Amazing...
In the context of how badly Vista runs and the
HW requirements:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/11/30/0443256.shtml
http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-make-vista-run-like-xp-sort-of.html
I just finished an install of Fedora 8 and the
thing is making me chuckle while it appears the
other world is suffering (I can only go by what
I read when it comes to Vista...).
This Fedora 8 upgrade was necessary because FC6
was getting old and bogged down on my laptop
(5yr old 1.8Ghz P4-Mobility Fujitsu Lifebook C,
768MB RAM (max'd out), 40GB HD). I wasn't very
hopeful it would get that much better since the
system is showing its age. I read up on the
reviews for Fedora 8 and it looked like it was
time to upgrade as I like to upgrade from even
number to even number releases so I am not in a
constant upgrade and configure cycle. I even
read up on this Aero vs. CompizFusion eye-candy
thing which was interesting but it doesn't
really make a difference to me (I'm good with
ncurses if that's all that will make the app
look pretty), especially since the requirements
seemed to imply you need @>128MB of video RAM
anyway. My old Radeon Mobility laptop video card
uses shared RAM and can only go to 64MB so I
forgot about that altogether.
So I back up my current system to external 500GB
HD (/boot, /etc, /var and /home). Then I get to
working through the install from the LiveCD
and it seems to go just fine with help from a
variety of Fedora 8 help web pages which are
good for not missing small details:
http://www.gagme.com/greg/linux/f8-tips.php
http://www.howtoforge.com/installation-guide-fedora8-desktop
http://www.fedorafaq.org/
When I went to make sure the CD/DVD was working
properly it had all kinds of issues related to a
change in method for CD/DVD which affects older
units:
http://linux-ata.org/faq.html#old_ioctls
Here is some of what I did to fix things. First
I tried to find out as much as I could about the
current report on the device and its status.
hdparm -i /dev/sr0
Gives info on the CD/DVD device but...
enabling DMA doesn't work:
$ hdparm -d1 /dev/sr0
/dev/sr0:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for
device
Someone also mentioned read ahead might be a
problem:
blockdev --getra /dev/sr0
(/dev/sr0 is what the symlink for every AKA name
for the CD/DVD device points to)
My system returns : 256
You can set this higher (the link suggested 8192
but I haven't gone that high and there may be
bad learning curve issues)
blockdev --setra 512 /dev/sr0
https://fcp.surfsite.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=48543&forum=10&post_id=222767
But the real fix, which appears to be one of
many that have been reported involves a kernel
boot parameter and the one that worked for me in
grub.conf is:
combined_mode=libata
so my default kernel stanza reads like so:
title Fedora (2.6.23.1-49.fc8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.1-49.fc8 ro
root=LABEL=/1 combined_mode=libata rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.1-49.fc8.img
Next big deal thing I ran into is the
CompixFusion stuff (yeah, I didn't think it
would fly either). Just on the by-and-by while
using YumEx to do the post CD image install
upgrades I added the stuff to do CompizFusion.
Guess what? It works... And I did it under KDE,
not Gnome.
Here are the areas that were an issue and what I
thought about them.
CompizFusion:
OK this one was my fault. I put the ATI fglrx
driver on my system when it wasn't called for...
at all. I ended up having to hunt, seek and
destroy any and all references that were
inserted while having to manually start and
configure X each iteration. Now that wasn't big
a deal for me but... Someone could also stumble
into something like this that was a bear to back
out of even if you halfway knew where, what and
how to back out like I did. Oh yeah, did I
mention...
We have Eye-Candy Baybee...
Like I said, I don't really care but it is nice
to have something that WinDoze users can't touch
south of the latest HW with the latest rape the
customer premium WinDoze OS Distro and not at
all on lower end HW. And here is the kicker, all
this "stuff" is taxing the system LESS than
before according to "top".
YumEx
Move the mouse or it won't continue. Don't do
everything at once. Read the help web pages and
do updates/downloads/installs on as few
apps/categories as possible at a time. This is
very, very annoying. You really can't walk away
if you ask it to do more than a couple items at
a time. Custom kernel compiling and distro
installing was less annoying
CD/DVD changes:
Again, see: http://linux-ata.org/faq.html#old_ioctls
Not that big an issue for me but...
What person who is a newbie would have the
ability to even identify what the Google
searches on the problem were referring to much
less figure out how to make the command line
changes necessary. It worked for me so I'm good
to go... I really don't care about the suffering
of WinDoze users fleeing a burning house while
wanting everything hand fed to them (I LOVE
mixed metaphors)...
WPC55AG:
It has worked before under FC6 but just like
before I am going to have to get an advanced,
lock myself away, jump into the deep end, self
training on the vagaries of wpa_supplicant,
Madwifi, and maybe even ndis-wrapper.
Fortunately (or not since I lack motivation
since my work around works), I have a very
inelegant workaround that dispenses with fickle
wireless cards altogether[1].
In other words this is your worst time choking
nightmare. This is an activity for total
dedication to the problem and apparently no one
can make heads or tails of how what they did to
get things to work is at all relevant to what
you are going through.
Screw 'em all... I have Open Source stuff that
lets you think out of the box to solve a problem.
So am I complaining? Nope...
A couple days effort that have made my (old)
system run much better with much better apps and
even kick butt eye candy (even my jaded XBOX
junkie nephews were blown away and want it too
LMAO! ;^) vs. several hundred dollars of stuff
you don't own and can't do anything with
especially if you get in the wrong HW
situation... And the pain is ALL on purpose...
rb (YMMV but I bet you get at least as far as I
did ;^) w
[1] Screw the whole screwed up wificard
situation. Here is what works every time... No
If, Ands or Buts.
I have 2 Buffalo wireless AP/Routers (or 2
appropriate old Linksys WRT54G units) that I
carry with me running DD-WRT and talking to each
other via WDS. I plug one unit into whatever
network I am working with connecting the LAN
port if I want to bridge (i.e. get an address
from the already installed DHCP server), Or
connecting the WAN port to the local network if
I want/need to route. Then I wire the laptop to
the other unit and which allows me to go
anywhere the two units can still see each other
which is a whole heck of a lot father than one
wifi network/AP and wificard can go. While it
isn't elegant, it all fits into a backpack,
power strips, laptop (big ol' thing), and all AND:
1.) I don't need no stinkin' wireless keys that
someone doesn't want to give up anyway.
2.) I don't have to worry about the low, low
power on that PCMCIA or built in laptop wireless
device.
3.) The cost is LESS than the price of a new
wireless card (if you have 2 and I'm looking at
3 of them right now).
4.) The setup is infinitely less complicated
especially if you use the whole setup (as I
normally do) in "bridge" or "pass through"
mode... AND I implement strong encryption
between the 2 AP's (I'm thinking of even doing
RADIUS one day) between the 2 router units which
is almost always better than what some poor
beleaguered sysadmin can do with his network
system and whose time is a slave to the problems
of his WinDoze boxes...
</Rant Off ;^>
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
