Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Another vote for Ubuntu. I have to say that a Live CD version is not a good test of this excellent Linux distro. We have 3 identical PCs. On two of these the latest version of 10.10 64bit live cd loads to a blank (completely black) screen. Google: blank screen ubuntu live cd - thankfully there is a remedy that works. A few month old 10.10 64bit live cd works fine on all of three machines (?!) But once the system is installed it runs fine (automatic updates, etc). The documentation is good and there is something useful written on any problem I've seen so far. The native ubuntu nvidia/nouveau driver problem (what a stupid headache!) is solved in 10.10 (the current version) and one can enjoy fully automated kernel upgrades, which include building a new nvidia kernel module automatically. Cheers, Petr Sent from my iPhone On 22 Feb 2011, at 16:29, Roger Rowlett rrowl...@colgate.edumailto:rrowl...@colgate.edu wrote: I switched from FC8 to Ubuntu 9.04 a few years ago. Ubuntu worked with all of my hardware and peripherals out of the box, even newish motherboards, and I had fewer issues with WINE compatibility for CrysalisPro a WIndows-based X-ray data processing program for our Oxford Diffraction instrument. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is even better, and I'm scheduling an upgrade of my workstations this summer. Ubuntu will install NVidia drivers for you through a GUI setting with automatic updates, or you can do it manually, too. Each distro has its own specific headaches. For FC, it was SELinux and a few other random driver and package issues, for Ubuntu it's other things, but I'm finding Ubuntu less problematic at the moment for the stuff I want to run. Cheers. On 2/22/2011 10:16 AM, David Roberts wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave -- Roger S. Rowlett Professor Department of Chemistry Colgate University 13 Oak Drive Hamilton, NY 13346 tel: (315)-228-7245 ofc: (315)-228-7395 fax: (315)-228-7935 email: mailto:rrowl...@colgate.edu rrowl...@colgate.edumailto:rrowl...@colgate.edu
[ccp4bb] linux flavors
Hi all, Thank you all very much for your insightful help on this matter. Just a quick summary of what I have learned about this: 1. For my stereo preferences, i used to be an active stereo nut - but I have switched over to passive - and will never go back. It's cheaper to maintain (even with expensive monitors), easier to load operating systems (you don't need nvidia drivers - you don't even need a video card - on board video is good enough), and best of all, easier on the eyes. you can stare at passive stereo all day without eye fatigue 2. for operating systems - I tried ubuntu and wasn't real fond of it - it wouldn't load with my hardware. I should have mentioned that I have old quadro cards (FX1400). They still work well with fc7, but alas I think it's time they go away. But, as i mentioned, with Zalman monitors I don't need nvidia - and so I can live with nouveau drivers - the video is crisp and nice and works just fine. Good enough - fC13 it is for now (maybe I'll change later) 3. crystal software is easy to install on most. CCP4 is the most difficult for me - mainly because it's not something I'm familiar with - but the newer packages that come bundled take care of everything. i still do coot the old fashioned way (separate from ccp4 - maybe I should link them, probably more power that way), but for me it works. CNS is good, pymol easy, and anything else is just not too bad I didn't try scientific linux - but that did seem to get the most votes (for something beyond fedora/red hat). Many do like fedora - and with newer hardware it works great - just fc13 and old hardware poses issues. i don't know fc14 - I didn't try it (but it was preferred). Ubuntu was also up there - and i will give it a try later - but not now. most say it's a good one system thing - and while some used it in a network - some said that others may be better in my situation. Thanks again. You all are very generous with your time and your comments are always wonderful and appreciated Dave
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Dear David, I did not read all answer already there, but if you add the line blacklist nouveau to a file like /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf the nouveau kernel module should not get loaded upon booting the machine and installing the nvidia drivers then work straight away. I'd say with some basic knowledge of linux all flavours other than LFS are fairly equivalently easy to install and maintain and just a matter of taste. Cheers, Tim On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:16:01AM -0500, David Roberts wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave -- -- Tim Gruene Institut fuer anorganische Chemie Tammannstr. 4 D-37077 Goettingen phone: +49 (0)551 39 22149 GPG Key ID = A46BEE1A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Hi, Slightly deviating from the original thread perhaps: I am having trouble with recent releases of Ubuntu on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, mainly associated with ACPI. The internet is awash with discussions on how to fix the problems with ACPI (fan speed, screen brightness etc). None of the solutions that have been suggested, work for me. I still run Ubuntu 8.04, which is ok, but all versions after that effectively mean the screen brightness is stuck at one level and the fan either runs on full speed or not at all. Other people in the lab have reported similar problems with their laptop (various makes). Does anyone know of a linux distribution where everything just works, without having to go back to the dark ages of linux where multimedia etc are not supported? Thanks, Johan Dr. Johan P. Turkenburg X-ray facilities manager York Structural Biology Laboratory University of York Phone (+) 44 1904 328251 York YO10 5DD UK Fax (+) 44 1904 328266 On 24 February 2011 04:14, Dave Roberts drobe...