Hi all,
Thanks to this list and a friend I met in a newsgroup (Paul Woodward)
I've gone from being unable to get my system installed correctly/use the
mouse/keyboard/modem/3d video...
To having 8.1 Powerpack installed (3.2 or so gigs worth!), mouse is
rock-solid, keyboard works fine (although I can't seem to find the
command that will allow me to press one of the extra buttons and receive
"mapping information" for it on my system!). The modem works just fine
(although it is max 31.2kbps). And I just successfully installed
nVidia's 1541 drivers for my TNT AGP card! Woo-Hoo!
Now I need to find out how to benchmark it to see how I'm doing. I need
to know the differences between the 1541, 2313, and 2314 and if I can
install any of them with my kernel (2.4.8.26mdk, i586 version {computer
is listed as an i686 in info but is an old Athlon 650}) or are they for
different kernels or ??? (still VERY newbie I'm afraid) Thank goodness
for nVidia's unified driver architecture. Let's me use this card in
Win98 (I can play DirectX8 & OpenGL games) and now, apparently I've got
OpenGL 3d video in Linux! Splash screen and everything. 8-D
Unfortunately, any sound crashes my system hard. IOW, if I've got the
aRtssoundserver set to load with KDE it crashes a few notes into startup
"freezing" on a note and I can't {ctrl-alt-backspace} or switch consoles
or {ctrl-alt-del} or anything - I must hit the reset or power down to
get out of it!
Needless to say I've gotten familliar with the benefits of the various
journalling filesystems in a hurry! Using reiserFS I seem to be able to
recover with no harm. I would, of course, rather shut down in the
normal fashion or not at all. ;-P
I've learned to move files amongst my various partitions, how to create
and size them <hint: if you need the partition tool on the install cd,
start the install in expert mode but REMEMBER TO ABORT after using the
partition Drake.
But any sound seems to kill everything. Strangely when I first
installed (out of about 15 in my learning experiences, I am a little
dense at times it seems) The very first thing I did was enter GNOME and
play a game of Lbreakout in full-screen mode. That was before I knew
about only having 2d, I just got lucky. But since then I've had nothing
work with sound.
I found I could enter KDE config from Gnome and turn the soundserver
off, then boot KDE. Strangely the config plays through my speakers when
I "test" it.
And amazingly, I got to play TuxRacer from some weird desktop a while
ago! I got to practice and it was in color and I was sliding downhill
at a pretty good clip and I had sound! And then it locked up with the
finish line in sight.
Other than that anything locks up on the first note or immediately
afterward. This is our last stumbling block in creating a Linux-based
home desktop for my wife and myself. It sure is a dandy!
I played around with the soundserver settings and got KDE to boot with
a couple of extra notes before locking but that is the extent of
improvement I got.
My (PCI) soundcard is identified as Ensoniq 1371(?) it has Creative
Labs on it, I think it also says PCI-128. It is older but I always
thought Creative Labs (aka SoundBlaster?) was like a standard.
I am about to pull my soundcard completely to see if things will then
work... But that takes a lot of fun and utility from our system as a
home desktop (ie, silent games, no music/.mp3/cd, etc.).
Everything else pretty much rocks. Can't wait to benchmark my video so
I can start wishing for one of those GeForce2MX200(?) that I saw at
Circuit City. Star Office 5.2 is quite useable, as is Abiword, Kword,
all of the internet apps... And most everything already has updates (of
course, open source).
Any ideas on the sound anyone?
Thanks,
Wes Gregg
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PS What would y'all consider the minimum hardware for a standard GUI
(Gnome/KDE) install of Mandrake 8.1? IOW, useable but a little slow.
With memory and hard drives cheap, what kind of mobo/processor/memory is
useable with the GUI (thinking of minimum desktop for my parents, if I
could configure it I feel it is user-friendly enough for them!)?
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
