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* How to pick a distro?
@ 2005-04-06 20:04 NNK
  2005-04-06 20:44 ` Ray Olszewski
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: NNK @ 2005-04-06 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

I was wondering what I should be looking at in the different distros 
before picking one to use.

Being a total novice, I don't have much experience on Linux, so I'm 
wondering what I should be asking.

Any advice?
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: How to pick a distro?
  2005-04-06 20:04 How to pick a distro? NNK
@ 2005-04-06 20:44 ` Ray Olszewski
  2005-04-06 21:21 ` James Miller
  2005-04-07  6:50 ` Yawar Amin
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Ray Olszewski @ 2005-04-06 20:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

At 01:34 AM 4/7/2005 +0530, NNK wrote:
>I was wondering what I should be looking at in the different distros 
>before picking one to use.
>
>Being a total novice, I don't have much experience on Linux, so I'm 
>wondering what I should be asking.
>
>Any advice?

This is a difficult question to answer with anything other than personal 
prejudice. I will give it a try, though.

1. As a beginner, you want to use a full-strength distribution, one that is 
likely to support the full range of activities you might want to use Linux 
for. Experienced users often can benefit from using more specialized, 
semi-embedded distros that are geared to particular tasks ... e.g., distros 
designed to work as routers or as dedicated vidcap hosts ... but you're 
better off waiting until you know more before you go that route. Same goes 
for source-based distros ... not the best place for a novice to start.

2. You want a distro that has a good packaging system and good support for 
security and other updates. Examples that meet this are Debian (the distro 
I use) and most of the big RPM-based distros. The best-known distro that 
does NOT meet this standard (or at least I believe it does not) is 
Slackware ... though if I'm wrong, I'd welcome correction from a Slackware 
user.

3. You want someplace you can ask questions with the hope that you will get 
prompt and accurate answers. Many distros have their own help lists, and if 
you are considering one, you might look at the archives of its support list 
to see if it meets this standard. Or, for distro-agnostic lists like this 
one, notice what distros are discussed the most ... that is, notice what 
the people who *answer* questions know the answers *to*. If you have a 
friend who will be helping you, use what he or she uses ... that's way more 
important than a quest for the elusive "best" distro.

4. This all assumes you are planning to use reasonablty modern desktop 
equipment. Really old equipment ... 486- and even 386-based systems, and 
other oddball hardware ... and laptops present specialized problems that 
might dictate selection of a particular distro that handles that equipment 
well. Most of the RPM-based distros are better at hardware detection than 
Debian is, so you might think about how much that matters to your install too.

5. Finally, think about the range of applications you want to run. 
Especially GUI-based ones. Different distros come out in different places 
in the GUI wars (between KDE and Gnome, mainly, though there is more) and 
your life will be easier if you pick a distro that fits what you want or 
need in that regard.




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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: How to pick a distro?
  2005-04-06 20:04 How to pick a distro? NNK
  2005-04-06 20:44 ` Ray Olszewski
@ 2005-04-06 21:21 ` James Miller
  2005-04-07  9:29   ` Ulrich Fürst
  2005-04-07  6:50 ` Yawar Amin
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: James Miller @ 2005-04-06 21:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

On Thu, 7 Apr 2005, NNK wrote:

> I was wondering what I should be looking at in the different distros before 
> picking one to use.
>
> Being a total novice, I don't have much experience on Linux, so I'm wondering 
> what I should be asking.
>
> Any advice?

In addition to Ray's advice, I'll add a couple of observations. The main 
problem you'll want to adress at the beginning is hardawre compatibility. 
Though that's gotten pretty good under Linux, you shouldn't just assume 
your hardware will be supported. If some important element of your setup 
is not supported, or is poorly supported, your foray into Linux could turn 
sour quickly.

A couple of ways to adress this: 1) find a distro with a good support 
community (e.g., Ubuntu is a newbie-oriented distro with a really active 
forum) and ask about your hardware there ahead of time. This presumes you 
know what kind of hardware is in, or attached to, your machine. What kind 
of NIC/modem, video card, hard drive controller card (if any), usb 
devices, printer. That sort of thing. Short of finding out all that, you 
could try a less involved option: 2) download and burn a copy of a live CD 
like Knoppix, boot from it and see if everything works ok.

