Hi

This is my first post in a linux forum. Im definitely a newbie.

Ive been using Microsoft software for a decade now. And recently having a distro of Linux has become inevitable!

Ive read alot about all the distros out there, and Ive tried SuSE 9.0 Pro, it wasnt what I was looking for, add to that the fact that it really didnt "feel right", if I may say so.

So I decided to go for Slackware 10, and wow, thats what I call an OS! the installation wasnt as user-friendly as SuSE, but I managed, thanks to this website and other Linux websites.

Slackware Linux is very very elegant, it fits like a glove, it "feels right", its fast, and its very "light" although I installed the whole thing (about 3GB).

I had a couple of problems though, the video card settings (nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200), and the integrated sound settings.

I still have some questions I'd like to ask regarding issues I still have problems with:

1) I tried to install RealPlayer 8. I tried to do that using a .bin file, and I was logged in as "user". RP8 was installed but RP started acting weird, it opens, but u cant see anything, its just a black window, and its takes alot of time for it to close, usually I need to kill it!

after rebooting I got a very weird message in CLI mode, it was sth like: "run Clean Disk" or sth like that, I wonder what that meant???

2) How to uninstall RP8 that was installed using a .bin file???

3) later, I tried installing it using [pkgtool] and a .tgz file and installed beautifully, but RP still didnt open properly, and gave me that black window that doesnt close, Whats causing that???

4) I try to keep an eye on "RAM usage", and it starts with about 100MB, yet a couple of hours later it goes up to about 300 or 400 MB, How can this be explained???

Your answers are appreciated.

thanks,
Pete Abel

Hi

Welcome, dunno if this will help but from what i gather realplayer is a streaming net player used for networking media files so it has to connect to something to play and if your network isnt working then it will take a while to start and close (i think!!)

As to the memory issues , dont worry about this linux likes to fill up memory with apps that were used and closed so say you used a browser and then closed it , some part of the browser stays in memory in a dead (umm dunno how to represent this correctly !!) state but it is there for re use if you launch the browser again. If the memory reaches max then any of the dead areas that were filled previously will be used. (This is not a bad thing btw).

For the Nvidia card , download the bin file from their website it works great also you have to tweak the xorg file a bit but its not to much hassle.

Hope this helps
cheers

1) Try to reïnstall the whole thing as root, or get a different version or, even better, install Helix player which is what RP is based on nowadays and open source/GPL. https://player.helixcommunity.org/
2) Find out where it installed itself , probably your home directory and delete the dir RealPlayer
3) Where did you get this "Slackware package" of Realplayer ? Or did you convert an RPM file to tgz. Not every .tgz is a Slackware package, some of it contains only sourcecode and has to be compiled first.
4) It has to do with caching, Linux uses your unused RAM for caching instead so the performance of your system will improve. As soon as you need more RAM it will be released from cache if necessary. Look at the output of free -m, the second line with numbers is cache/buffers.

The message you'll getting about clean disk doesn't ring a bell here. Maybe you should try to get the exact message.

I also use slack 10 and have the same graphics card as you. Get the official X drivers from www.nvidia.com and follow the instructions they provide. That will get 3D Accelleration.

I don't install realplayer. I have found it to be buggy in the past.
I prefer to have a directory of all my codecs, including realplayer, & let better apps use them.
I just point xine or mplayer to my directory, & they play pretty much anything now.



Don't sweat the ram usage, it's doing what it's supposed to do.
Linux caches lots of things in ram, rather than your swap disk.
If you need the ram, it will be there for you.
I have 512MB on this pc, & can have firefox(broswer), xmms(music), thunderbird(email), gaim(im), text editor(for webpages) all open at once, & leave my Unreal2003 playing in a different virtual screen.
I never have ram issues, it just tasks back & forth as I want it too.
That way I don't have to quit a bunch of progs just to play a game.

Or you could get Realplayer 10, which is just Helix with the proprietary RealPlayer codecs, which you'll need to play any RealMedia files anyway.

Try this site out
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Softwar...G2_Player.html

Installation Instructions

Ensure that the .bin file you downloaded is executable. You can make the .bin file executable by running the "chmod a+x RealPlayer8.bin" command from a terminal window.
Run the .bin file by typing "./RealPlayer8.bin". Follow the prompts provided to finish installing the player.
When you launch the player for the first time, a set-up assistant will take you through configuring your player.