Experiment: Operation Girlfriend using linux

[a_Guest03]

This is a chronicle of my adventure. I am moving my girlfriend and her Windows-only family to Linux. It has been frustrating because I work and go to school and have other side projects and because her mom is an outright bitch to me a lot. I won't go into that unless it hinders my progress in moving them over. It slows me down because I hate going to her house. She lives with her parents still.

My girlfriend was a theatre major before deciding to study film theory. She's a smart girl who was raised pure Windows 98/95 until she met me two years ago. She now is comfortable on my home PC, to get on the internet and burn CDs. I run Slackware 8.1 with assorted add-on programs, but it's a basic Slackware system. I do 90% of my configuring in pico or tty1 (console) or konsole (KDE console). I operate KDE 3.0 with Mozilla, everybuddy, k3b (cdburner), grip (CD player and ripper), and xmms (Everyone say winamp clone). I don't have TOO much custom stuff on there, and I don't run any servers anymore because I lost my internet at home.

A while back, her Windows disk crashed, and it dawned on me that it was pirated. Since she was uprooted anyway, I decided to install linux on her other hard drive to help her remove the Windows data from the corrupt drive (OS corrupted anyway), and to back it up on hard drive and CD. I have now installed Slackware 8.1 on her computer, which is a dual 466 celeron abit board. Yes, I gave it to her. I was using it before I upgraded to a 1.8GHz.

With Linux, I felt it would be an added plus to be able to repair her computer system either by talking her into making hardware changes over the phone, or by having a login made available for me. I will be moving 100 miles away and will be selling my car to attend college. I'm $1700 in debt thanks to the fact that my dad recently went from rich to poor, thanks to the fact that I'm under 23 and unmarried, and thanks to the fact that tax years take time to process, so he's still rich, even if he has $0. I can't afford to give my girlfriend an operating system or office right now, and decided against going further into debt. Her parents already are taking loans out to pay for her college. Her college money was spent paying bills when her father couldn't find work.

Financial situation is pretty dire, so Windows + Office is not an acceptable answer for me.

I installed Slackware 8.1, and I gave her and her family user names. My girlfriend alone knows the root password (besides me). Her parents have trivial passwords that even they can remember. I switched default init from 3 to 4 (for you tech unsavvy, that's from text-based to desktop-based standard operation). I made sure that kdm was the default desktop manager. I have bad luck with gdm... Something to do with the inability to reboot easily.

Once I tested the ease of booting up in Linux, I added Windows to the lilo.conf so that she could dual boot into the broken Windows drive. Who knows? Maybe it's just being cranky for 2 weeks.

The next task was to get the CDROM drives available to everyone, because that's what my girlfriend wanted. Because she had a CDR, I changed lilo also to "append /dev/hdd=ide-scsi", so that the CDR device would pretend to be SCSI (some linux-only thing that I can't explain... all CD writers are "scsi"). I changed the /dev/hdc and /dev/scd0 devices to the group of users, and allowed group execute access. Then I edited fstab (the filesystem table, where default settings for mount points, e.g. D: in Windows) are stored, and changed the rule for CDROM from owner only to user-based rules. So anyone with rights would be able to mount it, and not just root.

I installed k3b. It's smooth! It's my favorite CD-writing software for linux.

I have also installed OpenOffice 1.0.2, and yes, I know 1.1.0 is out. I just downloaded it recently. It's next on my to-do's.

I also need to configure her sound driver, which requires a kernel compilation. I keep trying to do symmetrical processing, and it keeps crapping out on me. Either the kernel will panic on boot, or it won't compile at all because of some module option I chose. I removed many unnecessary options, but what concerns me is that /dev/hdb3 (her / folder) won't mount with my new kernels. It's supposed to load ext3 (journaled filesystem). For some reason, it just dies when it tries to mount them, then goes kernel panic on me. I'm going to try sans second processor. I'm not sure if that one works correctly. It's about 20 degrees F hotter than the first one when it's configured for single-processor use.

I've been trying to get a modem or two to work, and lucky me, they're both winmodems without linux drivers. I've ordered 2 real modems off pricewatch, and the price was a real stinger. I opted to buy a $50 real modem, with all the components. I can reuse those in the future, even if I opt to use freebsd or openbsd. Pricewatch had most of the crappy winmodems priced at $6 shipped to your house. I got a 56k hardware modem with V34-V92 standards. I'm tired of spending hours upon hours trying to get the damn winmodems to work.

