27 March 2002 06:23, Tom Allison wrote:
> I guess this is really just a vent/rant but...
>
> I am a current user of Debian.
> I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install
> process than slackwares.  Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware
> because I was always RTMing.  Debian makes it easier to not do that.
>
> I also picked it because the defaults were more secure (than other
> options at the time) and it was an excellent choice for getting
> notebooks configured with apm & pcmcia.
>
> But there are a few specifics that are really bothering me and now I'm
> wondering if there are not other distros which would keep me happy.
>
> ALSA, or any realiable sound support is probably the one thing that
> has never worked on this IBM A21m.
>
> At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to SlackWare or
> possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that
> Debian has shown and the latency of the distributions.
>
> One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian
> Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet.
> Technically, I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.
>
> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated
> packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This
> really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued
> abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting harder to use
> Debian and understand other distributions as well.  This niche
> specialization may have won arguements with Debian, but it's at a high
> price with respect to interchangeable configurations.  I may be able
> to fix something on Debian, but not on any other distro.
>
> Is this a common digression between the distros?
>
> I know that years ago, when I used Suse, I saw the same level of
> abstraction creeping in and promptly dumped it when I was unable to
> keep anything configured with the Suse Configurator.  I don't know how
> this has changed in the three years.
>
> RedHat had a similar problem.  Slackware was just very hand-rolled.
>
>
> - The Linux ThinkPad mailing list -
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
> http://www.bm-soft.com/~bm/tp_mailing.html


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Re: problems with filesystem

[Russell Coker]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:38, Luis Mendes wrote:
> I am running woody on a Toshiba 1800-314. I decided to compile a new
> kernel to fine tune a few things, include fb support and upgrade to
> 2.4.17 (previously I was using the kernel image 2.2.20). The
> compilation process was quite straightforward and after
> installing the new kernel and runing lilo
> the booting process seemed to be goign as expected, including the fb
> penguin. At some point however, when the root partition was being
> checked I got an error message about my root partition not being
> recognized as an ext2 filesystem or. That was the end of it. using
> the old kernel booting is just fine and there is no error about
> unrecognized or corrupt filesystems. I am using fsck 1.25 (this came
> with my distribution whihc is already a couple of months old) and I
> was wondering whether upgrading to the current version shipped with
> woody (1.27, I think) I woudl solve the problem. Has anyone

e2fsprogs version 1.25 worked fine for me with kernel 2.4.17.

I think that your problem is kernel related.  Please send us a copy of the 
exact error messages you got on boot, then we can investigate it further.

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Re: problems with filesystem

[Luis Mendes]

Hi,

> 
> e2fsprogs version 1.25 worked fine for me with kernel 2.4.17.
> 
> I think that your problem is kernel related.  Please send us a copy of the 
> exact error messages you got on boot, then we can investigate it further.
> 

This sounds worrying... 

I double checked the kernel configuration to see if something was left
which shoudl be included but there was nothing obvious to me...

I am at work and left the laptop at home :(
I'll send all the details later as soon as I get home.

Cheers, 

Luis

__
  Astrophysics Group
   Luís E Mendes  Imperial CollegeTel. +44 (0)20 7594 7539
  Blackett Laboratory Fax. +44 (0)20 7594 7541
  Prince Consort Road
  London, SW7 2BW
  United Kingdom
__





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Re: Periodic distro question

[Wilmer van der Gaast]

Derek [EMAIL PROTECTED]@Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:31:02 -0500:
> > One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian 
> > Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet. Technically, 
> > I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.
>  Is true.  But that's considered a feature.
>  
Of course. And about one year ago, this was acceptable. But Potato's
really obsolete now. Woody should release soon and so should Sarge. Not
after three years, but in less than 18 months, I think.

Hmm, what am I doing? Let's go and fix some bugs, after all I'm a DD..
;-)


Wilmer v/d Gaast.

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Re: problems with filesystem

[Russell Coker]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 16:17, Luis Mendes wrote:
> > e2fsprogs version 1.25 worked fine for me with kernel 2.4.17.
> >
> > I think that your problem is kernel related.  Please send us a copy of
> > the exact error messages you got on boot, then we can investigate it
> > further.
>
> This sounds worrying...

