Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: redrumloa on January 27, 2004, 06:29:10 PM
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Thanks to everyone who have answered my questions so far, I am absorbing all the information like a sponge :-D I have been giving Red Hat 9.0 a spin for about a week now. It seems fairly competant, yet certain things are helplessly broken like JavaVM. I am quickly starting to get more comfortable navigating my way around and am ready to try another distro. I think I am down to Mandrake 9.2 and Suse 9.0. I am still pretty much a newbie, but not a Knoppix level newbie:-P I have a couple of questions.
Between Mandrake and Suse:
1) Which has better JavaVM support? Is it out of the box support?
2) Overall turn key operation? Overall better hardware support?
Also:
*Am i to understand that the Suse live eval cd is just that, a demo? But the FTP install is complete?
*The Mandrake 9.2 ISO is complete? Including 3d gfx support?
What other considerations between the 2? I may end up trying both, one per computer. But would appreciate some feedback from the local Linux geeks :-D
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I sadly cannot give any real answer there, as i have never tried Suse9.0... I have however heard that it is supposed to be very easy to use...
1) Which has better JavaVM support? Is it out of the box support?
You have to download it from java.sun.com on downloadable version of mandrake atleast.. But that is really no problem, as sun java comes with a pretty nice installer :-)
*Am i to understand that the Suse live eval cd is just that, a demo? But the FTP install is complete?
The Suse live cd is a bootable linux distro, that is used to see how suse works.. I believe it is fully useable, but not easily installable... FTP install is full install afiak.. You can also buy the dvd/cd sets.
*The Mandrake 9.2 ISO is complete? Including 3d gfx support?
The free downloadable mandrake cds are full version yes, but does not come with commerical software. It does however come with plenty of open source programs, including open office, bunch of browsers, irc clients, games, celestia"amazing space 3d simulator", web server and so on... 3D support is easily fixed by downloading linux drivers from nvidia or ati.. There is really no problem installing these, as long as you read the readme :-)
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Mandrake is simple to use and has great hardware support. The JVM seem to work for me as far as I have seen. Give it a try next. I'd say it is the simplest to use of them all. I am far from a Linux junkie and I got it running well.
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@Red
Here is the difference in what you get with Mandrake (http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/92/comparison) as per distro. :-)
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Not sure if there is a lot in it both of these seem slower than previous versions to boot but both are quite good distributions out of the two i prefer suse and have installed that on my laptop although i have not used it much.
I am not a linux geek and only play with it now and then .
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Proper nVidia drivers don't come with the downloadable version of Mandrake?! Ah, that might be why 3D GFX is dog slow.
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Okie, SuSe FTP install is going on one of the boxes. That was surprisingly simple :-o Let's see how it goes from here...
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You are perhaps yes, better off with Suse..
Mandrake 9.2 is by far the most bloated slowest linux distribution I have ever used. I can't believe how slow it seems compaired to my previous linux instalations and windows 2000. On the nice side, It configured eaisly for all my hardware and also found my cable modem okay and did the dhcpd without much fuss for my wireless network. Mandrake comes with modules for almost every modern 3d card. I did however, download the Nvidia drivers from their website.. otherwise you are stuck running Mesa (ickk) Also, the package management is quite nice.
Previously I've run
Mandrake Linux 8.2
TurboLinux 6.0 (Heavily Modified)
Caldera Open Linux 2.2
Slakeware Linux 2.0 (I believe)
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One more makes 100..
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah
If it was only this easy tallying my seti@home units!
Blah.. ok I'll stop.
=)
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You forgot the 'Wooooooohooooooo!'
That reminds me of something, when I was doing my Masters, a guy in our office (all the Masters students shared a room and we all had our own computers) got us all to to do SETI, especially since most people had their computers on 24/7.
Anyway, the reason he did it because he noticed there was a group called King's CAD or something similar. So he set up our group, to be in competition with them (we were at King's College London) so for months he was making sure everyone had the program running and was leaving their 'puters on. So the King's X-ray and Optics group (that was us) would overtake the King's CAD group. After about 7 months he noticed something, that this group he had been trying to get us to beat was in fact nothing to do with our university.
Well, that wasn't too interesting was it....
I do miss having my own computer at university though - ah the speed of the internet connection. Friends would boast to me about their broadband and I would be like, 'Pah!' . I remember downloading from the Sunsite server (based the other side of London at Imperial College) and getting stupidly fast transfer rates.....
