Two months ago I purchased a Dell laptop despite having an Nvidia card. I was assured that it wouldn't be that difficult to get the driver working. After about 2 hours I had it configured and working.
Just an observation, in the light of redhat's oft-expessed lack of interest in the desktop market: If you had installed suse linux on that system, "getting the nvidia drivers to work" would have been a one-click affair, no kernel compile, no module compile, no readme and no config file edit. Isn't that how it ought to be?
This is completely wrong. Linux was perhaps inspired by minix, and initially, for a short period, used the minix filesystem to get started, but was of a radically different fundamental kernel design - one need only recall the famous microkernel/macrokernel disagreement between LT and professor Tannenbaum.
They're certainly my prefered Linux vendor, and probably will be unless/until their position changes radically.
Of course, IBM is not a linux vendor. There is no "IBM Linux" distribution, they support the major linux distributions instead. However they are a linux-friendly vendor, as they sell lots of nice linux hardware, applications, and consulting & support services. Just wanted to clear that up.
When it comes to any project for which I have input or influence, IBM is on my preferred list.
That would be the normal way of installing the drivers. However, I think the grandparent was talking about incorrect monitor timings. Either that, or NVIDIA's lack of support for 4kstacks linux kernels when FC2 had just come out. When I tried out FC2, I ended up grabbing an 8kstacks version of the kernel off of some dude-I've-never-heard-of-before's website and it worked finally.
I really wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt - but he blew his cover on a significant detail: Installing the nvidia driver does not change your modelines (your monitor timing). I repeat,there is nothing in the nvidia driver or config that changes the monitor frequencies. If the monitor timing was correct before, it will be correct with the nvidia driver.
Yeah, the 4k stacks was an issue, but those who are savvy enough to run a bleeding edge kernel can compile it with 8k stacks - and nvidia updated their driver to accomodate the change pretty quickly, so now it's a moot point.
I guess it's a pet peeve with me... Here I install suse 9.1, the nvidia driver was a one click deal, everything just worked. So when someone comes along and says "I installed some bleeding edge fedora core 3 beta 2 and couldnt get the nvidia drivers loaded, linux sucks, it will never be ready for the desktop!" it just comes off as fuddish to me.
Re:Yeah, this would work...
on
Linux Desktop Guide
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· Score: 3, Informative
Nice troll - these silly fudsters would sound almost believable to someone who doesn't know better...
While I use suse, not fedora, I have installed fedora on several computers, and had no trouble whatsoever with the install or setup.
The nvidia issue is like a newbie 101 type question, - the fudster tripped up a few times, one of them was in the nvidia driver install. No, you don't recompile the kernel. You simply install the nvidia driver (without the GUI running), edit 1 line in the X config file, and restart X. Actually, this is all clearly spelled out in the readme at nvidia.com.
With suse, the nvidia driver is even easier. You just check the box in yast that says "install nvidia drivers". that's it.
Well, I could point out his other howlers, but my time is worth something too.
seen IBM doing this stuff kinds of reminds me of Darth Vader
LOL, so I'm not the only one... the first that came to mind for me, when IBM became a friend and supporter of Linux, was Darth Vader turning against the emperor and throwing him down the shaft... great minds think alike.
I make all my money with free software these days.
Indeed, this rings true - I have been doing a tidy business with a few regular clients who hired me to provide cost effective solutions, and have been giving me additional work ever since the initial jobs.
A shipping company, a small mom and pop software reseller business, a video production company and a couple of financial firms have all been happy with the linux-based firewalls, vpns, mail servers, file servers etc. One financial company hired me to set up a new mail server on an emergency basis, and were so happy with the performance and reliability of the linux server that they subsequently had me move them to from windows to linux on their web proxy, firewall, dns servers, internal file servers, and their internet-facing websites.
Now standardized on suse, they are happier than ever, and I still get a few hours a month from them to tweak things or add new features.
The tools of my trade are knowledge of linux and current technologies, and my overhead consists of keeping up to date. I provide the customer with a rock solid, and cost effective solution, and I prosper as well.
It's a win-win situation, and that's hard to argue with.
I guess they were really serious when they said that the stabilization of the kernel was up to the distro maintainers.
LOL, the sky is not falling...
99.9% of linux users do not build their disto from scratch, but get their distro from a vcendor, so this means absolutely nothing for the vast majority. Those that are smart enough to build their own kernels, are also smart enough to follow the kernel mailing list and apply patches.
