Fedora-Installation
From Grokdoc
==Usability data== (This is what this site is really about)
Contents |
Graphics
I'm stuck with getting my NVidia GeForce graphics card working with Fedora Core 2. (There is information about this in fedorafaq.org - nVidia has released a new driver to fix this, so it should work now)
Sound
I am installing FC2 on an old Compaq Desktop.
Specs for the Desktop are here: Compaq Deskpro EN Series Desktop
Problem - No soundcard detected. The way it looks it that it's an embedded ESS 18xx sound card. I've tried the default install of FC 2 and got nothing. Went through the Alsa configuration and it would regularly error out. Still nothing. I know the Sound does work as I have had it working under Windows and Mandrake 9.2.
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One thing on Fedora Core 2 really threw me off. The sound card was installed correctly and automatically. I then proceed to try to install it myself because I wasn't getting any sound and had no way to determine if the sound card was already installed. The problem I found after a day of searching around: Sound was switched off! Not only that, it is switched off by default everytime I reboot the machine. It was only after a long time of reading stuff from http://www.alsa-project.org/ that I discovered I had to switch on the sound using an obscure ncurses like mixer and then I had to work out how to save the settings using some command line tools. Bleh.
Samba
I recently tried to setup Samba on Fedora Core 2. No luck. The GUI was no help because I didn't know how to use it. There were just all these buttons, options and menus that I didn't understand. What configuration GUIs need is context sensitive help.
Printing
My Canon S300 just worked out of the box. Kudos.
Obsolete Drivers
After installing Fedora Core 2, I tried to install the latest NVidia drivers. They completely trashed my machine. What Linux needs is some way for distributions to track what drivers are obsolete and no longer work. Then if I tried to install them the installer could kindly notify me that the drivers are obsolete and that I should get a later version rather than wasting time fixing a machine I just broke because I installed an obsolete driver.
Wireless
- New Issue
I installed FC2 on my computer and tried to use my LinkSys WUSB11 USB to wireless ethernet adaptor. It didn't work. I read up on all the sites and finally discovered that this was because I have a new version 2.8 of the WUSB11 which although several drivers seem to indicate that they might support I could not get working. When I was trying to get this working I had to get the source for the kernel so that I could install the driver. This seems unnecessary. There should be an easier way to install drivers. I don't want to be a programmer just to use my wireless ethernet adapter.
Since this didn't work I gave up and went to install Windows XP on my computer. This didn't work anymore! After thinking that it was a problem with my computer, I later discovered that FC2 screws up your harddrive partitions so that windows can't be installed. Even repartitioning and reformatting the drive does not fix it. This is not very user friendly. I eventually found out a procedure to fix it from inside linux, but again, can you imagine how the linux users would scream if windows prevented you from installing linux?
==Data and technical solutions== (To be eventually moved elsewhere)
Graphics
I'm stuck with getting my NVidia GeForce graphics card working with Fedora Core 2. (Just to reiterate, there is information about this in fedorafaq.org - nVidia has released a new driver to fix this, so it should work now with no kernel tweaking at all, following the instructions in the FAQ seem to work just fine with Fedora Core 2 now)
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You should actually provide an error message or a description of what doesn't work. Saying "my car won't drive" is about the least helpful thing for you to say. You shouldn't be making your potential helpers guess as to what you've done or haven't done or see or don't see.
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'should' or 'should not' is irrelevant... the guy has a problem, if you can't say anything useful, stop bitching. if you are knowledgeable, it might help to ask directed question instead of complaining (same argument as you are using). pot, kettle, black. this site is there to help out newbies, not to bitch RTFM at them.
- This site is not for helping newbies. It's for newbies to explain their usability problems. (Or for teachies to explain the usability problems most often encountered by newbies they have seen in action.)
as for the problem, a google search revealed:
setting CONFIG-4STACKS in the 2.6 kernel .config seems to be the solution.
see the NVidia Forums
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This is a policy decision by Red Hat / Fedora - They do not include non-free software with their distro in order to encourage hardware vendors to co-operate in the production of open source drivers. Some Red Hat / Fedora derivatives are less picky. Mandriva is one that includes closed drivers. Issue also covers MP3 and other closed formats.
see [1]
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Linuxant has an RPM you can install.
Download the kernel image that best suits your machine from linuxant.com
Install the downloaded file (as root) with: rpm -Uvh filename.rpm
Re-start your machine and install the Nvidia driver as instruced in the nvidia release notes.
