Re: evangelizing linux not needed

From: Marty (this_at_address.invalid)
Date: 08/18/03 

Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 04:55:13 GMT

Back on Sun, 17 Aug 2003 21:19:13 GMT, while hiding out in
alt.os.linux,Kurt <actinouranium@netscape.net> surprised everyone by
saying:

>Marty <this@address.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Actually, as a long time computer user and Window programmer who's
>> trying his best to move to Linux, the command line is one of the
>> things I like about Linux. I like the ability to edit config files,
>
>For me, I learned to like the command line when I moved from a Mac to
>DOS. I would start Win3.1 just to have multiple DOS prompts. I
>later started working on SunOS boxes. The home computer got switched
>to Linux after I got a new computer with Win95.
>
>> I've managed to get it to work by using "modprobe". I even figured
>> out how to put the correct statement in /etc/modules.conf, and mount
>> drives interactively, after figuring out they were called sda5 and
>> sda6 (why those number?). This took me about a week, part time. I
>
>The number is somehow related to the SCSI id number - take a look at
>dmesg - the number will change as you change the id number.
>
Hmm, I forgot about that. To tell you the truth, I don't think I ever
set the IDs. I inherited the SCSI stuff from a friend, and didn't
even think about the IDs. It was mainly the scanner and tape drive,
but he had given me some SCSI drives, one of which was a Quantum
Fireball 4 GB, which was terminated. I needed a terminator, and
didn't know how to terminate the tape drive, so I used the disk drive
as a terminator. :-)

>> still haven't gotten it to mount automatically on startup. I'm
>
>/etc/fstab
>
I tried that, but it doesn't work. I added these two lines to the
end:
/dev/sda5 /mnt/scsi1 vfat defaults,umask=0 0 0
/dev/sda6 /mnt/scsi2 vfat defaults,unmask=0 0 0
(I don't know why one line is umask and the other is unmask; which, if
either, is correct?)

>However, depending on how your system is setup, you may not be able
>to mount devices that are dependent on modules since the mounting
>of the non-root filesystems is probably done before the kernel
>modules are loaded (that is how it is on my system). So, you would have
>to compile this functionality into the kernel (not as a module) or
>add something in your init scripts to mount those partitions some
>time after the modules have been loaded.
>
Now I'm a bit lost. But the SCSI card is listed as supported, if that
matters. It would be nice to be able to use SCSI drives as part of
the filesystem (I have a couple of 1 GB spare drives), like for user
data. But if not, simply getting it to mount without having to enter
the commands each time would be a plus.

>> starting to get fed up enough to actually ask for help, something I
>> usually don't do. Now, this statement will probably get me attacked
>> by about 50% of this group, but FWIW, Windows always did all this
>> automatically, and recognized the scanner, drives, and tape backup
>> with no problems.
>
>I've had more difficulty gettng hardware to work under Windoz than
>Linux (as long as the hardware was Linux compatible).
>
Yeah, if Windows knows you use Linux, it will get difficult. :-) I
think any OS will have problems with some hardware, except when the
vendor controls both the hardware and software.

>Sometimes it depends on your distro. Some distros are good at
>automagically detecting your hardware and setting everything up so
>it works. Others let you manually do it. For instance, when
>installing Slackware on a SCSI PC, you manually tell the installer
>which kernel to boot into. In this case, I chose one of the SCSI
>kernels. With that done, everything from the hard drives to the
>Jazz and zip drives was correctly detected by the kernel afterwards.
>
Hmm, I thought Slackware was one of the harder ones to install. I've
installed Mandrake (9.1) and Redhat 9, and neither recognized the SCSI
card - probably because it doesn't have a BIOS onboard.

Thanks for the help. Hopefully, I'll find a way to do it without
recompiling. I'm sure I could figure that out, but I don't really
want to.

marty redhat9@emjayef.com

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