Moving on...

[WanderingKnight]

Okay, people, due to certain... legal issues... regarding Win XP's SP2 activation, I've decided to finally make a move on to Linux once and for all

The purpose of this thread is for Linux users to give me a few pointers on various things.

1) First of all, I'm still keeping my Win XP partition (on a separate disk) for a month or so. I've heard XP's booting tool ain't very dual-booting friendly, so I'd like to know how do you exactly do it. Note that I'm using two SATA drives.

2) Anime watching. I know the answer is there in the forum somewhere, and I know it has to do with MPC, but since I don't recall a Linux compatibility with CCCP, I'd like to have some pointers in that respect.

3) Video Card drivers. My PC has an Nvidia FX 5200 with 128 MB of RAM, and I want to know if there's some kind of compatibility issue between Linux and Nvidia drivers (not that I'm aware of any, I'm checking just in case).

4) I've heard something about a way of playing games by having an XP emulation... or something. Not being able to play games wouldn't be much of a bother, since on PC the only things I game are Japanese eroges and Stepmania (which has Linux compatibility). If anyone knows anything about it, I'd be glad to hear it nonetheless. NOTE: I'm not aware of the legal status of what I've just mentioned, so mods, please don't bash me for it.

5) Finally, recommendations and general pointers about Linux distros. I have a pretty basic and outsider knowledge of how Linux works, and I'd love to hear suggestions (especially regarding newbie-friendly distros ).

That'll be it for now, I guess. Thanks in advance.

PS: Oh, additionally, if anyone knows how to input Japanese in Linux and knows of any Linux friendly Japanese word processors (I use JWPCe, which isn't compatible AFAIK), I'd be glad to hear it.

[Ledgem]

Hey, why didn't you put this into the Linux thread that I had up here? It'd be nice if we could consolidate the Linux knowledge (although perhaps it'd make it hard to dig through for people new to the thread)

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

1) First of all, I'm still keeping my Win XP partition (on a separate disk) for a month or so. I've heard XP's booting tool ain't very dual-booting friendly, so I'd like to know how do you exactly do it. Note that I'm using two SATA drives.

I'm using a five-drive setup, 2 SATA, 2 PATA, 1 PATA through an extended BIOS card. Windows is on a PATA, Linux was going to a SATA. GRUB gave me some trouble with the extended BIOS bit, but once I unplugged that drive, GRUB worked flawlessly. Don't worry about Windows' boot manager - GRUB is good enough. You won't ever see the Windows boot loader screen.

3) Video Card drivers. My PC has an Nvidia FX 5200 with 128 MB of RAM, and I want to know if there's some kind of compatibility issue between Linux and Nvidia drivers (not that I'm aware of any, I'm checking just in case).

nVidia is very good about Linux support. The only thing to make sure you do, is to get them. I don't believe that the nVidia drivers are included in many, if any, distros.

4) I've heard something about a way of playing games by having an XP emulation... or something. Not being able to play games wouldn't be much of a bother, since on PC the only things I game are Japanese eroges and Stepmania (which has Linux compatibility). If anyone knows anything about it, I'd be glad to hear it nonetheless. NOTE: I'm not aware of the legal status of what I've just mentioned, so mods, please don't bash me for it.

There are two ways you can do this. What you're probably thinking of is WINE, which lets you run Windows programs natively, under Linux. A commercial version of WINE is called Cedega; if I'm not mistaken, it's WINE, but they tweaked it for individual program compatability, so that you don't have to. This is how Linux people play World of Warcraft.

Alternately, you can get VMWare. They recently made Server edition free (you just need to register an account and you can get as many serial numbers as you like). VMWare is available for Windows and Linux (a version for Mac, VMWare Fusion, is in beta, but it probably won't be free. Mac has Parallels, anyway). VMWare is a virtualization program. So, you can be in Linux, and install a Windows virtual machine - that way, you won't feel like you're completely isolated. Whenever you like, you can boot Windows from Linux, use any Windows applications, and then shut down the Windows partition - without having to reboot or stop your Linux session. VMWare only offers limited support for DirectX 8.1 though, I believe, so... it may not be the best option for gaming.

I will note that VMware doesn't seem to allow you to run a non-virtual operating system in a virtual environment (much to my displeasure). In other words, you have your Linux partition and your Windows partition, but if you want to run Windows, you need to install Windows under VMware - you can't direct VMWare to activate the Windows XP on your hard drive. This may be coming in the future, though, if VMWare Fusion's claims are anything to go by (they claim that you can run an XP installed by BootCamp - BootCamp was Apple's way to install Windows to their system, but it was NOT virtualization. You could dual-boot between Mac OS and Windows. If VMWare Fusion lets you use that partition, it'd be the same as running a real OS under a virtual environment, from my understanding).

