[nflug] Mame Distribution

Mark Musone mmusone at shatterit.com
Fri Jun 9 10:05:26 EDT 2006


Release notes good. (although you'd think they'd have it right up there nice
and big when you go to choose what version..but whatever)

I read those dpkg-reconfigure. It's not "uhh..what does dpkg-reconfigure do"
that's the easy part, it's what does it do and what files are looked at for
the reconfiguration. i.e. when you do a dpkg-reconfigure for the kernel,
exactly what is done and what files are looked at. Whats the point of having
an easy way to reconfigure something when you don't know how to specify the
configuration.

Removing usplash doesn't make nvidiafb load up. I'm not saying this to be
challenging, but more because I'm seriously interested in the "right" way to
do it. So if anybody can go ahead and try and make it so that nvidiafb gets
loaded upon bootup, and not vesafb I'd be very interested.

-Mark



-----Original Message-----
From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf Of
Jesse Jarzynka
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 9:50 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: Re: [nflug] Mame Distribution

Mark Musone wrote:
> 1. simply figuring out what version to user: ubuntu server or
workstation...hrmm.wheres the list of software or a comparison of
features...
If you read the release notes for any of the versions at 
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/releasenotes/ :

*Desktop*

A standard desktop box, including a full desktop environment, sound, 
office suite, email clients, etc. You'll need about 3 gigabytes of hard 
drive space.

*Server*

This is a small server profile, which provides a common base for all 
sorts of server applications. It's minimal and designed to have the 
desired services added on top, such as file/print services, web hosting, 
email hosting, etc. For these services at least 500MB of disk space will 
suffice, but consider adding more space depending on the services you'd 
like to host with your server.

> after installing server, thinking oh, well server should have
_everything_. i install 'server'. reboot. Grub error 18. you've got to be
kidding me. my new 300G drive. you've got to be kidding me, no /boot or even
the kernel file at the beginnign of the disk?? how linux 101 is that? so
after reinstalling 2 more times to get a /boot working correctly, I smile in
blissful agony when the kernel starts booting up.
>   
> I sat there wondering why after the install and reboot i was sitting at a
command line login prompt.
> Hrm..thats strange. Oh well, no biggie i'll login and start X. startx.
xinit. X. WTF it didn't even install X ????????????
> bah. musta been a bad install on my part. let me try to find X
somewhere..must not be in my path, sudo tcsh. tcsh sudo tcsh.WTF no tcsh!!!
no gawk?! wtf is even on this install, 2 programs!!
> So after 4 additional installs thinking _something_ must be wrong because
even command line programs nowadays require X libraries, and after spending
2 hours trying to see what the difference is between "server" and
"workstation", I give up and start installing workstation. Yay! finally. I
got my /boot _and_ an X server, who woulda thunk it!!
>
>
> 1. getting wireless to work (zd1211ib) ...typical kernel recompile. this
was actually the easiest thing after 8 bazillion lines of non-intuitive and
non documented steps:
>
> take a look at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelHowto
> you've got to be kidding me..for compiling a simple kernel??? I'm suprised
I also don't have to give up my first born son.
>
> 2. _removing_ gdm. In the end, i'm running framebuffer and cannot be in X.
hah! good luck. I turn off "gdm" in the Administration->Services tab. Seems
simple enough. I turn off that service and X immediately dies. "Oh kool. it
worked!!! I'm not in X!" Reboot-----> gdm and X starts. I give up and chmod
-x the gdm file in /etc/init.d. now i get lovely complaints on bootup, but
no X yay!!! :)
>   
Why didn't you just REMOVE gdm??? Or try installing BUM or sysv-rc-conf 
and configure the services a little better. Why is it Ubuntu's fault you 
don't know how to stop services in debian based distros? Take your time, 
and ask questions instead of freaking out when things don't work. That's 
what ubuntuforums are for.
> 3. removing vesafb from loading and instead loading up nvifiafb upon
bootup. Hah! good luck! it's compiled right into initrd image. ubuntu has to
have it's kool splashscreen. add nosplash to grub and it won;t load any
framebuffer. After spending about 5 hours trackign this down, becuase my
hommade initrd versions werent working either, finally found the magic files
(/etc/modules.d/modules-blacklist, /lib/modules/initrd...and a half dozen
other files), found the incantation of dpkg-reconfig linux-image-`uname -r`
to actually make the initrd and install it. where the heck is there even
documentation on what dpkg-reconfig does for all important packages, or what
files are used for what. oh, to change X stuff, no problem, change mystical
undocumented X files, and run dpkg-reconfigure xorg. WTF WHERES THE DOCS!!!
>   
Why didn't you just REMOVE usplash???

A quick Google on dpkg-reconfigure -

"Software contained in Debian 
<http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Debian> packages which make use of 
debconf <http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Debconf> can usually be 
configured by running

dpkg-reconfigure /package_name/

rather than by hand-editing config files."

> ..and i still have more things i need to get working, like when i install
the mythtv package and it doesn't come with mythtv-setup.WTF.
>   
Yeah it does...try this http://hyams.webhop.net/mythtv/myth_ubuntu.html
>
> Gah!!!
>   
Sounds like you definitely have a bad CD. Is this the same CD we had at 
a meeting a few months ago that we couldn't install either? Wasn't that 
like Warty, which is 2 releases ago?? Wireless works fine over here, you 
don't have to recompile any kernels.
-- 
Jesse Jarzynka
Cyber Source
http://www.jessejoe.com/
http://www.thecybersource.com/
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