JonEberger

Do you use it? I'd be interested in hearing some first-hand feedback on it? I'm in the same boat as a lot of the rest of us. We own an iPod mini and it's great (probably one of the better gadgets we've ever bought). But there's no ogg support. Between two of us, we actually do fill up near the 4GB storage capacity. That is interesting! I think mp3s gained their popularity (for the average joe) when the whole download illegal music revolution was going on. 'mp3' became a household term in a really short amount of time. I would say that some of these other formats will really have to gain popularity in order to hold their ground when this happens simply because of how common 'mp3' is now as a term.

i have to say that i'll give props to any woman in a geeky profession. good for her.

i'm so uninventive. :-) desktop

Hi Everybody, I need some help. I didn't now where to post this, but since this involves a RHEL4 workstation, this forum seemed fitting. I also know that there's probably no way this can be diagnosed properly, but I'm open for any form of help in troubleshooting. I'm working on a workstation that is having some severe difficulties. This is a Dell Workstation with an Nvidia Quadro FX graphics card. The machine is running a RHEL4 deviant for this particular work environment. There are 5 other machines identical to it in every way. They are the same physically (ordered at the same time) and also concerning software (imaged using the same kickstart file/packages, etc.). Here's a rundown of the issue which I can't find and the head Linux guy at this place cannot diagnose either (albeit he's very busy). The machine and several others like it have difficulty running either the default KDE or GNOME desktops and a browser. In GNOME with Firefox and/or Mozilla at certain pages (with no particular page content...i.e., they may/may not have forms, java, flash, etc.) the user will be entirely logged out. This means that any running programs, or sessions ssh'd to another machine from that computer will be lost. This is very bad since we are a research subgroup of the large institution. For instance, a user may be browsing (cnn.com, this particular case has happened in the past) and running some code written in Fortran. Suddenly, everything may crash. Another user reports simply having the browser window opened (my.yahoo.com, I think) and running MATLAB code. Again they were logged out. This happens regardless of Firefox or Seamonkey. We've not tried Galleon. A first fix was to delete the .gconf/ and .gconfd/ directories. The individual user directories weren't deleted at the upgrade from RHEL3 to RHEL4, so we presumed it could be an issue with old GNOME/Mozilla configuration files floating around. This didn't change anything. This only served to delete personal desktop setups enangering users. :-) The .mozilla/ directory was also deleted in the thought that perhaps some cookies, etc. might be unfriendly to the GNOME desktop. Again, no avail. Under KDE, the users are not logged out. However, the browser (Firefox and Seamonkey) might crash or become unusable for minutes. Konqueror was tried, but used for a small time due to lack of interest. Plus Firefox/Seamonkey should be usable for anyone at this point. Kernel updates and patches were made. New Nvidia drivers have been installed. Yet the problem persists. For those of us using non-supported desktops (i.e., Fluxbox) or even different machines (x86_64) the problem doesn't exist. Just for these users. My next step is to dumb down the driver to "nv" instead of 'nvidia'. I also plan to check for physical damage on the graphics card. It seems like this could be something in the kickstart file which implies that we would need to redo all of these machines with the modified kickstart profile Any help would be superbly appreciated. Jon

i like western digitial. but by and far most people have good experiences with their hard disks. i'm not a fan of maxtors (on the whole) because they get loud...like a bearing problem.....later on in life.

the scary part of all this is that we've seen many threads where kat was the downfall of the performance of so many of our machines. ahmad, your machine is as good a computer (you have the faster cpu and i have more ram) as mine and my computer outperforms itself while i'm in linux (with kde 3.5) as compared to in windows xp. i second ian's question. what partitions did you create? further i also recommend doing what ian suggests with the easy-urpmi. updates can make a world of difference in your compy.

i also enjoy http://www.htmldog.com and http://www.csszengarden.com/.

so for me....the wireless lan through ndiswrapper on boot has been problematic if it doesn't easily pull an ip. so typically i disable the network interfaces on the laptop unless i've seen from experience that they run stably. i ran fedora core 4 on a laptop and loved it. i did ndiswrapper and it worked great. plus the power management tools are there and well defined. keep us posted. ubuntu also seemed to work well...i'm just not so comfy with it.

