Topic: wasted time and money

[rhys]

Well, I'm glad I only wasted around a tenner on Linux. It just doesn't work for me. Not only does SME Linux not install properly but it also completely screws up the disks - so badly I'll now have to spend more money and buy a floppy-disk drive in order to put a floppy disk in so that I can waste more time formatting them to get the junk left behind by SME Linux that's blocking my every attempt to do anything with my computer.

My advice is - avoid SME Linux like the plague. It absolutely will not and cannot work. It's obviously a joke software release. Well, I don't find 15 hours of trying to get the thing installed and then cleaning up the mess it left behind all that funny. The sooner SME is withdrawn the better.

I hate Microsoft but I'm now going to do what I should have done in the first place - buy NT4 Server.

[Henrik]

wow... that's a "never had it like that before" spam.

Sry m8, don't blame your lack of skill on the SME server....
Did u check the HCL for the SME server?

/Henrik

[Henrik]

And btw - my server has been running smootly now for 39 days, 9 hous and 11 minuttes... hehe

[Thomas Kristensen]

Well aren't you just a ray of f...... sunshine...

In case you haven't figured it out yet, a lot of us hanging around these forums actually run SME servers with a great deal of success, so your rants about your own lack of ability to operate one isn't likely to be greeted with cheers...

When you make statements like these:

* Not only does SME Linux not install properly but it also completely screws up the disks
* It absolutely will not and cannot work
* It's obviously a joke software release

it's pretty obvious that you:

a) don't know what you're talking about
b) aren't qualified to operate a computer, manage a server or install an OS
c) haven't RTFM or STFW
d) even if you have RTFM/STFW, b) still applies

Oh, and by the way NT4 is (practically) EOL by Microsoft, so if you're in need of a Microsoft OS, go get W2K Server or .NET server. You will, of course, have to pay for those...

Nuff said...

/TK

[Terry Brummell]

Doesn't work?  Geez lots of people around here seem to have it working just fine.  Maybe you should spend more then a "tenner" on your hardware.  Uptime on my home server was just under 60 days until yesterday when the building had a power outage, which the file system recovered from the ungraceful shutdown just fine.  My workgroup server I have at the office is 7 days away from having one year of uptime, but I forgot, this server OS doesn't work.

[Jim Hale]

>> I hate Microsoft but I'm now going to do what I should have done in the first place - buy NT4 Server.

And then plan on spending a HECK of a lot more than 15 hours updating and fixing security loopholes. And then as soon as you get THOSE fixed, well...

I'm an NT/Win2k AS Admin at work and you better reserve a BIG block of your life to supporting it.

[nick]

I would class my server administration skills as below average-to-average, but using my eyes and reading some of the SME manual, and support from the good people at this forum, managed to configure several servers.

Thanks Rhys for your point of view, but it certainly does not represent 90% of the people found hear.

[del]

I am a newbie to Linux, but I managed to set up my server in less than a hour, all my pc's got access to the internet (add M$ proxy server to your NT4 order) all users had internal and external email (add M$ Exchange server to your NT4 order) . It actually took a Time Warner engineer longer to get  their cable modem working on one of my XP boxes than for me to set up SME (they wouldn't install it on a Linux box, so I just unplugged it from the XP box and plugged it into my SME box, started it up and Hey Presto, 1 cable modem up and running!) . I was going to wait a couple of months before I transfered my files from my NT box, but I diid it within a week and I really enjoyed formatting that NT box and I have now installed Mandrake Linux on it and I don't think it will be long before I say bye bye Billy boy. All I need is a program to open my corel draw files and I'l be set, any one got any suggestions?

[Kees Blokland]

www.vmware.com  > Beta 4 !!

[Ray Mitchell]

Rhys
Its unfortunate that you have had this experience with sme. Possibly hardware compatibility is your problem, but that's not a sme isssue, it's a Red Hat issue. If Red Hat supports your hardware then sme will also. Check the Red Hat hardware compatibility site.

