Re: OT: Windows is too expensive
 

Ubuntu has all you need to compile seamonkey in the build-essential meta package though there isn't packages for seamonkey itself yet (you have to grab the source from mozilla.org for now). Its going to be hard to find a distribution that won't let you build and use a custom kernel though I'm not sure why you want to. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: Windows is too expensive
 

I am presuming that the kernel in nearly all distributions is also compiled for vanilla 'Pentium' rather than using any exotic instruction that risk compatibility. Many Linux installations are on very old hardware that doesn't have any other uses. I'd like to actually use the fancy capabilities of my hardware. The MMX instructions are now something close to 15 years old. Even SSE is about a decade old now. (And then there is SSE2 and SSE3, but I don't have any processors that handle those... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif ) Also, there might be some services included in the kernel by default that I don't need and don't want for security reasons. It's been a few years but I did tinker with Linux a bit back in the 1.x kernel days. Then, you had to recompile to change quite a few options. Maybe that has been fixed? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Windows is too expensive
 

For the most part yes the default kernel for a distribution is generic usually coming in 386, 686, k7, 64bit and what have you. I have never seen much improvement in making hardware specific kernels or software in general though many people still do it. If you think compiling for days just to get mild performance increases is what you want to do there are many distributions made around that ideology. I would suggest Gentoo.

One thing is for sure, configuring the kernel is a butt load easier then what you remember. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Here is a quick run through: Gentoo Handbook

Re: OT: Windows is too expensive
 

Days!? When I had Linux 1.x running on a 40 Mhz 386 it only took an hour and a half or so to recompile the kernel. Has it grown that much that it now needs days to recompile on modern hardware? Or has the optimization performed by the compiler become that arcane and complex?

Anyway, the kernel and the windowing system (when in use) underly all other programs running on the machine. I would expect any improved use of hardware features to have a noticeable effect on system performance.

Re: OT: Windows is too expensive
 

No, compiling the kernel itself is quite fast. But a stage 1 Gentoo install does often take days. Luckily it looks like the handbook is pushing a stage 3 these days.

Re: OT: Windows is too expensive
 

OK, every day I'm getting closer to actually swapping drives & starting to install things. But I am trying to get everything in order. Since I don't have broadband, I need to know "How do you setup a modem in Linux?" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Windows is too expensive
 

This help? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DialupModemHowto

Re: Moved to new HD
 

Well, here I am getting used to Windows XP -- only 6 years after everyone else! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I finally got tired of 'preparing' and just made the switch last night. Any 'personal computer' is a moving target of course. You can never have everything just right. But thanks to all the preparation I am getting programs and data moved over very quickly. But it did keep me up into the wee hours.

In a few more days I expect to finally install Linux on the reserved partition.

Re: Moved to new HD
 

I used Win 98se up to 2002 then I got Win XP pro, I haven't when back [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/MusicalNote.gif[/img]

Re: XP questions
 

Since I am trying to get XP settled before going on to Linux I'll ask some Windows questions here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

1) Does it do any 'good' to have IE 7 installed -- other than the obvious benefits of (supposedly) better security while browsing? I don't use IE but since it is so highly integrated into the main OS I am wondering if it gives some security benefits in other respects.

2) Exactly what is .NET good for? My copy of Win Xp Home came with .NET 1.1 and I am guessing it was installed by default (How do you tell what version of .NET is installed?) but I don't know what it means for how I use my computer.

3) Why do my XP video drivers offer fewer display modes than the Win98 drivers for the exact same video card?

4) Why is Win98 able to recognize and use an external modem turned on after it boots but XP cannot? I literally had to reboot just to be able to dial out. Deh!

Re: XP questions
 

IE7 is a more secure platform than IE6. You can just block iexplore.exe from accessing the net with a software firewall if you want. That way, it won't actually be vulnerable to much.

.NET is good for the same things any language runtime is good for, running applications written for it. As Microsoft continues to push it as the default application environment in Vista going forward, it will become a more ubiquitous platform, akin to Java.

If you are lamenting the lack of 640x480, XP does not support that resolution for the desktop (which is for the best). Anything else would be the fault of the video driver writers, not XP. XP is capable of supporting a greater range of resolution than 98. As with any OS, it lists what the drivers tell it to. There are third party tools available that will let you specify nearly any arbitrary resolution, provided your video card and monitor are capable of rendering and displaying them. I don't recall their names off-hand, but surely google can unearth them.