VMWare is available for Windows, so you could even test out Linux distros before making the full install. Unfortunately, the virtual installs will remain virtual (from my understanding), and you'd have to re-do the installs and customizations if you wanted to make it your primary operating system.

Lastly, if you choose the virtualization route, note that it is computer-intensive. If you're running a multi-core processor, you'll definitely appreciate having it. More RAM is better (1 GB at LEAST; 2 GB would be ideal). Some processors have on-board virtualization optimizations, which would also make virtualization a lot easier on you.

5) Finally, recommendations and general pointers about Linux distros. I have a pretty basic and outsider knowledge of how Linux works, and I'd love to hear suggestions (especially regarding newbie-friendly distros ).

OpenSUSE is what I use, and it's pretty friendly. The other is Ubuntu (what I plan to put on my girlfriend's laptop). Those are the big two.

You may also want to consider what user environment you want. I like KDE - it feels a bit more Windows-like, so it makes the transition easier on me. The other choice is GNOME. In my opinion, GNOME is more Mac-like - not in terms of eye candy, but just overall layout. Check screenshots on both, or play with different versions in VMWare. You can have both installed on one distro and switch between the two. If you prefer KDE, get Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu. (Note that OpenSUSE lets you choose which to install). And of course, there are a variety of other desktop environments, mostly catering to people who prefer slimmed-down versions (the guys who prefer text everything), but those are the big two.

For eye candy, get Beryl. Syaoran helped me to set mine up; now perhaps I'd be able to help you if you needed it, too It definitely looks very neat, and it's very fun. My graphics card lags on some of the effects, though (a GeForce 4 ti4600).

[WanderingKnight]

Hey, why didn't you put this into the Linux thread that I had up here? It'd be nice if we could consolidate the Linux knowledge (although perhaps it'd make it hard to dig through for people new to the thread)

Yeah, I thought about it, but as you said, it seemed to me that it'd be kind of unappealing and that I'd rather have a new, fresh thread.

I've heard there's trouble if Windows isn't on the primary drive. Though if I can avoid installing them on the same drive (an option I've been considering right now, and that I was about to perform if I hadn't read your post), it'd be quite nice. As my settings of now, Ubuntu would be installed in my primary drive, so I'd like to know if there's any problem with that.

And another thing: I'd like to know what's Ubuntu status regarding NTFS support. I know there are Windows drivers that support ext formatted drives, and I've seen some things about a new tool with Ubuntu that allows NTFS writing--does that come with any kind of limitations? The thing is that my secondary drive holds my anime (50 gigs of it) and it's obviously in NTFS format (since I've used Windows up until now).

What I was about to do (right before I read your post, in fact right now the Ubuntu CD has finished downloading) was the following:

Primary drive (80 GB):

7 GB NTFS (Windows partition--note that it's already installed and I'm typing it through it)
1 GB Swap partition
10 GB ext3 Ubuntu system
Rest for ext3 /home (I'd like some pointers on how this /home system works, really)

Secondary drive (112 GB):

20 GB NTFS (This is where my "official" Windows system resides, and I was about to format it).
92 GB NTFS (Here resides all my valuable data, about 60 GB of anime + stuff).


What I could do now that you mentioned there's no problem at all with separate drive booting is keep my Windows installed on the second drive and make a fresh format of the first drive, fully dedicated to Ubuntu. What do you think?

[Ledgem]

NTFS support is now flawless. I believe all Linux distros come with NTFS read support enabled, but write support is disabled. You'd want to install your own NTFS drivers from the recommended sources, rather than enabling the one in your distro. There shouldn't be any limitations, and the corruption issues are gone.

You can also access your Linux partitions from Windows using a special driver.

I've also read about Windows being finnicky in some ways, but I haven't had any problems with it being where it is.

A lot of your questions and such were the same ones I had, and a lot of the answers are buried in the responses to my original thread (including links to the drivers I mentioned).

Your setup shouldn't give you any trouble, just make sure that you read over what the installer wants to do to your partitions. Also, should GRUB fail, don't panic - just pop in your Windows CD, access the recovery console, and use the "fixboot" command to regain access to Windows. If GRUB fails, you can do that, or you can try to edit GRUB's files and repair the issue yourself. Just know that it's note a dead-end error with no choice but to format (it's one of the more frightening errors you can hit, though).

