I have started to use OpenSUSE after experimenting with lots of other
distros, and as a beginner have found all of my questions in other
forums. However I cannot find anything specific enough (or that works
for a couple of questions.
I installed 11.1 Gnome and played around with it but a few things kept
cropping up, so I thought I would try the 11.1 KDE. I would like to
stick with the KDE version but I am having a few problems. i would be
grateful of any advice for the following:
1: I am running a NVidia GeForce 6100 Graphics card. Using gnome I
installed the 2 drivers from the Nvidia repro as recommended (GFX G02
option as this worked under Gnome). When I reboot all the titlebars are
missing, my keyboard only works in certain software, and the wifi
dissapears completely. I have tried the options ‘default’ and ‘GFX G01’
and this only logs in as root without any graphical interface.
2: Amarok - I wanted to use version 2.0 but it does not recognise any
of my music files (formerly from iTunes). Version 1.5 seems to
recognise and play them all. the only thing it does pick up (and play)
are the BBC podcasts.
3: Being new to Linux I am unsure of how it works in comparison to
Vista. Does linux have Internet security type suites built in or do I
need to install extra software like I would in Windows.
I recently installed 11.1 on an old board with a geforce 6100 and
found ‘manually’ installing the driver available on nvidia’s site worked
better than those from the repo, I used the latest version. Having said
that there were a few things that didnt work to my liking, suse 11 ran
perfectly on the same board
Did you install amarok-xine and change the engine to xine in
amarok’s settings? That usually works for me with mp3s etc, though
itunes format I’ve never used, but I’m sure someone on the forum uses
itunes files with amarok 2.0, lets hope they post if switching the
engine to xine doesn’t work for you
Suse has it’s own firewall as well as Novell AppArmor, you don’t
really need to install anything else although you might wish to use
clamav and spamassassin in conjuction with your mails, if you use kmail
and install both clamav and klamav you’ll find that klamav has a tool
for integrating clamav with kmail that’s VERY simple, just one mouse
click
Linux just isn’t susceptible to infections in the same way as windoze,
many people hold the view that linux can’t be infected by viruses but
that’s a whole other subject, just relax in the knowledge that the
minute you switched to suse from vista you eliminated almost all risk of
malware problems
There are other firewalls you could install but I’m not sure that any
of them are any better than suse’s own built-in one, plenty of people
are running servers behind suse’s own firewall so it should certainly be
ample for a purely desktop machine. I’ve ran suse since version 10.2 as
both server and desktop on nothing but what suse comes with, as well as
the firewall in my router, without any problems whatsoever … at least
none that I’m aware of
There are people far more knowledgeable than me on security issues
using the forum but I’m sure they’ll tell you that the above is
basically correct even though I don’t doubt they could go into far
greater detail
Nvidia - I am attempting to manually install the driver. I have played
around with root commands (as I know none) and have eventually got the
.run file to start up. It says it can’t find the driver and needs to
access the internet to find it.
As I have to execute the .run file with no x server, what command do I
use to start a network connection prior to executing the file to give
access the the internet.
Amarok - I could not find an option in 2.0 to change the engine to
xine. Unlike 1.4.1 where there is a tab for it. I have got the xine
installed anyway.
Thanks for clarifying the security question. This makes sense and
confirms what I thought, its only when Windows user fire questions about
it I confuse myself.
> As I have to execute the .run file with no x server, what command do I
> use to start a network connection prior to executing the file to give
> access the the internet.
don’t worry, simply say No to looking for pre-compiled drivers/modules
on internet and it will start compiling your driver. If you say yes, it
won’t find them anyway, so it will start compiling the driver anyway.
