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Just tried to install White Box Linux in a VPC machine on an IBM
Thinkpad. I took the defaults and it came up in X mode and obviously
is not right for the video and screen--unusable.


I can re-install, but it took a LONG time to install. Isn't there a
way to switch to text-only mode at startup?


Next question: Although I use to be a UNIX admin (circa 1985), it's
been years, and I just barely got Red Hat to find the wireless access
to Internet on another machine, I'm at a loss for what video settings
would work on this machine, and how to change them once install has
been completed.


J

J Burford Fields <jbfields3@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just tried to install White Box Linux in a VPC machine on an IBM
> Thinkpad. I took the defaults and it came up in X mode and obviously
> is not right for the video and screen--unusable.

Well, change the configuration of the X server then. Problem?

> I can re-install,

WHY? In heavens name, why?

> but it took a LONG time to install.

I would hope so! Teach you not to do THAT again!

> Isn't there a
> way to switch to text-only mode at startup?

Of course. Umpteen. What's the problem?

> Next question: Although I use to be a UNIX admin (circa 1985), it's
> been years, and I just barely got Red Hat to find the wireless access
> to Internet on another machine,

Eh? One doesn't get other things to do ones work for one. If one
wants to "find" a wireless access (whatever you mean), one does it,
then one tells the machine what one has decided it would be best for
it to do.

I suspect that you mean

a) load a driver for your card
b) run iwconfig on the device to give it the appropriate essid
c) run ifconfig n the device to give it an IP address
d) set the default static route to go via a gateway on the wirelss net
e) set the default name servers to be on the net.

> I'm at a loss for what video settings

Then become less at a loss! Look them up! Doesn't linux-laptops.net
list your machine?

Virtually anything at all works for a laptop - the settings are
ignored. There is no cathode ray to tell how long to take in each
sweep, or how much to wait in the sync. Just use any old Modline aimed
at about 60Hz. As low as you like!

> would work on this machine, and how to change them once install has
> been completed.

You use an editor. ("Problem?")

Peter

Well, for one, if I don't know how to boot into text mode (and I've
spent some time searching the Internet and books without finding a
simple answer the question of how to do that), then I can't edit
anything. The default installation brings it up in xterminal, or
whatever its called. The default installation chose a video card and
monitor combination that renders the machine unusable.

For all the talk of Linux replacing Microsoft, I sure wouldn't
recommend this experience to my Mom. Judging from some of the
imperious responses to obvious first-use questions, one just is not
suppose to undertake Linux unless they're already an expert and can
fathom all the documentation. I see a lot of people being told to read
documentation... as if we're not trying to already. It's kind of a
condenscending bit of advice. --especially so if nobody gives you any
documentation to go with the install CD's.

Simple questions:

1) If the monitor setting is unusable in graphics mode, how do you
boot into text mode or into some generic monitor setting? In Windows,
you press F8. What does one do in Linux?

2) What monitor and card setting to use?

I'll be glad to check Internet resources you've provided, but how one
would do this on an initial install without Internet access...? There
must be a generic setting that would have been safer than the default?
Looking through the the information I've been able to find, I'm not
seeing how to interrupt the boot process to edit the monitor & video
settings.

"J Burford Fields" <jbfields3@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128099319.512544.243110@g43g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
> Just tried to install White Box Linux in a VPC machine on an IBM
> Thinkpad. I took the defaults and it came up in X mode and obviously
> is not right for the video and screen--unusable.
>
>
> I can re-install, but it took a LONG time to install. Isn't there a
> way to switch to text-only mode at startup?

Yup. Add the boot option "3", and it will boot in runlevel 3, which does not
auto-start X. Then go lookup the documentation on inittab and your boot
loader, to see why this works.

When the X is already running, there are also a set of virtual consoles
available to you by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F1, Ctrl-Alt-F2,, etc. The X manager is
typically on Ctrl-Alt-F7.

> Next question: Although I use to be a UNIX admin (circa 1985), it's
> been years, and I just barely got Red Hat to find the wireless access
> to Internet on another machine, I'm at a loss for what video settings
> would work on this machine, and how to change them once install has
> been completed.

Couple of things. WhiteBox is being supplanted by CentOS, which has much
more active support for the version 4.x and its 2.6 kernel based
distribution. Check the websites for info about this.

