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As you mentioned using your guitar with your pc why don't you give Ubuntu studio a try. It is meant to be a Ubuntu version specifically for multi-media production (graphic/video/music). You could do it from scratch as your install doesn't seem to be working corectly or you can also install it through synaptic by installing the meta-package ubuntu-studio.
installing the audio aspect of this distro will get you a new kernel as well so may just fix things up nicely. The audio apps require a rt kernel (real time) so you install that as part of the process.
Last edited by onesixtyfourth; 10-29-2008 at 12:07 PM.
I've been playing around with Fedora 9 and had Ubuntu for awhile. I'm the same boat you are with what distro to use. Go to Borders Bookstore or Barnes and Noble or anywhere that sells a large selection of magazines. Just about every linux magazine will have a Distro in its cover. If you can spend the money for the magazines, get four or more. That way you won't have to worry about download issues and ISO images and can focus on just using and evaluating your choices. Right now I have Ubuntu, openSUSE, Fedora, and one other. Used Ubuntu and liked it. Using Fedora right now and not liking it so much, mainly because I'm cut off from the internet on my computer. Been hopping on public computers to stay connected. I'm going to keep Fedora on for another couple of weeks then move to openSUSE for 2 months then move over to my last disk. But I'm suspecting all distros willl "look and feel" the same, since they all seem to run GNOME by default. Good luck on your choice.
Suse runs kde by default as far as I know. It's a distro that typically always favored kde.
Really, that's not true anymore; it had favoured KDE over Gnome until something around ~9.0, at which point, formally, they gave Gnome and KDE equal billing to the extent that they were accused by some long-time users of favouring Gnome over KDE.
The current release, 11.0, has KDE 3.5.x as its default KDE (over KDE 4.x, which is also available), but that doesn't set KDE as a default GUI; KDE and Gnome still given equal billing (and both the 'old' KDE and Gnome being given Novell's alternative program selector arrangement).
At some point, (11.2 latest, I suppose) KDE 4.x is expected to take over from 3.5.x as the default KDE, but I don't think they've said anything about making either KDE or Gnome the default GUI. I don't know whether it will still be relevant for Novell to be changing the 'program selector' away from the default. Personally, I'm not convinced that 4.x will be ready by then, but I'm sure some will argue that its inevitable that there will be one slightly ropey release, to give KDE 4 the final push to really being ready...
And there's also XFCE, if that's more to your taste.
Quote:
Commands like iwconfig were unrecognised too
It is certainly available for SuSE; you may have to be root to run it ('su root' or 'sudo iwconfig'; you could try 'locate iwconfig' to find it, if you have locate installed and running, but generally it would be in /usr/sbin; if you don't have it, it may be part of some other package (something like wireless tools, perhaps??) ).
With Yast, you could try to do a search for iwconfig;
Yast > Software Management >
and go to the search tab; you'll probably need to tick 'provides' and 'requires' to get any results.
I think mine came from the 'update repository' but I'm on an earlier version of SuSE; you may have to add extra repositories, but I don't think that should be necessary for something as basic as this. The other approach would be to try the 'one click install' at http://software.opensuse.org/search
which works quite nicely for single packages.
You should run "sudo /sbin/lspci -v" to identify the controller chip used. Also install wireless tools. If it is a broadcom device, you probably need to modprobe the b43 kernel driver and install the b43-fwcutter package. This package contains a script that will download the firmware you need and install it.
Then run "kdesu yast2 network" to configure your network devices & your network settings. Also run "kdesu yast2 firewall" afterwards to configure the firewall.
Good Luck!
---
P.S. When I tried to install openSuSE on a PPC, I had a problem with read errors on the DVDs I burned. I downloaded the net install CD (which is small) and installed it from a repository. This worked pretty slick. Doing it this way didn't take much longer for me and only the needed packages where downloaded.