How is the external modem connected? If its USB, I would suspect poor driver support and/or a faulty device. USB specifies hot plug swap-ability. If its connected to a MIDI port or something, I have no idea. Does it do it every time you try to run it, or was it only after the first use?

Re: XP questions
 

IE 7 is pretty nice. It uses security model which is improved over IE 6. It has tabbed browsing and an Anti-phishing filter However IE7 is still the biggest target out of the browsers since it is used a lot.

Re: XP questions
 

Ugh! I can't stand anything smaller than 1024X768 anymore. No, what I am missing is 1280X960. They have 1280X1024 (not the long standard aspect ratio of nearly all computer monitors) but not 1280X960??? Weird.

The external modem is on a serial port. It's a plain old USR Sportster. And unless it is ON when XP boots so it can detect it, I don't have the ability to use it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Also, one other nit I noticed. Why isn't there a 'most recently used documents' feature on the XP start menu? Was that too good an idea to carry over? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: XP questions
 

Under Start Menu properties click on customize and you can choose which items you want in the start list, such as recent documents etc. I also switch to classic view because I like the traditional windows UI a bit more than the XP one.

Re: XP questions
 

Baron Munchausen said:
"No, what I am missing is 1280X960. They have 1280X1024 (not the long standard aspect ratio of nearly all computer monitors) but not 1280X960??? Weird."

That would be a driver issue. XP has no qualms about displaying 1280x960 if the drivers say it is supported. But if the drivers don't tell it that they can support a resolution, XP will hide it. Try going under the Advanced display properties and clicking on List All Modes. Does it list 1280x960 modes? If not, hunt down a resolution tweaking tool and force it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: XP questions
 

I highly recommend switching to classic view as well; the default XP UI is way too flashy and colorful, with not nearly enough function to back it up.

Re: XP questions
 

Hi Baron.
To determine your .net version, check out the %systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework directory. This will contain all installed versions.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318785

Re: XP questions
 

Ah... I keep forgetting that every single component or peripheral might need a manufacturer supplied driver. This despite the several thousand drivers included in Windows XP. Install driver for my monitor, then remove and re-install video card driver. Now it is properly recognized and I have zillions of video modes available again. Phew... What a pain in the arse it is to setup a computer.

Re: XP questions
 

OK, with all the difficulties of setting up a new OS I am afraid to do the XP computer first. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So I am planning to install Linux on a secondary system I have to learn how it goes. Questions:

1) If you want to run WINE is it required to have at least one partition with a Windows compatible file system on the machine or does WINE 'mask' the actual file system from Windows programs that you run?

2) This is an old system -- k6-2 -- what programs are 'lighter' on the CPU and would run better. XFce is supposed to be a light and fast windowing environment, for example. Does it lack a lot of functionality?

Re: XP questions
 

Xfce lacks no functionality per se; what it lacks is resource-heavy apps and widgets shoehorned into KDE/Gnome. Another lightweight option is IceWM, which resembles Windows 95's look.

Re: XP questions
 

1. Not only does WINE not need a windows partition I wouldn't recommend using one. Make sure WINE runs the applications you want though.

2. Yeah, Xfce4 will work fine. IceWM is a OK if old window manager but isn't a full desktop environment.

Re: Linux progress(?)
 

What a day... it took a good five hours for SUSE 10.2 to install on the spare box. I sure hope that's because it's an older system (socket 7 MB with a K6-2) and doesn't indicate how long it will take on my main system. And even when I got it installed I had to putter around to figure out why it couldn't recognize the modem (forgot to disable the integrated com ports when putting the card in the machine) and then had to install kinternet manually because it wasn't installed initially.

In other news, there is apparently a bug in this kernel that prevents dialup from working. Connects fine, but then when I start to download something it always disconnects. I've Googled the log messages, and it seems there is a kernel bug that makes it barf on PPP compression. I need to figure out how to disable 'deflate' compression in the ppp daemon. Until I can figure out how and where to set the 'nodeflate' command for the ppp daemon, the box can't connect and get the updated kernel.

P.S. "APT" is not present in the SUSE 10.2 install. Guess I'll have to get it from the repository when I figure out the connection bug.

Re: Linux progress(?)
 

Well, at least I found where to set the 'nodeflate' option and now my SUSE box can connect to the ISP and actually do something. Weirdly, there are no patches available even though 10.2 is more than six months old. Haven't there been quite a few iterations of the kernel by now?