Second, there's a very nice somewhat graphical set of configuration tools
under RedHat releases, called "redhat-config-*" or "system-config-*"
depending on the particular OS. The X configuration tool for RedHat
Enterprise and the Whitebox/CentOS releases derived from them is, I believe,
system-config-display. Run it in runlevel 3 to avoid having an X session
already active, and poke around for good settings for your video card and
monitor.

Also make sure you have all the published updates: X distributions keep
adding support for new video cards and monitors, and yours may have been
added since the released software was published, so the automatic update
functions of "yum" are your friend for configuring such things.

And by the way? Ignore everything Peter Breuer says, because he spends his
time snarking at newbies to prove his manhood, waves his hands with one at
45 RPM and the other at 78 RPM, and provides usable information only by the
greatest accident. There are others here who actually provide useful
information and hints: their usefulness is directly tied to their politeness
in dealing with the questioner.

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:55:19 +0200, J Burford Fields <jbfields3@gmail.com> wrote:

> Just tried to install White Box Linux in a VPC machine on an IBM
> Thinkpad. I took the defaults and it came up in X mode and obviously
> is not right for the video and screen--unusable.
>
>
> I can re-install, but it took a LONG time to install. Isn't there a
> way to switch to text-only mode at startup?

In order to turn off X, you need to get in...

Hit Ctrl-Alt-F1. That should swith to virtual terminal one. There are
usually six virtual terminals set up, accessed through the keys Ctrl-Alt-F1
through Ctrl-Alt-F6. You will find a login prompt in each.

Once logged in, you can disable X for the current session with the
command

init 3

To make it boot into the mode in subsequent boots, edit the file
/etc/inittab, the line saying:


I the file /etc/inittab, there is a line saying:

id:5:initdefault:

Change the digit 5 to 3. That will turn off X.

If you can't get in to say init 3, or to edit inittab, you must boot into
single-user mode. On the boot kernel command line, say "single"
(in addition to any other options that might be there). This gives you
a shell after the most basic boot-time setup, but before any services have
been started.

The most drastic one: On the boot kernel command line, say init=/bin/bash
(but don't do that unless in utter despair. It's not dangerous, just
extremely frustrating because nothing seems to work so early in the boot
process.)

> Next question: Although I use to be a UNIX admin (circa 1985), it's
> been years, and I just barely got Red Hat to find the wireless access
> to Internet on another machine, I'm at a loss for what video settings
> would work on this machine, and how to change them once install has
> been completed.

I cannot help you with this one, I dont know what VPC is, and I nothing
in particular about IBM Thinkpad. Hopefully others can.

If not, you will have to come back here with fairly detailed descriptions
of the symptoms and any other observables that might enable anyone of us
to use his intuition.

Look in the files in /var/log, especially

/var/log/dmesg -- kernel messages during boot, before services start.
/var/log/messages -- All sorts of messages, also kernel, and many services.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log -- The X server

-Enrique

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 19:15:44 +0200, Peter T. Breuer <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:

> J Burford Fields <jbfields3@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Just tried to install White Box Linux in a VPC machine on an IBM
>> Thinkpad. I took the defaults and it came up in X mode and obviously
>> is not right for the video and screen--unusable.

Peter, are you aware that your style of response tend to hurt most
people's feelings? I will try to tell what effect the writings below
have on me, and what they make me think.

> Well, change the configuration of the X server then. Problem?

This question is not helpfull. He most likely writes here because
he doesn't know how to change the configuration. Your question,
"Problem?" feels most impertinent, and signals animosity and
impatience with the OP.

>> I can re-install,
>
> WHY? In heavens name, why?

You know why. Don't you?

Can you describe what effect his words have on you? I mean explicitly
naming the feelings, not just turning them outward in a reaction.

Even if you know that it is not likely to be necessary, or even helpfull
to reinstall, for him it appears as a possible, albeit unattractive
solution. Here I mean by possible, not just available, but possible
in the sense that it is possible, but not guarateed, that it works.

It does appear as a solution even if it likely is not, because from
his perspective, not knowing what went wrong, if it was something he
did, it is possible that a second attempt works differently.

It does not even have to be anything he did wrong. Just a few weeks
ago I installed Fedora Core 4 on a friend's computer, and the installation
program said "unable to update the kernel's version of the partition table",
or something similar, I don't remember the exact words. When I just
repeated the exact same operations, at far as I can tell, this message
did not appear and the install ran to completion.

Yet he is not that stupid. His phrase clearly indicate a reluctance
to reinstall that is not only caused by the long time it took,
but also by a suspiction that it won't help or it is not necessary.

