Hi! Trying to kill the keyboard, tschaefe@mindspring.com produced:
I have tried to find simple examples of what to do, but to no avail.
1. PPP
Have you read the PPP HOWTO? (not yet, I see. You should have the HOWTOs installed, then you can look it up under /usr/doc/howto/PPP-HOWTO.gz.) Did you read the ISP-Hookup-HOWTO? Did you read Linux Installation and Getting Started (file://localhost/usr/doc/LDP/LDP/gs/node1.html)?
If Linux is to somehow overtake Win95, an interface to configure PPP should present itself.
Well, overtake in which area? Stability? Ease of use? Possibility of configuring everything to the point of being able to change the source-code if necessary? "I-need-no-steenkin'-documentation"-User friendliness? One button does it all, and forget the tuning, and if it does not work, well, tough luck?
I don't have time to wade through an endless dialog on how to set up PPP.
Then just edit the configuration files. For me, YAST does not cut it --- too slow and too little control over what it does. Luckily, I don't have to use it.
Is there a one-stop doc for setting up ppp? WITH EXAMPLES?
Yes, such things are howto's, man-pages, docs coming with the source-code etc. However, they demand that one reads them, carefully.
How many months will it take for me to simply set up the modem to dial my ISP and log in, and connect me to the internet?
About as long as you need to figure out what you need to do to connect to your ISP and automate it. Unless your ISP uses proprietary protocols, (I *hear tell* AOL is amongst them,) which means it's time to change.
In WinNT and Win95 I'd be done long ago.
Well, then use NiceTry and 95 (3 years past 'best before'). When I made my PPP scripts, it took me a couple of hours. Including connecting, disconnecting, starting programs automatically in the background, redialing etc. IMO that is ok, because I did it for the first time ever and learned many things on the way.
Yast is INCOMPLETE for setting up my modem. It simply isn't finished.
You did look at the version number? 0.89.x or something. That means that the product is not even labelled as stable and halfway complete. Now compare that to NT 4 and Win3.1/95/98 ... YaST says the truth about itself. You can always install the sources and help it along ...
2. Scanner I have an HP scanner. It's recognized by the hardware, and the yast program says it's there, but where's the software to USE the scanner?
You installed the package SANE? (or even better, got yourself a new version and installed it?)
3. Jazz Drive I have an internally installed SCSI Jazz drive ( 1 GB ). It's known to the system as /dev/sdb4 . Do I mount it? Samba it? How do I get my Jazz drive to work with Linux? Can somebody show me the correct mount command?
Of course you mount it. Man mount will give you all the info you need. Samba would be needed to export a drive from a Windows computer. Hint: You may wish to add a line to /etc/fstab ...
I do not sit in front of my Linux box for hours wading through the wrong docs on what to do simply because I don't have the time. I'd really appreciate some simple CLEAR and unabstract docs with examples.
Well, there are HOWTOs and mini-HOWTOs, man-pages, info-pages, documentation (e.g. under /usr/doc/packages), FAQs, books from the LDP, Websites, the support database, ... (most of it under ... surprise ... /usr/doc, that is, if you installed it as you should have done.) And once you manage a task and feel others might want the info you dug out ... you too may write a mini-HOWTO.
What's really surprising is that Yast isn't in Tcl,
Well, guess what, sometimes you have to work without X. Like not enough memory, too slow a computer, HD restraints, using a terminal (keyboard & text-monitor with inbuild modem), working over a slow line (modem), or X is simply broken. YaST works there too. And for yast to work, you don't need Tcl installed either (and a static == big executable is not always what you want).
and that there isn't a GUI interface to configure the modem, or a scanner, or a Jazz drive.
Well, use a GUI editor for the configuration files. SCNR. Now, with GUI this and GUI that nobody'll be able to fix real problems, or any problems at all with a broken X.
And here I am STILL using NT for my email. Sigh.
So ... go and ask detailed questions after you used all the (at least now) obvious sources. -Wolfgang PS: Sorry if I sound harsh, but "I don't WANT to know how it works, it should just work, and I am not going to pay for a sysadmin (i.e. specialist) to do that for me; and if it doesn't work like I 'think' it should, on the first try, then Linux is BAD, BAD, BAD!" is a sore spot with me. IM*N*HO, Linux is for people who have clues and are willing to read documentation and help files or pay someone to do it for them (aka system administrator. An 'automated' distribution (like SuSE) is a really nice thing to have, especially to get you started, but it's no substitute for learning and reading documentation.). If you want 'just to press a button' you can always use Windows, or Macingtosh(sp?) or such OSses. It's your choice, you have to live with it. (And we don't have to defend Linux nowadays. It can pretty well fend for itself.) However a "can someone help me setting up PPP -- which docus should I read, xxx and yyy were not of much help to me, I would like more examples/whatever" (Yes, I need examples, too. But they are aviable.) and "I wish that zzz had/did more aaa, at current, it is unusable for me." (or even "Gee, I made a patch for zzz that adds aaa, anyone want it? It's at URL.") is a different story. -- PGP 2 welcome: Mail me, subject "send PGP-key". If you've nothing at all to hide, you must be boring. Unsolicited Bulk E-Mails: *You* pay for ads you never wanted. Is our economy _so_ weak we have to tolerate SPAMMERS? I guess not. -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e