Which distro to use? (Poll)

Which distro(s) are you completely against using?

  • Android (Very user-friendly, good app support, large userbase, but not a "full" version of

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • BSD (Low support, few packages, bad ARM support)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    143

ok so i have a dual boot setup of debian wheezy with xfce.   just cant use it.   its asking for a password and the password i used to set it up is not being accepted!!!

I've never had that kind of bad experience with debian on the desktop. 

i hope the Pyra install will be easier than this.... no wonder people use ubuntu at least its easy to install..
Well it should be, I assume we would have an SD installer that writes a completely working OS to the system.
 
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its asking for a password and the password i used to set it up is not being accepted!!!

anyone got any ideas? or do i just reinstall again?
Are you using GRUB?

http://tournasdimitrios1.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/how-to-reset-your-linux-password/

I have never used "single", but "1" or "s" I have used with success.
i ended up doing something similar to that. i joined the debian forums and asked the same question. got no answer so kept googling till i found an answer..

i edited the grub entry  and added single init=/bin/bash ..... no idea what that means but i managed to get in then i logged in as root. added my user to the sudo group. then managed to log in as me and change the grub boot default to the win7 os as my partner uses the netbook and has some files in the win7 partition. if she booted into wheezy it would freak her out.. lol

so much to learn to find my way around in linux. having been microsoft based since dos 4( or earlier cant remember ) and gon through all windows from 1 through to 8.1...... 

the frustration of not being able to edit a config file because im not in the sudo group!!

is there a way to autologin ? as i will be the only user it wont be a problem. i can do it in windows but no idea how or even if you can in debian..
 
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its asking for a password and the password i used to set it up is not being accepted!!!

anyone got any ideas? or do i just reinstall again?
Are you using GRUB?

http://tournasdimitrios1.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/how-to-reset-your-linux-password/

I have never used "single", but "1" or "s" I have used with success.
i ended up doing something similar to that. i joined the debian forums and asked the same question. got no answer so kept googling till i found an answer..

i edited the grub entry  and added single init=/bin/bash ..... no idea what that means but i managed to get in then i logged in as root. added my user to the sudo group. then managed to log in as me and change the grub boot default to the win7 os as my partner uses the netbook and has some files in the win7 partition. if she booted into wheezy it would freak her out.. lol

so much to learn to find my way around in linux. having been microsoft based since dos 4( or earlier cant remember ) and gon through all windows from 1 through to 8.1...... 

the frustration of not being able to edit a config file because im not in the sudo group!!

is there a way to autologin ? as i will be the only user it wont be a problem. i can do it in windows but no idea how or even if you can in debian..
I have been a Linux user for a decade and a half and it wasn't until someone sat down and taught me some basic admin stuff that I learned of this.  Luckily it was one of the first things she taught me. 

You want to be able to be able to boot Linux and not have to put in a password?  It is possible in some distros, so I see no reason why you couldn't in Debian, but I can't remember how ATM.  I will let you know if I remember, or I will look into it next week when I have a little free time.
 
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Did you by any chance install debian with seperate /home over an existing ubuntu install? (this kills the debian)

It was one of the .files left behind by ubuntu ~/.xsessionrc maybe, if that wasnt it, you can delete ALL the .files in your users homefolder.

And then login as your user.
 
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no i downloaded a debian live distro with XFCE . made a bootable USB drive with this distro and then started my netbook with USB boot...once debian had loaded i did an install, partitioned 80 GB for it and thats what i have.... must admit i havent even looked at it for  quite a while now. My GF PC died and i spent all weekend installing a new MoBo and reinstalling win 7......  gotta love windows.. BSOD ramdomly and always a different stop code.... seems driver related or ram so currently doing ram tests.... 
 
I think it would make sense to target both Debian stable and testing in parallel.

Targetting the current testing version, Jessie, would be a good idea, as it's still possible to get new features into Debian Jessie/testing before the freeze in November, although the clock is ticking...

To me, the end goal should be supporting stable Debian distributions, and using testing is a means to that end, not the end goal itself.
 
its asking for a password and the password i used to set it up is not being accepted!!!

anyone got any ideas? or do i just reinstall again?
Are you using GRUB?

http://tournasdimitrios1.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/how-to-reset-your-linux-password/

I have never used "single", but "1" or "s" I have used with success.
i ended up doing something similar to that. i joined the debian forums and asked the same question. got no answer so kept googling till i found an answer..

i edited the grub entry  and added single init=/bin/bash ..... no idea what that means but i managed to get in then i logged in as root. added my user to the sudo group. then managed to log in as me and change the grub boot default to the win7 os as my partner uses the netbook and has some files in the win7 partition. if she booted into wheezy it would freak her out.. lol

so much to learn to find my way around in linux. having been microsoft based since dos 4( or earlier cant remember ) and gon through all windows from 1 through to 8.1...... 

the frustration of not being able to edit a config file because im not in the sudo group!!

is there a way to autologin ? as i will be the only user it wont be a problem. i can do it in windows but no idea how or even if you can in debian..
Well, let's start with the line you added to GRUB. "init=/bin/bash" means the kernel will load the shell interpreter instead of the regular service management system when it has finished initializing the hardware. This has a few implications, such as network not being set up or tty features (things like forking or killing processes) not working properly. You can still use the basic system, all hardware is operational and will respond when given work, but there isn't much running which does so. What you end up with is usually a root shell and an error message telling you that "job control" isn't working (this is one of the tty features I mentioned earlier). In this state the machine doesn't know how to turn itself off, so you'll have to do the next best thing and make sure it doesn't hurt itself. Do this by running the command "sync" and then hold down the power switch until it shuts off. This will make sure the kernel writes everything in the cache out to the disk.