@depauw.edu wrote: Hi all, Thank you all very much for your insightful help on this matter. Just a quick summary of what I have learned about this: 1. For my stereo preferences, i used to be an active stereo nut - but I have switched over to passive - and will never go back. It's cheaper to maintain (even with expensive monitors), easier to load operating systems (you don't need nvidia drivers - you don't even need a video card - on board video is good enough), and best of all, easier on the eyes. you can stare at passive stereo all day without eye fatigue 2. for operating systems - I tried ubuntu and wasn't real fond of it - it wouldn't load with my hardware. I should have mentioned that I have old quadro cards (FX1400). They still work well with fc7, but alas I think it's time they go away. But, as i mentioned, with Zalman monitors I don't need nvidia - and so I can live with nouveau drivers - the video is crisp and nice and works just fine. Good enough - fC13 it is for now (maybe I'll change later) 3. crystal software is easy to install on most. CCP4 is the most difficult for me - mainly because it's not something I'm familiar with - but the newer packages that come bundled take care of everything. i still do coot the old fashioned way (separate from ccp4 - maybe I should link them, probably more power that way), but for me it works. CNS is good, pymol easy, and anything else is just not too bad I didn't try scientific linux - but that did seem to get the most votes (for something beyond fedora/red hat). Many do like fedora - and with newer hardware it works great - just fc13 and old hardware poses issues. i don't know fc14 - I didn't try it (but it was preferred). Ubuntu was also up there - and i will give it a try later - but not now. most say it's a good one system thing - and while some used it in a network - some said that others may be better in my situation. Thanks again. You all are very generous with your time and your comments are always wonderful and appreciated Dave
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Hello Dave, 1. For my stereo preferences, i used to be an active stereo nut - but I have switched over to passive - and will never go back. It's cheaper to maintain (even with expensive monitors), easier to load operating systems (you don't need nvidia drivers - you don't even need a video card - on board video is good enough) This presumes you're never going to want to do any other sort of heavy-duty OpenGL-based visualization. PyMOL, Coot, VMD, CCP4mg, Chimera, etc, all work better with decent hardware accelerated 3d, which in practical terms means using an Nvidia card and driver under linux. From the front page of the Nouveau site: Any 3D functionality that might exist is still unsupported. I didn't try scientific linux - but that did seem to get the most votes (for something beyond fedora/red hat). The problem with CentOS and Scientific Linux is that the current versions are still based on Red Hat 5, which is getting rather old at this point and has a pretty poor desktop experience. Once they have switched over to Red Hat 6 as their base, they should have a more competitive offering. This isn't an issue so much if you have a nice Mac sitting around for web browsing and working with documents, but if the linux machine is your primary desktop, those distributions are pretty out of date. Many do like fedora - and with newer hardware it works great - just fc13 and old hardware poses issues. i don't know fc14 - I didn't try it (but it was preferred). The _latest_ version of Fedora is _always_ the preferred one. The whole reason to run Fedora is to get access to the latest and greatest linux kernels, Xorg bits, desktop environments, system-level improvements, etc, since it's not a distribution particularly known for its stability or widespread availability of packages. By running an older version, your installation will be dropped from supported status sooner, which means you no longer get security updates. You won't think this matters until someone finds an account with a weak password and then leverages a local root exploit to hack your systems, send spam and mess with your files. To put it another way, most people don't think it's important to wear safety glasses in the wet lab until they splash something nasty in their eyes... There is some measure of truth to the idea that different Fedora versions have differing levels of stability, since as I noted above it's a test bed for lots of new technologies, but the idea that Fedora 13 will be significantly better than Fedora 14 is basically bogus. Unless you are a linux enthusiast and really want to learn new linux skills, I almost never recommend Fedora for a production workstation. Ubuntu was also up there - and i will give it a try later - but not now. most say it's a good one system thing - and while some used it in a network - some said that others may be better in my situation. I saw that comment, but the person didn't provide any support for that claim, and I don't think it's true. In any case, my advice on this question usually boils down to a very simple answer: pick the distribution that the primary support person knows best. If the person supporting the machines is you, then pick the distribution you know best (or want to learn). If you have access to institutional IT support with linux experience, then pick the distribution they support. -ben -- | Ben Eisenbraun | SBGrid Consortium | http://sbgrid.org | | Harvard Medical School | http://hms.harvard.edu |