I've been running 2.6 kernels from kernel.org as well as -mm kernels on my FC1 boxes, which are fairly busy servers, and have had no problems. compiling 2.6.8.1 as we speak, so to speak. Also, novell/suse are shipping not only their personal and professional retail versions, but also their latest enterprise version, with the 2.6 kernel and it is rock solid.
I agree that the 2.6 kernel is far more stable than 2.4 was at this stage -
I don't understand - can someone explain how this transparent microsoft cheerleading troll gets modded as insightful?
He's simply parroting the party line as always, singing the praises of microsoft, right on cue, along with a slam at the imaginary "slashdot crowd" (of which he himself is a prime example), and of course the obligitory anti-linux slam - did you expect something different from this guy?
Of course getting a networked printer to work still requires a google search.
"Of course"? I've always found setting up a networked printer in linux to be a matter of a few mouseclicks and the printing of a test page -
Perhaps you could let us all in on the private joke it seems you were trying to make? I think you lost your audience here, but perhaps they are all too polite to mention it.
If somebody decides to sue Linux for copyright infringement, who defends it?
I think you are a little confused, perhaps... When you say someone will "sue linux", exactly who do you mean is being sued? Novell? Linus Torvalds? IBM? Red Hat?
Once you apply a bit of clear thinking, and decide who is being sued, the answer to your question will follow naturally.
Re:It was a good story but....
on
Broken Angels
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· Score: 1
It was certainly not standard english, but I thought. it. was. clever.
What if she can't get online to check her email because her modem drivers got nixed? Last time I loaded modem drivers that was done by command line.
I'm not sure how her modem drivers could are supposed to "get nixed", unless grandma is logging in as root, compiling and installing kernels - but she's not going to do that, is she?
We could play this game all day, as there are plenty of scenarios we could come up with to make life miserable for grandma, on any platform - but the fact is, once linux is set up, grandma really doesn't need to ever think about it. In fact, her nephew jason, who set up her linux system, can log in remotely and check up on things if she has any questions...
I realize that it would be easier if I were running something newer than rh7.3, but I have compatibility issues that keep me from doing this (involving not having time to port and test software that runs on 7.3). And really, 7.3 (2.4.18) suits my needs fine, it's sad when folks have dependencies on later versions when it's not necessary. Shouldn't I be able to run realplayer on a 2 year old OS?
Is it really only 2 years old? Linux develops so rapidly that 7.3 just seems a lot older than that.
In any case, you probably could run helixplayer on 7.3 - I just realized it's looking for a c++ library, so if you install that it just might work. That's the nice thing about apt (which is available for redhat 7.3 BTW), it would note the libc++ dependency as you mentioned, but instead of "punting" the install, it would automagically install the needed packages for you.
I'm really interested to see is what kind of hell a Linux tech support call from a 70 year old woman who just wants to e-mail her kids would be like - especially if it's going to involve going to the command line.
Why involve the command line here? It's basically:
"Double click the email icon on the panel at the bottom of your screen".
Fel free to explain yourself, if you have any clue what you're talking about - other than compromising the gcc distribution, how would one implement such an automatically propagating, hidden feature and make it fly?
Does no one else get routinely tired of.rpm files being seen as "audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin" when trying to download a new RPM package from a web site?
yeah, pet peeve... grr.. but that's a glitch for the browser folks to fix...
This could indeed be a good thing - note however that applications like xine and mplayer, when properly configured and installed, already provide a full multimedia experience for the savvy linux user, but it's good to get something with the commercial visibility of real into the picture - let's hope it attracts enough interest to gain critical mass.
I don't buy into Linueconomics. It makes as much sense as outsourcing all your IT jobs and becoming utterly dependent on foreign countries.
I'm afraid your wacky ideas about linux and the economy have been rather soundly refuted by the likes of IBM, Oracle and Novell. On a personal note, I started making good money after I became linux-savvy.
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Two months ago I purchased a Dell laptop despite having an Nvidia card. I was assured that it wouldn't be that difficult to get the driver working. After about 2 hours I had it configured and working.
Just an observation, in the light of redhat's oft-expessed lack of interest in the desktop market: If you had installed suse linux on that system, "getting the nvidia drivers to work" would have been a one-click affair, no kernel compile, no module compile, no readme and no config file edit. Isn't that how it ought to be?
HP sells the SuSe based notebook for the same price, or likely more expensive.