Hi RVDowning, I'm sorry to hear how much trouble you're having. But we've all had issues with our Linux installs. Very few of us desire a setup so simple that we install with few difficulties. Further, most of us are particular enough about our setups that we want them to run a certain way after they're functional. But one thing is for certain: if you ever get a taste for the functionality and speed of Linux, then hands-off Windows will never quite be the same. It's all about control. Concerning your friend's wireless issues, tell him to use google.com/linux and just search for an ifcfg-wlan0 file. I was having the same issues and just googled the whole process and originally found an article on linuxelectrons that I liked. Concerning the USB/hardware issues: stick with what works. I know that I've not always had the greatest success with newer versions of Mandriva. If a slightly older version works better for your hardware, then stick with it. To me, a stable configuration is worth way more than the most up to date versions of software. I've ran older version of Mandriva through two or more releases until I found a newer version that was just as stable (or more so). As for Mandriva on the laptop, I think it's cool. I've never had the best success with battery management in Linux, but I know of people who use their Linux laptop for hours (esp. with Centrino chipsets). I have a laptop with no Windows on it and never intend to install it either. It works too well. Just a silly Linux pep-talk, Jon

i was in my computer science curriculum at murray state university and for my unix sys admin class we had to have a unix/linux system running with servers, etc. in a secure manner. everyone and their dog in the class was installing redhat. we tried the corel linux, but at the time were too inexperienced to understand what was going on without a gui to hold our hands. (scarey that csc guys were inexperienced ain't it?) so we loaded mandrake 7.0. i took it home and installed it shortly thereafter. good timess.

i prefer kde. gnome feels kind of toyish to me. of all window managers i prefer fluxbox and window maker. they're both really light and quick. :-) why kde? i like most of the native apps and enjoy the customization.

distributions are great things. in fact, they're part of what makes linux so usable for diferent purposes. different distributions have different goals. there are some distros centered towards newbs. some towards scientists, etc. but along with these different groups and goals come different ideas of implementation as well as different (geared towards each distro) software implementations of those goals. i know this has been stated like five times. just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

the large install will get whittled down with time. as you learn what you use and what you don't, you'll get better at not installing those things. heck, i do a basic install (making sure i get urpmi), use easyurpmi, and then get everything very frequently. i get exactly what i need. unless you're hurting for space, i wouldn't worry about the size of your install. in my experience, i rarely use much more software than what i install when i install linux. but if that's still a concern, remove your software with mcc or urpm_ (i can't remember the letter that goes there...).

gimp (esp. with layers) is priceless for web design. the truth is that for logos and such there are even scripts to make really pro looking logos. if you can get past the difficulty. i'm a fan of quanta, but i admit i still prefer the emacs because if i know what i'm writing the speed the keyboard commands give me is priceless.

me too. but i was completely clueless. my first love was mandrake 8.0 though. it seemed so smooth and refined. i loved it. but i only had a modem and not the knowledge to do much with it.

hi andy, i run a wg 111 (i think). i always use the drives from the netgear page (latest downloads if possible). ndiswrapper has ALWAYS been a little flakey for me. here's what i have to do....unfortunately. 1. i do a modprobe -r ndiswrapper (or /sbin/modprobe...) 2. sometimes i physically remove the device. 3. then i either modprobe ndiswrapper or let the os auto-load the module when it detects the nic. if you're looking for solid stability in linux with wireless i suggest shopping around for a nic whose manufacturer distributes well-tested drivers (modules) for that nic. for instance: intel pro wireless 2100/2200. good luck with it all. if anyone has a solution, let me know.