APT is not available. XFce is not available. Both will have to be acquired from a 'third party' I guess. I expected to have to download Seamonkey directly. It's not 'official' anymore, but if XFce is not part of the SUSE package system, it might be a bit of a problem to maintain properly in the long run. ICEwm is there, however.

If I wanted to switch to ICEwm, how would I do that?

Also, if I wanted to try to shrink KDE a bit, where is there a guide to various things that can be disabled to make KDE less of a resource hog? I've reduced the fancy widgets in desktop settings, but there are probably a lot of other options that I won't figure out for some time. A guide to pruning/slimming KDE would be very useful.

Re: Linux progress(?)
 

You'd install IceWM, and it should appear as a choice in KDM at login automatically (via proper configuration changes made by the package installer).

Re: Linux progress(?)
 

Well, I had set 'automatic login' during setup so I didn't know it was possible to choose session type at login. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Anyway, after turning off automatic login I tried ICEwm and found it rather pathetic. A klunky interface was not what I wanted. (Maybe there is a way to configure it better?) A less burdensome window manager was what I wanted. What I'd like to do is reduce the system load of KDE. FVWM seems to be the main cause of KDE bloat. Is it possible to make KDE use a different window manager like ICEwm or WindowMaker? Or would these not support the functions that FVWM does?

Weirdly, though, many programs which were not listed in the KDE menus are listed in the ICEwm menus. Now why would a program be installed and not listed in the menus?

Also, how do I go about installing a manufacturer's video driver? The default driver for my Matrox video card doesn't support 3D functions. I have the Matrox driver(s) in a .tar archive but don't know how I'd install them.

And one other annoyance, my CD drive is constantly blinking! I remember this from Windows. There is some sort of autodetect that checks for a disk every few seconds. I was able to turn it off in Windows but haven't figured out how to turn it off in SUSE Linux yet. There must be a setting somewhere, just like in Windows?

Also, I found that I cannot uninstall Firefox despite it's being a supposed 'third party' application. When I try I get a bunch of dependency warning about X11 -- So apparently I'd damage or disable X11 by removing it. This smacks of Microsoft tactics. Why would they put something essential to the windowing system into an application library?

Re: Linux progress(?)
 

Less burdensome? Try openbox. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

KDE and Gnome are not window managers themselves; they contain a window manager (metacity for Gnome, and I forget what KDE uses). You can replace it, but I forget how. Google knows. Openbox might be a nice solution to try.

"Weirdly, though, many programs which were not listed in the KDE menus are listed in the ICEwm menus. Now why would a program be installed and not listed in the menus?"

Because it isn't Windows or Mac OS X, and each DE and WM has its own menu system. Some of them try to share some info with each other, but they all maintain separate lists.

"Also, I found that I cannot uninstall Firefox despite it's being a supposed 'third party' application. When I try I get a bunch of dependency warning about X11 -- So apparently I'd damage or disable X11 by removing it. This smacks of Microsoft tactics. Why would they put something essential to the windowing system into an application library?"

They don't, and you can successfully remove FF without damaging X11 (X11 and Gecko have nothing to do with each other, unlike IE and Explorer's window managing bits). The most likely explanation is that the package manager is erroneously detecting some X-related libraries as no longer being dependencies of anything, and thus marking them as safe for removal. Its most likely a bug/configuration error in the package manager.

Re: Linux Progress(?)
 

There is an option under Yast -> System -> System settings to set the 'default window manager' but I'm not sure if that would keep the KDE desktop on top of the new manager or just switch to a different environment... like Windowmaker.

Now there is a cool desktop. I really like the 'look and feel' and it's noticably quicker and smoother than KDE. The problem is, it doesn't have a 'taskbar' like KDE or ICEwm and I can't figure out how to manage the applets that are normally parked in the tray. Starting any app creates a 'box' on the desktop, but then what? Right-clicking doesn't bring up the menu like it does in KDE. How do you make Kinternet dialout if you can get the context menu? So I can't figure out how to activate them.

And it looks like the "beagle" desktop search utility is dependent on Firefox so I can't remove it until I find a different desktop search program. It's very useful to be able to do brute force searches for things in those zillions of directories that *ix systems use.

Re: Linux Progress(?)
 

If its within KDE's config apps, I would assume it applies to the window manager KDE uses. You can always set it back if it isn't, right?

You can do brute force searches with the "find" utility...