Another thing, for playing mp3s & dvds, etc. look in YaST's Installation Sources module, select ADD and then click on Community Repositories. It will down load a list containing NVidia, ATI, Packman, VLC and others. The VLC repo is needed to play DVDs. Packman has versions of mplayer, xine, xmms, etc that have dvd & mp3 support enabled.
Have a look at the Zypper command. It is a front end for installing packages that you may be already comfortable using. To find out all of the packages with "wireless" in the name, "zypper se wireless". To install wireless-tools, "sudo zypper install wireless-tools".
One thing I've had a problem with installing SuSE is the video resolution not working correctly until I install the nvidia driver.
I'd recommend downloading nvidia's driver installation package. Then if you don't have video after a kernel security update, you can run it as root to get video back.
Well i know that in Linux, my wireless card is known as Texas Instruments, which uses the ACX111 driver.
I'll have to have another look into the openSUSE install, and about the iwconfig.
I'm currently downloading Ubuntu 8.10 aswell. With that kernel, i know my guitarport will work, and as in 8.04, my wireless worked perfectly fine, so i guess it should with 8.10, plus i could mount my HDD's easily. Everything seemed to work pretty much "out of the box".
I never figured out openSUSE to mount my HDD's. I tried Fedora, it had my HDD's in the places part, but nothing would happen when i clicked on them.
Out of Fedora and openSUSE, i prefered openSUSE, though i have little reason too justify that, as i've not had them both working to actually use them properly.
I reckon i might just swtich back to Ubuntu depending how the install of 8.10 goes, though if i figure out openSUSE and manage to mount my drives, then be able to install the ACX111 drvier, i'd probably stick with it.
Well i know that in Linux, my wireless card is known as Texas Instruments, which uses the ACX111 driver.
Texas Instruments is the manufacturer of the chip/chipset, and probably isn't the manufacturer of the board itself. But whoever manufactures the board, probably any driver for the same chip (and maybe even another chip of the same family) will work.
Quote:
I never figured out openSUSE to mount my HDD's. I tried Fedora, it had my HDD's in the places part, but nothing would happen when i clicked on them.
There shouldn't be a difficulty getting SuSE (or almost any distro) to mount your hard drives; you do mean that the problem is actually mounting the drives rather than putting an icon on your desktop, or something? From the command line
Code:
mount
(without parameters) should give you a succesion of lines about the device mounted at each mount point.
Yeah, actually mounting the drives. I've not looked too much into it, as i'd rather get openSUSE working with my wireless card first.
I know my card (Netgear WG311v2) uses the ACX111 module. I'm not entirely sure what i need to download, or what do do with it yet, any help with that would be appreciated
Also, i have the Ubuntu 8.10 iso bruned to a CD. The wireless does not work with that either, yet it did with 8.04.
It finds my card however, as Ubuntu includes the ACX111 drivers. But using commands like iwconfig wlan0 key open 123456 in terminal do not save. I've just thought though, maybe i need to sudo it to make the settings save, though setting the ssid of the network saved. I think i have a dodgy burn too, as the live cd likes to stop working.
Currently it's between openSUSE and Ubuntu 8.10. I'd like to get openSUSE working though, then i would know how to install my wireless card drivers, therefore being able to use any distro. I just need a basic guide of what to download for the ACX111 driver/firmware and how to install it.
They both are excellent. However, once you taste Gentoo there's no going back (that is, if you manage to install it and survive a few months)
I myself went through the trying different distros and actually spent four years with Gentoo as my main system. I have also constructed myself LFS on some old hardware I had lying around. Gentoo is (in my opinion) an exceptionally good OS but I found myself constantly tinkering with it because I could which distracted me from doing my work. In the end I installed Ubuntu again as I realised what I needed on my main machine was a good solid OS that made installing new software painless with just a couple of clicks.
My opinion on source distros these days is that I use them on spare kit for the purpose of learning and experimenting and leave my main machine for day to day work.
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