Posted on 07/06/2005 4:11:29 PM PDT by SaveTheChief
I thought I would make jump into the open source world today. Linux is supposed to be more stable, robust, and powerful than Windows, and the relatively easy system requirements made it a good choice to load on my older Athlon 1000 PC.
The installation process was simple enough too. I threw in the SUSE disc and waited as the computer did the rest. The new OS is up and running without a hitch.
But for some strange reason, I cannot get the darned thing to make my Sound Blaster Live soundcard to work. In an attempt to Google a solution, I found out that a fix might not be as simple as downloading a driver and running an executable file.
I've read bits of the documentation that came with the OS, and bits from websites concerning the issue, and it is apparent that I might need to do some things with the Kernel as well.
I know there are Linux groupies here. Do any FReepers have any suggestions how I might tackle this challenge? Am I making it a bigger challenge than it really is?
While I am at it, I want to be able to run MythTV. I currently have an ATI TV card but the MythTV site says that ATI cards are not supported. Do any of you run this program? I'd appreciate knowing what you've found works best, especially in terms of hardware.
Thanks!
Thanks, but cheatcodes or anything else ain't squat when the monitor is tearing, right?
I never said I had the mindset of writing it off, so the True Believers can stand down. Maybe my ISO was corrupted, since it was almost 700 mb's, and maybe someday I'll try again.
Hardly. IBM was originally only keeping 18.9% of the business, with the rest being owned by a group controlled by the Chinese government. But even that has since been reduced, to 13% according to recent reports. Leaving the IBM label on those systems is still part of the deal, somehow.
Save, having never seen that problem I am sure I would have made more work for myself just as you did.. Glad to see someone here could have helped you..
if you're running a pcmcia nic you'll need to change the service order on pcmcia to start before network. This little annoyance I found in Fedora which is the only one I ever ran on a laptop..
CUPS has made printing a thousand times easer, dont know if suse uses that one..
Is that counting MS office, acrobat viewer, photoshop, ....
There are many tech threads on FreeRepublic, and just about any are good places to ask questions. Someone someone here should be able to help, or at least point you in the right direction.
You betchyou!
That's funny, it installed just fine on both my wife's HP laptop and my Dell laptop. The only real problem was wireless configuration, but there is great documentation on that these days.
Publius, I'd recommend that you download the Knoppix CD and try booting the laptop from it. This should give you a reasonable idea of how well Linux will detect the hardware.
You should look at the Open Circulation version of Xandros V3 also.
They really have done a nice job, pleasing to the eye, seems to recognize lots of hardware.
I'm assuming at the moment that you get at least to the boot screen where you have to hit enter to continue. If that's not the case, then I'd suspect the CD, because just about any modern computer should make it that far.
First, I'd try
knoppix screen=1280x1024
..at that boot prompt. Type the above, hit enter, and see what happens...
Next, I'd try
knoppix noscsi
I don't know why this sometimes works on systems that have issues, but it does.
Just in case...
knoppix nodma
One more...
knoppix fb1024x768
I'd be interested in knowing if any of these make it work for you.
Assuming we're all using KDE, you can also find Kmix on the multimedia sub-menu on the main "start" menu. IIRC, Gnome also keeps its mixer on the multimedia sub-menu.
Nope, but as you should know Linux compatible versions of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop don't even exist. Sure, you can try to run them in crippled mode by using some sort of emulator, but then you have to load the emulator software on Linux as well, so the footprint for them all in Linux becomes even larger than it is in Windows. Guess you didn't even think it out before commenting.
I just have way too many peripherals that wouldn't work either, like my new HP multifunction device (nope, no driver exists) and several of my digital cameras/webcams. Wouldn't give those up for anything, some of the main reasons I even use a computer at home.
You then immediately changed the subject. Stick to the discussion. Once you install the equivalent software in Windows that Linux typically installs, then your HDD footprint really balloons up ~10G.
That's not necessarily bad, if you've got the room to spare. STC just mentioned, though, that he liked the small footprint. Don't take everything as a personal challenge to your manhood.
If you really want to get into a contest about small footprints, I can install Linux on a 64M thumb drive. Can you say the same about Windows? And yes--it would be a functional install.
Open Office and gimp are comparable items with substantially similar capabilities, and capable of producing file formats transportable to the afore mentioned windows products (OO more than Gimp).
Guess you didn't even think it out before commenting.
Guess you did not even think that I might not have ment can you install MS office, and was talking about a office suite period.
I just have way too many peripherals that wouldn't work either, like my new HP multifunction device (nope, no driver exists) and several of my digital cameras/webcams. Wouldn't give those up for anything, some of the main reasons I even use a computer at home.
Holy smokes, thats not a troll! *angles singing*
Hey Linux will only support about 50% of the cameras that Windows will, and if your camera is not supported, or you want to buy a camera which is not supported Linux is not for you..
eh, his post was not a total troll so I figured what the heck..
WINE stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator." It's definitely not a cure-all for running Windows apps on Linux, but as usual you fail to have knowledge of that about which you comment.
So despite the fact WINE is not an emulator hell just insist that it is..
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