Mandrake Linux 8.2 is out!

#81 Too late, I reinstalled Madrake. Actually, Tim was the one that tried to install the nVidia drivers in 8.2. Tim said he could fix it, but I don't want to use his time since he is working on the vehicle code. BTW, it is an eMonster P550 with a 32M TnT2 card.

I did the initial Madrake installation, and it was running great, i.e. I had Internet, got Gnome to run and was even using their Outlook clone. Previously, I had Mandrake 8.1 running, but chose not to install Gnome and I thought KDE crashed way too much so I didn't use it.

Linux definitely gets better with every release, but it needs a lot more work before normal people can use it. Installing this nVidia driver is a case in point.

I really wish the different desktop guys would just kiss and make up, and all get behind one desktop. Now that Open Office is getting so good and Evolution is working there is little reason not to use Linux. Oh, especially if we can get Torque running.

We have not released a lot of PR info about the Torque/RW Beta because we wanted to do a little more testing before we get Slashdotted. We at least wanted to see how it ran before we had to answer a bunch of questions.

We'll give it another try tomorrow using some of these suggestions. Thanks for all of the help.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#82 Oh God Jeff. Please don't post this on slashdot. Please. I don't want to go a whole day with access to GG.

Seriously, Linux is improving a lot. Yes they still got ways to go, but it's really getting there. As it is right now, you still have to be able to tinker with your system a bit if you want to get it working just right. That's fine for me but not for everyone.

The only problem I have with Linux is the lack of games. Although that is starting to change. Even with the demise of Loki things are looking up. NWN is actually be released on Linux. Plus, of course, once things get rolling there will be bunch of games using Torque which will run on Linux.

I don't agree with your one desktop comment however. I think it's on of the things that distinguishes the Linux community: choices. We have two great mature desktop environments (and a whole bunch of other less popular yet still good alternatives). That's the whole thing here. People can use whatever they enjoy best. I think the competition actually helps drive forward Gnome and KDE. If there was one combined desktop (like Knome or something), I think things would move slower.

Again, most of this i rambling cause I'm exhausted from a shitty exam packed day. By the way, if you're gonna make an official announcement about RW, it would be nice if all three versions were compiled against the same source so that Linux users can actually play against others. =)

So...did the reinstall work?

#83 I wish that someone would make a good alternative to Xfree86 or at least Xfree86 be improved. There is an alternative one that uses HW accelerated Opengl but its very very early stages and only works with Matrox cards.

Jeff: I don't know if you guys still have my Mandrake 8.2 torque tutorial but you should be able to follow it to get it working. If you guys want some realtime help then stop by the garagegames irc channel....can walk you through it there and give you any help you need.

-Tim aka Spock

#84 i've heard that there are alternatives to X... however the question is: do any of them NOT use TCP/IP (that's how X transfers data to and from the window manager and desktop environment and SLOWS IT DOWN)

i'm not too sure on where to find these alternatives... however i should just look 'em up.

btw, Debian rocks! but Mandrake is a good starting place... use it for about 6-8 months then move up to something like Slackware... then get something like LFS (LinuxFromScratch) or Debian

#85 Hey Ian, you sure about that that TCP/IP stuff? Even for local connections? The whole point of X is that the server doens't have to be on the same machine as the client (one of the cool features of X). It's nice not having to go down to the lab to do my work because I can do everything I want from home.

Anyways, I think this whole TCP/IP stuff is for situations like above. If you're using a connection to the server on your local machine then it should be direct.

I'm pretty sure that the X developers wouldn't waste precious ressources making it slow like that for local stuff.

Speaking of which, what's the beef with X? I mean, yeah, it's big, and yeah it uses a lot fo ressources, but at the same time it does a lot. And I think it does a good job for what it's supposed to do. X4 was extended nicely to support Direct Rendering.

As for alternatives, there aren't any decent free ones. And you're not guaranteed to get good drivers even if you pay for them.

Browsing around, I found these links:
DirectFB: limited support for GTK. Free.

Cancel that. That's just one link. I couldn't find any of the commercial stuff.

#86 Xfree just seems really lacking compared to windows and Mac OS X. That DirectFB was the alternative I was talking about.

-Tim aka Spock

#87 Tim,

XFree86 is not your problem. It's your window manager. I'd suggest window maker. I guess you could also try something like FVWM95 (has a Windows feel).

- rjp

#88 X uses tcp/ip, but I think it uses different socket types, not the same ones that it uses for network connections. I may be wrong though!

Also, try IceWM if you still access to a Windows like Start menu. It's fairly quick (not as quick as Windowmaker).

