Topic: wasted time and money

[Ruusvuu]

Well, I'm halfway through this little series and have had quite a chuckle!!!

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

Netraverse

Hands down better than vmware

[Andrej Fercic]

Ohh, GOD take money from Rhys and gave him some brains instead

[rhys]

It seems that there's a problem with the motherboard or with the floppy cable. That's one of the problems identified. I'll change the cable as soon as I can get back to the shop.

Regarding RAID, I don't want to use soft raid. I must use hard raid instead. I have a 6x 5.25" bay case (caddied). My system is designed to have RAID pairs or RAID triplets using only mirroring.

The RAID controller states "Ultra ATA/133 RAID Controller" on the box and the drivers are by a company called "Medley".

One disk has SME Linux installed as stand-alone.
The other disk has half of a previous installation of SME Linux installed as soft RAID (which didn't work out).

Basically, I'm having a devil of a job getting it all off the drives so I can start from square 1. I cannot get the soft RAID drive to do anything but cause a kernel panic when I boot with it as a secondary drive.

I can't get out of that stupid menu driven system either, when I boot on the non-raided drive. That menu system annoying enough for me to want to install NT Server instead of SME Linux.

I'd say it's a fair guess that the hardware problems are contributing to the software problems. I don't really think there's a lot of point in doing anything more until I have that floppy working. At least with that I can use a DOS boot disk to format the hard drives. Then I'll be back to square one again. I tried to format the drives using my other computer system but my other system doesn't like the drives - they're too big for the bios to cope with.

[Terry Brummell]

Which menu system would that be rhys?  The admin menu you get once the system is booted?  You can get to a console prompt by hitting ALT-F2 (or F1, can't remember now) and using root as your login name with your admin password.  Viola! A console prompt.

Terry

[dave]

Rhys,

You made some pretty scathing comments about SME specifically and linux in general.  As one who's worked with MS OS's for nearly 2 decades, making the move to Linux can be frustrating to say the least.  I've found most of that frustration comes from a complete lack of familiarity.  Reading the F'n manual alone won't compensate, you have to check lots of documentation everywhere you can find it and do MANY test installations, configuration changes, then re-install to fix the config changes you screwed up etc., etc, it's a learning process.  I can get around in MS operating systems in my sleep because I've used MS since DOS 2.0.  20 years of experience in working with one OS doesn't make one an expert in another.  It's the same hardware (for intel at least) but that's where the similiarities end.

Before you start slapping SME or Linux in general, learn more about how it works.  It's possible your bad experiences are not the result of a lack of technical knowledge but it definitely shows a lack of resolve.  You 'hate MS' but you're ready to give up on the only viable alternative after just 15 hours and a 'tenner' which wouldn't buy a decent book on the subject.  I spent litterally weeks looking at dozens of Linux distros, loading on several different configurations of PC's, spending LOTS of time on the Linux Documentation web site and sifting through the online docs of as many of these distros as I could before deciding on SME.  I most definitely made the RIGHT decision and so have you in trying SME.  I figured it out (and am DEFINITELY still learning), as did most of the other participants of these forums.  I can say there's nothing special about me nor anyone else here (and I apologize to the rest of you out there for this blanket statement).  For the hundreds, possibly thousands, of SME users out there and the hundreds of thousands possibly millions of Linux users, I can definitely say it does work, it works well and it's effectiveness and reliability continues to improve every day.

The comments you made were either to make a stink or to state frustration.  If all you want to do is get a rise out of people, it's worked and if frustration is the cause, keep trying - you'll get it.  Either way, I was offended and I have no connection to SME or e-Smith at all other than a (very satisfied) consumer of their product.  

In closing, I say be productive in these forums or be quiet.

Dave

[Paul]

Dave,

Total and complete AMEN!!!

I share your experiences almost to the letter (including some 25 years of MS experience myself) and couldn't AGREE with you more!  Before SME I experimented with 5 other distros and then decided on SME.  I was also frustrated and confused but now I am starting to get a grasp on it.  I have actually written a few custome-templates to customise my system as needed.  Once you start to understand Linux and get the hang of how SME uses templates, it just gets easier and easier.

I'm no "expert" by any means but I have solved MANY obsticles on my own and am very proud of myself (pat self on back).  I also pass on any knowlege to my fellow SME user, it helps me validate any time spent tinkering.

As for Rhys, most of us will be glad to help, but his or her posts seem to be a bit criptic to me.  Rhys needs to be spacific, with exact hardware setups and what needs to be occomplished.

Paul

[Ray Mitchell]

Rhys
From what I can see of your problem, here are my suggestions to fix it.

rhys wrote:
I don't want to use soft raid. I must use
> hard raid instead. I have a 6x 5.25" bay case (caddied). My
> system is designed to have RAID pairs or RAID triplets using
> only mirroring.

My understanding is that sme supports software RAID1 with 2 hard disks ONLY or it supports hardware RAID1 as provided by a RAID card. The actual RAID1 hardware arrangement should not be an issue as sme will see your hardware raid as if it were just 1 drive. The hardware card takes care of the raid striping etc etc.

So configure your hardware card and the hard drives correctly ie connect the drives directly to the raid card as per instructions. When you instal the sme software again you should select the single drive option NOT software RAID1.

> The RAID controller states "Ultra ATA/133 RAID Controller" on
> the box and the drivers are by a company called "Medley".

Check the hardware compatibility at the Red Hat hardware compatibility site, or perhaps someone on these forums can advise if this card is supported by Linux, and if there are drivers for sme installed.

> One disk has SME Linux installed as stand-alone.
> The other disk has half of a previous installation of SME
> Linux installed as soft RAID (which didn't work out).