By pretending that you don't understand his motives you take the
position towards him that was the hallmark of unfriendlyness since long
before our forefathers climbed down from the trees.

By showing such animosity in an open forum you are triggering the
ingrained fear we all have deep in our psychological cellar, that we
could become the target of a rally in the group where an individual
seeks to increase his influence and mark himself as a leader of the
gang by pointing out a common enemy. In our civilized world such
threats are somewhat less real, but we still have all the instincts
that make the experience very unpleasant.

>> but it took a LONG time to install.
>
> I would hope so! Teach you not to do THAT again!

Why do you hope so? Are you angered and embittered, seeking some form
of revenge? For what?

>> Isn't there a way to switch to text-only mode at startup?
>
> Of course. Umpteen. What's the problem?

If there are umpteen, why don't you offer him some advice? Yes we all
know that we can google and read the internet for 36 hours and possibly
have more clues. Getting some help is both faster and comforting,
making us feel in a friendlier world, less abandoned.

>> Next question: Although I use to be a UNIX admin (circa 1985), it's
>> been years, and I just barely got Red Hat to find the wireless access
>> to Internet on another machine,
>
> Eh? One doesn't get other things to do ones work for one.

But indeed! What are programs for?

> If one wants to "find" a wireless access (whatever you mean),

You know what he means, if you want to. Computer configuration may be
your home arena, it's not everyone's. But everyone know the difference
between when the computer has an established connection with the local
network or with the internet, and when this is not the case.

You know perfectly well that there are programs that let the users
establish such communications for the first time without the users
having to know much about how it works. This naturally leads to vague
formulations like "find the wireless access", but it is absolutely
adequate for the context.

> one does it, then one tells the machine what one has decided itwould be best for it to do.

And when one wants to be helpfull, one tell *how* one does it.
You do so in the next paragraph, but only after that unnecessary
and alienating sentence!

You know that your statement "when one wants to, one does it" is not
true. When one wants to, but does not know how, one first seeks advice,
considers if it still is what one wants in light of the information one
has got, and if so, then finally one does it.

Denying his experience the way you do, is a recurring method of
intimidation.

> I suspect that you mean
>
> a) load a driver for your card
> b) run iwconfig on the device to give it the appropriate essid
> c) run ifconfig n the device to give it an IP address
> d) set the default static route to go via a gateway on the wirelss net
> e) set the default name servers to be on the net.

Suspecting he means something is way more unfriendly than suggesting
he could do something. The word "suspect" has very negative conotations.
Atributing such meanings to him denies his reality of not knowing what
to do and feeling unsure even if he probably has the capability to come
up with at least some of the items you suggest if he found he were
alone and left to his own devices. Flatly denying other's reality
is a method of intimidation.

>> I'm at a loss for what video settings
>
> Then become less at a loss!

He *is* becoming less at loss! By seeking advice!

Why are you giving orders? Don't you have any respect for him?

> Look them up!

He *is* looking them up - in this newsgroup!

> Doesn't linux-laptops.net list your machine?

Finally a usefull hint! Thanks, man!

> Virtually anything at all works for a laptop - the settings are
> ignored. There is no cathode ray to tell how long to take in each
> sweep, or how much to wait in the sync.

More good advice. This is perhaps a usefull hint.

> Just use any old Modline aimed at about 60Hz. As low as you like!

Fortunately, no-one sees the modelines anymore. In the bad, bad old
days when we did, it was a nightmare. My head just was not bright enough
to make sense of the descriptions, and I ended up just trying a bunch
of numbers. It was not even possible to do the math from the data offered
in the manpages and howtos, because there were essential missing links
everywhere.

Even armed with a modline, where do you stick it in?

>> would work on this machine, and how to change them once install has
>> been completed.

> You use an editor. ("Problem?")

When you ask that way you imply there is no problem, and that
the OP is stupid believing there is one. But you know that
the OP's behavior is a perfectly normal one. Given something
that does not work, a thousand vage ideas racing through his head
about what the causes could be, and all help seeming quite remote,
humans, as a matter of natural law, do feel uncertain, fearfull,
and confused, and in need of advice. So why are you pretending
otherwise? Such pretending was always a method of intimidation.
Why do you do that?

No doubt you know that the advice he needs is not "editor" but
/etc/X11/xorg.conf, or something like that.

