"Jon M. Gohr" wrote:
> Jeffrey,
>
> First off thanks for the reply, it was the first really good response I have
> received and I appreciate it!
No problem ... my favorite thing about Linux is the help you can get in groups
like this instantly.
> > What is the problem you are having partitioning??? I have used and like
> > Partition Magic but never had any problems with it. fips 2.0 (located on
> > your SuSE cdrom in the utilities section -- it is a dos program) will
> safely
> > split an existing partition in two, provided you haved packed all the data
> > in the partition to the beginning using defrag or similar utility -- and
> > fips is ver very fast compared to PM.
>
> My problems relate to the partitions crossing the 1024 cylinder boundary.
> Any attempts at even the tiniest (7 megs) of partitions and Partition Magic
> 4.01 starts giving me warnings about crossing the boundary and that it
> may be an unbootable partition. I have a really good hard drive, at least
> it's really good in the windows world, a 12.9 gig IBM Deskstar 14GXP,
> 7200 RPM Ultra DMA.
I have never paid much attention to those warnings. Anyway, fips should do the
trick. Don't forget to pack your disk first (don't worry, it won't work if you
don't but it won't mangle anything).
> > > So essentially I'm looking for any advice in regards to
> > > what video card I should go out and buy ... NVidia TNT
> > > based or what? I will say that I HATE ati cards and would
> > > rather not deal with the garbage they sell. I want something
> > > that will kick ass in 2d as well as 3d.
> >
> > That's tood bad, b/c IMHO the xpert98 and later models do kick ass in 2D
> > though maybe slightly weak in 3D ... as well the new ATI 128 is top rated
> in
> > both 2D and 3D, and ATI has always been well-supported in Linux.
>
> I have an XPert 98 in one of my machines, running win98 and I am NOT
> impressed, compared to the Banshee card it's almost laughable. That
> and things like screen font smoothing don't work correctly with this card.
Yeah, the screen font smoothing bug is annoying -- but note that it is a
software driver bug unique to windows 98. Never tried the Banshee myself,
though I am sure it is better at 3D than the xpert 98. Do you have the full
8Megs? That makes quite a difference. Also, I am using an AGP version which
helps a lot. I can tell you that this blows the lid off my last card which was
a PCI-based S3 virge.
> > If not ATI, then Matrox G200-based cards are excellent in both 2D and 3D
> > and are fully supported. Also, for straight gaming, NVidia Riva (TNT and
> > 128) or Number 9 Revolution 3D are good choices.
>
> I tried a TNT card yesterday and it doesn't like the 100 mhz front side bus
> setting on my overclocked Celeron 300a running at 450 mhz. The machine
> with a Banshee card is stable as a rock, as soon as I put in the TNT card,
> it started locking up on boot or shortly after getting into windows. I'm
> taking
> the card back today and will probably trade it in on another banshee card
> and wait for support for it or else I'll try the ATI Rage Fury 128 card and
> see
> how I like that.
Yeah, forgot you were overclocking. Stick to the Matrox or ATI cards as they
are more stable. Anyway, use AGP and don't worry (AGP isolates bus speed from
the PCI/CPU bus so you have a constant bus speed regardless of fsb speed). If
you have AGP, make sure you haven't tied the AGP bus speed to the CPU bus speed
(usually done in BIOS setup or through jumpers) as this will both slow down your
system and cause compatibility probs.
> > > Sound card? MX300 ... lost cause?
> >
> > OSS (an optional component in the SuSE setup -- see the docs) plans
> support
> > for this card -- but it ain't there yet. See www.opensound.com. Given
> your
> > background, you could probably assist in getting this card supported -- I
> > would love to be able to use the MX300 myself!! Sound is definitely the
> > weak leak in Linux. The Soundblaster PCI128 and 64 models are listed on
> the
> > OSS database as working. I haven't tried these as I am waiting patiently
> > for Aureal Vortex support.
>
> I don't know how I could help get the card supported ... never written any
> device driver stuff!
There's always a first time. If you know C .... Look around for someone
working on sound card drivers generally. Usually these people are listed in
FAQ's, HOWTO's, or doc pages for the sound drivers. THere is a kernal sound
discussion group I believe. If you want to volunteer, throw your hat in and I'm
sure you will be welcomed. Writing device drivers in Linux is not very hard and
all the source code is there as are most of the authors!!!
> > > I successfully set up a Win98/NT Server dual boot configuration,
> > > took no friggin time at all and have been developing software
> > > as a profession for the last 10 years (with quite a good record of
> > > success) so I don't think I'm a lost cause. but Linux makes me feel
> > > stupid, despite some Unix C development experience
> >
> > Don't know why, I have found WIndows NT and 98 MUCH more difficult to
> > install, maintain and configure than Linux in its latest incarnations.
> What
> > problems were you experiencing???
>
> Well keyboard and mouse wouldn't work (USB),
USB *is* unusual hardware in the sense that even MS only recently supported it.
Linux will have it soon enough along with Firewire.
> monitor wasn't in the
> settings database
MS windows has nevery recognized my monitors properly, so I am used to providing
the frequency info by hand. Not very hard anyway.
> , video card was unsupported
Banshee is a pretty new video card. It will likely be supported in the next few
months.
> , couldn't get LILO
> set-up correctly
It is a bit difficult to use LILO. But the recommended way if you have windows
98 is to use loadlin anyway. Try loadlin if you have win98.
> , already covered the partitioning problems, didn't really
> know what to do about soundcard (wasn't really concerned either), ended
> up not being able to boot my win98 partition anymore, had to boot with a
> dos disk and use the boot magic command line util to pick the partition
> to boot, could only boot linux with the floppy disk,
This is really a problem with installation of multiple os. No problem, though,
if you have partition magic which includes IBM's bootmanager.
> was confused about
> various settings for the network setup ... I have a proxy server on another
> machine in my home network and share a 1.5 mbps cable modem for
> internet connectivity, not really sure what services I need and or want.
Wow. Pretty cool for a home network! Proxy server setup is straightforward.
Use Yast to administer the network settings. Never done this myself but I think
its pretty easy; you may need to recompile the kernel to permit IP forwarding??
(someone else maybe can answer this).
>
> I'm also kind of confused about how many partitions and of what I should
> create for a "good" installation.
SuSE's manual covers this pretty nicely. I like a 700meg partition mounted to
/opt, 300meg for /home (maybe more if you have multiple users), and 3gig for /
(root partition). I also use a single swap partition of 96MB on a different
hard drive (to speed access).
> I'm one of those guy's who agonizes over the details.
that's good.
> I don't think I have unusual hardware, but I wasn't really thinking linux
> when I put the machine together. I built a box with premium parts
> intended for the windows world and hoped I could get Linux installed
> on it as well.
By unusual I really meant cutting edge technology (USB keyboard and mouse,
Banshee, home network with shared ISDN, etc.)
> Don't worry I won't give, I'm nothing if not persistent!
excellent. wb if you need more help.
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