#89 What exactly is Xfree lacking that windows and MacOS have. And remember, you're comparing two different things here. Xfree i a open source implementation of the X protocol which provides for the display and management of graphical information. The other two are OSes.

Xfree is perfect but what is it specifically about Xfree which bothers you?

#90 Really yes to be fair I'd need to combine a windowmanager with it. Thw things I can think of right now are true transparency and better resolution management. I'm not sure how Mac OS X works with resolution management but IMO Xfree's sucks. The transparency is just eye candy but a true opengl Hardware accelerated Desktop would be nice.

On the windows feel thing, I read an article about Gui design for all of these window makers and I tend to agree with the author on the fact that they aren't trying anything new and useful but are just cloning Mac and windows interfaces.

-Tim aka Spock

#91 Further adventures in the land of Linux.

After repreated attempts to install the nVidia drivers on yet another install of Mandrake 8.2, this time following Tim's instructions and talking to others on IRC, we have given up. And this isn't some newbie trying to do this stuff. Tim Gift is a pretty talented programmer and even knows his way around Unix. We simply do not have time to mess around with this.

I still haven't given up on Linux. Tim put the system back in order, so I have continued on in my quest to become Microsoft free. I have to say, it isn't looking good right now. I'll probably go back to Win2000 and look again in a year. Here are some complaints.

1. SLOWWWWW. I am running on a P550, 64M RAM, nVidia TnT video card. I understand this is no longer a powerhouse, but it does a fine job running WIN98, Office, and Opera browser. It is an absolute dog with Mandrake 8.2, Gnome, Nautilus, and Mosaic. Everything feels like it is in slow motion.

2. BUGS. I keep the machine running all the time because every time I restart I have to go into DrakConf to get the Internet running. Then, when I quit that program the hourglass stays on the screen instead of a pointer.

3. DIFFICULT INSTALL: I downloaded Open Office, and it took forever to figure out how to install it in spite of the instruction on their site. It seems kind of wierd to me that I need to go into the console to install a Tar product. It is used so much on Linux that I think double clicking on a TAR.gz product would automatically bring up a Gnome type installer.

4. LITTLE CONNECTIONS: When I click on an Office attachment in Evolution, it should automatically open the appropriate application and show the attachment.

I understand this is free software, and I am using free software daily (Opera, Open Office), but there are such obvious things wrong. I don't understand why complex things get worked on when big holes exist in day to day operations that normal people want.

Please don't take this as a complaint. It's just that I am rooting for Linux, and I would like to see it get better. For me, right now, it is too slow, there are too many bugs, and it is too hard to use.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#92 Speed could be improved by a lot by getting more memory. Linux needs more than windows, probably at least 128MB but more is better. Apps just have a bigger memory footprint on linux (probably because they are all reinventing the wheel in their code ;)

Its too bad you guys couldn't get the drivers installed. Somebody really needs to write a NVIDIA driver installation wizard; it is such an automatable process.

I agree that even the newbie oriented distributions are buggy and lack polish. It isn't ready for the normal user yet. But there is some progress in this area: super-newbie distributions like lycoris and lindows might succeed in providing an easy to use distribution that I can recommend to new users without biting my tongue.

I still think there is a market for linux games even if there is only a "hardcore" community. Loki is out of business, but that failure seemed to be as much related to political problems as anything else. I'm pretty convinced that a carefully managed company could succeed with the business model of porting and making linux games.

#93 I'd classify Mandrake and Gnome as 'bloatware' :-)

Get slackware and window maker! Runs blazingly fast on my 500mhz tnt2 box!

... amber is the color of your energy ...

#94 indeed this is a sad day for Linux :(

Yes get up Slackware 8.1
with the new KDE and all ready to go.

we have less hardware combination than that running the torque pretty ok (same video card PII 350)
yes you need more ram..

make a custom kernel
if not up to it and running slackware I can send you a script that will do it for ya.
(after a run thru on your hardware)

as for the driver install I would like to know where it goes wrong.

the old drivers nv are Terrible and are Really Really slow getting the torque on them is Completely unplayable on a gforce3!!!
simply installing these new drivers speed anything up to do with the XFree86.

Mandrake is Bloated and slow.

honestly tho if you take the time to try Slackware its not near as hard as everyone makes out.
the setup is easy all that's needed to know is how to partition

#95 I was gonna post this earlier but a storm interupted me...

Quote:After repreated attempts to install the nVidia drivers on yet another install of Mandrake 8.2, this time following Tim's instructions and talking to others on IRC, we have given up. And this isn't some newbie trying to do this stuff. Tim Gift is a pretty talented programmer and even knows his way around Unix. We simply do not have time to mess around with this.

Could you give us some info on what exactly the problem is here? What is it doing? Not working at all or what? Did you happen to have these in your XF86Config-4 file?