James
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: How to pick a distro?
  2005-04-06 20:04 How to pick a distro? NNK
  2005-04-06 20:44 ` Ray Olszewski
  2005-04-06 21:21 ` James Miller
@ 2005-04-07  6:50 ` Yawar Amin
  2005-04-07 16:52   ` Ray Olszewski
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Yawar Amin @ 2005-04-07  6:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

Hi NNK,

On Apr 7, 2005 4:04 AM, NNK <savantedge@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was wondering what I should be looking at in the different distros
> before picking one to use.
> 
> Being a total novice, I don't have much experience on Linux, so I'm
> wondering what I should be asking.
> 
> Any advice?

I can also give you a couple of tips :-)

You may appreciate a distro that comes with a full set of CDs, so you
don't have to download the internet+1 just to get the stuff that you
like to use. This may be the case even if you have a fast connection
because online package repositories can get overloaded and/or taken
down from time to time, or the software which goes and gets the
packages for you from the 'net may be slightly misconfigured, and give
you all sorts of headaches.

Full-CD distros like Debian, Fedora Core, SUSE, and Mandrake come to
mind. Here's what I think: Debian is excellent, but ... outdated. And
if you want to be cautious and not try to do full upgrades from the
'net for fear of breaking something, then you're stuck with older
stuff. (Sorry, Ray! I had to get that out. I myself use MEPIS, which
is Debian-based. And I `broke' it by doing a dist-upgrade before first
installing all the stuff I like.)

Fedora Core is also great. I used FC2 for a long time. Its yum package
management system is slow as hell, though. If you use FC, install apt
(that is, apt-rpm) and Synaptic on it.

SUSE has a great rep. I haven't used it, but it's obviously very
high-quality. Teutonic precision, you know :-)

Mandrake I have used. Version 10 is excellent, I can't think of
anything bad to say about it -- except that I never was able to set up
its apt equivalent, urpmi, to use the internet. Probably my own fault.
In any case, you can still easily get apt and Synaptic for it.

Overall, wrt package management, I recommend using the distro's
built-in management tool for installing from the CDs, and Synaptic for
downloading from the internet.

HTH,

-- 
Yawar
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: How to pick a distro?
  2005-04-06 21:21 ` James Miller
@ 2005-04-07  9:29   ` Ulrich Fürst
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Ulrich Fürst @ 2005-04-07  9:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

James Miller <jamtat@mailsnare.net> wrote: 
> A couple of ways to adress this: 1) find a distro with a good support 
> community (e.g., Ubuntu is a newbie-oriented distro with a really
> active forum) and ask about your hardware there ahead of time. This
> presumes you know what kind of hardware is in, or attached to, your
> machine. What kind of NIC/modem, video card, hard drive controller
> card (if any), usb devices, printer. That sort of thing. Short of
> finding out all that, you could try a less involved option: 2)
> download and burn a copy of a live CD like Knoppix, boot from it and
> see if everything works ok.

3. Type the names of your hardware components into
http://www.google.com/linux
or
http://groups.google.com/grphp?hl=en
But watch out for the date of the question. A hardware with problems in
2003 can work properly now... You should find many threads about it if
you're hardware makes problems or is often used. But you see the
solutions to get it working. If you do understand them it's o.k., if
it's to complicated then you need other hardware or a distribution which
supports it (or someone to help). By the way: sometimes it's better to
change the hardware (e.g. software modems) than wasting hours and days
to get it working...

I don't know other distributions but e.g. with debian GNU/Linux you can
use also packages from other distributions (like rpm). 