I saw your earlier post re RAID drive problems which no-one answered.
" I installed SME Linux and accidentally clicked on soft RAID. Then I figured I'd probably made a ghastly mistake doing that and reinstalled. I already have a RAID card so I figured hard raid would do what I was after. Oops. Then started a lot of problems - I figured one of my drives might have been faulty. That probed not to be the case - they just don't like to be in combination and combined with my Ultra ATA 133 RAID Controller and the Medeley GUI driver doesn't include Linux.
It was working when I had it running via soft raid and both drives running through the raid card. What do I do to get back to a working, raided Linux? "

To reset your drives see the FAQ at http://www.e-smith.org/faq.php3 and particularly http://www.e-smith.org/faq.php3#7q15

In order for Software raid to work correctly, the geometries on both disks must be the same. .......Next, ensure both drives are using "NORMAL" (or LBA) mode in the BIOS. (Normal mode says "just give the truth about the disks".)
If any partition table is found on the disks, the information there will override the geometry specified in the BIOS. To remove any partition tables, perform the following commands as root:
   
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1  
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc bs=512 count=1  

(This assumes disks are set as primary and secondary masters -- if they are not they should be.) Re-install SME Server.......

If you are still willing to give sme a chance you could try the above commands and then do your instal again, correctly this time. ie if you have a RAID hardware card then do not select software raid instal, just instal as a normal "single" disk instal.
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[F.Coakley]

I too was going to ask a general question as a newbie - the distro was that carried by Linux Format , april 2003 - I tried to install on a minimal system - Epia- mini-itx board with 4Gb + 384k (- 8 shared video) - had inslalled Redhat 7.3 on it and seems to work well, as does Win98 runnig xamini server.
I wanted just a private server on a home network to play with - it installed no problem, apparently allows control via console and has issued the remote access page and the request for password but it hangs (or is very very slow) in returning graphics etc to network; it is apparently visible as a Windows shared machine but my windows machine state it is unavailable - pinging returns a 50-60% packet loss (under win98 etc 0% such loss and very acceptable performance for such a tiny board)
Any suggestions as to what I should be looking at (apart from the manual !) - is there an easy way to get beyond the console to see what is happening ?

[Charlie Brady]

del wrote:

> All I need is a program
> to open my corel draw files and I'l be set, any one got any
> suggestions?

Corel Draw (linux version).

Charlie

[Steve]

I'd check your hardware or more likely the operator. SME does exactly what it says on the tin. 100%

[rhys]

I wonder if the problems I've been having are indeed hardware-related.
Today, I fitted a brand new 3.5" FDD in order to put a DOS floppy in so that I could format the HDDs. That's when it all got very interesting. The drive light comes on. The drive makes noises when I switch the PC on. Then the motherboard fails to recognise its presence. I'll have another look in the bios (Award bios on a brand new Shuttle AK32A board - in fact, everything on this server is brand new (AMD 1700, 2x Maxtor Fireball 3 40GB HDDs, Ultra ATA/133 Raid Controller) - even tha case is new) but I don't think I've missed anything.

I installed SME as single drive on one HDD and as RAID on the other. The RAID formatted drive won't even allow me to get past a kernel panic message or to boot from the CD and reinstall.

Putting the two drives in as HDD1 and HDD2 has no effect - it always comes up as a kernel panic whichever drive I boot from.

Is it just me or does anybody else think the motherboard could very well be DOA?

Rhys

[Paul]

SME happens to be the easiest and best server distro out there..JMHO..

"I installed SME as single drive on one HDD and as RAID on the other. The RAID formatted drive won't even allow me to get past a kernel panic message or to boot from the CD and reinstall."

This whole sentance has me confused (because you need at least 2 drives configured as 1 raid device for a raid to work correctly) so let's start with the basics and determine your hardware setup BEFORE we even try to install SME.

Raid controller cards can be a problem with any Linux installation.

What brand and model is this raid controller?

Do you want this card to perform hardware raid?

Are you trying to implement Raid 0,1,5 (or other)?

Do you have the Linux (Redhat 7.3 to be exact) drivers for the raid card?

If you can't get Linux drivers, would you be willing to use Linux software raid 1 instead?

I look forward to helping you as I was once having the same problems.

Paul