And yes, I see a problem, and perhaps you do have an answer: What is
VPC? Could, by any chance, "V" in VPC stand for "virtual"? Could there
then be any possibility that the normal way of configuring X does not
quite apply?

Could I suggest that you try to describe your feelings? What are
the feelings you have that make you write this way? You could do
this for each of the statements. If you can, find out how come you
have just those feelings. If you cannot, try to guess or hypothese
about it. Investigate it. There is a serous danger that you are
in a vicious circle of bad experiences with other people treating
you poorly, and you doing the same to everybody else.

> Peter

-Enrique

"Enrique Perez-Terron" <enrio@online.no> wrote in message
newsp.sxx3whccnxtvbs@apeiron.home.lan...
> On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 19:15:44 +0200, Peter T. Breuer <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es>
> wrote:
>
>> J Burford Fields <jbfields3@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Just tried to install White Box Linux in a VPC machine on an IBM
>>> Thinkpad. I took the defaults and it came up in X mode and obviously
>>> is not right for the video and screen--unusable.
>
> Peter, are you aware that your style of response tend to hurt most
> people's feelings? I will try to tell what effect the writings below
> have on me, and what they make me think.

Enrique, you've been giving good answers and helpful, thoughtful responses.
Peter, I'm afraid, is a hopeless case who gets his jollies by snarking at
the new posters and pretending that his allegedly infinite knowledge and
handwaving answers are somehow helpful.

On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 15:41:35 +0200, Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@comcast.net> wrote:

>
> "Enrique Perez-Terron" <enrio@online.no> wrote in message
> newsp.sxx3whccnxtvbs@apeiron.home.lan...
>>
>> Peter, are you aware that your style of response tend to hurt most
>> people's feelings? I will try to tell what effect the writings below
>> have on me, and what they make me think.
>
> Enrique, you've been giving good answers and helpful, thoughtful responses.
> Peter, I'm afraid, is a hopeless case who gets his jollies by snarking at
> the new posters and pretending that his allegedly infinite knowledge and
> handwaving answers are somehow helpful.

I have seen that. He appears to be sufficiently different that
most presumptions you normally do about people, may not apply.
The only presumption worth making, I think, is that his mental
processes are subject to the Laws of Nature like ours and the rest
of the universe.

I don't even take it for granted that he has a normally
functioning reflection of his own feelings or motives into his
own consciousness. So, he might not be aware of what he is doing.
Or he might have a perception that, from our perspective, is rather
distorted. But I also observe that most people react in natural
ways, including with anger and hate. That may actually be quite
inappropriate and counterproductive.

People who fail to behave normally in some ways may still have
normal needs, including the need to experience a social position.

We tend to presume that people do what they need to do to satisfy
their needs, and then conclude that the unfriendly one does not
need friendship. But someone whose innate behaviors brings him at
odds with the surroundings may well lead a rather sorry life, and
acquire secondary behaviors that are perhaps as maladptive as their
initial ones, but are responses to the responses they receive, and
aim at saving some rest of dignity, or even substitute whatever
seems available, like the dignity of not giving in to other's
demands, for the real thing.

Now we are talking about him, making him in a sense an object, not
a subject. That is often another consequence. But I have the
impression that it is possible to talk to him directly, not
necessarily to obtain something we want, but to get meaningfull
answers that reflect some realities of that person who is bound
to live inside all this mishap. (If it is "mishap".)

I am aware that he may be reading this, and would like to repeat
it all in second person, I am really talking to Peter too, telling
him how I see him, reflecting to him the image his has given me
of himself - however I distort it or not.

But to Nico, consider it as an experiment, to map the regions where
normal exchanges are possible, and find the borders of the region
of deviating behaviors.

What we see from anyone, normal or not, is never a pure reflection
of their innate nature, but rather the result of a mutual adaptation,
the subject's and the surrounding's, like a system seeking a fixed
point. We are ourselves as much part of that system. Change our
contribution and we get a system with other fixpoints.

(I am using the mathematical notion of a fixed point in a recursive
process, where a system's state at point n is a function of the state
at point n-1, s(n) = f(s(n-1)). Such systems reach a fixed point when
for some value of n, s(n+1) = s(n). This can only happen if for some
value s, f(s) = s, i.e., f has a fixed point.)

I believe that in way too many cases, ranging from ordinary marriages
and friendships to ... we reach undesirable fixpoints because we shut
down the more honest forms of communcation. We make assumptions about
the others actually wanting what they achieve, and therefore assume
further communication is useless. It might be, but we take it for
granted without foundation.

