Some problems with Redhat
 

I installed redhat9 into my laptop last week and found that it's not so easy to start. Now have tons of problem. However, I'll try my best to learn it.

The problems are
1. Why can't my computer handle 3D graphic as well as in Windows? In 3D screen saver or some linux 3D games like tuxracer, it's very very slow.
2. I cannot play MP3 files. I tried XMMS, loaded a MP3file, nothing happened. Cannot play movies too.
3. I have an old printer, I cannot find any linux drivers for it, does this mean I cannot use it?
4. Do I have to install the development tool package in order to compile downloaded softwares?
5. Anybody know how to stop sendmail? It take a few minutes with this thing when I boot my computer.
6. At first I thought LINUX wouldn't crash. But some softwares crash sometimes, is it normal?

Thank you very much

Chanan

Hmm I don't think I can answer all those questions very well, but here are some answers:

1. You need drivers from your video card vendor. nVidia and ATi have good linux drivers. Check out their web site if you have one of those cards.

2. That's answered in many places, one of which is here.

3. Possibly, but not necessarily. Try searching for your printer model and the word 'linux' in Google. Many printers work with generic drivers or drivers for similar printers.

4. Yes.

5. You can stop it from starting up by configuring your services. There should be an option in the menu if I remember rightly... in System somewhere, maybe...

6. It's rare that the entire system will crash, but if you're using a strange hardware combo or using early versions of software, programs may well crash :/ it's a sad fact of life I'm afraid.

Hopefully others can elaborate on some of these points for you.

su -
root password

chkconfig --level 235 sendmail off

( remember its su dash ie su - )

to turn off sendmail, assuming you are using the GUI and Gnome..

main menu..
system settings..
server settings...
services....there you'll find sendmail, just uncheck the box

in order:

1. what kind of video card do you have installed, and what driver are you using for it? (you can find out the first question by checking the documentation on your laptop, and the second by typing (as root) at the command prompt :
cat /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 |less and scrolling down to where it says Section "Device" . what does it say for "driver?" (incidently, if you get a no such file error for that command, try cat /etc/X11/XF86Config |less)

2. mp3 and dvd, thanks to your friendly neighborhood us congress, are technically illegal to use under linux. if you (rightly) consider the dmca to be an abomination, and have no qualms about becoming a criminal to watch DVDs that YOU BOUGHT on a computer that YOU BOUGHT, and would be breaking no laws to watch provided you did it in windows, here is an article that will help you get it working.

3. what's the printer? older printers typically are more likely to work than newer, though it's extremely rare that you'll find drivers for them on the manufacturer's website; you'll have to use another resource from the linux community. try http://linuxprinting.org for a start.

4. probably. are you talking about compiling from tarballs with "make"? i think that those utilities are only included with development, though i'm not sure, as i've never NOT installed development. i would install it anyway, as some of the libraries are useful to have around for doing other stuff. it should be fairly easy to do in rh9, there should be a nice little gui for installing stuff from the cd.

5. i think if you type "setup" at the command line, there should be an option to list the services that run at startup. select that menu, and uncheck whichever services you don't want to run. i'm sorry i can't be more specific, it's been a while since i've used rh.

6. [shrug] shit happens. sorry!

Thanks a lot.

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "savage"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "S3 Savage/IX"
VideoRam 8192
EndSection

I think this is the same name as driver I use in Windows (S3 Savage).

Yes, you are going to learn--and if you have a laptop you are going to darn near be a guru before you are done.

[[This was originally not redundant, but I type very slowly.]]

Go to RedHat. You will find the RedHat installation Guide and the RedHat Customization Guide. READ THEM. This will give you an overview of the services and custom settings you will want for your laptop--or any other machine.

*****This is step one to becoming a linux god--read the friendly manuals.******** A fresh newcomer to linux will go insane trying to read "Man pages" or "Info-pages". Until you read the Installation Guides and Customization Guides most of the Linux Documentation will be frustrating and confusing. (I've taken Linux administration I, II and III and still find stuff to be confusing.)

Don't get too frustrated, no one can know it all. And you certainly won't learn it over-night.

If you sit and think about it, you didn't learn windows all at once either. With linux, you are a full-fledged administrator on your machine. No one is doing it for you. ( Windows administration is very much the same thing, much of the higher-level functionality in windows is very difficult to learn.) The difference is in windows the stuff is hidden.

http://www.google.com/linux is your friend. Google everything about your laptop there.

http://www.XFree86.org for X-window stuff. This is your video. [[Savage chips are supported, there is specific information on the different Savage chips here.]]

1) Setting up high performance graphics can be a pain in linux. The video chipset, the drivers, the xserver, and additional services have to matched up and tweaked. Especially for laptops.

[[Laptop HowTo--read it.]]

2) The set-up of linux is just the beginning. In order to get full functionality, you need to match the sound chips in your laptop to the drivers and servers. Then, after tweaking, you configure the applications for playing Media files and such. Most of the time it is not as bad as it sounds--some times it is.

[[I forgot about all of that. I just downloaded all of the the decoders and everything when they were available and forgot about it. Sorry.]]

3) If it is an old printer, chances are someone wrote drivers for it. Keep looking. You need to go to http://www.linuxprinting.org they have the printer database there. And the linux printing HowTo.

4) In order to compile from source you need some of the development stuff on your computer. You need kernel sources and header files, the actual packages you want to compile, any dependencies taken care of, the different language libraries, and the gcc compiler. In short, Yes.

5) Read the Linux Customization Guide mentioned above.

6) A properly set-up and configured linux system does not crash unless you are really brutal. A good way to crash linux is to push a misconfigured video or sound adapter. Another way is to try to play 3d accelerated games on a 2-D adapter. ( My old ATI 3d rage pro 8meg video card on my linux box would lock everything up trying to play tux-racer--A P-II 350 with an 8 meg adapter will not play a modern game.)

Concerning slow-starting sendmail (and some selected slow-starting X programs), try adding ".localdomain" versions of each host name in your /etc/hosts file.
BEFORE
127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.1.1 firewall
192.168.1.102 bobby

AFTER
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.1.1 firewall.localdomain firewall
192.168.1.102 bobby.localdomain bobby

This worked for me. Sendmail starts very quickly now (on RedHat 8 and 9 systems).

You need to enable DRI for the savage driver.


It just so happens I just posted a VIA/S3 Savage DRI HOWTO. Hope it helps.