my1 and only problem w/ redhat/gnome

[Siplus]

after using linux for about 6 weeks now, and i'll never go back to windows!! just a few days ago, i went in to play a game, and it locked up after doing nothing, so i was going to open up a console and type 'killall -9 [whatever the game was]', untill i realized that i didn't have the console (i guess that means i'm converted...)

anyway, i only have a few problems w/ linux, but most are b/c i don't have the knowledge i need. the one problem i can't stand is that while i'm in GNOME, sometimes the dialog boxes and/or windows will just be grey when i switch between virtual desktops, and they stay that way for sometimes a few minutes. this is not cool. does anyone know why these windows are not displaying the information for (what seems like) long periods of time? i don't think i've seen this happen in windows *cringe...evil thought, AHH*

[Master of Reality]

use KDE. (i dont know the answer, but i havent had this in KDE or Enlightenment)

[choasforages]

lag in the gui toolkit. its a design issue/*threads are you friends*/

[voidmain]

Hmmm, I haven't seen that behavior. Maybe it's because I am not running the stock kernel and am using the nVidia accelerated video drivers and have lotsa RAM and a fast processor. I know with the stock kernel I did have strange problems when using VMware but upgrading the kernel and not using the Red Hat patches fixed that. And I didn't know you could switch between virtual desktops on Windows (without adding 3rd party software that is).

[ December 08, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Siplus]

well, it also screws up when i goto another app in linux like cliking on something else in the taskbar or minimizing something...

but anyway, i am not use the stock kernal, have a AMD 1.1, and 384mb ram, i just didn't dl the nvidia drivers cause i don't know how to compile them. i looked at the instructions b4 i had linux, but none of it made sence and haven't looked at it since

[voidmain]

If you have an nVidia card I would *highly* recommend installing those drivers. It makes a huge difference. The nVidia code included with stock XFree sucks because nVidea is fairly tight lipped when it comes to giving out details on their cards.

You basically download two RPMs and install them and make one simple little change to your /etc/X11/XF86Config. Once you do it you'll be pissed at yourself for not having done it sooner. What model is your card, I can check and make sure it's supported by the driver. Also is your AMD chip an Athlon? And you say you are not running the stock kernel. What kernel are you running then?

[ December 08, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Siplus]

ok, i'm not at my house right now, i'm in my programming class, so i'll check and edit this post when i get back:

Athlon 1.1ghz i think
Nvidia Geforce 4 ti 4100, 128 mb ram, AGP
384 mb of system ram

kernal=2.4.18-18.8.0  (checked and this is the one i'm running)

edit:
thanks for the help void main. if you need any more info, just ask. also: when i was at the nvidia site last time, i didn't see any rpms, where would i find the driver rpms?

[ December 09, 2002: Message edited by: Siplus ]

[Ice-9]

If you use Red Hat 8.0 you won't find any pre-made rpm's, you'll have to download src.rpm's and build them yourself.

It's not difficult at all, even I could do it.
Go here http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1890&page=2
and follow the instructions, you'll be set in about 5 minutes.

Edit: typos

[ December 09, 2002: Message edited by: Ice9 ]

[voidmain]

It's even easier than that article shows. Instead of doing the "rpm -i xxx.rpm", changing directories and doing the "rpmbuild -bb xxx.spec" you can do it with one caommand "rpmbuild --rebuild xxx.rpm" which will unpack and build the binary RPM automatically. Then just install the resulting NV* binaries (from /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386 directory). But of course you still have to make the minor change to the XF86Config file.

[Siplus]

i went to the site ice9 gave a link to, dl the 2 files, and tried it uptill this happened:

 

quote: NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123.src.rpm (at top of page)
NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123.src.rpm (at bottom of page)

Save these files to your machine. Now, open up a terminal (konsole, gnome-terminal) and become root (also called superuser). Change to the directory containing the packages and install them with:

cd /path/to/packages

rpm -i NVIDIA* (or rpm -ivh NVIDIA* for verbose output and to print hash marks

• indicating installation progress)

but when i did it, i got this

Code: [Select]

any thoughts?

[voidmain]

Looks like your src.rpm file did not transfer correctly. Try downloading it again. And instead of using the wildcard (*) in your rpm command try each file individually by typing:

# rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123.src.rpm
# rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123.src.rpm

which should create the binary RPMs in the "/usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386" directory. Once you get the binary RPMs install them by:

# rpm -Uvh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/NV*

Then just change "nv" to "nvidia" in your /etc/X11/XF86Config and when you restart X it should load with the nVidia drivers.

[Siplus]

ya, i guess if a something downloads at 666 bytes/sec, there *might* be something wrong w/ it...

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Siplus:
ya, i guess if a something downloads at 666 bytes/sec, there *might* be something wrong w/ it...

Is this over dialup or an Ethernet interface? If this is over your Ethernet interface (via Cable/DSL, etc) does it also exhibit this slow/erratic behavior to any server, even on your local network? If so, this may also be the root cause of your erratic X operation. X is highly network dependent. Especially if you don't have it configured optimally. If this is the case you should try adding your local host name at the end of the localhost line in your /etc/hosts and see if that helps solve your X problems.

For instance, if your computer name is "siplus" then your localhost line in /etc/hosts would look like this:

127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost siplus

Once you make this change you might have to restart X (although I don't believe it is necessary).

And of course if that seems to fix or help your problem you might want to figure out what is wrong with your network. Whether it's driver or hardware related...

[ December 09, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Siplus]

[ December 09, 2002: Message edited by: Siplus ]

[Siplus]

quote:Originally posted by Siplus:
nah, i have dial-up through AT&T and i once in awhile my connection goes real slow (although 666 bytes/sec is byfar the slowest i have ever seen it short of not dling at all)

but back to the driver install, you said:

# rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA_GLX-1.0-3123.src.rpm
# rpmbuild --rebuild NVIDIA_kernel-1.0-3123.src.rpm

which should create the binary RPMs in the "/usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386" directory. Once you get the binary RPMs install them by:

# rpm -Uvh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/NV*

Code: [Select]

[ December 09, 2002: Message edited by: Siplus ][/b]