This is potentially a problem as the new install will be confused by the existing partitions. You could configure the drives as just normal IDE1 master and IDE2 master. Let IDE1 master drive be the drive that you have a standalone install of sme already on. (Remove your RAID card for this).

Boot up the server from IDE1 HDD and from what you said elsewhere you see a Server Console menu. You see this menu because you set the option during the instal to boot up to the admin menu. You can simply select Exit from the menu and you will see a login prompt.
Login as user "root" with the admin password you set during the instal (standalone instal).
You should then see the root command prompt.
Then issue the commands to reset the partitions on each drive as per my earlier post repeated below.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc bs=512 count=1

You must reset the partitions this way.
My understanding is that a DOS or Win 98 fdisk command WILL NOT work correctly. I think you need a Win2K or better fdisk command to repartition the Linux disks, or the method I mentioned above.

After you have issued the reset partition commands turn off your server either using the power switch or "shutdown now" command.

> Basically, I'm having a devil of a job getting it all off the
> drives so I can start from square 1.

The method described above should work
If it doesn't for some reason, then you could try installing to each disk seperately (ie one at a time as a single disk instal) and then reconnect them as above and issue the commands.

> I cannot get the soft
> RAID drive to do anything but cause a kernel panic when I
> boot with it as a secondary drive.

You CANNOT mix a software RAID system with a hardware RAID system, they are not compatible. Do what I said above, and start afresh.
ie When you instal the sme software again you should select the single drive option NOT software RAID1 (with your hardware RAID card inserted and properly configured and the hard drives connected correctly to the card).

> I can't get out of that stupid menu driven system either,
> when I boot on the non-raided drive. That menu system
> annoying enough for me to want to install NT Server instead
> of SME Linux.

If this menu is the Server console then if you select Exit this shuld get you out or you can select Alt F2 and this will open a command prompt login screen.
Alt F1 will toggle you between the Server Console menu and the command prompt. You then need to login as root to do command line things or log in as admin to do Server console configuration things. Type "exit" at the command prompt when you have finished.

If the menu is something else, I can only think it would be the server configuration screens (ie Configure this server), which you must do BEFORE you can use your server at all. These screens are presented after you have completed an instal, and step you through the basic settings and configuration of your server. You MUST do these settings and complete the process before being able to use your server.

 > I'd say it's a fair guess that the hardware problems are
> contributing to the software problems. I don't really think
> there's a lot of point in doing anything more until I have
> that floppy working.

As long as your CD drive is bootable you should be able to instal sme from the CD, but having a working floppy drive is a good idea, you will need it to make a reinstal disk.

> At least with that I can use a DOS boot
> disk to format the hard drives. Then I'll be back to square
> one again. I tried to format the drives using my other
> computer system but my other system doesn't like the drives -
> they're too big for the bios to cope with.

The bigger drives need the updated Windows98 fdisk command, as the original fdisk does not recognise drives >64Gb (I think). As I said before I doubt that anything less than Win2K fdisk will be able to delete the partitions, so it will be better to use the linnux reset partition commands I advised above.


By the way, if you are wanting to instal anything more than 1 hard drive in standalone or 2 drives in software RAID1, then DO NOT do so at the initial installation of sme. The outcome is unpredictable. Instal your basic sme either single disk (also = hardware RAID1) or RAID1 software, get it all working, and ONLY THEN add any additional disks. You will need some Linux expert knowledge to do this though.

I hope all this helps you sort it out. If you post further problems here, you will need to be specific, ie "the menu thing" is not good enough, tell us what name the menu has on it etc, and give us exact error messages if you receive them.

Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Gregory baird]

rhys

First of all before you cuss a program at least be smart enough to be able to over come it sme is a very good program as your stated problems it is your inexperience with linux that is the problem You need to be patient with yourself until you have a basic knowledge with linux I have been there as we all have

If you want to use microsoft go ahead nt server is out dated win 2000 is alight if you use microsoft you have to spend lots of money and time security updates patches and whatever else besides poor use of bandwidth probably something else you don’t know about I have ran windows servers for several years and feel the learning curve is just as bad as linux but the cost of running linux is far less

Your remark about wasting 10 bucks what a joke windows 2000 server about $ 1400 that only gets you a web server and a very poor ftp server sme is a free download that is as cheap as you can get

I think you lack some of the basic knowledge needed to be any kind of system administrator
You could have cleared your hard drives with a simple command

FDISK /MBR

Before you whine to this forum anymore get some books and read up on simple command line statements

I have ran linux based servers and have seen uptimes close to a year without a reboot microsoft does not display this information as they need to be rebooted all of the time either a system crash or a memory leak
Always something When you want to run with the big dogs you will have to run linux

[Barry Rogers]

lots of homework, some installs by other distros, not good results.
started with eSmith v4 way back when... excellent results from day 1. 100+ days uptime. cable modem access, no problems with CB help.
moved to 5.1.2, some probs with mail, excellent discussion bds helped, all OK. uptime is now at 50+ days. going to 5.5/5.6 soon when dust settles, and upgrade probs sorted. once again, excellent discussion boards.
being from a MS background, wow! never experienced such performance on NT at any hardware level. SME box runs on a PII 166 w/64Mb RAM... basically junk hardware even the charities/schools/Salvos do not want!
this is impossible on NT. SME runs mail, file and print server, 6x domains, security, ADSL w/dynamic IP, etc.. v impressive.
best $15 I ever spent!
better to keep ones' mouth closed, and keep people guessing what is inside...!
rhys, the best way to get SME users to help is to ask, not blast.