Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| openSUSE 11.1: Noob questions
OK, so I finally made the plunge and decided to dedicate an older box to Linux to really get my feet wet.
CPU Information
Processor (CPU): Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
Speed: 2,049.27 MHz
Temperature: 65°C
Memory Information
Total memory (RAM): 1,008.6 MB
Free memory: 370.8 MB (+ 359.5 MB Caches)
Free swap: 1.0 GB
OS Information
OS: Linux 2.6.27.19-3.2-default i686
Current user: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
System: openSUSE 11.1 (i586)
KDE: 4.1.3 (KDE 4.1.3) "release 4.9"
Display Info
Vendor: Mesa Project
Model: Software Rasterizer
Driver: 2.1 Mesa 7.2
The actual card is an NVIDIA GeForce 6800GS running @ 1440x900
So...while I like the look of everything...I am getting some severe performance issues. Good bit of lagging, general overall slowness. My first suspicion is that this is due to the incorrect drivers being used for the video card. Do I just not have enough to push this distro? I thought it'd be able to handle it, but I've been wrong before.
I searched some of the threads on here, and I saw that some ppl, when they installed this version, didn't like KDE4 so reverted to some earlier versions...is that possibly what I am running into as well?
I don't think I have too many bells and whistles turned on, but honestly not familiar enough w/ everything yet to know for sure.
If anyone could just look over my info and let me know if I am using the right drivers, etc...I would appreciate it.
TIA!
If ya need any more info, just ask! (and maybe tell me how to get it to save us some time!  )
--
»raisingconnor.blogspot.com/
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
-Mark Twain |
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happylurk
@look.ca
| Personally I don't run KDE 4 or Compiz or anything even remotely resembling eye candy on my systems.
My main concern for running Nvidia cards is OpenGL support so that I can run the odd 3D game like BZflag or one of the Flight Simulators.
Anyway, I can tell you that as of last count, there are in fact 3 different Nvidia Drivers available now in the SuSE Repo and there is some crossover between them where some cards can run, if not perfectly with either one of 2 out of 3 drivers.
My advice to you is to try experimenting with the drivers in YaST as they may or may not have detected your card properly on install. BUT BE WARNED. Installing the wrong drivers will result in a broken xorg server and you will be unable to boot into graphical mode.
There is a way to fix this though.
Login as root, and run yast2 from the command line. Then if you ever had experience with old DOS style command line programs, navigation is similar. TAB, CURSOR, SPACE and ENTER as well as ALT _underlined_chars_ are your controls.
At that point you can load and unload different drivers and test out subsequent reboots to see which one works best for you.
Before you go screwing around with the drivers though, I'd recommend installing KDE 3.5 and disabling compiz if it's running and see how your performance is then?
Also, I'd suggest bringing your RAM up to 2 Gigs at least as another option. It may be the 1 Gig of physical RAM that's slowing your system down. |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Please excuse my ignorance here, but I went into Yast2/software manager and searched for "nvidia" and all it found were 3 fan control pkgs..i.e.:
asusfan-debuginfo - Fan Control for Nvidia-Based ASUS Graphics Cards
I thought YAST2 was how ya went about finding and installing pkgs...is that not the case and if not, how do I? (for both the driver and for kde3.5?)
I am searching the net as well...trying not to be a useless lump here  |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs: | reply to happylurk
Are there repositories I need to add manually? |
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happylurk
@look.ca
| reply to Koil
Aha!
You probably have not added the non-OSS repositories to your system yet.
Go to YaST and then select Software Repositories and then select ADD and add from "Community Repositories"
While yer at it, add the Packman and Videolan repositories and anything else you might see as useful for dealing with multimedia issues later on.
Then go back to Software Management and you will magically see the Nvidia drivers when you search on Nvidia. |
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happylurk
@look.ca | reply to Koil
Personally, in addition I always add the Mozilla and Openoffice repos as well. In reality there's no harm in adding most of the repositories anyway and it only adds a few seconds to refresh time anyway. |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs: | reply to happylurk
Ok, sweet...I now have the NVIDIA drivers installed, and things are better. Still kinda sluggish, but at least I have 3d acceleration now and can see some of the effects I didn't know I had enabled..lol
Looking into backing down to KDE3.5 now |
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happylurk
@look.ca
| You can have multiple graphical environments as well.
No need to uninstall 4.whatever.
You can select which desktop GUI you wish to use from the login screen/session manager.