I was surprised at how hard it was to get a modem to work. I have had cable internet or other ethernet-driven internet only since using Linux. It was actually easier in my opinion to configure ethernet than in Windows.

This is just a chronicle of my switch, and I hope it's educational for anyone who hasn't built linux up yet. If I had space, I'd post screenshots of my progress so that the unexperienced could take a peek.

Do any veterans have any advice for me? She's 20, artistic, computer-savvy (windows mostly). Her parents are completely and blissfully ignorant of computers besides "juno" and "Minesweeper". Her dad just wants to be able to get on the internet, and her mom... well, she's a little flaky, so I don't know what she wants. She really just needs access to the internet.

Next on my to-dos:
Get modem in hand and install it. Get them connected to internet.
Get her music and video and picture editing software.
Load her HP scanner/printer (with handy linux drivers She made sure when she got it)
Learn how to operate firewire and USB gear that she has.
Use next stable kernel (2.4.22?), or upgrade to beta kernel if necessary to do the above tasks.
Figure out if drivers exist for her firewire digital video camera that her parents bought her without any knowledge of computers and without consulting me :P

[kathgar]

Even in Windows your cd-r is running in a scsi emulation mode. This is handled by the ASPI layer of the interface. The rest? no clue on the SMP problem.. never used firewire... USB is pretty simple if the device has a driver..but good luck.

[a_Guest03]

Next Step:

Okay, my girlfriend has been really cranky and has also been racking up some serious long distance bills, calling her friends that she usually IMs. Here's the situation:

Out of 10 modems I find, it's my luck that they're all winmodems with no linux drivers (okay, just 4 modems). I purchased the other modems, and the stupid company required an in-person signature to receive them by UPS. I don't know how many of you are home for more than ten hours per day (including sleep), but I'm definitely not. I tried to fill out the little slip saying to drop it on the ground and walk away, but it was scratched out each time the guy delivered. So, I go during my lunch hour to the UPS station (far from my home AND work) where they decided to leave it. This is 8 days after the supposed delivery time. EDIT: I forgot to mention that I had to ask thrice, and involved two employees of UPS before one woman walked a foot behind an open door and returned with my package. They claimed that I must be in the wrong place or have the wrong name and address. /EDIT I install the modem physically, and after minimal work on the modem device...

cat /proc/pci
ln -sf /dev/ttyS4 /dev/modem

I'm all set! I tell kppp (the dialer) the information that my girlfriend's mom had gotten when she registered for dialup. I try to dial, and I get garbage tone after garbage tone for 4 phone numbers... I'm visibly distraught. My girlfriend had been without internet for nearly a month and a half, which is like a death sentence for her. I keep trying again and again. More garbage. I get online at work the next day and check every dialup configuration guide I can find. I don't find anything worth printing, and resign myself to show up and have at it yet again. Her friend, Joe, shows up to help her write a story. He's an english major, and has better grammar than me, if you can believe it. And he knows what an antecedent is (hey, I knew, but I forgot! It's the linked noun when you use one of the pronouns like "he" or "it").

I get a brilliant idea. I tell Joe to hook up his laptop to the phone line I was using. He does, and dials. He gets garbage tones. We buy a new cable (it's a shoddy cable job that my gf's dad did - electrician, not phone technician). It's too short (at 25ft), so I buy a fifty-footer. I return. We try again. Garbage. We check the phone line for a dialtone in the area. The phone has a tone, then it doesn't, has a tone, then it doesn't. It's all very odd. We take Joe's laptop upstairs and try in the kitchen. Garbage. We try in three phone jacks in the house. All garbage. Finally, some rest for poor ol' me. It's not my fault.

I tell Tony, gf's dad, that his phone lines inside or outside the house have some problem. SBC (local phone people) tell him that there is no problem. He tells a technician to come out anyway. The guy shows up last night (Sunday night) at 5:15PM (odd time...). I was about 6 blocks away, so I showed up ASAP to talk to him. He told me that there was a device (some bell??) that was hooked up in the basement to ring loudly outside when the phone rang, or something to that effect. He said that it wasn't functioning, but that it sucked up voltage nonetheless. He disabled it, and his modem worked just fine. I tested mine, and while I had some timing problems with kppp, the tones were perfect. I got it working. I had set the modem attempts to 30 seconds max because GF's mom had complained. She said "There are needles in my head! Please stop making that noise!" while I was troubleshooting the day before. Once I set it to 200 seconds, everything worked hunkydory!

GF got on the internet and chose her favorite browser (mozilla -Netscape took forever to load) and her favorite AIM client (gaim). She denied everybuddy, Netscape's AIM client, and some other, if I remember correctly. I trained her parents on how to get on the internet, how to look around, and how to get their email. They are adjusting surprisingly well. I think it's because they didn't know windows at all.

To-Do's:
Get her music and video and picture editing software. - in process, scanning freshmeat.net
Load her HP scanner/printer (with handy linux drivers She made sure when she got it) - next on the list
Learn how to operate firewire and USB gear that she has.
Use next stable kernel (2.4.22?), or upgrade to beta kernel if necessary to do the above tasks. - Having problems, but will resolve. It may involve the second processor
Figure out if drivers exist for her firewire digital video camera that her parents bought her without any knowledge of computers and without consulting me - no idea
Download newest cdrecord tools to enable DVD read/write as a massive CDROM device. It also should get her legacy cdwriter to work.

[bobzub]

ok, at least some comments from my experience....

Firewire... you should have no problem these days with
firewire. I made firewire work under linux around the time
the 2.4.18 kernel was released. Everything _should_ be
available, in a modern linux dist, for firewire to work. Then
again I did this on redhat.

Digital cameras, DV cams. My DV cam was firewire enabled,
so once I got the firewire stuff working the DV cam was all
good. For DV editing etc, I found kino worked well for capture,
and broadcast2000 for some editing. I dont think broadcast2000
is available anymore, but I am certain kino is. I was getting
framerates comparable to windows, for DV capture and playback.
Digital cameras were a little different, depending on what type
of digital camera you have. Of course I recieved some completely
wacked out cheapo cam from a relative, which had zero support
and some drivers from the stone age. I managed to actually get it
to work, and a few others using gphoto (I think thats what it was).
Gphoto had drivers for all kinds of digital cameras that were sworn
not to work under linux. Then again these days it might be a little easier.
Oh yeah one more for video editing. Mainactor looked really decent,
but is/was a commercial product.

Getting PPP to work for your modem. I have to say I havent set up
a modem under linux or BSD in years. I know in redat they give you
some gui to set it up. I used that once, it worked, I went on my way.
As for slackware, I have no idea anymore. I know great help huh?

Lets see, Music editing software. I found that Audacity, at the time, was
about the best sound editing software I could find for free. I have heard
of others that people thought were great, but they either never worked
for me, or compiling was a complete nightmare (for me). Audacity has
good basic editing, can handle large files, record large files, and even
multitrack. I would look at that program. Also once again if you can get
ahold of broadcast2000 ( I think they stopped offering it), it had some
decent features as well.

Cd recording tools.. I used xcdroast :P ...... it worked.... there are a
few packages nowdays. Gnome has their own which comes with
the gnome software. I would think KDE has one as well.

On the lernel side, I have heard a lot of good about the 2.6 kernels, but
I havent tried them myself (bleh I should).

Also for DV cams, there should be a good site on the web about
linux and DV cams. There was one I used back when I was setting mine
up (years ago now) but I cant remember the name.

Oh well, if for nothing other than encouragment, thats what I have to
add. Sorry if its scattered, this is one of those "I got hammered last night,
got home at 2:30am, had to be up at 6am for work" days.

-bobzub

[a_Guest03]

I have a good CD recorder, k3b. I need the backend tools to get it to work. Her version of cdrecord-tools is too old to recognize the DVD player as a readable or writable device. It has no idea what to do with it, but finds it just fine. It reads CDs when you mount it.

Oh, and that reminds me that I need DVD-playing software as well. This should keep me busy until I move next month. I hope to have her set up with no-ip.com and automatic updating when she signs on so that I can log in and continue my mad scientist work.