Linux

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes

===========================

This story will likely resonate with many SCN users...



A Labor of Linux: The exquisite torture of installing Linux as a
computer novice.

Eliza Truitt
Slate 3/26/99


Linux may be impractical for the masses, but its rebel cachet--"The
Man doesn't have me under his thumb!"--appeals to the motorcyclist in
me. Walking out of a bookstore with a Linux manual under your arm is
like swaggering into a restaurant carrying a motorcycle helmet: You
can feel the waves of envy. Since my technical education ended with a
seventh-grade "Computer Literacy" class in which we played "Lemonade
Stand" on an Apple IIe for half an hour twice a week, my Linux goals
for this article were modest:

1. Prove that a computer ignoramus can install the operating system
on a computer that was running Windows 98. 

2. Install a Linux-compatible Web browser and read Slate in it. 

3. Install a few other Linux applications.

Purchasing Linux in a book, I must admit, was a second resort.
Originally, I intended to download the free version of the
much-heralded operating system, but then I found out that it would
take five hours and that the download doesn't come with instructions.
Chickening out, I visited the computer section of my local bookstore
and grabbed a copy of the friendly yellow Linux for Dummies. But the
cashier all but refused to sell it to me. "You can't get that book,"
he said, obviously speaking as one of the Linux initiate. On his
advice I paid $34.63 plus tax for Mastering Linux, a phone-book-sized
tome, which includes a copy of Red Hat Software's 5.1 version of
Linux on CD. Cracking Mastering Linux open, I was struck by its
similarity to motorcycle manuals. "Remove cylinder head," says the
average motorcycle manual, without explaining how you do that.
"Create boot disk," commands Mastering Linux. What's a boot disk? I
found myself turning to a dictionary of computer terminology on the
Web to decipher every third acronym (BIOS? ATAPI? SCSI?) and figured
out that in this case you create an installation boot disk by copying
files from the CD to a floppy. 

After creating the boot disk, I was supposed to make a new partition
on the hard disk of my computer, a Pentium 133 with 32 megs of
memory. Partitioning a hard disk means corralling off some space,
and that can be done in Windows with a program called "fips," which I
copied from the Linux CD onto a floppy in Windows. I then restarted
Windows in DOS mode (one of the options when you shut down Windows
98) and ran "fips.exe" from the floppy. Although I had never used
DOS before, I followed the straightforward directions and made room
for Linux. The next step was to run the Linux installation program
from the boot disk. I shut the computer down and put the boot disk in
the drive and turned the computer back on. Success! The boot disk
asked me to check boxes for the language and the keyboard I'd be
using, and the source from which I'd be installing Linux. I told it
to go to my CD-ROM drive where the Linux CD resided--and promptly hit
a brick wall. The program refused to recognize my CD-ROM drive, a
fairly standard one, and rejected the 11 nonstandard options from the
list. I studied Windows' device manager for clues on my CD-ROM drive.
Mastering Linux suggested that if the installation program fails to
detect your drive, provide very specific directions for the "IO" and
"IRQ." I entered these new settings and still failed.

Everyone who talks up Linux mentions how "elegant" it is. As I
tinkered, rebooted, and failed, and tinkered, rebooted, and failed
over and over again to get it to recognize my CD-ROM drive, all I
could think was: yeah, elegant like a Judas Cradle. And this was only
the installation program. So I telephoned the Microsoft Helpdesk.
Even though Linux is supposed to demolish Microsoft, the Microsoft
Helpdesk, which provides computer assistance to its employees, was
surprisingly helpful. As I described my trouble, the Help guy
replied, "You're setting up Linux?" Pause. "Um, you know we don't
really support that?" Yeah, I know, but can you help me anyway?
"Well, I don't know much about Linux, but talk to Clarence (not his
real name). He'll help you." In 15 or so calls to the Helpdesk, I
encountered only one person who sounded annoyed rather than curious
(and even, dare I say, gleeful) at the fact I was firing up Linux.

The Linux that came with Mastering Linux was never going to
communicate with my CD-ROM drive, and I began to lose all enthusiasm
for the project. Just the sight of Mastering Linux induced the
stomach-churning sense of dread that my sixth-grade math textbook
once gave me: "I don't get this. Other people get this. Why don't I
get this? I think I'll go watch TV." Instead of watching TV, I made a
fresh start by purchasing a newer version of Linux. The version of
Linux that comes in Mastering Linux offers no technical assistance,
but Red Hat's version 5.2, which costs $39.99, promises one month of
free e-mail support. 