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Always install kernels with rpm -ihv name.rpm, not -Uhv.
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The Linuxant/CONFIG-4STACKS didn't work for me. I got the standard 2.6.6 kernel from kernel.org and recompiled it. The recompiled kernel has worked great for me.
Instructions for recompiling a kernel are at http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/Kernel-Build-HOWTO.html.
I copied the fedor config from /usr/src/linux-2.6.5-1.358/configs/kernel-2.6.5-i686.config to the .config file as described in the web page. The only change I made was to make sure that the 4K stacks were not being set by placing this comment "# CONFIG_4KSTACKS" in the config and making sure that the uncommented version is not there.
I have a Dell M60 with the WUXGA display (1920x1200). I have gotten the following working: nvidia, vmware, linuxant, cisco vpn. Since 2.6 has ACPI support, I can now see how much battery life I have left. :=)
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I have a small tutorial written on getting nvidia cards working under linux. Its nothing great but its a nice start. This also tells how I got my dual moniter display working with 2 nvidia cards. I've posted links to 8k stack kernel rpms as well as some other sources.
--Sock 04:13, 17 Jun 2004 (EDT)
Sound
I am installing FC2 on an old Compaq Desktop.
Specs for the Desktop are here: Compaq Deskpro EN Series Desktop
Problem - No soundcard detected. The way it looks it that it's an embedded ESS 18xx sound card. I've tried the default install of FC 2 and got nothing. Went through the Alsa configuration and it would regularly error out. Still nothing. I know the Sound does work as I have had it working under Windows and Mandrake 9.2.
Can anyone give me a pointer?
---
One thing on Fedora Core 2 really threw me off. The sound card was installed correctly and automatically. I then proceed to try to install it myself because I wasn't getting any sound and had no way to determine if the sound card was already installed. The problem I found after a day of searching around: Sound was switched off! Not only that, it is switched off by default everytime I reboot the machine. It was only after a long time of reading stuff from http://www.alsa-project.org/ that I discovered I had to switch on the sound using an obscure ncurses like mixer and then I had to work out how to save the settings using some command line tools. Bleh.
The 'advanced linux sound architecture' (ALSA) project provides utilities for detecting soundcards and configuring them. Login as root at the commandline (su -) and run 'alsaconf' to automatically configure your sound card. Run 'alsamixer' to enable and adjust the settings and 'alsactl store' to store the settings. Maybe the alsa default settings should be master 'on' with a moderate volume setting. But sound configuration in Linux seems to be strangely problematic.
Dual Boot
Perhaps for those new users who would like to try something other than a Live distribution (i.e. Knoppix) we should start a section on Dual/multi-booting Windows and Linux.
Ideas:
- Resizing partitions (what tools, how much space needed)
- boot loaders (grub configuration)
- multiple distros same swap partition
--- The Microsoft NTFS file system is poorly doccumented and MS are no help when it comes to getting information. Although re-sizeing is possible it is still a bit experimental. Some of the distros that include non-free items can do this for you useing licenced solutions. Free disks on magazines sometimes iclude windows tools to do this. If possible fit a new hard drive - this is cheep and not as hard as you would think.
Directory Structure
One problem I found with installing FC2 is that the programs are installed into different directories than a lot of software packages (like Apache) are distributed to install into. It was impossible for me to install the latest version of Apache or PHP because the directory structures do not mach up.
I ended up downloading and installing LAMPP (XAMPP) from Apachefriends.org which puts everything into it's (lampp's) own directory. It is actually a very cool setup because they have updates, and a web based security/management/demo page, along with full installes of apache, PHP, mysql, etc. etc. - quite a lot of stuff. If it wasn't for this option, I would have given up on FC2 to do what I needed.
RPM's
The RPM / YUM setup is almost there except for one huge glitch - if you try to install a package (using the add package feature) but the install fails, FC2 still thinks that the package is installed. You can not remove it, and you can not update it - because the dependancies fail.
Sendmail
I was trying to set up a serve on FC2 that has a couple of web based applications - those are running fine except for trying to get them to be able to e-mail. The sendmail setup was allowing me to e-mail from the e-mail app, but the web programs, when they sent mail, I could see that all the meseages were unsent, and bounced back after 5 days.
Sendmail is hugely confusing, especially when the file structure in FC2 is so different than a lot of other distro's. Just finding the right .mc file to configure was a pain, let alone decrypting the lines I need to edit, and with what values.