linuxoidoz is spot on, it’s the driver’s kernel it’s looking for on the
net and there never is one, it just compiles it all by itself
One thing though, when the driver install finishes it asks about
running nvidia-xconfig to initialise the driver, decline that
Use this command instead: sax2
Some will say to use sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia, but simply running sax2 has
always worked for me, once sax has run, first type exit to ‘un-become’
root
If you get a login prompt, login as the user you configured for
yourself when instaling and type: startx
If you’re aready logged in as that user and don’t get a login prompt,
just type: startx
That should take you into your desktop
As for Amarok, to select xine as your engine it should be here:
Settings, Configure Amarok, Engine, then you should see a Sound System
drop-down box that currently says: Gstreamer/Yauap Engine, see if you
can change that to xine
If you can change it, set it and click Apply, then OK, no need to alter
anything else in the options that suddenly appear after clicking Apply
I disagree here better to answer yes_to_all_the_questions during the
install and
reboot when done
/Geoff
Ecky;1923071 Wrote:
>
> …
> One thing though, when the driver install finishes it asks about
> running nvidia-xconfig to initialise the driver, decline that
–
Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz 4GB DDR2 2.5 TB GeForce 7600 GS OS 11.1 x86_64
KDE4.2 beta2 ‘Smolt specs’ (http://tinyurl.com/9hgxhl)
Well using sax2 is the way most suse-nvidia howto pages say to do it,
and it’s always worked well for me
But like most things there isn’t necessarily one way and one way only
that works, one such page does say that it shouldn’t be necessary to use
sax in suse 11 so one would assume it to be true of 11.1 also
I suppose it’s the way I’ve become used to after doing it that way for
the past few years, and it definitely still does work, I did it that way
on a laptop just recently and it’s working fine
Of course, you can just let nvidia-xconfig run and if it was to fail or
just plain not have configured things to your liking, still go back and
use sax as it would drop you back to a prompt anyway if it did fail
I have managed to install the NVIDIA driver manually after following
your instructions and installing other bits it needed to run.
Unfortunately though the Nvidia driver gives the same result as the GFX
G02 driver - no titlebars and no keyboard in suse applications, no wifi
icon (although I am on internet).
Any ideas?
Also if I install anything manually will it appear in the install
software application. If not how do you remove, not that I need to
(yet), hopefully.
Are you using compiz or any other desktop effects.
If so try disabling it/them
/Geoff
Kacy;1923199 Wrote:
> I have managed to install the NVIDIA driver manually after following
> your instructions and installing other bits it needed to run.
>
> Unfortunately though the Nvidia driver gives the same result as the GFX
> G02 driver - no titlebars and no keyboard in suse applications, no wifi
> icon (although I am on internet).
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Also if I install anything manually will it appear in the install
> software application. If not how do you remove, not that I need to
> (yet), hopefully.
–
Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz 4GB DDR2 2.5 TB GeForce 7600 GS OS 11.1 x86_64
KDE4.2 beta2 ‘Smolt specs’ (http://tinyurl.com/9hgxhl)
Usually anything you install using an rpm file shows up in Yast’s
Software Management, to uninstall anything that shows there clear the
tick out of the checkbox to to the left of the program name then click
the Accept button
One reason why you wouldn’t see a wi-fi icon could be that it’s
configured to use ‘traditional method with ifup’, you can check if this
is the case in Yast, Network Devices, Network Settings on the Global
Options tab
If it is the case and you really want a connection icon in the tray
change ‘Traditional method with ifup’ to ‘User controlled with Netwok
Manager’ on the Global Options tab and click Finish
Regards your graphics driver, I don’t know whether you checked
compiz/desktop effects after geoffro’s post or not, but something else
to look out for that indicates the nvidia driver is properly installed
and initialised is seeing an nvidia splash screen as your machine boots
up … you can’t really miss it as it’s got a great big green nvidia
icon on it, although it can flash by pretty quick on a fast machine
NVIDIA is definitely activated at log-in and all desktop effects are
turned off. Still no titlebars or keyboard in suse applications. If I
open up certain applications like ‘configure desktop’ I can’t get rid of
them even if I restart the PC. i have managed to type by logging out
and back in as failsafe option.