The Red Hat manual offered clearer directions, and the new version
automatically partitioned my hard drive. But it still snubbed my
CD-ROM drive. I e-mailed Red Hat with my problem and the company
e-mailed back a one-line response: "Set your BIOS to boot off of the
CD." I wrote back: "How do I do that?" Red Hat's e-mail answer was
another one-liner, a URL. I clicked the link, which led to a page of
more links to lots of information on BIOS, but a half-hour search
yielded no information on booting from the CD-ROM drive. I e-mailed
back asking for a more specific URL, and they wrote back, "Look
around there. ... You also may want to check the site of whoever
manufactured the motherboard." Thanks a bunch. With Microsoft
Helpdesk assistance I figured out that my CD-ROM drive was probably
connected to my sound card and not to the IDE port, and thus was
foiling Linux. I reluctantly returned to Mastering Linux and found an
alternative method for installing the operating system for people who
don't have CD-ROM drives: install from the hard disk. For this you
create a "supplementary disk" from the CD-ROM and use it after
booting from the installation disk. The supplementary disk loaded an
unfamiliar blue "Welcome to Red Hat Linux" page, but after 10 minutes
of nothing happening, I figured I had worn out my welcome. I turned
off the computer and went home. My next move was to hornswoggle a
friend, a tech guy at the New York Times Web site, into helping me. I
informed him of my CD-ROM/sound card suspicions, and he pried open my
computer's metal box and started gabbing about 40-pin connections. My
troubles were over. Here was someone who knew the acronyms, someone
who could shine a light into the cave I was blindly fumbling in. So
with the CD-ROM drive securely connected to the correct IDE port in
my motherboard, we booted up again. Again, no dice. It was a new low
in my Linux morale. 

Any IDE Port in a Storm After some chin scratching my friend
suggested we look into my BIOS setting. There he discovered my IDE
port was disabled. He enabled it. We booted up and victory! The
CD-ROM drive started purring, and from there the installation was
cake. The hard disk whirred away, occasionally asking for
information. I typed it in, it whirred some more, and within an hour
installation was complete. I then logged on as "root"--the master
user--and loaded X Windows, Linux's graphical user interface. It
looked like a pale and wan version of Microsoft Windows--with tiny,
little crude buttons--even though it predates Windows. But it
worked. I loaded the Netscape browser and tried to call up Slate, but
Slate did not appear. Instead I got two error messages, one telling
me to adjust my SOCKS environment, and another saying there was
something wrong with my DNS server. So I was on the phone with the
Helpdesk again, learning about my SOCKS and my DNS server. My
officemate suggested that maybe all I needed to do was adjust my
proxy settings in Netscape and not my SOCKS. He was right, and
victory was mine. 

Next I wanted a word processing program. I downloaded WordPerfect 8
for Linux from Corel's Web site. I unzipped and "untarred"
(de-archived) the program. I installed it. And it didn't run. I
bribed my tech guy friend to come and help me again. He went back to
the original download and started over, but he couldn't get it to run
either. So he fiddled around with my PATH and a few other things
beyond my comprehension, when a "core dump" occurred. This is some
type of serious error, although I'm still not sure exactly what it
is. So we started over and downloaded again. After reinstalling and
receiving increasingly mournful error messages ("Unable to go on,"
"Floating point exception") and another core dump, we called it
quits. Three and a half hours of help from a guy who makes his living
working with computers and no WordPerfect to show for it. 

Why would a person like me want to use Linux? The first reason is
price. Linux is free if you download it off the Web. With a manual
and a CD it's about $40. Compare that with Windows 98: $199 for a
full setup, $89 for an upgrade, or bundled for "free" as part of
nearly every non-Macintosh computer. I didn't investigate running
Windows software under a Linux Windows-emulator, mostly because I
already have Windows on my system to run Windows software. I also
didn't attach my Linux machine to the company network--because I
couldn't find easy instructions in my books, and further
consultations with the Helpdesk would have been cheating. I'm fairly
certain that setting up a printer is easy, but I'm taking the word
of Linux experts on this. Either I'm not ready for Linux, or Linux
isn't ready for me. Or both. I feel guilty about having used not one
but two manuals to install Linux, and worse still that I couldn't
make WordPerfect work. I feel malignantly guilty about having paid
cash money for a free operating system and for enlisting both the
Helpdesk and a friend in my endeavor. Yes, I finished the marathon,
but I did it by putting on roller skates and grabbing the suspenders
of those who knew what they were doing. 
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
* * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *