SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 It says Intel i850 under Mainboard>Motherboard>Chipset.I can't find anything about the video card though... Quote
Bruno Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Hi Sonic That system should be alright, the mem could be higher, but should do. Still there are some odd thing going on here. I''d like to check a few things with you and now we have Mandrake running that makes it easier. Will you to start with do a checksum on those CDs ( Tip ) because if they are only 99% correct they might install okay, but still give these kind of problems ( Lilo and slow or not starting programs ) after the install. Bruno Quote
Peachy Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 It says Intel i850 under Mainboard>Motherboard>Chipset.I can't find anything about the video card though...You should have a fairly quick system since the 850 chipset uses Rambus RDRAM. For your video card you can use AIDA32 or use Windows XP Device Manager to find it. I'm suspecting that you will need to tweak the video card settings in XFree86 to get it to redraw faster. Also, you may want to check your hard drive performance. Go to a console and log in as root using the su command. Type hdparm -tT /dev/hdx where x is the letter of the drive Linux is installed. You can type df -h to quickly glean that information. Just ignore the number; you only need the letter, which should be a, b, c, or d. Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Well... I'm trying to run the checksums. The first one was right, and so was the second one, but it won't eject my second disk! This thing is really screwed up. I think it might be time to try redhat and see if i have any better luck :(I think the harddrive is a 7200 RPM, if that's what your looking for.------------------------------Well, the disk decided to come out i'm doing the third one now. Quote
Peachy Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Actually I want to see the performance of the buffered-cache reads and buffered-disk reads. This will tell us if Linux is using the drives in PIO mode (slow) or UltraDMA mode (fast). This will affect the quickness of launching applications in KDE. Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.24 seconds =533.33 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.11 seconds = 57.66 MB/sec Quote
Peachy Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Well, it's not your hard disk that is the bottleneck; those are pretty impressive numbers! I like the cache reads; that's the dual channel RDRAM at play. So, then the only bottleneck left is the video card. Do you know if the card is ATI or Nvidia? If you have your Gateway model number I'm sure I could find it. Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Yes, i will investigate the video card. Logging out to try AIDA32.All disk's checksums were fine. Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Video Adapter: ATI Radeon VE DDR with ATI RV100 DDR 3D accelerator. Quote
Peachy Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Well, I checked on ATI's website and they don't have Linux 3D drivers for the Radeon RV100/7000. You're stuck with the default drivers that came with XFree86. That's why KDE will seem slow in Linux compared to Luna (the name of the XP GUI) in XP. Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Humm... bummer.Do u think i'd have better luck with something less pretty, like Slackware? Quote
Peachy Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 You could try another Window manager like Blackbox, Enlightenment, or Sawfish. Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Humm... that is definatly a last resort. :(I guess i could always just try RedHat or Slack. It doesn't seem like it should make a difference, but... i guess it's worth a try? Quote
Peachy Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Give Red Hat a go. It will default to GNOME as your desktop. You can choose to install KDE and switch between the two. Heck try as many as you wish; you just bought a new hard drive. Quote
Bruno Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Sonic Before you wipe Mandrake, make use of the handy GUI partitioning tool to devide up your hdb . . . Mandrake Control Center --> Mount points . . . . Only resize your /home directory ( the really big one . . just devide it up and make Ext3 of them . . . Then try RedHat . . or VectorLinux SOHO, really complete distro and much faster then any other. Bruno Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Humm... I went to MCC>Mount Points>DiskDrakeBut i can't seem to move/change the partition tables. Nothing i do has any effect... Quote
Bruno Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Sonic, Sorry, it''s the memory that fails here . . you can not unmount the /home ant this stage ! You''re right ! What you can do is flip in the Mandrake CD and start a new install like yesterday, only at the point of partitions you switch to expert-mode, then you get the same tool as you just saw in the MCC . . there you can resize /home and troggle back to normal mode after ( you can leave the free space blank . . just finish the install and go to the MCC to see if the partition table is as you like it . . all other partitions exept / and /home you can resize/format then ( again ) if you want. It is that this is such an easy tool in the MCC that you can not go wrong, something that makes partitioning a breeze even for people absolutely new to setting up partitions. Looks like a bit more work but is definitely worth it ! Bruno Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Alright Reinstalled and repartitioned. Quote
Bruno Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 Sonic, Glad that went okay, would you like the link to VectorSOHO ? ( based on Slackware but a lot easier ) Website VectorLinux ISO and Checksum Take the SOHO 3.2 not the plain 3.2, SOHO is more complete, comes with KDE but also with a lightning fast IceWM Bruno PS: your system specs are really good, can´t see why you have these troubles . . . Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 30, 2003 Author Posted July 30, 2003 Well, i'm at work now, but i left the computer installing RedHat. If that doesn't work (or probably even if it does,) i will end up installing slack or vector. I'm not giving up. It's not like... unusable slow... but it's close. But i'm optimistic because i have no flashing problems with the red hat installer.Hopefully it will work better :)We'll see when i get home i guess.Thanks again for all your help (both of you!)! Quote
Bruno Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 I'm not giving up.I bet you don´t Sonic . . . keep the spirit high my friend !! Bruno Quote
teacher Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 We will all be anxiously awaiting the results of this install. Bruno is right about the VectorSoHo. That is a nice distro. Quote
Bruno Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 He made plenty partitions Julia, so after RedHat we will just add VectorSOHO . . . and maybe Slack as well . . . . and Knoppix HD install . . . and . . . . and . . . :) :DB) Bruno Quote
teacher Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 After all, we only have what - maybe 125 easy to find distros? :) Quote
BarryB Posted July 30, 2003 Posted July 30, 2003 After all, we only have what - maybe 125 easy to find distros? :)hee hee....and heavy investment in the CDR industry Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 31, 2003 Author Posted July 31, 2003 Well...I installed RedHat, with good news and bad news. The red hat bootloader does not flash, but on the other hand, i think it seems a little slower than mandrake. I also cann't boot to mandrake anymore, but i don't mind doing a reinstall.On my list are:SlackVector(and if all else fails) FreeBSD. Quote
Bruno Posted July 31, 2003 Posted July 31, 2003 Sonic,Just re-install Mandrake . . and install Lilo back in the MBRThen install the others on free partitions and install their Lilo on a floppy . . so you can for the time being start them from floppy . . . later when you´re sure what distro´s you want to keep, we´ll adapt the Lilo to contain all your distro´s.The advantage of this is that you can experiment as much as you want, and till have Windows and Mandrake as ¨base¨ Bruno Quote
SonicDragon Posted July 31, 2003 Author Posted July 31, 2003 Does RedHat use Grub by default? Because, whatever redhat was doing was working much better than mandrake. No flashing Quote
Bruno Posted July 31, 2003 Posted July 31, 2003 Yes RedHat uses Grub by default, but you had the flickering already at the first screen of the install, so was not really Lilo related ! Bruno Quote
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