Not really.  It's probably something trivial like forgetting to put the ext2 
driver in the initrd image.

In my experience 2.4.17 was pretty solid apart if you either didn't use devfs 
or had the appropriate devfs patch.

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Re: problems with filesystem

[Luis Mendes]

> 
> Not really.  It's probably something trivial like forgetting to put the ext2 
> driver in the initrd image.
> 
Hmmm I am beginning to feel very stupid... I compiled the kernel
with the kernel-package utils and then installed the resulting .deb
package with dpkg, but i don't remember seeing any initrd image ...
Where does the initrd image comes from? Should it be in /boot as well?

Cheers, 

Luis

__
  Astrophysics Group
   Luís E Mendes  Imperial CollegeTel. +44 (0)20 7594 7539
  Blackett Laboratory Fax. +44 (0)20 7594 7541
  Prince Consort Road
  London, SW7 2BW
  United Kingdom
__




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Re: problems with filesystem

[Russell Coker]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:38, Luis Mendes wrote:
> > Not really.  It's probably something trivial like forgetting to put the
> > ext2 driver in the initrd image.
>
> Hmmm I am beginning to feel very stupid... I compiled the kernel
> with the kernel-package utils and then installed the resulting .deb
> package with dpkg, but i don't remember seeing any initrd image ...
> Where does the initrd image comes from? Should it be in /boot as well?

That depends on your kernel settings.  If you configured the kernel for 
initrd and to have important drivers such as for your hard drive or root file 
system as modules then you need to set it up for initrd.  That means using 
the --initrd option to make-kpkg and appropriate settings in 
/etc/kernel-img.conf.

But if you compile it without needing initrd then it's not an issue.

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ACPI and suspend

[Goran Ristic]

Hi.
Curious I was. So I decided to test ACPI on my Inspiron 81k. Well, the
stuff works better, than I thought. ;)
Now I'd like to know how to tell the system to suspend, when closing the
lid? Unfortunately there is no command like 'apm -s'.

I'm currently using 2.4.17 with patches from sourceforge.net.

Thanks for info and help.
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Linux: Undefinierte Welten jenseits von YAST(2)
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Re: Periodic distro question

[Shyamal Prasad]

"Tom" == Tom Allison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Tom> At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to
Tom> SlackWare or possibly looking into RedHat because of the
Tom> extensive bloat that Debian has shown and the latency of the
Tom> distributions.

As a long time Slackware user (almost from day one) who has now moved
exclusively to Debian I can only say that Debian is hardly bloated. I
run it on (among other things) a 120 Mhz machine with 48M RAM/1.2Gig
drive with great success.

Tom> One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the
Tom> Debian Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the
Tom> internet. Technically, I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is
Tom> provided.

Yup. :-(

Tom> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated
Tom> packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.
Tom> This really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the
Tom> continued abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting
Tom> harder to use Debian and understand other distributions as
Tom> well.  This niche specialization may have won arguements with
Tom> Debian, but it's at a high price with respect to
Tom> interchangeable configurations.  I may be able to fix
Tom> something on Debian, but not on any other distro.

I have never lost a configuration file while updating to testing, or
updating testing (which I do at least once a week). The only bug that
has seriously affected me is that gpm insists on starting each time I
upgrade it even while I have it stopped (well, yes, I really need to
use gpmdata and stuff ;-)

Debian is a little abstracted, but I'm not sure why you are seeing so
many problems. Perhaps you want to bea littl more specific (what files
were lost? What abstraction is getting in your way?).

Good luck whichever way you choose to go!

Cheers!
Shyamal



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Debian is my aeroplane

[shaun bokowski]

I can't find 
a thing to
complain.
Its my
aeroplane.
 
Debian is my
aeroplane.
 
Shaun Bokowski
 

Periodic distro question

[Tom Allison]

I guess this is really just a vent/rant but...