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Hi, Slightly deviating from the original thread perhaps: I am having trouble with recent releases of Ubuntu on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, mainly associated with ACPI. The internet is awash with discussions on how to fix the problems with ACPI (fan speed, screen brightness etc). None of the solutions that have been suggested, work for me. I still run Ubuntu 8.04, which is ok, but all versions after that effectively mean the screen brightness is stuck at one level and the fan either runs on full speed or not at all. Other people in the lab have reported similar problems with their laptop (various makes). Does anyone know of a linux distribution where everything just works, without having to go back to the dark ages of linux where multimedia etc are not supported? Thanks, Johan Gentoo? http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml ~L~ __ Lari Lehtiö Pharmaceutical Sciences, Department of Biosciences Åbo Akademi University, BioCity, FIN-20520 Turku Finland +358 2 215 4270 http://www.users.abo.fi/llehtio/ __
[ccp4bb] linux flavors
Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
I switched from FC8 to Ubuntu 9.04 a few years ago. Ubuntu worked with all of my hardware and peripherals out of the box, even newish motherboards, and I had fewer issues with WINE compatibility for CrysalisPro a WIndows-based X-ray data processing program for our Oxford Diffraction instrument. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is even better, and I'm scheduling an upgrade of my workstations this summer. Ubuntu will install NVidia drivers for you through a GUI setting with automatic updates, or you can do it manually, too. Each distro has its own specific headaches. For FC, it was SELinux and a few other random driver and package issues, for Ubuntu it's other things, but I'm finding Ubuntu less problematic at the moment for the stuff I want to run. Cheers. On 2/22/2011 10:16 AM, David Roberts wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave -- Roger S. Rowlett Professor Department of Chemistry Colgate University 13 Oak Drive Hamilton, NY 13346 tel: (315)-228-7245 ofc: (315)-228-7395 fax: (315)-228-7935 email: rrowl...@colgate.edu
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Installation of the proprietary nVidia driver is easier with Fedora 14; the hassles with removing the Nouveau driver have been greatly simplified. We use Fedora, although I certainly cannot claim that it has been problem free. It does seem better suited for centrally-managed systems, as compared with the most frequently mentioned alternative, Ubuntu, which is perhaps more suitable for a single owner-operator environment. On 02/22/11 10:16, David Roberts wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave -- === All Things Serve the Beam === David J. Schuller modern man in a post-modern world MacCHESS, Cornell University schul...@cornell.edu
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
The preferred method to get NVIDIA drivers for Fedora is to use the RPM Fusion repositories (http://rpmfusion.org/Howto/nVidia). Drivers installed this way will be automatically updated with the kernel as required. -Original Message- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of David Schuller Sent: February-22-11 9:30 AM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors Installation of the proprietary nVidia driver is easier with Fedora 14; the hassles with removing the Nouveau driver have been greatly simplified. We use Fedora, although I certainly cannot claim that it has been problem free. It does seem better suited for centrally-managed systems, as compared with the most frequently mentioned alternative, Ubuntu, which is perhaps more suitable for a single owner-operator environment. On 02/22/11 10:16, David Roberts wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave -- === All Things Serve the Beam === David J. Schuller modern man in a post-modern world MacCHESS, Cornell University schul...@cornell.edu
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Hi, Maybe CentOS 5 or Scientific Linux 5 is another option for you. Because you have experiences of RPM based distributions, I think you can install and maintain software easily. CentOS and Scientific Linux are based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, so actually they are similarly as Fedora Core. You can install the NVIDIA driver from ATrpm (http://atrpms.net/) or http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/55/i386/contrib/video/ BTW, I think CentOS and Scientific Linux are much more robust than UBUNTU. Xiaoguang On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 4:16 PM, David Roberts drobe...@depauw.edu wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave -- Xiaoguang Xue, PhD student Utrecht University Crystal Structural Chemistry Padualaan 8. Room N807 3584 CH Utrecht The Netherlands Tel. +31-30-253-2383
