Re: Greetings / Newbie questions

From: Arie (fedora.linux_at_home.nos-pam.nl)
Date: 09/09/05

  • Next message: Ian East: "Re: Greetings / Newbie questions" 
    Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2005 21:42:17 +0200

    Dale,

    I am pretty sure you will find the following website quite helpfull:

    http://fedoranews.org/contributors/stanton_finley/fc4_note/

    Have fun with Linux,

    Arie

    Dale Maggee wrote:
    > Greetings linux community! Please welcome your newest member! (group hug)
    > I have been running Fedora core 3 for about a week now, and I LOVE IT!!!! I
    > am FINALLY FREE OF MICROSHAFT!!! I feel like Mel Gibson in 'Braveheart':
    > "FREEEEEEEEEDOM!"
    >
    > I have a bit of previous experience messing around with Red Hat 6 & 8, and
    > FreeBSD 4.7, and I'm a winblows ace and a BASIC Programmer (C64 Basic,
    > QBASIC, VB, Access, etc), but I'm still very green in terms of actually
    > knowing how this great operating system works & being able to use it
    > properly..
    >
    > I am having a couple of issues which I am hoping somebody will be able to
    > help me out with...
    >
    > First, about my system:
    > AMD Athlon 800
    > I don't know what type of motherboard.
    > 512Mb RAM (2x256Mb PC-133)
    > Promise Fasttrak ATA-100 IDE controller Winblows Ex-Pee calls this a SCSI
    > Controller but it connects to IDE Drives. I think it's doing this through a
    > SCSI Interface (It loads a BIOS when it detects drives during startup, just
    > like a SCSI card).
    >
    > 40 & 200GB Quantum HDD attached to the Promise Controller. (40Gb Hdd is
    > /dev/hde, this is the boot drive. Ex-Pee is installed here, 200Gb HDD is
    > /dev/hdf. Fedora is installed here. My partitions are:
    >
    > /dev/hde1/ - FAT32 - Winblows Ex-Pee. mounts to /media/dos (40Gb)
    > /dev/hdf1/ - NTFS - Old, Dead Winblows Ex-Pee Installation. Not mounted yet
    > as I have not installed the NTFS kernel driver yet. (20Gb). I have only kept
    > this and /dev/hdf2 as I need to recover data.
    > /dev/hdf2/ - NTFS - Data. Not mounted yet as I have not installed the NTFS
    > kernel driver yet. (60Gb)
    > /dev/hdf3/ - Ext3 - / (15Gb). I Forced LBA32 during setup as this partition
    > starts way past the 1024th cylinder.
    > /dev/hdf4/ - Ext3 - /home (20Gb)
    > /dev/hdf5/ - Swap (500Mb)
    >
    > LG DVD+RW on /dev/hda
    > LG DVD-Rom on /dev/hdc
    >
    > 128Mb ATI Radeon 9250 AGP Video Card.
    >
    > Creative Sound Blaster Live OEM
    >
    > Ok, now the issues:
    >
    > 0. I am having a bit of trouble deciding which to use: Gnome or KDE. KDE
    > seems much prettier and more configurable (visually / behaviour wise), but
    > it also seems slower and less stable. I have had a few lockups where the
    > machine just hangs using KDE. Currently I've got my default session set to
    > Gnome. Any comments comparing the two which might help me decide would be
    > nice...
    >
    > What's the story with Gnome & KDE? Why don't the two join forces and build
    > an uber, configurable, stable, pretty window manager? If this happened, I
    > think M$ would have some SERIOUS competition!
    >
    > 1. I've read that Fedora comes MP3 and DVD disabled out of the box. I have
    > managed to get MP3 Playback with XMMS working by copying the appropriate .so
    > file from an older version of XMMS I had lying about into the XMMS plugins
    > directory, but what do I need to do to get totem playing Movies and DVDs? I
    > have tried:
    > - Running Totem as Root (I've found that lots of things need to be done
    > as root. This is a seperate question)
    > - ensuring Gstreamer is installed (it is, V0.8). It even seems to have
    > heaps of plugins installed...
    > - Fiddling with totem preferences. I can't see anything wrong in there.
    > Does anyone have any Ideas as to what I need to do? I am using a work
    > internet connection, so downloading is difficult. I have been thinking I
    > should download MPlayer and Xine...
    >
    > 2. I've read that it's not a good Idea to be logging in as root. My 'normal'
