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I need someone to hold my hand here.

kencorn
kencorn Posts: 5
in Installation

After more sturm and drang than I want to talk about, I have finally managed to burn a disc with UBUNTU 8.04.1 and get it working on my Dell XPS 410. I just wiped the hard disk to do this, so there is no partitioning involved. The box is pretty rudimentary with one CD drive and a couple of USB ports on the front. It has Open Office and I have been to file some backup stuff from my main box. So it is somewhat useful. There are some games, too, and most of them seem to work. No printer, Internet, scanner or WIFi. of course, though the keyboard and mouse work. I have not a clue where to go from here.

I do have a fifteen disc distribution, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r4, which I have also tried. The Dell will try to boot from the first disc but suddenly finds itself unable find the very disc it has been working from. That seems odd but typical.

Ok. From here, where?

Ken Cornelius:woohoo:

Comments

  • mikesd
    mikesd Posts: 11
    Well I'm confused here. What exactly are you trying to do? You say you have Ubuntu installed, why are trying to install Debian now?

    What do you mean from here, where? You need to be more direct in your questions.
  • atreyu
    atreyu Posts: 216
    ...No Internet...
    well, i'd start right there. does the box have a network interface?
  • kencorn
    kencorn Posts: 5
    Yes, I do have the UBUNTU 8.04 kernel installed and it seems to be working after a fashion. Admittedly, the question I asked was far too general. "What do I do now?" is indeed almost impossible to answer. Sorry 'bout dat.

    To be specific then. APPLICATION/ (ADD/REMOVE) produced a list of applications. There was also a note saying the list was out of date and that I need a working internet connection to update it. Out of date or not, I then selected "Printing-Configure Printers". This produces a note saying that printing is part of the UBUNTU main distribution, but that I need an internet connection to continue. I then launched the Firefox browser and soon wound up with the suggestion to put it in online mode. ??? Specific question: How do I put it in online mode?

    I have Comcast cable with a modem and wireless router. The main box is attached to the modem and the router is for my wife's laptop dowstairs so that she can google her crossword puzzle. I suppose I could hardwire the router to the Dell or rig it for wireless.
  • kencorn
    kencorn Posts: 5
    No. There is no network, hence no network interface. Can you run a USB cable to parallel a couple of boxes?
  • atreyu
    atreyu Posts: 216
    kencorn wrote:
    No. There is no network, hence no network interface.
    Are you *sure* there is no network interface? I've worked on an XPS 410 in the past that had one, but maybe it is optional. To make sure, run this command in the terminal (as root) and post the output: 
    lspci
    Can you run a USB cable to parallel a couple of boxes?
    err..what?
  • kencorn
    kencorn Posts: 5
    Here are the results of the pci listing you requested.

    kencorn@kencorn-desktop:~$ lspci
    00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
    00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82P965/G965 PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
    00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566DC Gigabit Network Connection (rev 02)
    00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
    00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
    00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
    00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
    00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
    00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)
    00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
    00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
    00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
    00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
    00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev f2)
    00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HH (ICH8DH) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
    00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 SATA RAID Controller (rev 02)
    00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
    01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G72 [GeForce 7300 LE] (rev a1)
    04:05.0 Communication controller: Conexant HSF 56k Data/Fax Modem
    kencorn@kencorn-desktop:~$

    I seem to have quite a bit of stuff, although I don't know at this point what any of this means.

    What I meant with the paralleling boxes comment was simply connecting one USB port with another on a different machine.
  • atreyu
    atreyu Posts: 216
    sorry for the delay , i've been outa town for a few days.
    00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82566DC Gigabit Network Connection (rev 02)
    That right there is your Ethernet device. Do you have a router/cable modem that you can connect to this PC (with a standard CAT5/Ethernet patch cable)? Failing that, do you have another PC that you can connect to (using a CAT5/Ethernet cross-over cable)? In any case, as root, in your terminal, run the following two comands: 
    cat /proc/net/dev
ifconfig
    and report what you get. the first command should tell you what network devices the kernel has detected. the second command will list what network devices are up and show some TCP/IP details about them.
    What I meant with the paralleling boxes comment was simply connecting one USB port with another on a different machine.
    ah..okay. that is doable, but it's tricky. i think there are two ways to do it. one is using something called Ethernet-over-USB, and i think you need a special USB cable. i did this once, but would have to look into it again.

    The other way is to treat one of your PCs as a dumb usb storage device that the other can access and treat as an external drive. i would not bother with either of these unless it is a last resort (i.e. no true networking is available).
  • kencorn
    kencorn Posts: 5
    acknowledge your last reply. I am working on it, but it may take a few days. Thanks.

    ken cornelius

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