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
Dave, We have used CentOS for years and I am very happy with it. We also use NVIDIA hardware. CentOS does not work out of the box with NVIDIA, but NVIDIA has an installation package for their drivers on their web site that does work out of the box in combination with CentOS. That is, you run it once and the proper drivers get incorporated in the kernel and it works great. You only have to apply this special step when you upgrade your kernel. As far as stereo goes, we use the old-fashioned emitter-based hardware stereo and this works as long as you do as you are supposed to do (properly configure the X-window system). The thing I have most enjoyed is that CentOS is very, very reliable and stable. Hope this helps. Mark van der Woerd -Original Message- From: David Roberts drobe...@depauw.edu To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Sent: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 8:16 am Subject: [ccp4bb] linux flavors Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
David, I'm a big fan of SuSE. the nuveau problem exists, too, but blacklisting fixed it for me. For older hardware I love ultimate linux. The way I understand Zalman stereo it works with everything, given the program you use supports it. I'm sure you are aware of the problem with nVidia and emitters under Linux: you need the DIN pin on the card; USB emitters won't work. As far as I can tell, you also need the new nVidia DIN emitter, I had bad results with nuVision emitters and the new nVidia driver. Cheers, Jens linux.On Tue, 2011-02-22 at 10:16 -0500, David Roberts wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
I vouch for Ubuntu too. FC always has the stability problem for me and I am too tired to find right drivers and compile the programs. I switched after FC8. Ubuntu's repositories seems to be much more reliable and it worked with every program that I am using, including 3D imaging (I am using Nvidia shuttle glass though). You can easily retrieve the Nvidia driver from the repository if Ubuntu hasn't already done it for you. But the bad side is that you are going lose your computation skill since you have less problem to handle. Nian Huang, Ph.D. UT Southwestern Medical Center On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:16 AM, David Roberts drobe...@depauw.edu wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:16 AM, David Roberts drobe...@depauw.edu wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). I've been running Mandriva for years on both my lab and home machines. I think its configuration out of the box is more suitable than anything of Redhat's for both lab and home use. Fedora is too bleeding edge and broken. RHEL is too crufty and locked down. Besides, the gnome desktop environment is too awful for words :-) Mandriva has automated installation and update support for nvidia's drivers; just make sure you that if you later upgrade the kernel manually you pick the nvidia version of the kernel package. I tried a Ubuntu live disk recently, but it didn't manage to load working wifi or graphics drivers for my laptop so for me it fails on the hardware detection criterion. Also that would mean choosing gnome (which I hate) or Kubuntu (which is widely rumoured to be an unsupported orphan although I have never tried it myself). I'm not entirely sure what I'd pick if Mandriva weren't available. Probably Suse or PLD. The PLD rpms are cross-compatible with Mandriva's; Suse not so much. cheers, Ethan The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? I can't think of any reason you'd have nfs problems per se. Be aware that to make shared nfs work well you should set each user's UID to match on all the machines with nfs access. Thanks Dave
Re: [ccp4bb] linux flavors
I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Replied too fast and didn't finish your message. I have Ubuntu and most of other machines in NFS are running Redhat. So it shouldn't be a problem. Nian On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 9:16 AM, David Roberts drobe...@depauw.edu wrote: Hello all, Quick question on linux varieties. For years (and years) I have used fedora (after Ultrix of course). In fact, most of my computers are running FC7 (that long ago), it's very stable and works fine. However, since it is no longer supported, I'm toying with upgrading. I upgraded one machine to FC13. However, this nouveau driver thing is killing me, and getting my nvidia drivers installed is hopeless (I have followed every thread on this and I simply give up - it's not worth it). With a Zalman monitor it doesn't matter - nouveau works fine and my stereo is good - so I don't really care (or do I). The question is this - what flavors of linux out there are simplest to install - work instantly with various hardwares, and run stereo seamlessly (either Zalman stereo or hardware stereo with an emitter). For zalman anything works - which is why I'm going that way - but I still need hardware stereo on a few machines. So, for hardware, I need my nvidia drivers to install easily. I'm downloading ubuntu - is that a good choice? Can I run different flavors of linux with nfs and share drives in a local network (so one has fc7, one has fc13, and another has ubuntu)? Thanks Dave