4. Check sites like
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/
>  This document attempts to list most of the hardware known to be
>  either supported or unsupported under Linux.
This document is over a year old, so there should be much more
supported. So I guess "3." is the better solution.

hth

Ulrich
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: How to pick a distro?
  2005-04-07  6:50 ` Yawar Amin
@ 2005-04-07 16:52   ` Ray Olszewski
  2005-04-07 19:57     ` Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon) Eve Atley
  2005-04-09  8:32     ` How to pick a distro? Yawar Amin
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Ray Olszewski @ 2005-04-07 16:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

At 02:50 PM 4/7/2005 +0800, Yawar Amin wrote:
[...]
  Here's what I think: Debian is excellent, but ... outdated. And
>if you want to be cautious and not try to do full upgrades from the
>'net for fear of breaking something, then you're stuck with older
>stuff. (Sorry, Ray! I had to get that out. I myself use MEPIS, which
>is Debian-based. And I `broke' it by doing a dist-upgrade before first
>installing all the stuff I like.)

You should not feel the need to apologize for an honest opinion, at least 
not one that you express politely (as you do in this instance). That said, 
I do feel the need to respond with a bit of a clarification.

Most Debian users agree, I think, that the "stable" Debian distro 
(currently Woody) tends to be extremely out of date (except for 
security-related fixes, where the maintanance team is very good). Some 
would go so far as to say that it is so outdated that it is a joke, and I 
can't really disagree with that.

But Debian also maintains a "testing" distro (Sarge) and an "unstable" 
distro (Sid), both of which are considerably closer to current. Here, on 
any system that requires really up to date stuff ... in practice, 
everything except my router ... I always use Sid. I occasionally experience 
transient problems, as package updatings get out of sync ... especially a 
problem with major moves by shared libraries ... but that is probably an 
inevitable price of staying close to current. I've never "broken" a Debian 
system for more than a day or two, until the packages got back in sync.

I haven't used any distro other than Debian in so long that I no longer 
know how they compare in the balance of currency and stability with Sid.

I don't know what "Debian-based" distros use, since I've not used any of 
them ... I've never even heard of MEPIS ... so I can neither encourage nor 
discourage their use. I just note that "Debian-based" != "Debian".

Finally, due to the detection and correction of security-related problems, 
I'd suggest that nobody ... at least nobody running a system that has any 
sort of Internet connection ... can escape the need to do regular updates 
of his or her system. In practice, I find "full upgrades" easier to do than 
security upgrades of specific packages ... but the need, and the attendant 
risks of compatibility problems, is present in EVERY distro.


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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)
  2005-04-07 16:52   ` Ray Olszewski
@ 2005-04-07 19:57     ` Eve Atley
  2005-04-07 20:10       ` caszonyi
  2005-04-09  8:32     ` How to pick a distro? Yawar Amin
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Eve Atley @ 2005-04-07 19:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie


Simply put...my mouse has started having a mind of its own in our Redhat
Enterprise Workstation 3 (Taroon) Linux box. It wants to focus on the bottom
left-hand corner of the screen, and clicks on whatever happens to be there
at the time (Languages at login, as an example). When I try to move the
cursor up towards my destination, it insists on refocusing down at the
bottom left-hand corner of the screen again. And though I press neither the
left nor right button, it functions as if I am. 

I don't know if any of these are related, but here are a few things which
lead up to this:
1. desktop crashed after a user killed a window through remote VNC - I
rebooted the machine
2. I have an entry in vncserver to start up "root:1" (conflict?) - when a
user remotely connects via VNC, they see a similar desktop but it's NOT the
same. I can tell, because windows will pop up in the server that never
appear in the VNC desktop. Icons layout is identical, however.
3. The mouse in question is a scroll-wheel optical (Microsoft) and is
connected to a KVM switch. It worked perfect fine previous to this.

Any ideas how I can exorcise my mouse? Any corrupted file to examine
perhaps?