I have tried to re-install Opensuse to clear the Nvidia problem. When
it booted up again it seemed fine, but then after restarting it re-set
itself back to as it was. Any suggestions as to how to sort it out or
to uninstall the Nvidia driver. As I installed it manually I don’t know
how to remove it using root commands.
I have tried ‘rpm -e nvidia’ but it says it does not recognise
software.
Also with the Amarok I cannot find any option to use xine in the
version 2.0.
To uninstall the package you installed with the .run file you use the
same command as for installing it but add --uninstall to the end of the
line
rpm -e only works for packages installed from an rpm (at least I
believe that’s right)
Example:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-177.82-pkg2.run --uninstall
I doubt whether that will solve your issues though, unless they only
appeared after you installed the nvidia driver perhaps
You seem to have a whole bucketload of issues going on there, probably
needing a deeper look at what’s going on with the system than someone
like me can give, from a few forum posts at least (although trying a
newer graphics card may help with some of it if you have one, may at
least help you narrow down whether it is in fact the graphics causing
your problems)
If no-one more knowledge here is able to help you, if it were me I’d
then think about installing an earlier version
I’ll be perfectly honest with you mate, and I hope no-one gives me a
rollocking for this, but I did a test install of 11.1 on a spare drive
and quickly decided I’ll be sticking with suse 11 on kde 3.5 probably
until 11.2 comes out when I’ll do another test install, and if you’re on
a geforce 6100 I suspect my hardware is considerably more up to date
than yours, mine’s a 1gb geforce 9850 on a dual core amd 6000 with 8gb
of ram
If you do wanna try an earlier version you can get them here:
It has seemed to boot up okay now that I have done a re-install but it
still hasn’t sorted the graphics driver problem out.
Its a bit odd though that I was using Gnome 11.1 with Nvidia installed
and working fine, using emerald and Fusion animations, but for some
reason its a no show with the KDE 11.1. I have experimented with KDE
and Gnome, and to me I like the KDE as it appears a bit sharper and
cleaner appearance, plus it runs a bit prompter on my set-up than the
Gnome.
You might be write about using 11.0, I was running 11.0 Gnome for a few
weeks in December when I started getting into Linux and it all worked
fine - except when I played too much and buggared it all up every now
and then. I don’t really know enough anyway about what difference their
is between the 3.5 and 4.0.
Thanks for your help though, at least I have a lot more points to add
to my ‘Thats what that means then!’ root command list. Plus trying
these things out meant I had an explore of bits I haven’t needed to
before.
KDE 3.5 is an older and more ‘mature’ version of the kde desktop than
KDE 4/4.1
3.5 was the final version in the 3 ‘series’ before it moved on to 4
Obviously an awful lot of work goes into a desktop environment and it
wouldn’t be fair to expect a completely new version to have everything
spot on with the first couple of builds as soon as it’s released for
every possible computer configuration, there will always be bugs that
need ironing out in any program
If every program was perfect ‘first time’ there probably wouldn’t be
any need for new versions of anything, and the kde 4 series will improve
in allsorts of areas as it matures
People using it and reporting bugs is all part of that process however,
otherwise the developers wouldn’t know what needed fixing, the reason
I’m not using the latest versions at the moment is that I have one
machine for both server and desktop functions
My wife’s board died so she has my desktop for the moment until I
rebuild hers, once I get it back this machine will go back to being a
server only and my desktop will be getting the latest versions of both
Suse and KDE, albeit as a dual boot to begin with
Provided you have the drive space it’s not too difficult to have two
versions of Suse installed, when 11 came out I kept my 10.3 when I first
installed 11 until I was happy with how I had 11 working, and even had
both versions using the same home partition successfully at one stage
If you were so inclined you could do the same with 11 and 11.1 and
benefit from the useability of 11 as well keeping up with cutting edge
of things that is Suse 11.1 on the latest kde, it’s what I’ll be doing
when I do get my desktop back