I agree with John. 2005 was more stable for me. Long uptimes were not uncommon. But I don't know that the differences in those three distros (10.1, 2005 or 2006) would make or break the performance on that machine. It is a hobby machine and consequently not the beefiest box. We all have one. Ilia, while unnecessary services might be an issue, you say you've disabled them. There are alot of unnecessary ones. Good job on that. For me the issue is the wm. I'm a KDE fan too, but sometimes I've had to concede. My work machine is a p4 with 256 MB RAM. Great workstation. But, I had to choose a different (non-KDE) window manager in order for the machine to be reasoanbly usable. This was simply from a standpoint that KDE uses too much RAM. I chose windowmaker. Why? It's pretty quick. It's pretty and it's really customizable. If I had the time, I'd be running Fluxbox. Uber-light. Super-duper customizable. It even allows the use of KDE-APPS in a docked fashion. It cuts down my running processes from about 100 (still way too many even in KDE) to about 60. Serious difference in performance. While Linux is remarkably fast, the window managers really do make a difference. I hope this helps sway your decision to a lighter wm (perhaps other than XFce).

i've never ever ever never used an av program in linux. between hardware and software firewalling, i have difficulty accepting that i'm going to get anything that will affect me in linux.

werd. plus it uses the ms c++ compiler, so there are some differences between g++ and vc++. compilation of the same code under ms on vc++ (visual c++) may work, but under g++ it may not. i'm not talking about anything big, but just standard code. i think ms vc++ is more forgiving, but not necessarily more correct. i'm a gcc fan and consequently g++. there are lots of gui's under linux for these purposes. if you're looking for a lot of help there are editors including some of the kdevelop stuff. but almost every editor (seriously) in linux provides syntax highlighting which is priceless.

hi. just out of curiosity...perhaps i missed this. do you have an ifcfg-wlan0 file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts? it should contain entries like ONBOOT=yes ESSID=(your school's name) CHANNEL=(xx) (normally numbered 1-11) DEVICE=wlan0 TYPE=wireless BOOTPROTO=dhcp and potentially some other stuff. i've got a broadcom wireless nic working on my wife's dell through ndiswrapper. i'm a student at ncsu and the wireless connection requires dhcp (no channel specification) and then you get browsed to a website to log onto using my id and password. maybe your school has an it dept. that is willing to tell you what you need to use their wireless network, too.

adding to the psu argument. about 4 years ago, a friend of the family had an compact form-factor desktop. you know the kinds....the only things not usb are the on-board graphics, sounds, and modem chips. well power ran in on it (rural western kentucky,usa) and fried the modem (no surge protection). it was onboard and the machine was not under warranty so it couldn't be replaced for free. i wouldn't modify the case or the modem to make it fit and so they bought a new dell and gave me the gateway. long story less long, it ended up in my office on campus as a not bad desktop under mandrake 9.0. it kept freezing/rebooting. turns out an intel celeron 700 with 128 MB RAM, 20 GB drive had a 90 watt power supply. i ended up pulling an old atx power supply off a packard bell just to power the hdd/cdrom. i turned it on manually and then booted the machine. i may have told this story here before, but i thought it applied.

use the vesa driver. it should work fine in your disabling if you plan to boot to x. i don't know if you'll really HAVE to swap if you're command-line saavy.

<-----it's me. i cut it out of a picture from a cross-country trip i took in a 26-foot penske with an 18-ft trailer behind it carrying a ford tractor. we drove from just outside nashville, tn to south of temple, tx. there are some gimp'd coffee stains on it (supposedly). but i'm no graphics wizard, so i just crop and script-fu my pictures.

moving between the rpm-based distros is a wonderful thing. it's like (almost) instant experience. or at least the ones i've tinkered with.

i'm so happy that matlab has a unix/linux version. if there wasn't such a version, there would be octave or scilab. both good in their own ways.