Re: Greetings / Newbie questions

From: Edward Haddock (haddocke001_at_hawaii.rr.com)
Date: 09/10/05

  • Next message: Edward Haddock: "Re: Greetings / Newbie questions" 
    Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 10:06:14 GMT

    Dale,
        I am doing a lot of reading and so far, I have learned a lot. A freind
    and I discussed
    it and he thought maybe I needed to try a different distro. Seems Fedora is
    more oriented towards
    server business model and plain desktops in an office. Urubuntu<sp?> came up
    and I might try that. Fedora is
    doing better, although I am unable to do the mp3 thingy still. I will try
    your advice and see what happens. I am gonna
    remove Xmms with yum then reinstall. I am hoping that works. I also saw
    somewhere you can boot off of a USB drive.
    I am gonna investigate that as well. My systems are:
     A 1 Ghz AMD Athalon
        13 GB Drive
        512 Meg
        CD-R
        CD-RW
        Audio detected as ALSA...not sure what kind of card it is.
        3.5 Floppy.
        128 ATI Rage
        NIC card of some kind
        Fedora Core 4 and no other.
    B 3100+ AMD Sempron
        512 Meg
        80 Gig.....2, One with Win XP Home...one with Fedora 4. I shut down and
    physically swap them at this time.
        Fedora found all the hardware including a
        3.5 USB Floppy.
        USB Ports
        DRD-RW but it says CD
        CD-RW
        128 Nvidia G-Force
        Built in sound "works"
        Two books....."Red Hat Fedora 4 Unleashed" with DVD and Fedora Bible
    With DVD and CD
    This list is not as technical as some but hey....anyway.
     I too want to get away from windows. Wish I could get away from the oil
    companies but then, I
    don't have the power for that. An OS though, if done well, would sway me.
    Fedora Core 4 is close. But
    as always, I struggle on.
    Mahalo

    "Dale Maggee" <dale.b.maggee@death-to-spammers.team.telstra.com> wrote in
    message news:dfrcoi$dv5$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
    > Edward,
    >
    > Fedora has MP3 Playback disabled out of the box. If you run XMMS and try
    > to
    > open an MP3, it will show you a message explaining this. (this message is
    > generated by the 'mp3 placeholder plugin' which is installed by default).
    > You'll need to go and download the XMMS Mp3 plugin from
    > http://www.xmms.org.
    > I had an older, full version of XMMS in a zip file somewhere, so I was
    > able
    > to just extract and copy the .so file inth XMMS's plugins directory. Once
    > this is done, you just need to restart XMMS and disable the placeholder
    > plugin (you could delete it if you want).
    >
    > frustration is the first step on the path to enlightenment... stick with
    > it,
    > read alot and I'm sure you'll get there...
    >
    > HTH,
    > -Dale
    >
    > "Edward Haddock" <haddocke001@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
    > news:Ry9Ue.100$5g.97@tornado.socal.rr.com...
    >>
    >> Aloha Dale,
    >> I am just learning myself but you have gotten furhter than I have. I am
    >> still trying to figure out how to get Mplayer or Xmms installed and
    >> working. I did a full install so don't think I am missing nay packages.
    >> At this point it is a little frustrating.
    >> Edward
    >> 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
    >> >
    >> >
    >> >
    >
    >

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