[WanderingKnight]

Okay, now my Windows' being a bitch and refuses to identify the secondary drive as a system drive (and therefore I can't boot from it--it automatically boots to the primary drive's system). I guess it must be the fault of installing Windows back on the primary drive. Yesterday I had two Windows installed, my main one on the primary drive and the other one I installed, on the secondary drive; and I was able to boot from any of them from Windows' booting tool itself. Now that I wiped the former Windows and installed it again from the secondary drive, the thing absolutely refuses to do it, and not even Windows' CD recognizes a Windows partition on the secondary drive (the partition is there, but not as an installed Windows version). Since it doesn't appear as installed, I can't recall the recovery console to fix it, unless there's something that can be done from the console on the main drive.

So I guess I'm back at my plan of dual-booting from a single drive, unless someone has an idea about this.

[SeijiSensei]

On booting:
Before installation, make your Windows drive the secondary and the empty drive the primary. I don't know how this is done with SATA, but we talked about this in the other thread.


On nVidia, anime, etc.
Free and open distributions like Ubuntu or Fedora don't come with any proprietary software. This means no support for formats like mp3 or wma, no playing of DVDs, etc. It also means they don't ship the binary-only drivers for nVidia (or ATI) cards, nor do they usually include full read/write support for NTFS since that runs afoul of Microsoft's intellectual property. You'll need to download these programs from third-party "repositories." I understand that Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) comes with these repositories pre-configured. On Fedora, I use Livna. Again I've written at length about these issues in the thread Ledgem cites. (I'd like to see that thread made a sticky, myself.)

For nVidia, the worst that can happen is you need to download the drivers from nVidia and use the installer they provide. If you use a repository, you'll usually get the binary drivers that match the most recent Linux kernel being distributed.

For anime, etc., you'll want to download mplayer and xine. I tried installing CCCP under Wine out of curiosity but haven't had much luck. YMMV.


On distributions
I like Fedora, but I've used RedHat on servers for a dozen years and know how the files are laid out, so it was more of the same for me. I've had mixed success installing Ubuntu and OpenSUSE on my desktop machine and, frankly, mixed success with Fedora on some laptops. I've got a copy of Feisty that I want to road test soon with one of these extra hard drives I have laying around the office.

One attractive thing about Ubuntu is its ability to run off the CD without being installed. This gives you the opportunity to see how well your hardware is supported before making the commitment to installation. I think the upcoming Fedora 7 has a "live" CD version as well. Check its tracker page for more details.

[WanderingKnight]

Before installation, make your Windows drive the secondary and the empty drive the primary. I don't know how this is done with SATA, but we talked about this in the other thread.

Well, as far as I've investigated, there seems to be no problem with installing Windows first and then Ubuntu on the same drive. I'm currently on the Live CD interface, setting up my installation. Wish me luck

[Ledgem]

Good luck I'm currently trying to get Linux installed under Parallels. Seems that 64 bit versions don't work, even though this processor should be 64 bit...

[WanderingKnight]

Okay, everything is going smoothly up until now. Audio hardware recognized and drivers automatically installed, I *think* my nVidia card was also detected and its drivers automatically installed, though I'm not sure (I can change resolution, if that helps). But I've just run into my first newbie's problem with the console. Say I want to install lolifox, and its installation package comes as a tarball file (and it's not found by the default Ubuntu add/remove tool). Now I've checked the help function, and there it said I had to enter in the console:

tar xfvz tarball_name

Now, I've tried every name I can figure out the system needs to recognize the package, and nothing. The name of the package is "lolifox-0.3.0.en-US.linux-i686.tar.gz". A quick help with this would be appreciated (don't bash me for being a newbie!) .

EDIT: Allright now, Azureus doesn't seem to want to work. I've installed it properly, and every time I open a torrent file with it, it says "it's not a file" and crashes. I can open the torrents perfectly with the integrated bittorrent application, though. I'm quite puzzled by this.

EDIT 2: Forget about it, Azureus crashes when it starts up. Dammit.

EDIT 3: Oh screw it, I think it's because I haven't got Java installed. Damn Windows made me pretty lazy, and I thought I had it integrated since Azureus said nothing.

EDIT 4: AARGH, SCREW IT! Installed sun-java-5 and nothing, it's still the same. SCREW IT!

[WanderingKnight]

Okay, finally got what was wrong with Azurues, now I'm in need of some help with something else.

I can't seem to be able to compile the binary for any .tar file. I extract them, then go to the console and type "./configure" and I get a message saying that there's no file. I can run Azureus by inputting "./azureus", but can't actually install it.