To do this, however, you must disable passwordless logins and enable your login manager from the start menu
Personal Settings/Configure Desktop Icon
From there you can access the login manager and set your login to use a password.
That will also give you a selector button which will allow you to choose which desktop manager you prefer, be it KDE 4, KDE 3.5, Gnome, XFCE or whatever you choose to install. |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs: | Ok, nice....that was my next question..how I do I get all of these pkgs off of here....I'll go ahead and install 3.5 and see how it runs.
I really do appreciate your help!! I'll keep ya posted. |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs: | reply to happylurk
Well, I thought I got it...but it wasn't in the list when I logged out...do I need to reboot for it to be there, or activate it somehow? (KDE 3.5 )?
I installed the kdebase3 and all its dependencies...do I need something else? |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | Got it....using "Patterns" is much more helpful....ahh learning curves.
::EDIT:: Wow...this installs a lotta crap. Think I am calling it a night.
Thanks again for your help. I am going to let this run on its own and check back w/ it tomorrow. |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to happylurk
Oh yeah...much much better.
Evidently KDE4 comes w/ a lot more enabled out of the gate than KDE3.5. Its running like a champ right now, though as noted, none of the pretty effects, but thats not really anything I ever mess with too much anyway.
Still poking around, as it looks like I need to find a clear type font or something for Konqurer...on these forums, the text looks..well, you know...not clear .
Got a lot to learn, but thanks again for the help...I am sure I will be posting a good bit as I soak this stuff up. |
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happylurk
@look.ca
| A couple of words about fonts...
In the Yast Update there's an option to install some MS fonts.
Also, again under Start Menu/Personal Settings(Configure Desktop) there is a font manager.
Enable antialiasing for your fonts and if you have any CDs lying around with a zillion fonts or any shovelware disk you can buy for $4 from the clearance bin with fonts, you can enter administrator mode and install your fonts from there.
Personally I have an old Office 98 install CD with a bonus pack of like 100 fonts that I always install by default. They're too old to have a Euro symbol, but it's not like I have a lot of use for that one anyway.
Also in Yast/Software Management there are a few dozen optional fonts and fontpacks you can install. Personally I really like the Bitstream Vera fonts and use them in Firefox. |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | Do you use Windows at all? The reason I ask is for comparisons sake, as using the cleartype fonts in windows, and enabling the AA for the fonts in Linux didn't create the same result. I still get the weird, yucky looking text in Konquerer and in FF. I've done some research and I'm evidently not the only one to notice this, but installing the "3rd party" fonts resolve this issue, or is possibly just the sans sarif default font thats having this issue?
:EDIT: I guess the Windows question is kind of dumb if you have an Office 98 CD....  |
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happylurk
@look.ca
| I don't use Windows at all. I've been running a SuSE only shop for the past 6 years.
However, I do tweak my Firefox and Konqueror fonts on every fresh install using the tools I described above.
I've attached a screen dump of my firefox fonts in this message to see what I work with.
These are the Bitstream Vera Fonts jacked up to about 14 or 15 points and antialiased. And this was taken on my crappy laptop screen.
I'm 52 years old and I'm needing larger fonts these days to avoid having to wear glasses while I type |
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donoreo
Premium
join:2002-05-30
North York, ON
| reply to Koil
I find my fonts on Linux look better than they do on Windows now! It used to be the opposite. I have done no tweaking other than turning AA on. I am using SUSE 11.1
--
The irony of common sense, it is not that common
I cannot deny anything I did not say |
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happylurk
@look.ca
| reply to Koil
Here's my standard font settings in Firefox... |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | Here is a quick & dirty of what I am talking about. I haven't been able to procure any font files yet, but I did turn on the AA and such...still shows up weird. Hope the pic shows correctly.
The X's and K's are especially noticeable. |
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happylurk
@look.ca
| One thing you might want to consider is changing your color scheme.
White or amber text on a black background was the bees knees back in the 80's on my 40 column C64 display, but nowadays I opt for clarity and use black text on a paper white background wherever possible.
You'll notice if you look upscreen in your example, the black on white and black on grey text is perfectly legible.
Frankly I hate any kind of clown colored text on a black background these days. Websites that use that sort of color scheme just piss me off
Perhaps a few simple color changes will solve your problem? |
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Koil
Premium
join:2002-09-10
West Columbia, SC
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
| Well, for now I will try not to be insulted at my sense of pleasing color palettes (:P) but isn't that somewhat masking the problem, versus getting the fonts to look the way they should.
I'll try the more modern and chic black on white and see how it looks. |
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