Linux advice [was Re: Where now?]

On Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:24:45 GMT
Bob Latham <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I would like some advice on Linux.

I wanted to set up a linux box to do 3 things.

Act as a NAS, FTP server and to experiment with RISC OS emulators.
Fraught with problems for me.

Well, for the NAS, NFS or Samba. Depending on your client. If your
clients are other UNIX machines or RISC OS, use NFS. It's simpler,
faster, and generally better. Only start suffering Samba if you need
to talk to Windows too.

Once you've got that working, you then realise that FTP is a horrible
hack and the sooner you're rid of it, the better.

Firstly which distro to choose. It seems that some packages work on
some distros and not others, the RO emulator is a good example.

If you'd like help here, explain your problem. Personally, I'd suggest
Ubuntu. It's easy to install, is well-polished, and I know for a fact
that RPCemu runs under it a treat.

Then you have to decide if you want a server version or a desktop
version. That seems to depend on how you look at it, I'm certainly
not clear which I need.

Choose the Desktop edition if the machine you're installing it on has
a monitor. The server version is identical except for which software it
installs by default. (ie, you can turn one into the other.)

The server addition is perhaps only ideal for somebody willing to learn
the UNIX traditions, rather than use a point-and-drool interface.

Having decided all the above you then have to wrestle with something
called IP tables which are a total pain for beginners.

Do you? I can't say I've ever needed to directly fidgeted with
iptables except on router machines, which I assume you are not. RISC
OS too has similar tools, with similarly cryptic commands. I assume
you're trying to get RPCemu's networking working, but that's so well
documented now it's almost a case of copy and paste to get it going, so
I don't know what you did wrong.

Then you need to
download some packages and they come in 3 or 4 variants and you have
to get the right package to match something or other that your
already using and I usually cannot work out which to get.
Installation is then awkward and complicated.

This is beginning to sound like a rant about your experiences before you
asked for help, rather than a call for help as the beginning of your
posting suggested. If you want help on the subject, please provide
details rather than vague complaints. Starting with what you were
trying to do might be a good start.

Then when you've spent several days or weeks getting samba working
which is *HARD* to say the very least you discover there's no ftp
package in that distro or something and you need another version or
distro.

No FTP package? Please tell me which distribution this was, so I might
switch to it at once.

Eventually, you may get it going and then find that within a week
you're being told to upgrade to the new version which you try to do
only to find everything is totally different and you have to go
through all the pain all over again. Several weeks later, it may
start to work again.

Ah, this sounds like Red Hat or SuSE. Anything Debian-derived makes
releases much less frequently than that, and gracefully upgrades all
your customised configuration for you.

Linux is painful, complex, awkward and downright hard in my
experience and for serious techies only.

No, this is completely untrue, although it may seem like this if you
blunder into something blindly expecting it to be the same as you are
used to.

User friendly it is not.

My 81-year-old non-technical father in law finds it a joy to use, even
managing to set up complex software packages such as MythTV and
learning to use the GIMP to a staggering standard by simply reading the
documentation and asking precise and clear questions to those in the
know.

B.
.

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