1st steps with PCLinuxOS 2007
I had so much trouble trying to reinstall Windows XP on my IBMX23 that I thought I’d see how I get on with PCLinux.
Install was fast and easy. My network connections worked out of the box. My Wireless was easy to setup. Great.
Hostnames: Could I figure out how to properly connect to my windows network using hostnames instead of ipaddresses? - no, what a pain. Until I eventually found a forum message saying I had to install nss_wins.
VNC: Once this was installed I could use vnc ‘properly’ by typing in my windows machines instead of my ip addresses. And connecting to my upstairs pc via VNC seems much faster via PCLinux than through XP.
Subversion: The subversion clients that come with PCLinux Synaptic did not work well for me. esvn obviously requires some configuration that I could not figure out as my windows subversion server was not a ‘trusted server’. kdesvn would not checkout and will not open any of my directories. The kdesdk-ksvn konqueror plugin was the only way I could easily checkout a working copy but it lacks the feature set of something like TortoiseSVN on windows.
Synergy: I managed to installed Synergy to link my windows PC and Linux - I do find it a minor pain that I have to start Synergy on Linux from the command line using ’synergyc <hostname>’ but now that I don’t have to type in the ip address of the host this is a little less annoying.
Fast Boot Up: For wandering around the house and surfing the web I boot into PCLinux rather than Windows - bootup time seems faster and the display just seems a little clearer than when I run XP, and it just ‘feels’ that little bit faster.
I haven’t managed to figure out how to get my wireless connection to start automatically so I still have to go into the control panel and start it up each time.
Overall - PC Linux ‘feels’ faster. But I only really use this for surfing the web in the garden or in the living room, so I don’t really push the boundaries of this operating system. And I have not found a compelling reason to move my other computers over to Linux from Windows.
Perhaps over time I’ll change my mind, and perhaps my subscription to Linux Format will help me change my ways.
A quick search on the PCLinuxoS forums gives the solution to your wifi issue. “solution that has worked, is while ndiswrapper is configured and working, enter a root terminal and type: ndiswrapper -ma ”
Hi, Thanks for providing a solution. Lesson learned - never trawl forums again. Just write a blog post about problems
To get your wireless card to start at boot time you need to set an option via the control panel. I presume here that you are using KDE.
Go to Kmenu>Sytem>Configuration>Configure Your Computer. This will start PCC. When PCC has started, click on Network & Internet in the left hand pane. Now click on Reconfigure a Network Interface in the main pane. Make sure your wireless device is displayed at the top next to Device: and click on the Options tab. Your wireless card should activate at boot and login to your network, at least mine does.
Hope that helps
Dave Le Huray
Guernsey
Sorry part of that response got messed up. After ‘click on the Options tab’ should be:
Make sure Start At Boot is ticked. Click on OK then close PCC.
So the text should read:
Make sure your wireless device is displayed at the top next to Device: and click on the Options tab. Make sure Start At Boot is ticked. Click on OK then close PCC. Your wireless card should activate at boot and login to your network, at least mine does.
Sorry about that
Dave Le H
Thanks Dave, Another solution. I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment.