Linux Support providers for domestic users

PDD

Hi Folks,

I was wondering if anyone here knew of individuals or companies that offer linux support for domestic users.

I am a linux n00b who has recently decided to run linux however I am having a few teething problems. I am pretty technically proficient and can usually resolve issues with alot of googling and using forums, IRC etc however this can take a long long time and this is my core issue. I am getting issues that are making my system unuseable and its taking ages to solve them or not at all. I would like to have someone I can either email or IRC or remote desktop with who can review my problem within a reasonable time-frame and can give me some good feedback on what the issue is, how to resolve it or where to look for the answers. Any and all suggestions welcomed.

Regards,

Dave

syklops

Well I am sure someone will PM you with a quote. In the meantime, do you want to explain your problems on here and I and others can try to help. Its how I learnt.

PDD

Hey Syklops,

Cheers for the quick response not that I think its going to do any good but here goes. First off I am running an Ubuntu variant called PinguyOS so this rules out IRC support from any of the Ubuntu channels (because most of this most distro snobs point blank refuse to help you in anyway if your not on 'their distro') and surprisingly enough from alot of Ubuntu based forums too. The distro maker is a great guy and really helpful but is a very busy man, there are a few people in the IRC channel who help but they are not there very often.

For now the big problems are my packages are all ****ed up I cannot complete any udpates without errors, the distro maker has informed me the best thing to do would be to upgrade to the latest version via fresh install.

I have alot of stuff setup and installed on this system and I'm not sure how to preserve that with a backup. I know I can move my home dir but that still leaves the additional packages and repos I have setup.

When I rebooted this morning my screen is stuck on stupid 1024x768 resolution, when I plug my monitor directly to the PC it can recognise it and bump up the resolution accordingly (on a 22" monitor capable of 1600x1200). If I connect my monitor via my KVM it will give me that stupidly small resolution and theres no UI way of making it any better. I have had the KVM hooked up for about a fortnight now and it was using the correct resolution no problem then just this morning boom it decides nope. I have no idea how to change it or edit the config file so that the settings stick.

Dave

syklops

I am not sure if my post will be either useful nor popular.

I don't know what you are running on this machine, but I would urge you to use a stable distro with an established support community if you are running any kind of important applications.

I would also suggest you get away from the uber-tweaked distros. Learn how to use a vanilla linux distro, and learn to tweak it yourself, other wise you will forever be at the mercy of another persons release schedule. Ubuntu is a tweaked version of Debian. Mint, is a tweaked version of Ubuntu.

Sorry,if my advice thus far has not been very useful, but I cant see too many people providing support to you either paid or not to fix this as it may take too much time.

Would it not make more sense time-wise, to save your home directory, and do an install of a more broadstream Distro like Fedora or Ubuntu? While I dont agree with doing a reinstall everytime you run into problems on a linux machine, you said you had configured a lot of extra repositories, and that the problem you are having is with installing and updating packages? I think it could be a messy and time consuming job getting everything right.

One question, if PinguyOS is meant to run out of the box, why did you have to configure extra repositories?

BopNiblets

PDD wrote: »

I have alot of stuff setup and installed on this system and I'm not sure how to preserve that with a backup. I know I can move my home dir but that still leaves the additional packages and repos I have setup.

Open package manager and click File -> Save Markings and check the "Save full state, not only changes" box and save the file, then open this (File -> Read Markings) when you reinstall.

Just works for packages selection, individual application configs should be in copied home directory however.

Capt'n Midnight

syklops wrote: »

I am not sure if my post will be either useful nor popular.

I don't know what you are running on this machine, but I would urge you to use a stable distro with an established support community if you are running any kind of important applications.

If you want stable with ubuntu then stick with the LTS which is currently 10.4.4

more recent versions of ubuntu have changed the user interface and not necessiarily in a good way. ( I'm having problems upgrading from 10.10 to 11.04 on one system, exporting the list of installed apps, doing a clean install and reinstalling them from the list would take less time that digging into the config files )

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/clone-your-ubuntu-installation.html

it would be nice to have something like system restore in linux whereby you could boot into a command line and roll back to previous states (does it exist ?)

syklops

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If you want stable with ubuntu then stick with the LTS which is currently 10.4.4

more recent versions of ubuntu have changed the user interface and not necessiarily in a good way. ( I'm having problems upgrading from 10.10 to 11.04 on one system, exporting the list of installed apps, doing a clean install and reinstalling them from the list would take less time that digging into the config files )

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/clone-your-ubuntu-installation.html

it would be nice to have something like system restore in linux whereby you could boot into a command line and roll back to previous states (does it exist ?)

Using virtualisation, yes. Have a minimal distribution, and run your server inside a VM. Take a snapshot before any major changes and if it all gets borked, just refresh the snapshot.

That is what many companies are turning to now, and its a good idea if you dont want to spend all your time doing sys. administration. By the way, by minimal distribution, I don't mean Damn Small Linux, I mean a stable vanilla OS, running very little, lightly tweaked and locked down, so it wont need numerous and regular updates.

Capt'n Midnight

syklops wrote: »

Using virtualisation, yes. Have a minimal distribution, and run your server inside a VM. Take a snapshot before any major changes and if it all gets borked, just refresh the snapshot.

clonezilla ISO and pxe server and away you go.


not so useful for laptops wot need tweaks and fancy drivers

syklops

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

clonezilla ISO and pxe server and away you go.


not so useful for laptops wot need tweaks and fancy drivers

Laptops are a different story entirely. The post I made referred to 'important' installations, where a stable environment is called for.