I am a current user of Debian.
I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install 
process than slackwares.  Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware 
because I was always RTMing.  Debian makes it easier to not do that.

I also picked it because the defaults were more secure (than other 
options at the time) and it was an excellent choice for getting 
notebooks configured with apm & pcmcia.

But there are a few specifics that are really bothering me and now I'm 
wondering if there are not other distros which would keep me happy.

ALSA, or any realiable sound support is probably the one thing that 
has never worked on this IBM A21m.

At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to SlackWare or 
possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that 
Debian has shown and the latency of the distributions.

One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian 
Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet. 
Technically, I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.

But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated 
packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This 
really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued 
abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting harder to use 
Debian and understand other distributions as well.  This niche 
specialization may have won arguements with Debian, but it's at a high 
price with respect to interchangeable configurations.  I may be able 
to fix something on Debian, but not on any other distro.

Is this a common digression between the distros?

I know that years ago, when I used Suse, I saw the same level of 
abstraction creeping in and promptly dumped it when I was unable to 
keep anything configured with the Suse Configurator.  I don't know how 
this has changed in the three years.

RedHat had a similar problem.  Slackware was just very hand-rolled.


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Re: Periodic distro question

[Marco Fioretti]

Hello,

not to drop gasoline on the fire, but, as an user of another distro
intending to try debian, I am obviously interested in the issues you
raise.

May I ask you to clarify a bit more what you mean by

"the extensive bloat that Debian has shown"

and "the continued abstraction levels of Debian"?

(remember, personally I know well other distributions, not
debian yet: I subscribed to debian-laptop because it is my
intention to try it on an old laptop I have).

TIA,

Marco Fioretti


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problems with filesystem

[Luis Mendes]

Hi, 

I am running woody on a Toshiba 1800-314. I decided to compile a new
kernel to fine tune a few things, include fb support and upgrade to
2.4.17 (previously I was using the kernel image 2.2.20). The
compilation process was quite straightforward and after
installing the new kernel and runing lilo
the booting process seemed to be goign as expected, including the fb
penguin. At some point however, when the root partition was being
checked I got an error message about my root partition not being
recognized as an ext2 filesystem or. That was the end of it. using
the old kernel booting is just fine and there is no error about
unrecognized or corrupt filesystems. I am using fsck 1.25 (this came
with my distribution whihc is already a couple of months old) and I
was wondering whether upgrading to the current version shipped with
woody (1.27, I think) I woudl solve the problem. Has anyone
experienced this before? Is the upgrade the solution to my problem or
is this a more serious thing?

Any help on this woudl be appreciated, 

Cheers, 

Luis 

__
  Astrophysics Group
   Luís E Mendes  Imperial CollegeTel. +44 (0)20 7594 7539
  Blackett Laboratory Fax. +44 (0)20 7594 7541
  Prince Consort Road
  London, SW7 2BW
  United Kingdom
__





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Re: Periodic distro question

[Gustavo Felisberto]

> ALSA, or any realiable sound support is probably the one thing that
> has never worked on this IBM A21m.

If alsa does not work probably the problem is with alsa and not with debian
dont you think ? (Just asking i have no idea of what sound card you have).

> possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that
> Debian has shown and the latency of the distributions.

What do you mean by bloat? I am using woody, in woody packages are not so
lagged behind. I used Eduard Bloch's woody net install disks
http://people.debian.org/~blade/XFS-Install/ and they worked preatty much
ok. (They will default to a XFS partition attention with that)

> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated
> packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This

When upgradding packges you have always the option of using the new
configuration files or tomaintain the ones on your harddrive.

> really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued
> abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting harder to use
> Debian and understand other distributions as well.  This niche


what abstraction layer? I use debian 70% of the time, the other 30% i use
red hat, digital unix (now compaq true64), mandrake and i have no problem.

Gustavo



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Re: Periodic distro question

[Derek Broughton]

Tom Allison wrote:
> I guess this is really just a vent/rant but...
> 
> I am a current user of Debian.
> I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install 
> process than slackwares.  Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware 
> because I was always RTMing.  Debian makes it easier to not do that.

