twisty on 11/5/2008 at 02:38
Hearing all the hype about Ubuntu I thought that I would give Linux a try again as it's been a couple of years since I have used it. I've tried and liked other distros in the past but as I spend so much of my day in front of a PC at work, my main use for a PC at home is for games and I removed Linux for more disk space and never got around to reinstalling Linux again.
In many ways, the latest version of Ubuntu is light years ahead of the standard Linux desktop of a couple of years ago and comes with a large range of mature and sophisticated applications. In my opinion though, its still got some way to go yet.
Some issues that I have come across:
* During the install the installation of the Grub bootloader failed. I got the following error message: "exucting 'grub-install/dev/sdb1' failed. This is a fatal error". That was the extent of the error details and it didn't give me an opportunity to try anything else. The result of this is that I am now unable to reboot into Linux via grub. I tried to install Grub to another disk after a reinstall of Ubuntu again but got nowhere.
* There seems to be an interesting bug in the Time/Date service. I chose Perth as my location and an Internet time server but the displayed time changed to 14 hours later than the actual time. I was able to correct this manually but after booting into Windows the time changed to 14 hours later as well :wot:. I was able to replicate this on my second installation attempt.
* I was also greeted by a "Failed to initialise HAL!" error message after the installation finished. No indication was given as to what this might be caused by but I think that my USB headphones might be the culprit.
* Install doesn't include an option to make an Admin password. Sure, you can find it via the system config but it would have been more convenient to give the option during an install.
* No option via the desktop to boot into a command line as far as I could tell.
In case it matters:
XP Pro
Dual Core 3ghz
8800 GTS 512
2GB Ram
4*SATA II (non raid).
baeuchlein on 11/5/2008 at 15:50
The problem with Grub could be that it is trying to access a hard disk which was not meant to be used. /dev/sdb1 is a partition on the second SCSI hard disk in a computer, but real SCSI disks are now seldom seen in modern PCs. However, there are some kinds of disks which might still appear to be a SCSI device, e.g. parallel port zip drives, drives connected to an USB port of the computer, or maybe SATA drives. Try to find out what /dev/sdb is (the "1" is only the partition number) and then see whether this is the right "target" for Grub. You could begin by typing "dmesg|less" and searching for "sdb" (press the / key to initiate a search within "less"). If less is not installed, type "dmesg|more" and look through the information displayed there. Once you find out what sdb is, you're at least a step ahead. Unfortunately, I find reading Grub's documentation and manual pages as easy as reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. :(
"Failed to initialize HAL": HAL should be the Hardware Abstract Layer. This is something "between" your hardware and the operating system, some kind of "translator"; sometimes, this is just a driver. Such a thing is often used because the operating system just wants to tell the hard drive, "give me the data in sector 4711", yet different hard drives might use different "languages". For example, when a SCSI hard disk communicates with the computer, it does this in a different way than an IDE hard drive, although both have many similarites. The HAL would then take the operating systems command and care for all this "translation" work. The OS itself does not have to know what this SCSI and IDE thing is, then.
Unfortunately, I do not know why HAL isn't working on your machine - an I don't know whether that's a big problem, either.
About your time/date problems: Could this actually be a problem with different time zones?
Linux has two ways of dealing with time. The computer's clock can be set to UTC (Universal coordinated time), which usually is the Greenwich Meridian Time. This would mean that in the computer's BIOS, the clock would not display your local time, but the time at Greenwich observatory, London. A 14-hour-shift could be explained this way if you're living roughly on the opposite side of Earth. And Perth is a town on the western coast of Australia, isn't it? (And don't forget that one or two hours might be added or subtracted as well if there are different "daylight saving" standards at Perth and in London. Might explain a small divergence again.)
The other way of using your PCs internal clock is to set it to your local time (which would mean that the time displayed in BIOS is correct for your location) and tell Linux that it's not UTC, but Local time. A question for this problem is always asked when I install Debian Linux here, and Linux hints at that it would like me to use UTC in the PC's CMOS clock. But I disagree and tell it to use local time instead.
Do you remember any such question popping up while installing Ubuntu?
As for your Linux' in-ability to boot into a command line: This might be because there was a Display Manager installed, but you only need a Window manager. At least that was the reason when I had a similar problem with Debian some years ago. You might be able to continue with your current setup, however, if you change an entry in the /etc/inittab file. At least one of the Linux books I read claims this.
In /etc/inittab, there should be a line like id:2:initdefault:. This "2" is the "default runlevel" of Linux. Usually, runlevel 5 means you're using X and have a graphical environment, and runlevel 3 means you're using Linux in text mode when booting up. Thus, if you find a line like id:5:initdefault: in /etc/inittab, you could change it to id:3:initdefault:, and the next time you start Linux, you should end up in a text-only version. Starting the X Window system would be done by typing startx, then.
