Hi All:

I have four questions. They are all very straightforward, although some may require a bit to answer. I've been searching these forums/googling for answers to questions for the past week, and I'm becoming a little burnt out, so I'm going to post these questions without doing the proper research. And dammit, it's 4 AM, I'm tired.

Oh, my info: I just did a recent install of Slack 9.1. I've read up on compiling a kernel (though I've never done it succesfully), and just compiled my first program (Sylpheed). My background in Linux is nil (I know only enough to keep learning). My system is a new Gateway 450XL (laptop). Pentium M, Centrino stuff, et al.

The questions:

For some reason, during this install of Slack, I didn't enable ALSA. When I do an slocate, I come up with many files, so I'm pretty sure it was installed, it just hasn't been enabled. How do I enable it? My audio device is an Intel Corp. 82801DB AC '97 (rev 03).

I've been reading about patching the most recent ACPI support into the kernel (to support processor scaling, thermal cooling, blah blah blah). Is there an easy way to go about getting the newest ACPI support? If I have to patch the kernel, is there an easy way to do it?

Here's an easy one: What's the best (or your favorite) terminal emulator for X? I'd prefer one that's very lightweight (to go along with my Slack/Xfce system), but supports neato things like transparency. Looks are important, right?

Lastly, is there any way I can figure out what the vertical and horizontal sync rates for my 15" SXGA+ TFT display, short of calling Gateway and asking them? I'd like to enter the proper settings into the XF86 (or whatever) config file.

Thanks for your time!

rk

PS Mini question: when running lspci, the following devices are unknown: PCI bridge, host bridge, ISA bridge, network controller, IDE interface, and a few others. Is this bad? How should I go about updating it so that the kernel knows what these devices are (and how do I figure out what they are -- I'll be damned if I know what make/model my IDE interface is)?

1) I'm not entirely sure from your description, but try running alsaconf to set up your sound card, then alsamixer to set mixer levels, then alsactl store to store the settings.

2) No idea but I'd like to know too

3) I like aterm.

4)You're probably better getting than info from the manufacturer, is it on their website? There is another proggy which someone else will remember the name of that lets you fiddle with your monitor settings on the fly, and then you edit your XF86Config once you have worked out good new settings. I've never had to use it though.

I'm a n00b too as u can guess by my name but I'll try to help as much as i can....don't take nuttin for sure
Looks like ur sound card manufacturer is C-media if it's like that (thats my case) follow this link and it'll resolve all ur sound probs:
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...vendor-C-Media
For example I dunno why but my alsa doesn't work and OSS works instead.
No biggie..

Look in ur monitor manual, it should be there or on the monitor web-site or try to mail them and ask according to ur model.

Hope it helps.

You might try xf86cfg for tweaking the refresh rates.

As another replier said, try doing:
$su -c "/usr/sbin/alsaconf"

If it doesn't work, i.e. your sound chipset isn't being recognised, read the install procedure you can find on the official ALSA website.

Quote:

I've been reading about patching the most recent ACPI support into the kernel (to support processor scaling, thermal cooling, blah blah blah). Is there an easy way to go about getting the newest ACPI support? If I have to patch the kernel, is there an easy way to do it?

Before doing something like patching the kernel, you should try recompiling the official kernel source tree (if you didn't do that yet), maybe kernel 2.6.0 may be sufficient for the ACPI needs of your hardware (it is for mine). Anyway, do some googling on your hardware and ACPI and kernel 2.6.0.

Quote:

Here's an easy one: What's the best (or your favorite) terminal emulator for X? I'd prefer one that's very lightweight (to go along with my Slack/Xfce system), but supports neato things like transparency. Looks are important, right?

I use aterm, which is light, easy to configure and supports transparency, even if so far I couldn't manage to personalise colors if i edit my ~/.dir_colors.

