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Old 08-04-2004, 05:45 AM   #16
TyphoonMentat
 
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Quote:
Is there any unpublished cheat codes?
None that you'd use for hardware compatibility - Feather has the same cheatcodes as Knoppix, except for some extras: custom, customselect, restore, evilwm, noicons, icewm, xfce, nfs, monkey, betaftpd, and ssh.

Quote:
Does 256 mb ramdisk help to run cdrom for music cd or vcd movies, using a single cdrom?
I assume you mean the toram option - yes, a large amount of RAM helps for that.

Quote:
I am looking at DSL and Feather to see what compatibility has been removed by the small foot print. Both did poorly with agp video card.
That's because DSL and Feather both use the KDrive X servers - they can only use the framebuffer device or VESA, and so extra AGP support isn't available. However, they suffice for most users.

Quote:
I have just started to look at Puppy Linux(based on Mandrake 9.2), which has Fvwm95 desktop. Very pleasant screen(seagull) background. It has mozilla(firefox), and ttyLTO winmodem drivers. There maybe more hidden bugs, yet. Not as stable as Knoppix, but handles AGP monitor well at about 50 mb foot print.
Puppy is impressive in that it's extremely fast (20-30 secs boot time), which comes from being a minimal distro built from scratch, rather than remastered from Knoppix. However, I feel that some of the tools Puppy incorporates are perhaps not the most adequate for a small distribution, and Puppy doesn't offer the same wide-range hardware support that Knoppix and remasters automatically do - forgivable, because Barry has had to build it all himself!
 
Old 08-04-2004, 07:01 AM   #17
atang1
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Thanks for the technical explanation. I like to discuss one issue at a time to explore your future development for feather?

What I mean when I mentioned 256 mb of dram is that Knoppix divides 128 mb into 96 and 32 mb pages. Therefore, you had to suggest toram option, again to use hdd to swap files.

What I meant was to use another bank of 96mb and 32 mb pages to run the cdrom for movies or music. You have to switch memory banks but use the 96 mb ramdisk to run the second bank for movies and music.

It may be too much for either DSL or Feather. But when you get into 2.6.x, you may find the new kernel has some provision for using drams instead of hdd by preference.

Last edited by atang1; 08-04-2004 at 07:03 AM.
 
Old 08-04-2004, 07:18 AM   #18
atang1
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On AGP video cards, DSL and feather missed the monitor frequency adjustment necessary to run the 56 hz and 35 hz units. Older monitors do not use 75 hz.

But then many distros themselves use only 75 hz monitors, so they never thought minimum foot print distros need 35 hz monitor which comes with the older computers.

How much trouble is it to add it like in the Puppy?

Maybe a cheat code for 8514 monitors 35 hz; or 56 hx monitors?

Last edited by atang1; 08-04-2004 at 07:32 AM.
 
Old 08-04-2004, 07:27 AM   #19
atang1
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ON Puppy, I am waiting foreevr to tar vmlinux.gz, it seems an ethernity. Vmlinux is RedHat/Mandrake. Mandrake 9.2 has liveOS now, so, Barry can cheat a little, remastering it, but Mandrake often has legacy conflicts with newer kernels(still 2.4.22 on Puppy)

Knoppix seems faster, but the full version boots in 3 minutes.

Feather is fine, love it.
 
Old 08-04-2004, 10:49 AM   #20
TyphoonMentat
 
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Thanks
It's practically impossible for me to add refresh rate support like that to Feather, because the X servers that Feather uses don't support it, and I'm not exactly an expert at hacking complex C code However, I'm creating an extension for Feather that will allow you to use the normal X servers as used by Knoppix, and so your monitor will be supported then.
 
Old 08-04-2004, 01:14 PM   #21
atang1
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Knoppix 3.4 does have 8514 video drivers included in their package list.

Knoppix 3.2 and 3.3, i believe did not have the 8514 covered.

I do use other video monitors, fortunately.

However, on small Linux, video card drivers has to go beyond S3 Trio64. And hopefully winmodem someday.

Thank you for your help. We have built up this thread quite well with all the visitors, so far?

I will post some more titilating articles on desktop and browsers?
 
Old 08-04-2004, 01:29 PM   #22
atang1
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What is happening in Linux development is that each distro tries to cover a time period of computers(meaning the drivers are included for those older parts).

On the 133 mhz Pentium computers. I have Knoppix 3.4 running on it. USB 2.0 PCI card is supported by hotplug, everything works including USB external modem. Watch out for 8514 monitors.

When we go to 550 mhz AMD K6-2 generation of computers, AGP video cards are used. Sound cards are cmi8738. Winmodem, and built USB 1.1. Full blown Knoppix is still ok.

When we goto 1 ghz computers, Knoppix and Linspire both work well. But nvidia video cards are a problem. Linspire has certified computer that will work with their linux operating system.

Anything beyond 2.0 ghz, most of Linux drivers are not up to date with newer cards. This is a generality.

Most of the legacy linux such as RedHat, Suse, and Mandrake have dual boot trials, and end up people give up if they have to use command line software, or linux commands to fix some dependency conflicts. Most of the problem is using Gnome instead of KDE, to avoid qt licensing fee. Old drivers are included, but newer cards made later than Win98SE are not supported most of the time. 27% of IT departments around the world still use Win95 and Win98SE, which Linux, KDE and Mozilla can not replace. But modern LiveOS mini Linux might, using reduced components in older computers with external modem.

Modern linux is more click and run, plus drag and drop. The mini linux keeping the gui front ends, will do well.

As you know Linus and Andrew, are working hard to get Linux desktops more popular. But it has to be the windows manager and browser; not at kernel level that will make or break LInux.

As you can see we are trying to help Linus sort things out on desktop and browser developments. KDE is very advanced, but still needs search engine in file manager or Konqueror. Mozilla browser also need download manager and accelerator.

So much for a birds eye view of the Linux desktop world.

Last edited by atang1; 08-04-2004 at 01:57 PM.
 
Old 08-08-2004, 10:55 AM   #23
NeilO
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Nobody has said anything about turning 'Plug 'n' Pray' off in the BIOS when running Linux.
This lets Linux check-out the hardware.

Cheers.
 
Old 08-08-2004, 02:24 PM   #24
atang1
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PNPOS in the bios depends on 4 digit numbers, sometimes these 4 numbers got the Linux installation software such as kudzu making a mistake in picking the correct drivers.

In which case the PNP has to be disabled in the bios.

Then you have to manually install the correct or downloaded new drivers in the right place. It happens fairly often, that the drivers were mistakenly installed by Plug and Pray.

PNP devices are designed to be hot pluged. But occassionally, the electrical zap may put it out of commission for a while before gate(of cmos transistor) current injection gets dissipated. In which case just shut down and reboot a few times. When Linux verbose during boot identified the install, you are all set. Last night I had just that problem with the PCI cmi8738 sound card.

Hope this explained what you were wondering about?
 
  


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