Tag Archives: Linux

linux as a file and print server to Vista PCs

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently had a customer that was having some issues with using an XP Home PC as a file server… not an ideal solution, but since the office only had about 3 PCs, it should have worked.

Anyway, I can’t see the problem in action (its intermittent), so I take a guess that it might have something to do with the low limit on concurrent connections that you get with XP Home.

I check for any obvious problems with the server, but no major problems there. I also do some tuning.

A few days later, I’m told the problem is still there (ie sometimes printing doesn’t work, sometimes the network shares are not visible, sometimes network connections are lost/disconnected, and often, accessing network files is slow.

So I setup a “loan” server PC, and decide to use linux, together with Samba for file sharing and print serving.

pclinuxosI tried out Mepis Linux, but found that Samba somehow didn’t work well… So I eventually settled on PCLinuxOS 2009. I setup a Samba shared folder, and made sure all the permissions/security was set to “no security” (which is what the existing XP server had). I Also looked at the Samba website and followed their examples, to be sure I had everything setup correctly.

I also updated all the Samba packages, so I’d have the latest versions.

A test at my office worked well, but when I took the new server to the customer, I found my first stumbling block: All the Windows PCs were running Vista… After some initial problems, the extra Vista security seemed to cause ongoing security problems (only 1 PC kept asking the user for a username/password for accessing the shared folder, despite ticking the “remember password” box… all the other Vista PCs worked seamlessly).

The next problem was getting Linux to act as a print server (just like Sharing printers in XP). Well, it wasn’t as easy as sharing a printer in XP… it took me about 3 separate visits before I got it going.

Then the Samba file sharing got worse: Other PCs started asking for username/password (where they didn’t previously).

In the end, although Linux should make a great windows file and print server, in this case it just wasn’t to be.

I eventually re-commissioned the original PC, but uninstalled any software that wasn’t needed and tuned the PC for the best performance… and installed a gigabit Network switch (in case there were any network bottlenecks).

So far, the “improved” XP home server is now working well, and hasn’t missed a beat.

In the end, I’m left thinking: It shouldn’t be this difficult to make Linux/Samba work in a Vista environment.

I’ve managed to make Linux/Samba work well in an XP environment, but somehow, Vista seemed to cause extra problems that I couldn’t fully resolve.

what is silverlight?

Computer Aid Posted on by

Now here is a question thats been bugging me for a few months now:

What is this silverlight that microsoft are pushing? (and they seem to be pushing hard!)

Curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I did some research.

In a nutshell: its a competitor to adobe flash (and also java, quicktime, etc).

So the next question is: should I bother installing it?

The answer (for the moment) seems to be: no

It seems that there are very few websites out there that actually use silverlight.

And on top of that, there seems to be many questions about microsofts intentions with this product.

MS say silverlight is client and server agnostic. They say it will run on both windows and Mac systems.

Hold on: what about linux?

Most websites out there run linux…

wikipedia have a long technical description about it, but I find the criticism section near the bottom of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight to be the most interesting.

Looks like another attempt to get a stranglehold on the internet (to me, it seems similar to the initial release of MSN… where MS were wanting people to pay extra to access microsofts version of the internet (with extra content that you couldn’t get on the “normal” internet). At that stage, they had absolutely no idea what the internet was really about… I wonder if anything has changed?

Linux (Simply Mepis vs pclinuxos 2007) installation on a PC

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer (a family) had a PC with a “counterfeit” version of XP. I gave them the option of either $150 for XP, or $0 for Linux (but I made sure they were aware of the potential limitations).

They agreed to give linux a try.

Since it had been about a year since I last looked at linux distros, I decided to do some homework, and find out if much had changed.

Last year, I decided that Mepis was a good distro for the non-technical “windows” user.

After reading a few reviews and forums, I decided that I’d try the latest versions of Mepis and PCLinuxOS.

I must admit that I didn’t look too deeply into either one, but after a quick play I found both were very very close. I was almost prepared to toss a coin to pick one.

At the time, I had a Ugandan apprentice/student working with me… so I handed them over to Abedi Omondi, and he spent a few hours using both.

At the end, we both agreed that SimplyMepis 6.5.02 was the (slightly) better distro.

PCLinuxOS 2007 had nicer eye candy, and looked a bit more like XP, but in the end, Mepis actually behaved more like XP, and was easier to use for an ordinary XP / win98 user.

So I installed Mepis on the HDD, then downloaded some extra “games” off the internet, did some web surfing, and was satisfied that it all worked correctly.

One thing I did (which many who are new to linux might not think about doing), was to partition the 80GB HDD into a 79GB linux partition, and a 1GB linux swap partition. A swap partition can make a big difference.

I also didn’t have the time to setup the customers printer, but that was not important to the customer, so I left it (at least until I get asked to set it up).

Toshiba laptop, linux, and low memory.

Computer Aid Posted on by

This laptop (toshiba satellite 1800, ps181a-00wfx, 800Mhz, P3), runs windoze me… Customer would like it cleaned up & possibly upgraded to windows XP.

I take a look & given that it only has 64Mb of ram, I recommend upgrading memory by at least 128Mb, preferably 256Mb. The cost of also upgrading to XP & my fee will be fairly high, so I give the customer a few choices (and prices). He chooses to keep windows me, but to upgrade to 256Mb + 64Mb

So I order the memory & while waiting for it to arrive, I look at fixing windows me.

The first problem to fix is to remove a mild spyware infection.

The second task is to fix the sound (it should work, but it doesn’t… windows doesn’t report anything wrong, but there is no sound from the speakers). I was also told that the DVD drive doesn’t play DVD movies anymore, so it might be related.

To see if I can hear any sound from the speaker, I try to boot a few variations of knoppix, I even try “Damn small linux” and bart pe. But they all fail at some point in the boot process… looks like 64Mb is just too small for most OS’s.

At this point, all I can do an “in place” reinstall of windows me, and then the sound works just fine.

I then run windows update until the PC is fully patched, then I update antivir and spyware blaster, & scan the PC for any more nasties (none are found).

I also do a defrag & clear out tmp & cache folders (anything to speed things up a bit)

The DVD player is a lot more problematic. The PC already has powerdvd, & about 4 other DVD players installed, & none of them work. Most actually cause the PC to freeze, requiring a reboot… Quite time consuming.

In the end, I uninstall all the non-working DVD players, and I try installing JetAudio and media player classic. Both work flawlessly. I suspect the problem might have been a corrupt system file, so installing some different players (and removing the old ones) fixed things.

When the memory arrived, I installed it & it certainly made a big difference to the speed.

Another happy customer.

$20 PC (Linux)

Computer Aid Posted on by

Got a call: “I’ve just bought a PC for $20, but I can’t get past the password prompt”. He spoke to the “vendor” who gave him the password, and said something about resetting the bios setting…

Anyway, It sounds like a bios password… it should just be a matter of shorting a jumper.

When I get there, it turns out to be a large tower, running a pentium 2 & 64 Mb ram… Nothing wrong with the bios.

I let the PC boot normally, & I see it starts running redhat linux (my first in-the-field encounter with linux since I started my business). I like unix/linux, so I’d like to see more of these systems out there one day…

It gets to the linux login prompt & now I understand the problem: Client knows the password, but not the userid… I type in “root” and then password, & everything works fine.

I help out getting the sound plugged in correctly.

Client wants to try playing some windows games… I tell him its not possible (linux cannot run games designed for pentium 4 windows systems, and also: a pentium 2 has no chance of running the latest games).

Client then says: “maybe I should get my pentium 4 system out of storage”… I agree with him.