Linux help
Posted by: Arun Mehan on 11 February 2004
Okay, I'm a Linux newbie but I'm not afraid of getting myself into programming. I still use the DOS command line in Windows XP when I can. So I installed Red Hat on a spare computer system I have, nothing fancy and basically onboard stuff. Everything was going fine so then I went online through Windows to find drivers for the hardware. I did find a modem driver and a sound driver (alsa project). In Linux, the modem driver installed but the modem was still not available. However, that's not what bothers me. The sound driver has a bunch of code that you are supposed to run at the command prompt. So I ran it through a terminal. First of all, is that okay? Is that the same as the command line interface???
After running what I can only assume is the installer code, I received a message that the compiler was not found in the main path. Do I need to add a compiler? I tried installing something from the Add/Remove option but there was an error. Should I re-install the whole thing?
Help, please!
Posted on: 13 February 2004 by Erik Lidstrom
Have you tried to use precompiled RPM packages. Usually much less hassle. If you cant find the package on redhats home page try
www.rpmfind.orgPosted on: 13 February 2004 by Chris L
Most applications, drivers etc for Linux are distributed primarily as source code. As Erik said, you can often find pre-compiled packages in rpm (for RedHat, Mandrake, Suse and so on) or .deb (for Debian based dists) and a couple of others.
But, I can almost guarantee you will, eventually, want something that is only available as source, so installing basic development tools is a good idea. IIRC, with RedHat you can run the package selection tools that are used during the installation - it's been a while since I've used RedHat in anger (I use Debian now), but if you can't find out how to do this in your documentation, let us know, I'm sure one of us can find it!
Generally, you should start by looking for packages with names starting "gcc". Depending on the version of RedHat you're using you might also look for "kgcc" (kernel gcc). The reason for this was RedHat "upgraded" their "main" compiler to an unstable version of gcc, and a lot of code couldn't be compiled, or compiled wrongly, particularly in the Linux kernel itself, hence their inclusion of a stable gcc named kgcc (can you guess one of the reasons I ditched RedHat?).
Anyway, last words: having said all of that, if you can, find another driver for your sound card. The reason is, Alsa is new, and still under heavy development and, from what I hear, can be a real pain in backside to get working - it does work well once it's working, though. It can be a serious challenge for experienced users, and might just scare off a newbie.
HTH, feel free to ask further questions,
Chris
Posted on: 13 February 2004 by Chris L
quote:
Originally posted by J. A. Toon:
I would hardly call Alsa new -- it has been in development for several years now.
Well, it's new compared to OSS, which was standard in the kernel up to the recent 2.6 release, I think Alsa became the favoured option with 2.6?
quote:
I've built/installed ALSA from source several times now, and have never really had a problem getting it working fine...
Maybe the folks I've spoke to were just unlucky. It's quite possible, for most of them the reason they were looking at Alsa was 'cause OSS didn't have support for the sound cards in question. Maybe it was more to do with the cards than drivers.
Chris
Posted on: 13 February 2004 by Arun Mehan
Thank you very much for the help. I'm not afraid to learn it, but it is daunting. I loved DOS but this is a whole different game and I have no previous UNIX experience. I'm just a newbie who's sick of Winblowze and Billy G.
Um, documention ... right. Well let's just say that I didn't actually buy Red Hat. We'll leave it at that.
Okay, I figured out the modem and found out about the superuser account in terminal (thanks for the virtual tip BTW). The sound issue, no matter how hard I try, is another matter. I might try another driver as Alsa clearly won't work. Oh and I added the development packages which certainly made life a lot easier. But now my Nvidia driver says I need to get out of X server to install the video driver. How do I do that???
Again thanks for helping me out with the basics. I do quite a bit of reading on the net regarding Linux but sometimes they either forget about the newbies or they oversimplify everything. I need to invest in a good book!
Posted on: 13 February 2004 by BigH47
Any one point me to a guide/forum for Linux. I have a spare machine and would be interested in trying it out.
Thanks
Howard
Posted on: 13 February 2004 by Chris L
Your RedHat documentation should be available either on your hard disk, if you installed it, or on the CD's (or ftp site) you installed from.
Most general useful and pertinent documentation is available from:
The Linux Documentation Project I'd suggest anyone starting out look:
Linux Guides there's lots of introductory material there, stuff about the organisation of the filesystem, general housekeeping and so on. There's also more advanced material, so don't be put off by some of the more daunting stuff (like 2.4 kernel internals and things like that).
Just remember, Linux isn't Windows, it doesn't work in the same way as Windows - if it did, why change?
As someone once observed: it's not that Unix isn't user friendly, it's just picky about its friends!
Chris
