[LINK] Moved to Linux

[Adam Todd]

At 06:18 PM 10/09/2006, rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au wrote:
>Linkers,
>
>The combination of a dead PC and the painfulness of trying to get MS to 
>okay moving the Windows license to a new machine has beaten me,

Install from original disks and enter licence details perhaps?

>  so this is written from a new machine running Linspire.
>
>So far, I can't call it painless, but it's been nearly-good-enough.

Better than MS :)

>The worst parts involved trying to move "must have" files from the old 
>hard drive to the new machine, and getting the printer working (a 
>non-supported printer).
>
>The standard Linux advice is that you don't run the main user as Root - 
>good security and administration advice, and in Linspire it's enforced by 
>the install. The login account you start with is not the root user - you 
>have to separately enable Root in the user administrator even to gain 
>access to the root account.

Sound like OSX :)  Try:  su

That will generally enable your root account.  Sometimes "su root" or "su - 
root"

>However, this has several flow-on effects that the Linspire people don't 
>seem to have thought of.

Maybe they had!

>For example, moving my Thunderbird mail profiles from the old hard drive 
>meant I had to find out where the copies went, and putting the copies in 
>the right directory. This directory is only accessible as root, which 
>means you have to enable the root account, change to the root account, and 
>put the files in the right place; then you have to log out, log in as the 
>user, and open Thunderbird to see if it can see the accounts.

su

Or if you need root privileges for one single command:  sudo the_command

>More confusing - when I get the profiles in the right place, the folders 
>would open in Thunderbird but not the old messages. After some hours, I 
>finally realised: since the directories were copied in the root account, 
>the user account (and therefore Thunderbird in the user account) didn't 
>have read privilege. This is probably transparent to an experienced admin;

Yep :)

Remember, root is not your user account - remember to change ownership.

>  to me, it was mystifying and frustrating. As I saw on the various use 
> forums, this mystifies and frustrates lots of people, and I suspect 
> because systems are built by admins, they don't think of explicitly 
> telling users "you have to grant read-write to the users after you copy 
> the profiles" (this was not mentioned on any forum post I read giving 
> 'how to migrate Thunderbird' instructions.

It is true - for a simple reason.  All too often when a user does use a 
root style command, they apply it any time they have a problem.  Bit like 
turning the power off and on to see if the device is working or not.

These kinds of things are often the worst things to happen.

>With that beaten, we turn to the question of printing. The HP2600n has no 
>Linux drivers, so there was an awful lot of fiddling. Again, the attitudes 
>of experts leaves a lot to be desired: since there's no "real" drivers, 
>you can use 'this' driver set (download, compile, and install from 
>horrible instructions) or do without.

Yes, this is a problem with a lot of the newer and "most recent" release 
printers.  But typically printers all speak one common language (or 
another) and you can generally find something that works.

Sometimes you really shouldn't load a driver, but let your application do 
the work, although as you are on the same machine you will probably need 
specific printer drivers.

Google often helps - assuming you have connectivity :)

>Got it beaten by using instructions written for people wanting to print 
>from Apple to 'difficult' printers.

Yes, probably more "post script" than "Apple"

>The other still-viable (but old) Windows machine is running Ghostscript as 
>the 'pretend' printer between the Linspire box and the printer. Works 
>perfectly - but far to difficult to discover.

I'll be honest, with all my years of operating systems, networking and 
print systems, Ghostscript is still something I lack in sufficient 
knowledge.  I've had no time to really worry about it.  I have it on my 
Linux boxes, my Windows workstations and my Apples.  But I try and keep it 
as simple and uncomplicated as possible.  "Default" is best.  Until the day 
I need to dig a hole!

>Apart from that, the upsides to Linspire so far:
>
>1) Install was fast. A dream: this is how installation should be. Nothing 
>went wrong, no during-install reboots, just brilliant.

You mean unlike WindowsXP where you spend about 2 hours waiting, tapping 
your fingers and your feet?

>2) Networking required no effort whatever beyond plugging in the cable.

Ahhh that's something Linux has to a T.  The complex version, if you know 
what you want, and the "It's working" version where you let it do the work 
for you.  Most people use a DHCP environment, and if they don't have a DHCP 
server, today's IP Stacks are designed to allocate IP addresses within the 
Auto range anyway - so things generally work.

Of course, they NEVER do for me!  I either use fixed IP's and have to spend 
time turning all the auto stuff off, or trying to get the machine to 
actually talk to my DHCP server!

I still feel that in any network environment where you have known common 
machines, it's best to hard address those machines, both on the DHCP 
server, and in case that fails, a failsafe IP address within the same 
visible range.

>3) Everything else works as it should, with no more challenge than 
>double-clicking.

Single click is better - but I think Amazon have the patent on that.

>The experience will be interesting ...

I still wish I could cut my Windows machine over to Linux, but it's just 
not practical for me :(  (Yet)

However, I have found a really cool solution.  I have recently purchased a 
bootable USB drive.  I've installed Linux on it and ensured that it can 
read my hard drive partitions where my overall configuration and data is 
stored.

Presto - if I get frustrated with Windows, I plug and 
reboot.  Simple.  Even my PDA enjoys this process!