By "more honest forms" i mean forms where e.g., questions are really
requests for information we want to take to our hearts, not just
rethorical means of hitting the other.

When our assumptions answer our questions, we don't need to ask,
do we?

Regards,
Enrique

"Enrique Perez-Terron" <enrio@online.no> wrote in message
newsp.sxzddqh6nxtvbs@apeiron.home.lan...

> I have seen that. He appears to be sufficiently different that
> most presumptions you normally do about people, may not apply.
> The only presumption worth making, I think, is that his mental
> processes are subject to the Laws of Nature like ours and the rest
> of the universe.

Enrique, you are one lucky son of a gun, because I don't see hiim as more
than two sigmas off the norm, and well within the bounds of typical Usenet
wackiness.

> But to Nico, consider it as an experiment, to map the regions where
> normal exchanges are possible, and find the borders of the region
> of deviating behaviors.

Gack. Kind, thoughtful, and in my suspicions doomed to failure. You lack the
leverage, medication, or baseball bat to kick him off the pedestal he's put
himself on. So do I, but I can warn the newbies before he scares them off.

> By "more honest forms" i mean forms where e.g., questions are really
> requests for information we want to take to our hearts, not just
> rethorical means of hitting the other.
>
> When our assumptions answer our questions, we don't need to ask,
> do we?

Except to display for others that we already have the answer. Posturing is a
huge part of why people do things: I like to help out the newbies partly
because I like to help, and partly to show off knowledge that I've gained. I
*love* hearing someone say "oh, that's exactly what I needed, thank you!"

Peter likes to hear himself say he's answered the question when he's given a
factually correct answer that is absolutely useless: "it's in the docs",
"there are umpteen ways to do that", "so go fix it", etc.

On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 22:02:05 +0200, Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel@comcast.net> wrote:

>
> "Enrique Perez-Terron" <enrio@online.no> wrote in message
> newsp.sxzddqh6nxtvbs@apeiron.home.lan...
>
>> I have seen that. He appears to be sufficiently different that
>> most presumptions you normally do about people, may not apply.
>> The only presumption worth making, I think, is that his mental
>> processes are subject to the Laws of Nature like ours and the rest
>> of the universe.
>
> Enrique, you are one lucky son of a gun, because I don't see hiim as more
> than two sigmas off the norm, and well within the bounds of typical Usenet
> wackiness.

Really? I find the more vicious posts completely pathological.

Still, there may be a certain number of people with similar traits
that seek the usenet newsgroups as an arena where they can unfold
their activities without risking being beaten physically. Their
concentration in places like the usenet may influence what is
"typical".

>> But to Nico, consider it as an experiment, to map the regions where
>> normal exchanges are possible, and find the borders of the region
>> of deviating behaviors.
>
> Gack. Kind, thoughtful, and in my suspicions doomed to failure. You lack the

That also depends on what would be considered as "failure".
I don't have high hopes of reforming him. He will have to reform
himself whenever he wants to. To me, it's more of a question of my
curiosity, of studying the phenomenon. But that also includes seing
to what extent my conjectures about fixed-point modes etc. are
usefull.

I conjecture that when we give up somebody, we cease mirroring him or her
in ways that could be helpfull for him or her to adjust his/her behaviors,
and that contributes to the escalation of his/her oddities.

I imagine that enough mirriring can contain the escalation, but never
remove the root cause. In this sense it will always be futile.

> leverage, medication, or baseball bat to kick him off the pedestal he's put
> himself on. So do I, but I can warn the newbies before he scares them off.

The latter is needed. Somebody should install an automatic poster
that triggers when Peter responds to someone new in the ng.

>> By "more honest forms" i mean forms where e.g., questions are really
>> requests for information we want to take to our hearts, not just
>> rethorical means of hitting the other.
>>
>> When our assumptions answer our questions, we don't need to ask,
>> do we?
>
> Except to display for others that we already have the answer. Posturing is a
> huge part of why people do things: I like to help out the newbies partly
> because I like to help, and partly to show off knowledge that I've gained. I
> *love* hearing someone say "oh, that's exactly what I needed, thank you!"

So do I.

> Peter likes to hear himself say he's answered the question when he's given a
> factually correct answer that is absolutely useless: "it's in the docs",
> "there are umpteen ways to do that", "so go fix it", etc.

Hey Peter, what do you say to that? Do you like that?
Is that why you do it?

-Enrique