Guest accorn Posted January 9, 2007 Report Share Posted January 9, 2007 Hi, I'm seriosly considering if I have what it takes to run linux as a desktop :).. so depending on how things go will either become a mandriva club member and go to linux full time, or will be upgrading to vista if I decide i'm too much a noob :) I installed mozilla free 2007 with gnome, and have these questions: (1) How do I see what the refresh rate of my monitor is, and change it? I don't see any way to change it from the "Mandriva linux control center" (can just configure my monitor type and change the resolution). (2) I have an ASUS A9550 GE 256 MB video card, but when I look at "look at and configure hardware" the system is seeing the card as "Radeon 9600 AS (AGP)". I was just wondering if this is right, or is there a way for me to make it see this card correctly? (Just want to be able to take advantage of everything the card has.) (3) I am trying to install "Nano" shell text editor so I can easily change some text files in shell. I found a nano rpm on the web and installed it with "RPM -i". It seemed to install ok, but now when I run "nano" it reports: nano: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory How would I fix this? Thanks for you help! Oh forgot to mention I am running the 64bit version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted January 9, 2007 Report Share Posted January 9, 2007 Welcome to the board :) (1) How do I see what the refresh rate of my monitor is, and change it? I don't see any way to change it from the "Mandriva linux control center" (can just configure my monitor type and change the resolution).GNOME has it's own tool for configuring this. It should be under System -> Settings, IIRC. Look for "Screen Resolution" - although, if you are using an LCD and not a CRT, this number doesn't make any difference anyways ;) (2) I have an ASUS A9550 GE 256 MB video card, but when I look at "look at and configure hardware" the system is seeing the card as "Radeon 9600 AS (AGP)". I was just wondering if this is right, or is there a way for me to make it see this card correctly? (Just want to be able to take advantage of everything the card has.)It's close, you have a Radeon 9550 and not the 9600. If you want to take full advantage of your video card, got to ATI's site then download and install their Linux drivers. You could also use the easy-urpmi link at the top of the page to add more package repositories - one of which (PLF non-free) has the ATI drivers precompiled as an RPM that you can install through Mandriva Control Center, in the Software -> Install Software section. (3) I am trying to install "Nano" shell text editor so I can easily change some text files in shell. I found a nano rpm on the web and installed it with "RPM -i". It seemed to install ok, but now when I run "nano" it reports:nano: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Don't use the RPM command, as it doesn't solve dependencies for you. Use the urpmi command, or go through Mandriva Control Center -> Software -> Install Software as I suggested before. This will both solve dependencies and give you a list of programs that are packaged specifically to run on Mandriva (again, the easy-urpmi link will give you more packages than the default system has). Note that you have to be on the internet to install packages from these repositories. That is, once you add some repositories, you should able to just:urpmi nano as root and it will install the program and anything else required. Oh forgot to mention I am running the 64bit version.Then the ATI drivers may not work for you :unsure: - most people here would tell you that you're better off running 32-bit, as currently there's no real advantage to 64-bit, and it's not exactly stable/standard yet (read: some programs may not work, at all). BTW - I've tried Vista (Ultimate Edition), it's really not all that easy, and it's actually extremely annoying (keeps asking if it's OK if this program runs or that program gets installed...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest accorn Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Thanks tyme! I was able to get Nano installed due to your help. I searched from drivers for the 9550 video card drivers on the ATI site, and downloaded the drivers supplied. I installed the drivers successfully I think (followed steps to create mandriva RPMs and then installed the RPMs successfully), but the 9550 entry did not appear on the xwindows config after doing so. Any idea why that is.. do you think it's an issue with the 64bit linux? (when downloading the drivers it asked me to choose between 32 and 64 bit versions, so I thought it should have worked). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 The entry doesn't normally appear. You're normally supposed to have something like ATI Radeon (fglrx) or something along those lines to choose from to get your card working. Sometimes, you even have to go to the command prompt and: su (enter root password when prompted) aticonfig /etc/X11/xorg.conf or something along those lines to get you using the new ATI driver that you just installed. I don't use ATI, but this is how I believe it's done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmanuel_uk Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 How do I see what the refresh rate of my monitor if just about seeing it you can also use command line less /var/log/Xorg.0.log q to quit pgup/down to move Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest accorn Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Thanks emmanuel_uk that's handy to know :). ianw1974 - ATI Radeon (fglrx) is actually what was installed with the original mandriva install, and it still is selected at the moment, but the system is identifying it as the 9600 even though my card is 9550. I'm wondering if that was what ATI intended, or do you think they would have created a separate entry? I will try the command line code you gave and see if that does anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 accorn: One of the fuindamental things is learning how each distro handles packages... As tyme has said Mandriva uses URPMI... its very good at this BUT t needs configuring :D (Its a mystery to us here why Mandriva doesn't make this more obvious, its really one of Mandriva's best features) With the exception of the ATI drivers (and perhaps including them) its far better as a n00b to ONLY use urpmi... Linux is fundamentally DIFFERENT to Windows XXX .. not harder but DIFFERENT... so what is simple in Windows (downloading a self installing executable) can be much harder in Linux... but that is really because you don't *need* to. In the same way you have thousands of packages ready to be installed.... much easier than Windows in the repositories... you just have to make a mental switch to the different way to do things... I have written a list before ... I'll repeat it, its the order for n00bs to install new software... 1/ Easy URPMI 2/ Mandriva specific RPM ...not in 'normal' repos) 3/ Other RPM (non specific/FC/Suse) in that order 4/ Binary extracting files (ATI driver, OOffice, Firefox etc.) 5) Source and compile.... Note non of these are rocket science.. hey just involve knowing more before you start.... Loosing Windows experience can be hard! In some ways you feel you are loosing everything you learned... RELAX :D as your knowledge increases it all fits together again ... I would honestly recommend 32 bit for now... especially plug-ins etc. for media and flash etc. are much more straight forwards... and get used to linux in the best environment before making life harder .... Sometime in the future you will probably want to reinstall or even change distro ... its all OK :D We are here to hold your hand through these initial phases... just as those before us held ours... and we hope you will be here in a years time helping others make the same transition.... In Japan its rude to blow your nose... you sniff... in the West its the other way round... in Arabic ountries you eat with your right hand... in the west we use knives and forks... If you spend a lot of time in these coutries sniffing or eating with your hands becomes second nature ...but you doin't forget how to use a hanky or knife and fork... Linux/Windows is like this... The customs and practice changes ...and it takes a while to adjust BUT you will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmanuel_uk Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Linux is not windows http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm mandriva doc on their website pdf/html FAQs here, and google for linux newbie admin guide rute linux exposition will help your learning curve You can do lots with GUI, but if you have time, command line is great but the system is identifying it as the 9600 even though my card is 9550 possibly not a problem Latest ATI driver do not support the 9xxx series AFAIK, please check Just use the open source driver (already integrated to distro) urpmi, you must read doc or faq here on board somewhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjaglin Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Hi, I am a newish as well, been on Mandriva for about 2 years now, a link i found very helpful is : http://easylinux.info/wiki/Mandriva very simple Howtos for simple people like me! Stef ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 (edited) Thanks emmanuel_uk that's handy to know :).ianw1974 - ATI Radeon (fglrx) is actually what was installed with the original mandriva install, and it still is selected at the moment, but the system is identifying it as the 9600 even though my card is 9550. I'm wondering if that was what ATI intended, or do you think they would have created a separate entry? I will try the command line code you gave and see if that does anything. It's just cosmetics, they all use the same driver. Now iirc, the 9550 is actually an underclocked and with some features disabled in firmware 9800, not to sure though might be mixing up numbers, it might have been the 9700. I don't have an ATI card anymore, used to have a 9600, but when I had I remember being disappointed that a card with a lower number could be overclocked und firmware upgraded far more then my card.... Welcome btw to MUB. Edited January 10, 2007 by ffi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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