Load "dri"
Load "GLcore"

They need to be removed.

Where you editing the XF86Config-4 instead of XF86Config file? Did you install XFree 4.x? The Nvidia drivers only work with versions of 4.x.

Quote:1. SLOWWWWW. I am running on a P550, 64M RAM, nVidia TnT video card. I understand this is no longer a powerhouse, but it does a fine job running WIN98, Office, and Opera browser. It is an absolute dog with Mandrake 8.2, Gnome, Nautilus, and Mosaic. Everything feels like it is in slow motion.

This could be somewhat caused by your driver problems, but it is also because mandrake 8.2 is fairly bloated. For more speed I suggest either debian (if you want precompiled apps) or gentoo (if you want to compile yourself for greatest speed) You do need a bit more ram. also how much swap did you create? You need to have at least 2 times the amount of ram you have in swap space....specially since you have so little ram. You said win98 works fine....remember your trying to run latest linux software not software that was made when win98 was. It's very likely that with mandrake you are using software not compiled for your generation processor.

Quote:2. BUGS. I keep the machine running all the time because every time I restart I have to go into DrakConf to get the Internet running. Then, when I quit that program the hourglass stays on the screen instead of a pointer.

Depending on which programs you use, some are more buggy than others. I'm using KDE 3.0 and Konqueror isnt really that stable (although it isnt really that bad either) so I use Mozilla for web browsing and everthing works fine.

Quote:3. DIFFICULT INSTALL: I downloaded Open Office, and it took forever to figure out how to install it in spite of the instruction on their site. It seems kind of wierd to me that I need to go into the console to install a Tar product. It is used so much on Linux that I think double clicking on a TAR.gz product would automatically bring up a Gnome type installer.

ahh...the evilness of rpm based distro. Here I would also recommend either debian or gentoo. From what Ive seen, Im sure people will disagree, debian doesnt always have the newest software available but gentoo has had all the software I needed. Gentoo works off the fact that you issue a simple commands like "emerge appname" and it will download, compile, and install it for you. You just sit back and relax. Debian has similiar easy to use commands (but debian downloads binaries normally instead of source). Gentoo has most of the software and its all up to date. You can browser the programs on their viewcvs link on their homepage. Gentoo itself isnt trivial to install. It has great install docs but you need to know your hardware. Samething goes for debian. Neither has automatic hardware detection as it bloats things. It isn't that tough at all. I was very newbiesh when I installed gentoo and I made it through it. They have an irc channel on irc.openprojects.net #gentoo and they can help you on any hangs.

Quote:4. LITTLE CONNECTIONS: When I click on an Office attachment in Evolution, it should automatically open the appropriate application and show the attachment.

This is something that can depend on what window manager you use along with configuring a lot of this stuff yourself....linux still isnt at the point of click install and everything is working just like windows. Lindows will probably do that though.

Tim had come by IRC looking for me but I missed him by 1 hour. You guys shouldnt be having this big of a problem, it might be something that I can easily spot. If you want to give irc a try again Ill be there.

-Tim aka Spock

#96 Jeff, your post depressed me. I don't know what to say. Try Lycoris or Xandros, or Lindows. They are supposed to be easy to setup and have a really nice user interface.

Also, you may want to take a look at nautilus (an application from the now defunct Eazel company). You might like it.

Tim, I found two more X alternatives:
Nano-X and MicroWindows
TinyX/SmallX.

AFAIK, the first one is oriented towards embedded development. It should still work fine on a normal desktop pc.
The second one seems to be oriented towards a minimalist Linux.

I think if you want to keep 3D acceleration, you should stick with X, or maybe DirectFB.

#97 Nautilus is part of Gnome on Mandrake. I'm going to try KDE on top of Madrake to see how it works.

I'm really kind of depressed because I have been working on a background idea for providing educational software to schools for virtually free, kind of a GarageED kind of idea. I was thinking that Linux would be the operating system, but it would have to run on P200's with little memory. Instead of a full on Mandrake, I will explore some of the lighter windowing packages you suggest.

BTW, can we move this thread to the Linux forum? I'll post a new thread later after I attempt to use KDE.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#98 Ryan: I've got apologize to you. I tried windowmaker and it is very nice. I thought upon looking at it that I would hate it but it is actually quite nice. It's amazing how much faster it is as well.

Oh well just wanted to post and tell you. I'll let the thread die now. :)

-Tim aka Spock

#99 Let the thread die at 99 posts?... no way... this is post 100 :)
And yes, WindowMaker is very nice... tried blackbox?

#100 X
xterm -display localhost:0.0 &

./torque_Demo.exe

>:)