Suse 9.1 - experiences of a windows user

From: JonRico (jonricopatrese_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 05/29/04 

Date: 29 May 2004 06:55:09 -0700

Hello

I am a long time windows user, but was persuaded by a friend recently
to try out Suse 9.1 as an alternative. I purchased the 9.1 DVD package
for $90.

First off I would like to say that I am a computer user - I think my
understanding of "how things work" is reasonable, but its definately
not great. I want my computer for productivity, not to fiddle with for
the sake of it!

Now, I have a very standard computer for these days - its a P4 3Gig
HT, with an ASUS P4PE, a Radeon 9800 Pro and a SBLive - when I install
windows it detects everything bar the video card (even then it has a
good go) and I end up with a fully working system with slow 3d
acceleration. A quick trip to the ATI site solves that.

When I installed Suse 9.1, I found myself at a high resolution
desktop, connected to the internet and everything looked great. Then I
tried the sound. It seems to continually make some sort of background
noise and the sound effects, although they do play, seem very quiet
and a little distorted! I had a look online and it seems that others
have the same problem, and its KDE 3.2 related, but I could not find a
workable solution.

Oh, well, I figured everything would be fixed with some driver update
soon enough, so I turned to installing UT2004, about the only game I
ever play! It didnt work - no OpenGL. No real problem there though, I
went to the ATI site and downloaded the latest driver - 3.9.0. I also
downloaded their check script to look at my version of XFree86. The
script told me that I had 4.3.99 so I downloaded the 4.3 ATI driver.

After following the instructions for installing the driver, I then had
to reconfigure all of my X! Why? I have installed a new video driver.
Why does that affect my monitor timings? Why cant it take the
settings and change only the relevant parts? Anyway, it didnt work.
Examining the XFree startup logs told me

(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed! *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *

I have no real idea why.

So I have a system that works, except for sound and accelerated videp!
I have paid for a piece of software and it would appear that there is
no real way to make it work with my very standard hardware.

As for the ATI install, it may have failed because I am in fact
running a pre 4.4 version of XFree86. If thats the case then the ATI
install script, should have told me that. The sound card problem, I
just cant believe that exists!

Anyway, the bottom line is that I am very dissapointed with my
experience. I am sure that if Microsoft was to release an operating
system version in this condition that they would be brutally attacked
from all sides. I have seen people suggesting that I use some older
ATI drivers from suse and recompile my kernel (WHAT?) to use them!
This is exactly the sort of thing that I dont want to do with
computers. I want to use them, not configure them. Thats what
installers and packagers are for.

Anyway, I was wondering what other peoples opinions on this are? Is my
experience standard? Should I be dissapointed or should I accept that
if I want to use the operating system that I will need to invest many
more hours understanding how it works under the hood than would be
required with windows?

This was not meant to annoy anyone, I am just looking for answers.

Thanks

Jonathan Ritchie

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