Thanks,
Eve



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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)
  2005-04-07 19:57     ` Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon) Eve Atley
@ 2005-04-07 20:10       ` caszonyi
  2005-04-07 20:37         ` Ray Olszewski
  2005-04-07 20:44         ` Eve Atley
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: caszonyi @ 2005-04-07 20:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Eve Atley; +Cc: linux-newbie

On Thu, 7 Apr 2005, Eve Atley wrote:

>
> Simply put...my mouse has started having a mind of its own in our Redhat
> Enterprise Workstation 3 (Taroon) Linux box. It wants to focus on the bottom
> left-hand corner of the screen, and clicks on whatever happens to be there
> at the time (Languages at login, as an example). When I try to move the
> cursor up towards my destination, it insists on refocusing down at the
> bottom left-hand corner of the screen again. And though I press neither the
> left nor right button, it functions as if I am.
>
> I don't know if any of these are related, but here are a few things which
> lead up to this:
> 1. desktop crashed after a user killed a window through remote VNC - I
> rebooted the machine
> 2. I have an entry in vncserver to start up "root:1" (conflict?) - when a
> user remotely connects via VNC, they see a similar desktop but it's NOT the
> same. I can tell, because windows will pop up in the server that never
> appear in the VNC desktop. Icons layout is identical, however.
> 3. The mouse in question is a scroll-wheel optical (Microsoft) and is
> connected to a KVM switch. It worked perfect fine previous to this.
>
> Any ideas how I can exorcise my mouse? Any corrupted file to examine
> perhaps?
>

see /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/X11/XF86Config

This behaviour is usually associated with wrong driver for mouse


--
?


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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)
  2005-04-07 20:10       ` caszonyi
@ 2005-04-07 20:37         ` Ray Olszewski
  2005-04-08  5:01           ` Rajendra Mishra
  2005-04-07 20:44         ` Eve Atley
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Ray Olszewski @ 2005-04-07 20:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

At 11:10 PM 4/7/2005 +0300, caszonyi@rdslink.ro wrote:
>On Thu, 7 Apr 2005, Eve Atley wrote:
>
>>
>>Simply put...my mouse has started having a mind of its own in our Redhat
>>Enterprise Workstation 3 (Taroon) Linux box. It wants to focus on the bottom
>>left-hand corner of the screen, and clicks on whatever happens to be there
>>at the time (Languages at login, as an example). When I try to move the
>>cursor up towards my destination, it insists on refocusing down at the
>>bottom left-hand corner of the screen again. And though I press neither the
>>left nor right button, it functions as if I am.
>>
>>I don't know if any of these are related, but here are a few things which
>>lead up to this:
>>1. desktop crashed after a user killed a window through remote VNC - I
>>rebooted the machine
>>2. I have an entry in vncserver to start up "root:1" (conflict?) - when a
>>user remotely connects via VNC, they see a similar desktop but it's NOT the
>>same. I can tell, because windows will pop up in the server that never
>>appear in the VNC desktop. Icons layout is identical, however.
>>3. The mouse in question is a scroll-wheel optical (Microsoft) and is
>>connected to a KVM switch. It worked perfect fine previous to this.
>>
>>Any ideas how I can exorcise my mouse? Any corrupted file to examine
>>perhaps?
>
>see /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/X11/XF86Config
>
>This behaviour is usually associated with wrong driver for mouse

It's also sometimes associated with trying to run X locally when a console 
mouse driver (usually gpm) is also running. So check for that too 
(especially if you reboot this system rarely ... you might have fixed this 
by hand, then forgotten you did so).

BTW, depending on the vintage of your system, the X config file might be 
called /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 . To sort out the details in it, look for a 
section called "ServerLayout'" and see what mouse-like InputDevice entries 
it has. Then check the sections for them to see if they are configured 
correctly.

Finally, don't rule out the possibility that the KVM switch is involved 
somehow ... if, for example, it is not set to connect your mouse to the 
Linux host when X actually starts. I've seen reports on this both ways 
(that it works and that it doesn't) and do not know what differentiates the 
two sets of reports.


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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* RE: Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)
  2005-04-07 20:10       ` caszonyi
  2005-04-07 20:37         ` Ray Olszewski
@ 2005-04-07 20:44         ` Eve Atley
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Eve Atley @ 2005-04-07 20:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 'Calin Szonyi'; +Cc: linux-newbie


>see /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/X11/XF86Config

Thanks; I tried reverting back to my XF86Config.backup but that didn't work.
The old and new ones appear to be the same. 

