I've been working with MS products since 1984 - so you could call me Microsoft adept. I know a lot about all MS based operating systems that have come on the market since then.
Since a few years I hear all the buzz about this great alternative called Linux. And instead of ignoring or burying it - or even worse convict it without trying - I decided to give it a chance and I purchased Suse Linux 8.0 Professional. I installed it on a machine with windows ME on it. This machine is on a small private network. Server of this network is a PIV also with WinME installed and that has a faxmodem (for the internet, mail and faxes - soon to be replaced by a cable modem) and has a HP G55 (all in one) print/scan solution. This network and the said devices work fine in the Win environment. Connecting the machines is through a SMC Hub.
I installed Suse 8.0 without any problem (congrats to the Suse team for this marvelous achievement) and KDE 3.0 looks very good. Think I could become used to it.
However wouldn't be on this forum if I didn't have an issue. Please take note in your answers that I'm a newbie...
Questions
1. I configured the network card with a permanent Ip no (192.168.0.18) and pointed the route towards the server (which acts as a gateway - ip 192.168.0.12) and defined the workgroup to be 'MShome' - which is the same workgroup as the server)
Problems here are
- Win Server does not see the Linux Machine
- Linux client doesn't see win machine via Konqueror (cannot connect to host localhost). I've installed 'lin...' Can't remember the exact name but when I browse the network with this tool it 'sees' the server and all shared folders.
2. I installed the printer (using the basic drivers) but nothing prints. For this printer there was a 'special driver' on one of the disks, but when I 'install' it, it doesn't install anything as far as I could see (doesn't show up in the available drivers). When going thru the files on the disk I found several html pages giving instructions on how to manually extract, compile and install the driver for this device. I was stunned. If you want to convince the public to start using linux don't include instructions like that for something that should be as simple as installing a printer. Or do you really thing 'if it is a gdi use command tar xyzg etc - if it is a non-gdi use command...' means anything to a starter ?
When I click install driver in YAST2 I expect the thing to be installed.
Anyway it should work with the basic drivers too. I looked it up thru hardware and noticed - despite my indications - it was listed as a local printer. I tried to change the connection thru this tool - pushed the scanning button (which scans the network) and guess what : it even sees the HP printer on the server !!!). Only when I try to save this setting I get an error message. Did I miss something here ? Pls help
3. My Win server is installed as a gateway and has a proxy server running, however internet nor email can be initiated. Please help
4. Wine should allow me to run Windows programs. I installed it and followed the wizards instructions. Without success. Even tried to edit winecnf (again something you don't ask a newbie to do) without success.
I started to like Linux but the text based manual installations remind me too much about the old dos age to be appealing to me. Understand this is a great tool for specialists, but if you want Linux to beat Windows this is an area that should be improved. I hope I'm wrong here and that someone can point me to the button I need to push... Also the network/internet/printer thing is starting to bother me.
Any help welcome
