🚀 go-pugleaf

"Peter T. Breuer" wrote:

> It's an issue of feeling free. Most people have been taught that they
> can't handle a computer, because ms products all take the power out of their
> hands. One of the first things a linux user has to learn is that there
> are no laws, no forbiddens, no alloweds. There is nobody to say what's
> right or OK except you. That's the important lesson. Putting in and
> taking out an o/s a few times teaches them that they CAN be in charge,
> not the o/s.

Yeah right! Some distributions make you feel like ...

A little thing is when the installation (Red Hat, Slackware) asks you
how many inodes you want it only offers you one per 1024/2048/4096
bytes. I *always* want 8192 because it's the most balanced ratio for my
needs as my experience shows. But that's not a big deal, I just format
it manually and choose NOT to format it during the installation.

Red Hat is supposed to have X installation but on my computer it reports
that it can't get it working and that the installation will use text.
However, I have NO problems running X on my computer after the
installation is complete. Why doesn't the installation allow me to try
to fine-tune the X configuration (also by letting me edit the config
file)?

Still about X and Red Hat: the installation decides by probing which X
server I need. It guesses right on my computer, but sometimes I want to
override that (or not install an server at all - but still want to have
X tools). It won't let me, of course. I must deinstall it later if I
want.

Still about X: Xconfigurator asks me some questions and creates
XF86config; when I decide to choose a custom monitor it actually tells
me about what I need to be careful about when choosing the frequency
ranges and how to specify them. "OK, I know that, just let me type
them..." No way! You choose between 'VGA monitor', 'SVGA', '1024x768
with no 800x600', ..., 'Monitor that can do 1280x1024 at ... Hz', blah
blah... Is that custom? I know the ranges that my monitor supports so I
try to convert the offers and see which one is the closest. Or I don't
bother because I edit the XF86config after that anyway.

At the end of Red Hat installation I get some question asked about how
to configure the system. If the process is broken/skipped for some
reason, the best thing to do is to reinstall completely rather than
trying to reconfigure it - am I wrong about it? A good example: when I
installed Linux on my girlfriend's computer, I chose wrong mouse. How
can I put it right? I know in X, I simply need to edit XF86config. But
what about text mode (gpm)?

Red Hat again - if you don't choose custom installation it makes a big
mess. If you do, you are still in trouble because it doesn't tell you
much about the packages (some versions don't tell anything about the
packages and you must just guess what that 8-letter name of the package
is supposed to mean). You don't get the information about which packages
depend on which ones. Only when you choose to proceed it tells you if
you forgot some packages that your chosen packages depend on and which
ones. If you proceed then, it installs the forgotten packages, too, but
still doesn't bother about the packages THEY depend on. Go back, of
course, the forgotten packages will automatically be ticked; proceed, to
see if they depend on anything, go back... until the installation is
satisfied with the dependencies.

Another thing that is not easy to set up is dialup with IP and DNS
assigned on connection but I did manage to make it work after trying to
install Linux for a few times.

The problem seems to be: when you set up the networking, it asks you for
the IP and DNS you want but doesn't seem to offer you "assign on
connection".

Anyway - the main question is:

In Red Hat: how to start the whole configuring process which
automatically starts after installation? How to start any particular
configuration out of those that are run in that configuring process? How
to know which ones there are? (There might be more if you installed more
packages later)

Thanks

Tom