Hi Hans,
> I spoiled a couple of days installing linux [on this third laptop again my
> video chipset is not supported; in this respect linux is way behind
> windows].
This is not neccessarily true: There big bussiness now supports Linux
very well. The problem are mostly caused by small no name cards or
special cards from far east.
If you have a SiS card (I had one) you should update to XFree86 4.1.0.
The same is true if the card is very new.
Get:
SaX2 from
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/ftp.suse.com/suse/i386/X/XFree86/SaX2/suse71/
X11R6.5.1 by XFree86 from:
ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/ftp.suse.com/suse/i386/X/XFree86/XFree86-4.1.0-SuSE/suse71/
> I updated to Xfree 4 and now seem to have problems with starting
> the window manager. Does anyone know if window managers are supposed to run
> on newer drivers?
Internally there has much changed (as with the output routine in
ConTeXt) but the interface is nearly unchanged. I suspect rather -- as
Taco does -- a X config error.
Can you update SaX2 and XFree86 and make sure that they are really
installed.
Re-run "sax2". (For NVidia see below)
If it doesn't work post the output of:
xf86version
sax2 -v
sax2 -p
rpm -q sax2 xdevel xextra xf86 xf86tools xfnt100 xfntcyr xfntscl xloader
xman xmodules xshared xxprt
# Only: xshared xf86 xloader sax2 need to be uptodate
hwinfo --log=foo.log --all
For a better font quality you simply need to install the microsoft true
type fonts by using /usr/X11R6/bin/fetchmsttfonts. (Check that
/etc/X11/XF86Config contains FontPath
"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype"). The advantage is that this is a
scalable font (there are tons of bitmap fonts) and that with
qt-experimental (I think the packages is called like this) all Qt
applications can use antialising for fonts (XFree86 rendering
extention).
Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
> Since Windows is (still) more widespread than Linux, manufacturers
> are more interested in developing Windows drivers rather than
> Linux'.
Well this is going to be changed: Now all big manufactors have
developement teams for Linux.
> HH> I updated to Xfree 4 and now seem to have problems with
> HH> starting the window manager. Does anyone know if window
> HH> managers are supposed to run on newer drivers?
> They are supposed to. Anyway, you might want to try a more recent
> of the same wm.
In theory the programs shouldn't see a difference between X11R6.4 and
X11R6.5(.1) and between XF86 3.x and XF86 4.0.x(4.1.x). The only program
which had problems was XDVI: The XF 3.x version didn't show the buttons
in 4.x.
> HH> Are the otherw linux's leaner?]
> You might want to give Mandrake 8.0 a chance.
We had some problems with Mandrake (so some of our Linux specials at our
physics department say that if RedHat then the original not the copy
[Mandrake is based on RedHat]). Since we want to switch the OS of our
computer pool from FreeBSD to Linux we also have now this problem of the
right distribution: RedHat, SuSE or Debian. I think for you Hans, Debias
wouldn't be the best choice since it is an "expert" distribution ;-)
> If you have an
> NVidia video chipset, you need to download the latest drivers from
> http://www.nvidia.com/Products/Drivers.nsf/Linux.html
> and follow the instructions for "generic RPM distributions"
This cannot be packed by Linux distributions due to copyright problems
...
> HH> In any case i want a running linux/x for testing context on
> HH> linux.
> What do you need X for?
For having more than one console at a time (you don't really want to
suggest to split the console, do you) and for XDVI/acroread etc.
> You just need teTeX, Perl and an a shell
> ... If you feel confused by the command line, give Midnight
> Commander (mc) a chance.
mc is a kind of Norton Commander, but I think Hans is not that fast
confused ;-)
> HH> [if i can get my old dos-extender stuff working on win200 i
> HH> will stick to windows anyway since graphics are better there]
> (What do you mean "graphics are better"? Are you talking about the
> cute icons?)
Well Windows does support antialised fonts -- Unix doesn't (XFree86
4.1.x has the render extentions which can be used by Qt and Gtk+ (latter
to come). Moreover the fonts of X11 are rather bad (almost only bitmap
fonts). (You can use MS TT fonts ;-)
Taco Hoekwater wrote:
> > I spoiled a couple of days installing linux [on this third laptop again my
> > video chipset is not supported; in this respect linux is way behind
> > windows]. I updated to Xfree 4 and now seem to have problems with starting
> > the window manager. Does anyone know if window managers are supposed to run
> > on newer drivers?
> Yes, they should. Most likely cause: incorrect (read: partial) update to
> Xfree4.
So think I.
> likely problems:
> - Suse is confused about what to run
> - The server itself (the "X" executable) is still the old one
> - The Config file is broken/missing (XF4 uses /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 )
SuSE: /etc/X11/XF86Config for 4.x
/etc/XF86Config for 3.x
but the ...-4 is also found (see man page).
> - Dynamic library problems.
> Do you get any kind of error when you start X?
You can also look at /var/log/XFree86.0.log
Tobias
