GNOME panel problems [solved]

[praveenmarkandu]

evrything looks fine in KDE :) but things are terrible in Gnome. i cant seem to get a panel so therefore i cant configure how gnome looks or look at the time or even log out. i dont think i did anything to Gnome at all. i wanted to try it cause its supposed to be a simplified desktop (kinda). my icons are still on the desktop though. so i can lauch firefox and what not without using the terminal.

 

please help. TIA

 

edit: oh. and for some reason graphics arent as smooth as windows XP. for example on my blog (in my signature) when i click on a thumbnail the javascript photos should run smoothly but in mandriva its choppy and slow.

[ffi]

did you install the package gnome-panel? i don't think it´ s automatically selected when you install gnome-desktop for some reason....

[bvc]

That's crazy, since you don't have a desktop without a panel....

run;

gnome-panel

from a terminal, if the command is not found then;

urpmi gnome-panel

[praveenmarkandu]

main question solved. thank you. wouldnt install it at first until i did urpmi --clean :) learn something new everyday

 

what about my slow graphics?

[ianw1974]

Hmmm, what drivers are you using for your video card? The ones with Mandriva or ones downloaded from ATI?

 

Also, check:

 

glxinfo | grep direct

 

to see if direct rendering is enabled, and also try:

 

glxgears

 

to get a rough idea of your FPS (frames per second) for opengl stuff to see if your card is behaving correctly.

[praveenmarkandu]

[root@localhost ~]# glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: No
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
[root@localhost ~]# glxgears

698 frames in 5.0 seconds = 139.597 FPS
679 frames in 5.0 seconds = 135.444 FPS
686 frames in 5.0 seconds = 137.099 FPS
668 frames in 5.0 seconds = 133.476 FPS
686 frames in 5.0 seconds = 137.045 FPS
674 frames in 5.0 seconds = 134.800 FPS
Broken pipe
[root@localhost ~]#

 

i get this. i guess direct rendering it my problem. i got my drivers by using urpmi dkms ati but im now searching for the rpm driver direct from ATIs website

[ianw1974]

dkms-ati should normally do the trick, but do you have your kernel-source installed? Press ESC at bootup and see if it's loading into the kernel OK.

[praveenmarkandu]

it says it failed to load DKMS to the kernel

[ianw1974]

Do you have kernel source installed? Do these commands for me and post the output:

 

uname -a
rpm -qa | grep kernel

 

first will give me your running kernel version, and the second will tell me what you have installed with kernel in the name.

[praveenmarkandu]

[root@localhost ~]# uname -a
Linux localhost 2.6.12-12mdk #1 Fri Sep 9 18:15:22 CEST 2005 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.73GHz unknown GNU/Linux

[root@localhost ~]# rpm -qa | grep kernel
kernel-source-2.6-2.6.12-22mdk
kernel-2.6.12.12mdk-1-1mdk

[ianw1974]

OK, this is why. Your kernel-source is newer, and this is why it doesn't work. Do this and reboot:

 

urpmi kernel-2.6.12.22mdk

 

and when finished, reboot, and then rerun uname command to see that you are using the 22 kernel and then you should also find that if you pressed ESC during boot, that the module got installed into the kernel.

[praveenmarkandu]

thanks ianw1974 .....this deserves a [solved]