Actually, you're mistaken, I went to the site to price one out and it's more expensive with ms windows.
Linux was based on Minix.
This is completely wrong. Linux was perhaps inspired by minix, and initially, for a short period, used the minix filesystem to get started, but was of a radically different fundamental kernel design - one need only recall the famous microkernel/macrokernel disagreement between LT and professor Tannenbaum.
They're certainly my prefered Linux vendor, and probably will be unless/until their position changes radically.
Of course, IBM is not a linux vendor. There is no "IBM Linux" distribution, they support the major linux distributions instead. However they are a linux-friendly vendor, as they sell lots of nice linux hardware, applications, and consulting & support services. Just wanted to clear that up.
When it comes to any project for which I have input or influence, IBM is on my preferred list.
Thanks for the good wishes, may the penguin prosper in China!
That would be the normal way of installing the drivers. However, I think the grandparent was talking about incorrect monitor timings. Either that, or NVIDIA's lack of support for 4kstacks linux kernels when FC2 had just come out. When I tried out FC2, I ended up grabbing an 8kstacks version of the kernel off of some dude-I've-never-heard-of-before's website and it worked finally.
I really wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt - but he blew his cover on a significant detail: Installing the nvidia driver does not change your modelines (your monitor timing). I repeat,there is nothing in the nvidia driver or config that changes the monitor frequencies. If the monitor timing was correct before, it will be correct with the nvidia driver.
Yeah, the 4k stacks was an issue, but those who are savvy enough to run a bleeding edge kernel can compile it with 8k stacks - and nvidia updated their driver to accomodate the change pretty quickly, so now it's a moot point.
I guess it's a pet peeve with me... Here I install suse 9.1, the nvidia driver was a one click deal, everything just worked. So when someone comes along and says "I installed some bleeding edge fedora core 3 beta 2 and couldnt get the nvidia drivers loaded, linux sucks, it will never be ready for the desktop!" it just comes off as fuddish to me.
Nice troll - these silly fudsters would sound almost believable to someone who doesn't know better...
While I use suse, not fedora, I have installed fedora on several computers, and had no trouble whatsoever with the install or setup.
The nvidia issue is like a newbie 101 type question, - the fudster tripped up a few times, one of them was in the nvidia driver install. No, you don't recompile the kernel. You simply install the nvidia driver (without the GUI running), edit 1 line in the X config file, and restart X. Actually, this is all clearly spelled out in the readme at nvidia.com.
With suse, the nvidia driver is even easier. You just check the box in yast that says "install nvidia drivers". that's it.
Well, I could point out his other howlers, but my time is worth something too.
seen IBM doing this stuff kinds of reminds me of Darth Vader
LOL, so I'm not the only one... the first that came to mind for me, when IBM became a friend and supporter of Linux, was Darth Vader turning against the emperor and throwing him down the shaft... great minds think alike.
I make all my money with free software these days.
Indeed, this rings true - I have been doing a tidy business with a few regular clients who hired me to provide cost effective solutions, and have been giving me additional work ever since the initial jobs.
A shipping company, a small mom and pop software reseller business, a video production company and a couple of financial firms have all been happy with the linux-based firewalls, vpns, mail servers, file servers etc. One financial company hired me to set up a new mail server on an emergency basis, and were so happy with the performance and reliability of the linux server that they subsequently had me move them to from windows to linux on their web proxy, firewall, dns servers, internal file servers, and their internet-facing websites.
Now standardized on suse, they are happier than ever, and I still get a few hours a month from them to tweak things or add new features.
The tools of my trade are knowledge of linux and current technologies, and my overhead consists of keeping up to date. I provide the customer with a rock solid, and cost effective solution, and I prosper as well.
It's a win-win situation, and that's hard to argue with.
I think Linux is a great kernel, but a 42 MB download is really a bit too much for my liking.
A suggestion: you don't have to download anything. Your distro provides you with a kernel. use it. be happy.
I guess they were really serious when they said that the stabilization of the kernel was up to the distro maintainers.
LOL, the sky is not falling...
99.9% of linux users do not build their disto from scratch, but get their distro from a vcendor, so this means absolutely nothing for the vast majority. Those that are smart enough to build their own kernels, are also smart enough to follow the kernel mailing list and apply patches.
I've been running 2.6 kernels from kernel.org as well as -mm kernels on my FC1 boxes, which are fairly busy servers, and have had no problems. compiling 2.6.8.1 as we speak, so to speak. Also, novell/suse are shipping not only their personal and professional retail versions, but also their latest enterprise version, with the 2.6 kernel and it is rock solid.