Quote:

Lastly, is there any way I can figure out what the vertical and horizontal sync rates for my 15" SXGA+ TFT display, short of calling Gateway and asking them? I'd like to enter the proper settings into the XF86 (or whatever) config file.

Googling can do wonders... I've figured out the refresh rates for an old 21'' monitor of a German mark.

(snip)

Quote:

PS Mini question: when running lspci, the following devices are unknown: PCI bridge, host bridge, ISA bridge, network controller, IDE interface, and a few others. Is this bad? How should I go about updating it so that the kernel knows what these devices are (and how do I figure out what they are -- I'll be damned if I know what make/model my IDE interface is)?

You got two options here, one I hate, i.e. checking your hardware in MS winsucks, and another more in the direction of your linux learning process, i.e. update your kernel to 2.6.0.

Enjoy.

Thanks for the responses everybody.

Regarding ALSA: I think I've got it working (I just ran alsaconf, and it detected everything fine, and set itself up as a kernel module -- I think). Thanks for your help on that.

Regarding ACPI: Is "recompiling the official kernel source tree" the same as recompiling the kernel? So essentially, you're recommendating that I recompile my kernel using the latest kernel build (2.6.x)? Also, you think this would help with the detection of all of those devices?

Regarding refresh rates: I just found the tech specs on the LCD display, although they're not very helpful (I was looking in the wrong place on the Gateway site -- they really buried the hardcore specifications of the laptop). It's just telling me that I can run at a maximum resolution of 1400x1050x32 at a refresh rate of 60Hz. They do NOT specify the horizontal and vertical sync rates (in Khz), which is what XF86Config wants. What should I do?

Also, I've downloaded aterm, and am about to install it. Thanks for your input, it looks perfect!

rk

Speaking of googling, next time try vivisimo.com. It's a much better search engine. I always used to use google, but since the first time I tried vivisimo I have never once been back to google! Vivisimo usually gives you what you want on the first page of results.

Yes, I think all of those devices would be detected if you recompile from kernel 2.6.x.

Quote:

Regarding refresh rates: I just found the tech specs on the LCD display, although they're not very helpful (I was looking in the wrong place on the Gateway site -- they really buried the hardcore specifications of the laptop). It's just telling me that I can run at a maximum resolution of 1400x1050x32 at a refresh rate of 60Hz. They do NOT specify the horizontal and vertical sync rates (in Khz), which is what XF86Config wants. What should I do?

Mmh, I cannot help you here, but maybe you could test your LCD display doing the following steps:

1) run in init 3 (no automatically X loading), which is the default run level if you didn't change it.

2) log in with your user

3) Do:
$XFree86 -configure

4) Have a look at XF86Config.new, which should have been created in your home directory, and edit it to reflect your current /etc/X11/XF86Config

5) Test the XF86Config.new with:
$XFree86 -xf86config ~/XF86Config.new

6) If all it's ok you should get a grey screen with an X mouse cursor, then exit with CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE

7) If X doesn't load, have a look at your /var/log/XFree86.0.log:
$more /var/log/XFree86.0.log

Keep us informed of your progresses.

kc00l:

So you just think I should, essentially, go for trial and error, manually changing the refresh rates and testing them out (via your safe method)? My only concern is that A) I'll damage the LCD display, and B) I don't really know what to test, because the preferred sync rates *could* have to be entered manually (they might not be in X's options). I think I'm gonna see if I can get in touch with Gateway's tech support to see if they can supply me with the actual sync rates. However, that may be just as big a pain in the ass .

Thanks,

rk

No, if you do what I told you in the last post, X has a chance of detecting your monitor and automatically assign the horizontal and vertical refresh. Of course I would have never adviced to try refresh rates at random. So, after doing:
$XFree86 -configure

if you run X with:
$XFree86 -xf86config ~/XF86Config.new

and all seems to work, you can check what kind of refresh rates and copy them into your /etc/X11/XF86Config.

Obviously if you can get the exact refresh rate of your LCD display, it would be much better.