Dell E207WFP 20' Widescreen Flat Panel Display

Just picked up my 20' Wide Dell monitor last night. It looks absolutely stunning. I also pickup up the Radeon X700 I was waiting for, so I could play games properly (I was using the Geforce FX 5600). Installed the X700, plugged in the new flat panel, booted straight into Mandriva. As expected:

X failed to start. I was droped to a text login. Here's what I did:
Logged in as root. Ran # drakxconf, selected my new card as Radeon (fglrx). The system automatically started to download & install the ati & dkms-ati packages.
Once done, rebooted the system & I was back in X again. Again back to MCC to select my new monitor & resolution. The Dell E207WFP was not listed, so I went for the Generic Flat Panel 1680x1050. Restarted X & i was finally back in high resolution (after surviving 2 torturous weeks of 14' 800x600).

I had to give up using Beryl(it was getting distracting anyway), the ATI modules don't support the X composite extension required by Beryl and Compiz. I could use the open source Radeon module, but it lacked proper 3D performance. So I decided to use the evil propriatary closed source module from ATI.

Performance wise, the ATI card certainly beats the pants off NVIDIA. I can't easily compare the performance with something like glxgears (the NVIDIA was getting >4000 FPS, while the ATI was doing just >500) This is due to the way the evil ATI driver works. In actual game play (UT2004), the performance increase is very clear, I maxed out the graphics options, ran the game at native 1680x1050 resolution, not even the slightest hint of lagging. Awesome!

Finally Something Broke

Finally! I managed to break something. I got gatal yesterday & upgraded to Java SE 1.6. I read up somewhere that it's incredibly fast. I could use a boost to my Azureus I tot. So I went ahead & updated to 1.6 from the mcnl repo. Azureus started back up & took less than half the time to start & the overall responsiveness was much better. I tot all was well.. until I tried to surf a few sites today & discovered that Java applets won't load. I checked in FF, everything looked ok. Checked out about:plugins, looks alright, it's enabled & detected. Trying to run java in the shell worked. Tried in Konquorer, works fine. Then found out the Java control center failed to load with FF due to some odd libc++ crash. Chialat. It's broken. I tried to uninstall but it wanted to remove a bunch of other programs along with it. 'Dependents'. Refused to downgrade without first uninstalling the newer version. So I decided to screw Java applets(at least in FF), I can live without em as long as my Azureus is always this fast. :)

Next up I tried Kerry, (the KDE front end to Beagle{a type of dog that sniffs around your /home to build a metadata search index}) Worked perfectly, now I can find all my stuff in a flash.

Finally I installed Apollon, (the GUI frontend to GiFT, which connects you to Kaaza & Gnutella networks) Worked perfectly again. Just have to tweak the router to forward ports.

Perfect. till next time...

Getting SCIM, AIGLX & Beryl in Mandriva

Few days ago, I finally got a chance to stretch abit & test some bits of Mandriva that I did not have the spare equipment to do so. Many thanks to THEwe for selling me cheap a slightly gawky looking clone PC. (As I thought, I couldn't get used to the glowy blue LEDs in the transparent side cover :p)

Anyhow I'm typing this now using my new 'to me' pc, attached to a horrible looking 14' CRT monitor. While still waiting for my 20' flat panel. As you'd expect, I have it running Mandriva Free 2007.
A few days ago I got adventurous & decided to try out some things I've not tested before & also try some stuff in the backports repositories. (just to see what I could break)

But to my suprise, I didn't manage to break anything.. yet.
1. I installed SCIM & SKIM. to get Chinese input support. The installation went well, but I couldn't figure out what to do afterwards. I couldn't find a whole lot of help either. Some fonts were showing up as little square boxes. I figured out later that I needed to install locale-zh & font-ttf-chinese. After that, It all seemed to only work in GNOME apps & not in KDE. I later figured out that I needed to change my input method by running 'draklocale'. Finally it all worked & suprisingly well.

2. Next up I upgraded to the latest 9xxx series NVIDIA modules. I decided to play it safe & used the updated ones in plf. (Added the repositories plf-free_updates & plf-nonfree_updates) Did it, restarted & I could now use AIGLX instead of XGL for compiz, no hacks, just using drak3d.

3. Finally I got really excited & decided to go for Beryl. I added the main_backports & contrib_backports repositories. Searched for beryl, install beryl-core, beryl-manager & emerald. Disabled 3D Desktop in MCC, restarted X & ran 'beryl-manager'. It just worked immediately.. & it looked absolutely stunning. to make beryl start everytime, do '$ cd ~/.kde/Autostart' then '$ ln -s /usr/bin/beryl-manager beryl-start'. That's it.

I've been using the system like this for a few days & so far it has survived every situation I threw at it. Someone told me that Beryl is highly experimental & incredibly buggy & unstable. Well not in my experience. I found that Beryl IS ACTUALLY STABLE & fully usable for the everyday desktop. I won't bother posting any video of Beryl on my desktop, there are already tons of these on YouTube. Go have a look if you don't know what I'm talking about.

1 last thing. I forget to mention flash-player in my previous post about setting up a Mandriva box. Well, if you haven't figured it out: Goto 'http://sdc.shockwave.com/go/gntray_dl_getflashplayer' download the RPM version. install with '# urpmi flash-plugin*.rpm'

Till next time..

