Fedora's back online, but can I install anything else?

Well, I finally discovered the solution for my self-inflicted problem with Fedora failing to go online...  My guess that it was Network Manager was semi-right: the update I chose was a scheduled one that somehow conflicts with the acer-wmi module.  The immediate solution was to log in as root and type

modprobe -r acer_wmi

Once that was done and proved that it worked, I edited the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file to include a line that said "blacklist acer_wmi" so it'll avoid loading in the future.


I also discovered (with some embarrassment) the reason for a serious problem I was having with trying live distros.  Almost all of them (including Gujin, which is more of a boot manager) would boot up to a point, then crash in some manner.  Turns out that even though there's nothing suggesting it on the little sticker, my netbook's processor is 64-bit! 

So I'm downloading Mint Debian Edition 64 right now... I wouldn't do it, but Fedora refusing to let me install Open Office instead of what they want me to use (and their devs' recent Ubuntu-team-like attitude) really annoys me, and working fighting with OpenSuSE's web-based live creator reminded me how much I hate their repository setup.  So over to Debian-based distros (or Debian) I go...

When In Doubt, Switch Distros

So, rebooted Cecil back into Fedora in hope that OpenSuSE 11.3 turning on wifi would fix it...nope.  However, screwing around in the terminal, while iwconfig couldn't get the stupid thing to connnect, dhclient did.

Note I say "connected", not "working".  NetworkManager still insists it's not connected, and all attempts to ping fail.  I know there's a not-impossible way to fix that in the terminal, and since NetworkManager might work once I degrade it to the old version, I guess I have to look into it...

Okay, no, after another hour or so, I got sick of fighting with Fedora and ended up trying out the OpenSuSE-meets-E17 spin Petite Linux. Its creator hasn't quite finished the 11.4 version, so it's running from 11.3 right now -- but it got me online and came with a fully-functional version of OpenOffice.org 3.x.  This also neatly solves the problem of what environment I was going to use since GNOME's moving towards total suckdom.

I need a faster network (and a Windows quote)

Gleargh. So, figuring out that OpenSuSE 11.3 can bring Cecil online kinda-sorta-somewhat handles it for the time being...because if there's anything I've learned from using Linux for three years, it's that what works today will likely break at the next release.  Which means I should download a recent prerelease of 11.4...

In the "making shit up while not throttling my download" department:

Mom: what is with the connection? I had to drop my picture quality all the way down to minimal
Xyzzy: I noticed it was slow too but only on some sites...means the backbone at the border is probably bogged (or normally it would, had I not been downloading a distro at full speed...)
Mom: are you downloading anything?
Xyzzy: I've been mostly playing "hit the wrong key" on the netbook (not quite a lie; I just didn't mention my other system had been downloading)
Mom: I have ben tryng to access some pages, but it is still loading. for about 10 minutes now. not just one, but two separate ones
Xyzzy: could both be in places that go through that backbone (she replied, whistling innocently)

Yes, she believed me.  Knowledge is power (or download speed and power over which computers get network priority, at least)... Also, from an Arch forum I ran across in my quest to fix Cecil:

"Got myself an Acer Aspire One 721 yesterday, booted it up, laughed hard at the Win7 Home Premium that was preinstalled and dumped it..."

OpenSuSE, Fedora, argh

I wrote quite a while back that I'd settled in OpenSuSE 11.3 Linux, and was extremely happy with it.  Well, I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but a couple of months or so ago, a stupid mistake on my part updated it to 11.4 Alpha, breaking my ability to run a huge number of programs and generally making me unhappy.

So, after a lot of frustration one day, I decided to try something else entirely: Fedora 13.  Aside from some initial hassle, and a few things I hadn't managed to puzzle out yet, that went quite well, enough that I recommended it to a fellow novice.  So I was quite pleased when it turned out that, hey, Fedora 14 was out!

I used the little updater that runs in the background, then does its magic after a reboot.  The next morning, I merrily rebooted the computer...and was told I didn't have enough disk space -- but not which partition it wanted space on.  It also, as I soon learned, did something so I couldn't boot into the still-untouched 13; fixing the free space issue didn't help.  Meanwhile, the Fedora 14 Live CD I'd downloaded for kicks inexplicably makes the screen go blank after filling the "F" logo in.

So much for that idea. I didn't know how to fix 13, or if it could be fixed, so I put the OpenSuSE GNOME 11.3 live CD in -- and installed that instead.  I'm typing from it now, noticing the interesting mix of things it does better than Fedora & things Fedora definitely has a huge lead in.  I can't figure out for the life of me how I got their bizarre problem with Firefox's failure to respect the font hinting settings (a non-issue in Fedora) fixed last time, and the solutions I've found/tried aren't the one I used last time.

It's at times like this that I actually do understand claims that Linux will never conquer the desktop, or why Ubuntu is ahead (though it has the same stupid Firefox font issue, they also have a ready-made fix). Arrgh.  Maybe I'll just find a fix so Fedora 13 will boot, or the way to forcefully reverse the screwed-up "upgrade" from OpenSuSE 11.3->11.4alpha, since both installations are still sitting peacefully in their own partitions on my drive...

OpenSUSE, Nautilus' location bar fix

Well, after having a few too many problems with GNOME within the otherwise-awesome SimplyMEPIS, I ended up switching distros yet again... After a lot of research & trials, I ended up settling on OpenSUSE, which runs faster & cooler than any other distro has on this computer by a longshot. Its version of Nautilus also offers both tabs and an extra pane for working with files, which should come in really handy.

I heard earlier this year that the "new look" for Nautilus, mostly available through custom designs, was an overly-minimalistic (aka "let's blindly mimic OS X") approach that disables the text-based location bar without giving any visible way of turning it back on. OpenSUSE seems to come with the latest of everything, and sure enough, the change was there. BLEAH.

Thankfully, a quick web-search has shown me how to fix it... First, you can use control-L to switch quickly from text-based to buttons... If you want it to always start up with text, start the GNOME Configuration Editor, go into the /Apps/Nautilus/Preferences area, scroll down to Always Use Location Entry, then set it to true.

Voila, no more clicking to get everywhere, which is a huge improvement for those of us that can touch-type rapidly & have a variety of folders/drives active. If they're all within a home directory, clicking is easy -- but if you have a large organized folder hierarchy, it won't. (Do the people that prefer the buttons-only approach not know how to type, or just throw everything into a few directories? Enquiring minds want to know...)