    > username on my system is antisol, and this is what I log into gnome as, but
    > I have found that alot of things need to be done as root. For example:
    > - Burning with K3b. If I don't run this as root, it won't do anything,
    > because it doesn't have sufficient permissions to /dev/hda (my CD Burner)
    > - Running XMMS with 'Use Realtime Priority' option enabled (I have been
    > getting the odd skip in XMMS when playing Mp3s)
    > - Running the Audio Cd Player. same problem as K3b - insufficient
    > permissions to the device.
    >
    > In KDE, There is an option with each launcher to 'run as a different user'.
    > I have set this up to run as root for these applications, but there are a
    > couple of issues with this: I have switched back to Gnome and cannot find
    > any equivalent option so I have to run these programs from a terminal after
    > typing 'su'. Also when I'm using KDE, it prompts me for a password every
    > time I want to run these programs. Can this be turned off? I don't want to
    > have to type in the root password everytime I want to run XMMS!
    >
    > What I'd like to be able to do is either give my 'antisol' user almost the
    > same rights as root (i.e editing configs etc, but I think this might pose
    > the same risks as logging in as root?), or to save the authentication or
    > give antisol the permissions to run these programs as antisol. I have
    > considered doing a recirsive chmod on /*.*, but decided that this might
    > break things. Suggestions?
    >
    > 3. I have noticed some sort-of random lockups. This usually occurs when
    > running multimedia type stuff. For Example, Tux Racer will usually play
    > music and display the main 'press any key' screen, but that's it. It freezes
    > at that point with the music still playing. Pressing keys does nothing,
    > pressing CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE to exit X does nothing, CTRL-ALT-DEL does
    > nothing. When this happens I have to hit the reset button... I have left it
    > there for up to 10 minutes, and the music just keeps playing. If I press any
    > key INSTANTLY as soon as Tux Racer starts up, it might let me play one game
    > before freezing.
    >
    > Also, I have Installed Unreal Tournament 2004 for Linux. This works fine but
    > will occasionally just lock up as well. When UT locks up, it just freezes.
    > No sound, no mouse, no keys do anything. Reset button.
    >
    > I have also noticed some odd lockups when doing lots of things in X. these
    > aren't really lockups, though, more like 'thinking sessions'. The mouse will
    > still move, System monitor either freezes or says the CPu is at 100%, but I
    > can't click on anything. If I just leave it there for a couple of minutes
    > though it will start responding again. This usually happens when I have
    > multiple nautilus windows open and am moving/resizing one of the windows.
    > It's a strange one. It happens in both gnome and KDE, but more often in KDE.
    > I'm thinking some kind of memory/hardware incompatibility thing?
    >
    > 4. Can someone point me to a good link (or type an essay, if you're bored)
    > explaining what a 'journaling' filesystem is, and why I don't need to defrag
    > it? This is WAY COOL!!!
    >
    > I can't wait to get myself familiar and confortable with Linux. I have found
    > these current versions to be excellent in terms of ease of installation and
    > user-friendliness, and I think Linux is starting to approach a point where
    > it should be useable for the masses. I'm very interested in starting to
    > learn C so that I can maybe even contribute to it (I have become an
    > open-source fanboy). Does anyone have any good general links / info /
    > programs / whatever that they think I might find usefull / helpfull?
    >
    > Thanks for taking the time for reading all this, and thank you in advance to
    > anyone who replies!
    >
    > Regards,
    > -Dale Maggee
    >
    >
    > 

    -- 
Arie Spieker
Bergen op Zoom
		Linux? Just for fun!
  • Next message: Ian East: "Re: Greetings / Newbie questions"