And if it helps, it's actually a Logitech PS2 trackball attached to a KVM
switch.

My entries in each show:

XF86Config.backup
------------------
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# If the normal CorePointer mouse is not a USB mouse then
# this input device can be used in AlwaysCore mode to let you
# also use USB mice at the same time.
        Identifier  "DevInputMice"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

XF86Config
--------------------
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# If the normal CorePointer mouse is not a USB mouse then
# this input device can be used in AlwaysCore mode to let you
# also use USB mice at the same time.
        Identifier  "DevInputMice"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

- Eve


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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)
  2005-04-07 20:37         ` Ray Olszewski
@ 2005-04-08  5:01           ` Rajendra Mishra
  2005-04-08 13:16             ` Richard Adams
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Rajendra Mishra @ 2005-04-08  5:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Ray Olszewski, linux-newbie

one workaround u can try is to open a terminal, become 
root
and issue following command:
$> /etc/init.d/gpm restart

The problem is due to the incompatibility of KVM with 
linux.

regds,
-rpm
On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 13:37:15 -0700
  Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com> wrote:
> At 11:10 PM 4/7/2005 +0300, caszonyi@rdslink.ro wrote:
>>On Thu, 7 Apr 2005, Eve Atley wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>Simply put...my mouse has started having a mind of its 
>>>own in our Redhat
>>>Enterprise Workstation 3 (Taroon) Linux box. It wants to 
>>>focus on the bottom
>>>left-hand corner of the screen, and clicks on whatever 
>>>happens to be there
>>>at the time (Languages at login, as an example). When I 
>>>try to move the
>>>cursor up towards my destination, it insists on 
>>>refocusing down at the
>>>bottom left-hand corner of the screen again. And though I 
>>>press neither the
>>>left nor right button, it functions as if I am.
>>>
>>>I don't know if any of these are related, but here are a 
>>>few things which
>>>lead up to this:
>>>1. desktop crashed after a user killed a window through 
>>>remote VNC - I
>>>rebooted the machine
>>>2. I have an entry in vncserver to start up "root:1" 
>>>(conflict?) - when a
>>>user remotely connects via VNC, they see a similar 
>>>desktop but it's NOT the
>>>same. I can tell, because windows will pop up in the 
>>>server that never
>>>appear in the VNC desktop. Icons layout is identical, 
>>>however.
>>>3. The mouse in question is a scroll-wheel optical 
>>>(Microsoft) and is
>>>connected to a KVM switch. It worked perfect fine 
>>>previous to this.
>>>
>>>Any ideas how I can exorcise my mouse? Any corrupted file 
>>>to examine
>>>perhaps?
>>
>>see /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/X11/XF86Config
>>
>>This behaviour is usually associated with wrong driver 
>>for mouse
> 
> It's also sometimes associated with trying to run X 
>locally when a console mouse driver (usually gpm) is also 
>running. So check for that too (especially if you reboot 
>this system rarely ... you might have fixed this by hand, 
>then forgotten you did so).
> 
> BTW, depending on the vintage of your system, the X 
>config file might be called /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 . To 
>sort out the details in it, look for a section called 
>"ServerLayout'" and see what mouse-like InputDevice 
>entries it has. Then check the sections for them to see 
>if they are configured correctly.
> 
>Finally, don't rule out the possibility that the KVM 
>switch is involved somehow ... if, for example, it is not 
>set to connect your mouse to the Linux host when X 
>actually starts. I've seen reports on this both ways 
>(that it works and that it doesn't) and do not know what 
>differentiates the two sets of reports.
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line 
>"unsubscribe linux-newbie" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)
  2005-04-08  5:01           ` Rajendra Mishra
@ 2005-04-08 13:16             ` Richard Adams
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Richard Adams @ 2005-04-08 13:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rajendra Mishra; +Cc: Ray Olszewski, linux-newbie

On Friday 08 April 2005 07:01, Rajendra Mishra wrote:
> The problem is due to the incompatibility of KVM with
> linux.

I have been using kvm switches here at home and at work for years, i have 
never had a problem with any of them.
They switch between windows and linux fine, bsd to linux and visa versa no 
problem here at all.