Unfortunately, the runlevels do not seem to be completely standardized - my Debian has runlevel 2 defined as default in /etc/inittab, not runlevel 3 as the book I mentioned states. The man-page for /etc/inittab, displayed after typing man 5 inittab, hints at the meaning of runlevels in my case, but whether Ubuntu does the same thing I cannot tell.
Supposedly, typing init 3 should immediately switch your running Linux' runlevel to three and thus stop the X Window system and drop back to the console, but I never verified that with my Linux installations. Could be useful to determine which runlevel is the right one for getting a text console (=command line) with your Ubuntu installation.
jay pettitt on 11/5/2008 at 16:35
Ooh, bad luck. Ubuntu has never done anything but install quickly, easily and faultlessly for me. Windows could learn a thing or two.
I do recognise your time telling/dual booting issue though. Switching between GMT and British Summer Time usually involves a squabble between windows and 'nix as to what time it should be. I suggest you make sure your BIOS knows what the time is and take it from there.
Ubuntu doesn't use the usual root & password thing. Instead you type 'sudo' in front of adminesque commands and it'll sort you out.
Are you sure you want to boot into the command line. I don't suppose it's hard to sort out, but it seems a bit of an odd thing you want on your wish list.
twisty on 13/5/2008 at 00:18
Quote Posted by baeuchlein
The other way of using your PCs internal clock is to set it to your local time (which would mean that the time displayed in BIOS is correct for your location) and tell Linux that it's not UTC, but
Local time. A question for this problem is always asked when I install Debian Linux here, and Linux hints at that
it would like me to use UTC in the PC's CMOS clock. But I disagree and tell it to use local time instead.
...
Do you remember any such question popping up while installing Ubuntu?
The install doesn't provide many options as far as I can remember. After the install finished I used NIST for my time which should display the time correctly, irrespective of my BIOS time as far as I am aware. I'll take another look at it though...
Also, thanks for the very thorough answers you have written.
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
...Are you sure you want to boot into the command line. I don't suppose it's hard to sort out, but it seems a bit of an odd thing you want on your wish list.
I tried to install the linux Nvidia drivers for my 8800 and got an error message that the driver could not be installed in the desktop environment.
jay pettitt on 13/5/2008 at 01:34
I'm going to hazard a guess and say you're going about this all wrong. Boot up into the desktop (I'm assuming you're using gnome) as normal, click System then Administration and pick Hardware Drivers. Tick the Accelerate My Graphics Card box. Win.
twisty on 13/5/2008 at 08:44
Oh :o. I'll give that a try. Cheers.
dvrabel on 13/5/2008 at 22:57
Press CTRL-ALT-F1 for a command line if you're nostalgic for VT100s.
All disks show up as /dev/sdXXX now -- even if they IDE/PATA disks.
baeuchlein on 16/5/2008 at 00:09
Quote Posted by twisty
I tried to install the linux Nvidia drivers for my 8800 and got an error message that the driver could not be installed in the desktop environment.
You could try the VESA driver (often called the
X server with VESA support) first. This is a driver which uses the so-called VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) of modern graphics cards. Nearly all cards which are less than about ten years old provide this VESA thing, and the VESA driver can then use these cards even if a specific driver either does not exist or work properly. Although this VESA driver has some disadvantages (no hardware accelerated 3D graphics and only some basic support), it's enough for almost anything except for modern games. Whether these work with Linux at all I do not know - I use Windows to play games.
If the VESA driver does not work, there's an extremely primitive driver there called the VGA driver. You could try that, but it will give you only 16 colors and a resolution of 640x480 pixels. That's very low by today's standards, and with the VGA driver, it's not flicker-free. If you don't know what the latter means, just ignore my last sentence.
If none of these drivers work, you might have a problem which does not have anything to do with your graphics card.
Minion21g on 16/5/2008 at 03:04
I'm surprised you had so many issues with the installation. I just installed Xubuntu to my Desktop on Monday and haven't had any issues except with onboard sound.
The admin password should be whatever your password is for your account. It's strange because it used to prompt you to enter a root password I thought. Give that a try.
If remember correctly, you can boot into command line from GRUB assuming you can get that working correctly.
Ubuntu should have restricted drivers for your Nvidia card. It's how I installed my 8600GT.
Hopefully this helps a little bit. I'm not overly proficient with Linux yet but I can try to help where I can. Google is always your friend too.
twisty on 22/5/2008 at 11:33
Just a quick FYI update...
I got a bit of free time yesterday to have another fiddle around with hardy heron and used some of the advice to try and get a better result. Contrary to my efforts, here's what occurred:
* Went through System -> Admin -> H/Ware drivers but found that the list was empty and that it hadn't picked up my 8800 GTS.
* It still couldn't install Grub via the install disk onto my SATA Raptor (non raid).
* Although it got Perth WA time correct during the install process, after the install was complete the time was 14 or so hours further than the real time. My BIOS time remained correct and after I booted back into Windows the time was also out by 14 hours. Very strange! I'm really puzzled at how it manages to do this to my Windows desktop despite not changing the BIOS.