Hmmm.  I can't see that.  Do you mean just because we're all so nice and 
helpful?  Because it's hard to use Debian without _some_ source of 
documentation.

> At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to SlackWare or 
> possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that Debian 
> has shown and the latency of the distributions.

Bloat? I'm stunned.  Now, I used KDE2, and that introduces a huge bloat 
factor (though still not on the scale of certain proprietary software) 
but Debian itself is still pretty sparse.  After all, it's a matter of 
picking what you need from a huge list.

> One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian 
> Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet. Technically, 
> I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.

Is true.  But that's considered a feature.  Testing is "stable enough" 
(for me), but if you go that close to the cutting edge, sometimes you're 
going to bleed.  Stable avoids that.

> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated packages, 
> many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This really pisses 

That's part of the Testing process.  This should not be happening. 
Debian upgrades should always give you the option to keep or replace 
conf files.

> me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued abstraction levels of 
> Debian and it is now getting harder to use Debian and understand other 
> distributions as well.  This niche specialization may have won 
> arguements with Debian, but it's at a high price with respect to 
> interchangeable configurations.  I may be able to fix something on 
> Debian, but not on any other distro.
> 
> Is this a common digression between the distros?

I'm not sure I understand you but I think you're disappointed that 
Debian isn't Redhat, or SuSE, or Slackware.  Which one do you think we 
should slavishly imitate? :-)  I can only say that imo it _must_ be a 
common digression between distros.  We all try to do things consistently 
where possible, but surely it's more important to do things _right_ than 
to be consistent with Redhat if Redhat does it wrong (which happens :-))
otoh, maybe I just don't understand what you mean by abstraction...
--
derek


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Re: [ltp] Periodic distro question

[Tod Harter]

Personally I'd have to say that basically Linux has gotten HUGELY more 
complex than it used to be. I remember back in the days of the 0.99 series 
kernels, when Yggdrasil was THE only "distribution" and then Slackware came 
along and everyone thought that was complex and unwieldy!

The point is, back then Linux fit on about 12 diskettes and it was 100% 
tarballs. There were only something like at most 100 "packages" and most of 
those were pretty basic stuff. Now even Slackware must have upwards of 1000 
packages, and Mandrake 8.1's BASIC install is 2049 RPMs.

Even this wouldn't be so bad if that was where complexity ended. The problem 
is we ask our systems to be so much more flexible nowadays than ever before. 
I have an A20p for instance, and I expect it to work reliably in the office, 
at home (on my home LAN), and on the road connecting to things via the net 
using dial-up. I've got USB devices that appear and disappear, CD-R/W and DVD 
drives that can added or removed, PC Cards, wireless LANS that come and go, 
etc etc etc. There must be dozens of different possible configurations my 
system routinely finds itself in. Thats not even to mention all the 
possibilities of suspending at the office and resuming when I get home or 
whatnot.

The answer my friend is that you are just going to have to live with it. ALL 
the distros are complex. Given the open source nature of Linux and the way 
distros are put together its not ever going to be possible for them to button 
all this stuff down into one tight little box the way MS tries to with 
Windows either. Notice, they TRY to, and they have always failed even so! 
Same with Apple. MacOS and now the new OS X are just as ugly and complicated.

My bet is that someday each hardware will simply have its own specific 
distribution built by the hardware vendor from a common "core" and you will 
just go to whomever you like to have core functions updated. Even so the 
config things will remain.

It would be nice (and it may happen) that Linux will get some sort of more 
advanced conventions on configuring all the subsystems together. That would 
be nice, but I won't hold my breath.

On Wednesday 27 March 2002 06:23, Tom Allison wrote:
> I guess this is really just a vent/rant but...
>
> I am a current user of Debian.
> I picked it from Slackware because I was in favor of a faster install
> process than slackwares.  Of course I had fewer questions in Slackware
> because I was always RTMing.  Debian makes it easier to not do that.
>
> I also picked it because the defaults were more secure (than other
> options at the time) and it was an excellent choice for getting
> notebooks configured with apm & pcmcia.
>
> But there are a few specifics that are really bothering me and now I'm
> wondering if there are not other distros which would keep me happy.
>
> ALSA, or any realiable sound support is probably the one thing that
> has never worked on this IBM A21m.
>
> At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to SlackWare or
> possibly looking into RedHat because of the extensive bloat that
> Debian has shown and the latency of the distributions.
>
> One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian
> Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet.
> Technically, I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.
>
> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated
> packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.  This
> really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the continued
> abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting harder to use
> Debian and understand other distributions as well.  This niche
> specialization may have won arguements with Debian, but it's at a high
> price with respect to interchangeable configurations.  I may be able
> to fix something on Debian, but not on any other distro.
>
> Is this a common digression between the distros?
>
> I know that years ago, when I used Suse, I saw the same level of
> abstraction creeping in and promptly dumped it when I was unable to
> keep anything configured with the Suse Configurator.  I don't know how
> this has changed in the three years.
>
> RedHat had a similar problem.  Slackware was just very hand-rolled.
>
>
> - The Linux ThinkPad mailing list -
> The linux-thinkpad mailing list home page is at:
> http://www.bm-soft.com/~bm/tp_mailing.html


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Re: problems with filesystem

[Russell Coker]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:38, Luis Mendes wrote:
> I am running woody on a Toshiba 1800-314. I decided to compile a new
> kernel to fine tune a few things, include fb support and upgrade to
> 2.4.17 (previously I was using the kernel image 2.2.20). The
> compilation process was quite straightforward and after
> installing the new kernel and runing lilo
> the booting process seemed to be goign as expected, including the fb
> penguin. At some point however, when the root partition was being
> checked I got an error message about my root partition not being
> recognized as an ext2 filesystem or. That was the end of it. using
> the old kernel booting is just fine and there is no error about
> unrecognized or corrupt filesystems. I am using fsck 1.25 (this came
> with my distribution whihc is already a couple of months old) and I
> was wondering whether upgrading to the current version shipped with
> woody (1.27, I think) I woudl solve the problem. Has anyone

e2fsprogs version 1.25 worked fine for me with kernel 2.4.17.

I think that your problem is kernel related.  Please send us a copy of the 
exact error messages you got on boot, then we can investigate it further.

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Re: problems with filesystem

[Luis Mendes]

Hi,

> 
> e2fsprogs version 1.25 worked fine for me with kernel 2.4.17.
> 
> I think that your problem is kernel related.  Please send us a copy of the 
> exact error messages you got on boot, then we can investigate it further.
> 

This sounds worrying... 

I double checked the kernel configuration to see if something was left
which shoudl be included but there was nothing obvious to me...

I am at work and left the laptop at home :(
I'll send all the details later as soon as I get home.

Cheers, 

Luis

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Re: Periodic distro question

[Wilmer van der Gaast]

>From -IReturn-Receipt-To:
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Derek [EMAIL PROTECTED]@Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:31:02 -0500:
> > One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the Debian 
> > Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the internet. Technically, 
> > I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is provided.
>  Is true.  But that's considered a feature.
>  
Of course. And about one year ago, this was acceptable. But Potato's
really obsolete now. Woody should release soon and so should Sarge. Not
after three years, but in less than 18 months, I think.

Hmm, what am I doing? Let's go and fix some bugs, after all I'm a DD..
;-)


Wilmer v/d Gaast.

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Re: problems with filesystem

[Russell Coker]

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On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 16:17, Luis Mendes wrote:
> > e2fsprogs version 1.25 worked fine for me with kernel 2.4.17.
> >
> > I think that your problem is kernel related.  Please send us a copy of
> > the exact error messages you got on boot, then we can investigate it
> > further.
>
> This sounds worrying...

Not really.  It's probably something trivial like forgetting to put the ext2 
driver in the initrd image.

In my experience 2.4.17 was pretty solid apart if you either didn't use devfs 
or had the appropriate devfs patch.