A typical desktop setup using Mandriva Linux Free 2007

I'm going to detail here the typical configuration I go through to setup a Mandriva desktop box.

1. Install Mandriva Free 2007 (Obviously, It's so easy, I don't have to explain it)
2. Remove Installation Media Source. '# urpmi.removemedia Installation Free CD'
3. Run over to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/
4. Enable sources main, contrib, main_updates, contrib_updates, plf-free & plf-nonfree. (I'd advise against the 'backports' sources, they are fairly unstable)
I'd usually select the France Paris FTP servers as they tend to be faster. If you don't wanna wait too long, check on the "Use compressed index" checkbox to get minimal information headers, however if you are new to Mandriva, I'd suggest getting the full header since it comes with nice long descriptions for each package. 'proceed to Step 3' will generate a list of urpmi commands for you to enter in a console as root. To avoid errors, I'd suggest doing it one-by-one in this order: main, contrib, main_updates, contrib_updates, plf-free, plf-nonfree.
Be prepared to wait for the sourcelist update. 20 minutes on my 1MB broadband. 5 minutes if you used the compressed index.
5. Once all that is done. Open up MCC (Mandriva Control Center) 'Kmenu-> System-> Configuration-> Configure Your Computer'. Click on the Update icon. It's labeled the very lenghty "Look at available updates and apply any fixes or upgrades to installed package". Say yes all the way, select all presented packages & click Install. You can do this in the console simply with '# urpmi --auto-select'.
6. Next, I'd go install the essential packages. Once again open MCC & click on the Install icon labeled "Look at installable software and install software packages". Here are the essentials:
- Kernel Source Stripped ('$ uname -r' to find out your kernel version & install the same version kernel-source-stripped package)
- Hardware Accelerated Video Drivers: nvidia, ati, 915Resolution (for Intel widescreen). Depending on which graphic card you have. Say 'OK' to the dependency question.
- Some misc necessities - nano, yakuake, thunderbird, flash-player-plugin, kaffeine, mplayer-plugins, helixplayer, win32-codec.
- If you need to be able to play Region coded DVDs & some other proprietary formats like MOV & WMV, you'll need to replace your mplayer & xine with the plf version. Search for & install xine-faad, xine-win32, mplayer???-plf & libdvdcss2. The dependency should work out all the required packages.
7. Finally, you may want to get some proprietary software installed, like J2RE(Java Runtime), Acrobat Reader, Azureus, Rar & Skype. You can get J2RE & Azureus & Rar from the MandrivaClub.nl repository. Add in the repository with the command:
'# urpmi.addmedia ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/mandrakeclub.nl/2007/i586/ with hdlist.cz'. Then look for & add these packages: j2re, azureus, rar & rargui. For Acrobat Reader & Skype follow these instructions:
Run over to www.adobe.com & select your way to download Acrobat Reader 7 (choose the .rpm version) then install it with this command:
# urpmi AdobeReader_enu-*.rpm
# kwrite /usr/share/applications/AdobeReader.desktop
* Find this line
Categories=Application;Office;Viewer;X-Red-Hat-Base;
* Replace it with this line
Categories=X-Mandrakelinux-Office-Publishing;
For Skpe:
# wget http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-mdk
# urpmi skype-1.3.0.53-1mdk.i586.rpm

Well this was a much longer post than I anticipated. Until next time...

Which Distro?

The first question every linux user asks is "Which distro do I use?". This topic usually generates much debate with everyone recommending their favorite distro.
I normally try to be distro agnostic when discussing Linux, so how do I handle this question? Well, I would first ask them "What's the Linux box gonna do for ya?"

Here are my recommendations (In order of personal preference):
Desktop - Mandriva / Ubuntu / OpenSUSE / PCLinuxOS
Server - Fedora Core / OpenSUSE
Old PC (PII, 128MB) - Zenwalk / Vectorlinux / Slackware
Very Old PC (486, 32MB) - DSL(Damn Small Linux) / DELi / Puppy

To set it straight, I have a soft spot for Mandriva (Formally known as Mandrake). For no particular reason other than I'm comfortable & very familiar with it, I've been running it since 1998 & it makes a damn good desktop in my opinion.
I've also tried out Slackware, Fedora Core, Debian, Gentoo & many derivatives like Ubuntu, SimplyMepis, Zenwalk & PCLinuxOS.
After evaluating all the choices I settled myself on Mandriva & Ubuntu for modern desktops, while Zenwalk & Vectorlinux helps me breath life into my aging PCs.

Of course everything above is my own personal opinion. If you won't take my word for it, here's a website where you can answer some questions & it will recommend the most suitable distro for you.
Linux Distribution Chooser

Essential Linux News

These are some essential Linux news sites.
linuxtoday.com
osnews.com
tuxmachines.org
lxer.com
newsforge.com
slashdot.org

Why would Linux want you?

Here's a great article explaining why Linux is NOT Windows.
While this one explains What's really wrong with Microsoft.
The article on Linux may be very enlightening for many of you that may have tried linux but gave it up.
WARNING! If you consider yourself a knowledgable Windows users, you probably won't wanna read the 2nd article.