Sorry, I really am just ranting on about nothing now. I'll stop here :-)
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Proper nVidia drivers don't come with the downloadable version of Mandrake?! Ah, that might be why 3D GFX is dog slow.
Sadly yep, that is true... Is the open source driver that follows the downloaded version, which is horrible slow on 3d.. With official nvidia driver i get actually better opengl perfomance than i do on windows :-D
I suggest these beta nvidia drivers: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=28e986b788c142ad16c30c46243a267d&threadid=21848 (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=28e986b788c142ad16c30c46243a267d&threadid=21848)
This ones seems to work better than "stable" release for most people.
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redrumloa wrote:
Okie, SuSe FTP install is going on one of the boxes. That was surprisingly simple :-o Let's see how it goes from here...
Tell us how it works out please... :-)
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Tomas wrote:
Tell us how it works out please... :-)
It went pretty good except I still cannot get JVM working to save my life.. I've got it to the point where it will try to launch, but will fail with an error.
Anyone here familiar with getting JVM working under Suse or even RH? I'm done for tonight, too annoyed. I'll give it a shot again tommorow :-x
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To get it to work in, say, Mozilla:
Log in as root
Get the JRE from Sun, here (http://www.java.com/en/download/linux_manual.jsp) (get the RPM one)
In a console, cd to where you downloaded it (unless you changed the download default your console should start there anyway, root's home)
chmod a+x j2re-1_4_2_-linux-i586-rpm.bin
(hit TAB to complete the name, this makes the file eXecutable)
./j2re-1_4_2_-linux-i586-rpm.bin
This executes the file (because the current directory is NOT in the command Path as in AmigaOS you need to say "current directory" first with the ./ part) which will extract the RPM file here.
Hit space 'til you reach the end of the EULA then type yes.
rpm -ivh j2re-1_4_2_-linux-i586.rpm
This is how to install an RPM "by hand", i = install, v = verbose, h = hashes (progress bar)
cd to your mozilla plugins directory, on my system it was here:
cd /opt/mozilla/lib/plugins
If there is a file libjavaplugin_oji.so there delete it:
rm libjavaplugin_oji.so
Make a link from here to the plugin in the newly installed JRE directory, on my system it was here:
ln -s /usr/java/j2re1.4.2_03/plugin/i386/ns 610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so libjavaplugin_oji.so
(should be no space in that first path it is ns610-gcc32, the reply editor is adding it)
Close and restart Mozilla, go somewhere with a Java applet to test it, there's a test applet here (http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.jsp).
Another tip, if you don't know where something is on the machine, use Find Files (obviously) or from the console, if you are looking for a shell command which will be in the Path use:
which filename to find it, or if it is not in the Path:
find / -name filename -print to find it. Some distros have a command called locate too but not on my Suse9 machine. The above searches the whole partition from / downwards.
All that could be done via the GUI too btw, but doing it like this gives a feel for the console and is quicker to go through in one step rather than clicking around windows and filling in dialogs. If you know how to do stuff like this you won't be caught out if a new distro doesn't offer a GUI panel to do task xyz either.
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@BouncingAyatollah
YOU DID IT!!!
I had done every step repeatedly except this one!
ln -s /usr/java/j2re1.4.2_03/plugin/i386/ns 610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so libjavaplugin_oji.so
All the instructions I have seen say cp not ln, once I linked instead of copy it worked! (oh and I am using the ns610, not ns610-gcc32)
You have no idea how frustrated I was getting, thanks!!! :-D
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amigamad wrote:
Not sure if there is a lot in it both of these seem slower than previous versions to boot but both are quite good distributions out of the two i prefer suse and have installed that on my laptop although i have not used it much.
I am not a linux geek and only play with it now and then .
Boot times depend on what hardware you have and what services you have at start up. If you don't turn off the useless stuff you don't use then naturally it will be slow. It sounds like you haven't cut out the services that are new to the latter releases that you don't use. I have only notice speed increases in latter versions of Mandrake after fine tuning.
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@redrumloa
Nice one. :-)
I decided to set it up last night, first try was getting a plugin download file from Netscape I think, i.e. a file in the plugins directory like you said - no good. Tried the one from Sun and linking to it - wahey!
A friend of mine (quite seriously) recommends keeping a "linux notes" book. The same things come up again and again so it's handy to have. In the midst of frustration I admit (cough) that - ahem - I usually "forget" (cough) to do this LOL!