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Re: problems with filesystem

[Luis Mendes]

>From -IReturn-Receipt-To:
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> 
> Not really.  It's probably something trivial like forgetting to put the ext2 
> driver in the initrd image.
> 
Hmmm I am beginning to feel very stupid... I compiled the kernel
with the kernel-package utils and then installed the resulting .deb
package with dpkg, but i don't remember seeing any initrd image ...
Where does the initrd image comes from? Should it be in /boot as well?

Cheers, 

Luis

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  Blackett Laboratory Fax. +44 (0)20 7594 7541
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  London, SW7 2BW
  United Kingdom
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Re: problems with filesystem

[Russell Coker]

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On Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:38, Luis Mendes wrote:
> > Not really.  It's probably something trivial like forgetting to put the
> > ext2 driver in the initrd image.
>
> Hmmm I am beginning to feel very stupid... I compiled the kernel
> with the kernel-package utils and then installed the resulting .deb
> package with dpkg, but i don't remember seeing any initrd image ...
> Where does the initrd image comes from? Should it be in /boot as well?

That depends on your kernel settings.  If you configured the kernel for 
initrd and to have important drivers such as for your hard drive or root file 
system as modules then you need to set it up for initrd.  That means using 
the --initrd option to make-kpkg and appropriate settings in 
/etc/kernel-img.conf.

But if you compile it without needing initrd then it's not an issue.

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ACPI and suspend

[Goran Ristic]

Hi.
Curious I was. So I decided to test ACPI on my Inspiron 81k. Well, the
stuff works better, than I thought. ;)
Now I'd like to know how to tell the system to suspend, when closing the
lid? Unfortunately there is no command like 'apm -s'.

I'm currently using 2.4.17 with patches from sourceforge.net.

Thanks for info and help.
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Re: Periodic distro question

[Shyamal Prasad]

"Tom" == Tom Allison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Tom> At this point I'm actually thinking of going back to
Tom> SlackWare or possibly looking into RedHat because of the
Tom> extensive bloat that Debian has shown and the latency of the
Tom> distributions.

As a long time Slackware user (almost from day one) who has now moved
exclusively to Debian I can only say that Debian is hardly bloated. I
run it on (among other things) a 120 Mhz machine with 48M RAM/1.2Gig
drive with great success.

Tom> One thing that I'm really frustrated in right now is that the
Tom> Debian Stable is whoefully behind everything else on the
Tom> internet. Technically, I cannot run the XFree 3.3.6 that is
Tom> provided.

Yup. :-(

Tom> But migration to Testing has resulted in a cascade of updated
Tom> packages, many of whom overwrite my existing configurations.
Tom> This really pisses me off to no end.  Combine this with the
Tom> continued abstraction levels of Debian and it is now getting
Tom> harder to use Debian and understand other distributions as
Tom> well.  This niche specialization may have won arguements with
Tom> Debian, but it's at a high price with respect to
Tom> interchangeable configurations.  I may be able to fix
Tom> something on Debian, but not on any other distro.

I have never lost a configuration file while updating to testing, or
updating testing (which I do at least once a week). The only bug that
has seriously affected me is that gpm insists on starting each time I
upgrade it even while I have it stopped (well, yes, I really need to
use gpmdata and stuff ;-)

Debian is a little abstracted, but I'm not sure why you are seeing so
many problems. Perhaps you want to bea littl more specific (what files
were lost? What abstraction is getting in your way?).

Good luck whichever way you choose to go!

Cheers!
Shyamal



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Re: ACPI and suspend

[Simon Wong]

On Thu, 2002-03-28 at 08:10, Goran Ristic wrote:
> Now I'd like to know how to tell the system to suspend, when closing the
> lid? Unfortunately there is no command like 'apm -s'.

I have an 8000 but I set it up in the BIOS.

YMMV.

> 
> I'm currently using 2.4.17 with patches from sourceforge.net.
> 
> Thanks for info and help.
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> Linux: Undefinierte Welten jenseits von YAST(2)
> Was? Es gibt Google? Und man-pages? _Und_ HOWTO's? - Seit wann?
> 
> 
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