If you use google.com and check out some of the reported problems you will see 
that most problems were solved by configuration and had really nothing to do 
with KVM switches, it may well seem that the switch is at fault but as i said 
mostly its not.

In most all cases its not a hardware problem but another program interfeering 
with GPM and or the X server.

> regds,
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: How to pick a distro?
  2005-04-07 16:52   ` Ray Olszewski
  2005-04-07 19:57     ` Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon) Eve Atley
@ 2005-04-09  8:32     ` Yawar Amin
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Yawar Amin @ 2005-04-09  8:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie

Hi Ray,

On Apr 8, 2005 12:52 AM, Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com> wrote:
[...]
> I don't know what "Debian-based" distros use, since I've not used any of
> them ... I've never even heard of MEPIS ... so I can neither encourage nor
> discourage their use. I just note that "Debian-based" != "Debian".

Of course you're right -- the MEPIS distributors do take Debian,
change it in an unspecified number of ways, and release it as MEPIS.
But I do want to qualify that, so far as package management is
concerned, at least, MEPIS _is_ the same as Debian, because MEPIS uses
dpkg, dselect and apt.

> Finally, due to the detection and correction of security-related problems,
> I'd suggest that nobody ... at least nobody running a system that has any
> sort of Internet connection ... can escape the need to do regular updates
> of his or her system. In practice, I find "full upgrades" easier to do than
> security upgrades of specific packages ... but the need, and the attendant
> risks of compatibility problems, is present in EVERY distro.

Totally agree with this. But I would also, having learned my lesson,
first install all packages I might like to use -- especially the
development packages -- before doing full upgrades.

Regards,

-- 
Yawar
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* RE: Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)
@ 2005-04-07 19:58 Eve Atley
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Eve Atley @ 2005-04-07 19:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-newbie


Additionally, the VNC Redhat desktop has no such problems with the mouse.

Thanks,
Eve



-----Original Message-----
From: Eve Atley [mailto:eatley@wowcorp.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2005 3:58 PM
To: 'linux-newbie@vger.kernel.org'
Subject: Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon)



Simply put...my mouse has started having a mind of its own in our Redhat
Enterprise Workstation 3 (Taroon) Linux box. It wants to focus on the bottom
left-hand corner of the screen, and clicks on whatever happens to be there
at the time (Languages at login, as an example). When I try to move the
cursor up towards my destination, it insists on refocusing down at the
bottom left-hand corner of the screen again. And though I press neither the
left nor right button, it functions as if I am. 

I don't know if any of these are related, but here are a few things which
lead up to this: 1. desktop crashed after a user killed a window through
remote VNC - I rebooted the machine 2. I have an entry in vncserver to start
up "root:1" (conflict?) - when a user remotely connects via VNC, they see a
similar desktop but it's NOT the same. I can tell, because windows will pop
up in the server that never appear in the VNC desktop. Icons layout is
identical, however. 3. The mouse in question is a scroll-wheel optical
(Microsoft) and is connected to a KVM switch. It worked perfect fine
previous to this.

Any ideas how I can exorcise my mouse? Any corrupted file to examine
perhaps?

Thanks,
Eve



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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2005-04-09  8:32 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 14+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2005-04-06 20:04 How to pick a distro? NNK
2005-04-06 20:44 ` Ray Olszewski
2005-04-06 21:21 ` James Miller
2005-04-07  9:29   ` Ulrich Fürst
2005-04-07  6:50 ` Yawar Amin
2005-04-07 16:52   ` Ray Olszewski
2005-04-07 19:57     ` Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon) Eve Atley
2005-04-07 20:10       ` caszonyi
2005-04-07 20:37         ` Ray Olszewski
2005-04-08  5:01           ` Rajendra Mishra
2005-04-08 13:16             ` Richard Adams
2005-04-07 20:44         ` Eve Atley
2005-04-09  8:32     ` How to pick a distro? Yawar Amin
2005-04-07 19:58 Mouse going nuts in RH Linux Enterprise 3 (Taroon) Eve Atley

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