As for the password... I've never encountered the exact error you're describing. I have however forgotten my password once or twice and resetting that is pretty simple. Use the trick above to get to a root shell, then use the command "passwd <yourusername>" (yes, that is password without the letters 'o' and 'r'). Since you're root, passwd will happily change any password you want. This is one of the many reasons why you don't want to run regular applications as root. You can add yourself to the sudo group while you're at it, just run "adduser <yourusernamehere> sudo". This will add your user to the group named "sudo" and as a result you will pass the security check when running the sudo command.

I never use autlogin on potentially publicly accessible computers and I rarely use XFCE, but I searched around for how to set up autologin with XFCE and this is what I found http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=81645 . With a bit of luck this is exactly what you're looking for.

Regarding the BSODs I'd check the power supply with a multimeter while booting as well. Faulty power supplies can become an utter nightmare.
 
its asking for a password and the password i used to set it up is not being accepted!!!

anyone got any ideas? or do i just reinstall again?
Are you using GRUB?

http://tournasdimitrios1.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/how-to-reset-your-linux-password/

I have never used "single", but "1" or "s" I have used with success.
i ended up doing something similar to that. i joined the debian forums and asked the same question. got no answer so kept googling till i found an answer..

i edited the grub entry  and added single init=/bin/bash ..... no idea what that means but i managed to get in then i logged in as root. added my user to the sudo group. then managed to log in as me and change the grub boot default to the win7 os as my partner uses the netbook and has some files in the win7 partition. if she booted into wheezy it would freak her out.. lol

so much to learn to find my way around in linux. having been microsoft based since dos 4( or earlier cant remember ) and gon through all windows from 1 through to 8.1...... 

the frustration of not being able to edit a config file because im not in the sudo group!!

is there a way to autologin ? as i will be the only user it wont be a problem. i can do it in windows but no idea how or even if you can in debian..
Well, let's start with the line you added to GRUB. "init=/bin/bash" means the kernel will load the shell interpreter instead of the regular service management system when it has finished initializing the hardware. This has a few implications, such as network not being set up or tty features (things like forking or killing processes) not working properly. You can still use the basic system, all hardware is operational and will respond when given work, but there isn't much running which does so. What you end up with is usually a root shell and an error message telling you that "job control" isn't working (this is one of the tty features I mentioned earlier). In this state the machine doesn't know how to turn itself off, so you'll have to do the next best thing and make sure it doesn't hurt itself. Do this by running the command "sync" and then hold down the power switch until it shuts off. This will make sure the kernel writes everything in the cache out to the disk.

As for the password... I've never encountered the exact error you're describing. I have however forgotten my password once or twice and resetting that is pretty simple. Use the trick above to get to a root shell, then use the command "passwd <yourusername>" (yes, that is password without the letters 'o' and 'r'). Since you're root, passwd will happily change any password you want. This is one of the many reasons why you don't want to run regular applications as root. You can add yourself to the sudo group while you're at it, just run "adduser <yourusernamehere> sudo". This will add your user to the group named "sudo" and as a result you will pass the security check when running the sudo command.

I never use autlogin on potentially publicly accessible computers and I rarely use XFCE, but I searched around for how to set up autologin with XFCE and this is what I found http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=81645 . With a bit of luck this is exactly what you're looking for.

Regarding the BSODs I'd check the power supply with a multimeter while booting as well. Faulty power supplies can become an utter nightmare.
Thanks for the help, the debian is sorted. I did a wipe and reinstalled it and no problems.. it was a new install anyway. as for the BSOD's on my GF's PC it turned out to be 2 sticks of faulty ram. probably only 1 but i took the pair out. been working ever since. only got 2 GB in it but got 2 more sticks on the way.
 
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Hey everyone! I'm very new to linux but I just started using a distro called crunchbang, it's a very efficient version of debian. Not sure if any of you have heard of it, but I was wondering how similar the Pyra OS will be to that? It uses an Openbox interface. It's also very customizable. If it hasn't been settled in stone, maybe we could make a Pyra version of crunchbang? Not sure how viable/useful that would be, but I thought I would bring it up in case no one else had :)
 
Hey everyone! I'm very new to linux but I just started using a distro called crunchbang, it's a very efficient version of debian. Not sure if any of you have heard of it, but I was wondering how similar the Pyra OS will be to that? It uses an Openbox interface. It's also very customizable. If it hasn't been settled in stone, maybe we could make a Pyra version of crunchbang? Not sure how viable/useful that would be, but I thought I would bring it up in case no one else had :)
Crunchbang appears to be only supporting 32-bit and 64-bit X86 processors, so it's not much use to the Pyra. 
 
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