I agree that the 2.6 kernel is far more stable than 2.4 was at this stage -
I don't understand - can someone explain how this transparent microsoft cheerleading troll gets modded as insightful?
He's simply parroting the party line as always, singing the praises of microsoft, right on cue, along with a slam at the imaginary "slashdot crowd" (of which he himself is a prime example), and of course the obligitory anti-linux slam - did you expect something different from this guy?
Of course getting a networked printer to work still requires a google search.
"Of course"? I've always found setting up a networked printer in linux to be a matter of a few mouseclicks and the printing of a test page -
Perhaps you could let us all in on the private joke it seems you were trying to make? I think you lost your audience here, but perhaps they are all too polite to mention it.
If somebody decides to sue Linux for copyright infringement, who defends it?
I think you are a little confused, perhaps... When you say someone will "sue linux", exactly who do you mean is being sued? Novell? Linus Torvalds? IBM? Red Hat?
Once you apply a bit of clear thinking, and decide who is being sued, the answer to your question will follow naturally.
It was certainly not standard english, but I thought. it. was. clever.
What if she can't get online to check her email because her modem drivers got nixed? Last time I loaded modem drivers that was done by command line.
I'm not sure how her modem drivers could are supposed to "get nixed", unless grandma is logging in as root, compiling and installing kernels - but she's not going to do that, is she?
We could play this game all day, as there are plenty of scenarios we could come up with to make life miserable for grandma, on any platform - but the fact is, once linux is set up, grandma really doesn't need to ever think about it. In fact, her nephew jason, who set up her linux system, can log in remotely and check up on things if she has any questions...
I realize that it would be easier if I were running something newer than rh7.3, but I have compatibility issues that keep me from doing this (involving not having time to port and test software that runs on 7.3). And really, 7.3 (2.4.18) suits my needs fine, it's sad when folks have dependencies on later versions when it's not necessary. Shouldn't I be able to run realplayer on a 2 year old OS?
Is it really only 2 years old? Linux develops so rapidly that 7.3 just seems a lot older than that.
In any case, you probably could run helixplayer on 7.3 - I just realized it's looking for a c++ library, so if you install that it just might work. That's the nice thing about apt (which is available for redhat 7.3 BTW), it would note the libc++ dependency as you mentioned, but instead of "punting" the install, it would automagically install the needed packages for you.
I'm really interested to see is what kind of hell a Linux tech support call from a 70 year old woman who just wants to e-mail her kids would be like - especially if it's going to involve going to the command line.
Why involve the command line here? It's basically:
"Double click the email icon on the panel at the bottom of your screen".
Fel free to explain yourself, if you have any clue what you're talking about - other than compromising the gcc distribution, how would one implement such an automatically propagating, hidden feature and make it fly?
Or did you not even bother to RTFL?
I've installed Linux but I can't find solitaire. Does this mean I have to reinstall Windows?
um, no... go to the kde menu, then select:
games->card games->
and then choose the type of solitaire you want.
(shrug) doesn't seem all that hard to me...
Indefinitely if they're clever about it...
So, if real managed to insert a trojan into the master copy of the gcc distribution, they could make it work, is that it?
a bit far fetched...
I run RedHat 7.3 on a PC.
/usr/local/RealPlayer/realplay.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/tmp/RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm
You're just saying it's running on x86-class hardware, I presume...in any case, you might want to consider using a somewhat current verson of linux.
That's odd, it seems to be looking for old compatibility libs... hmm..
# rpm -e
LOL, where's the cluebat? hint: you can't "remove" an rpm file, you need to remove the installed package...
Does no one else get routinely tired of .rpm files being seen as "audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin" when trying to download a new RPM package from a web site?
yeah, pet peeve... grr.. but that's a glitch for the browser folks to fix...
This could indeed be a good thing - note however that applications like xine and mplayer, when properly configured and installed, already provide a full multimedia experience for the savvy linux user, but it's good to get something with the commercial visibility of real into the picture - let's hope it attracts enough interest to gain critical mass.
I don't buy into Linueconomics. It makes as much sense as outsourcing all your IT jobs and becoming utterly dependent on foreign countries.
I'm afraid your wacky ideas about linux and the economy have been rather soundly refuted by the likes of IBM, Oracle and Novell. On a personal note, I started making good money after I became linux-savvy.