[SeijiSensei]

1) There are two types of nVidia (and ATI) drivers. x.org makes open-source 2D drivers for both cards that can be shipped with free distributions. There are also proprietary drivers available from both companies that include support for accelerated 3D. However I do see a file on my Ubuntu 7.04 DVD in the directory /pool/restricted/n/nvidia-kernel-common/ that might have the proprietary stuff in it. Does the nVidia logo flash on-screen for a moment when the graphical interface starts up? That's how the proprietary nVidia driver behaves on my machine.

Edit: It looks like Ubuntu has the proprietary nVidia drivers as well from looking in /pool/restricted/l/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20. I'm going to read the license to see how Canonical can ship these freely.

2) Did you resolve your problem with expanding tar images? I use 'tar xzvf tarball.tar.gz' but I don't think the order of options matters.

3) If ./configure doesn't work, you most likely don't have the gcc compiler and associated tools like autoconf that are required to compile. I don't use Ubuntu, but I know there's an "add/remove programs" type of application. Try installing gcc, autoconf, and automake and see how far that takes you.

The development tool packages are pretty large in size, especially if you include things like Perl, Python, Ruby, etc., along with C, C++, Fortran, etc., etc. As a result you don't find them on the first CD or a distribution. Distributions which have a single base CD usually can't include the development packages because they need the space for things like OpenOffice and Firefox.

4) If you can run ./azureus then it's installed. As you discovered, you needed java to run Azureus. When you run /path/to/azureus/azureus, it starts an instance of the java "runtime" and loads the Azureus code into it. That's how Azureus runs on Windows and Macs, too.

[WanderingKnight]

Okay, setting momentarily aside the matter of Azureus (at least it works), there's something else that bothers me (and it has to do a lot with my ignorance of what's going on most of times with linux).

You see, I installed mplayer from the add/remove programs thingy, and it didn't run anything. I learned later that it has no codecs installed, so I unpacked the essential codec pack found in the mplayer homepage. Browsing around Animesuki I found this post where it gives some basic pointers. From there on I don't remember very well what I did, I think I installed some other basic package that didn't come integrated with Ubuntu (apt-get install essential-build or something like that) which I think installed everything you told me in that post (that was too large for CD distribution). After that, I uninstalled mplayer, and am compiling it or whatever according to the instructions of that Animesuki post.

I tried ./configure --enable-gui in the mplayer directory and it turned out some png package was missing. I installed it, but when trying ./configure again it said I needed X11 or something. I googled it and pages regarding Mac OS came up. WTF?!

So I just compiled it normally, without the --enable-gui. This means I'm stuck with the command prompt for it?

Ugh, my Windows-dependence has started to take its toll. I guess it's just a matter of time, though, till I get used to this whole new stuff.

1) There are two types of nVidia (and ATI) drivers. x.org makes open-source 2D drivers for both cards that can be shipped with free distributions. There are also proprietary drivers available from both companies that include support for accelerated 3D. However I do see a file on my Ubuntu 7.04 DVD in the directory /pool/restricted/n/nvidia-kernel-common/ that might have the proprietary stuff in it. Does the nVidia logo flash on-screen for a moment when the graphical interface starts up? That's how the proprietary nVidia driver behaves on my machine.

When I tried the Desktop Effects thingy on Ubuntu, it automatically told me there weren't Nvidia drivers installed--though I reckon it was referring to the 3D drivers you're talking about (if it wasn't then how the hell did it show 2D desktop visuals anyways?). I installed them and the flashy Ubuntu interface runs with no problem at all.

EDIT: I just tried playing a simple avi file and there was sound but no video. I still don't get the process of codec detection by mplayer... And nor automatically installed gxine and mplayer have any success playing files...

Am I stuck with VLC? I don't want that >.<

[Jinto]

Try mplayer --help. This will give you an overview of available options.... display options too. (one of them might work)
You can search with apt-get for the X11 libraries you'll need to compile players GUI (though I've never used one, I think this player is easily to handle with just key commands).
The nVidia thing for 3D is usually the nVidia GLX stuff, you'll need to download the installer package from nVidias site. Besides in your xorg.conf, I think nVidia won't use its own GLX when DRI is enabled (not sure regarding new drivers... but can't hurt to switch DRI off). When you install the nVidia read carefully what it tells you. It is important to setup the x-server for nVidia's own glx Open-GL libraries (instead of the pre-installed ones).

[WanderingKnight]

EDIT:

I already had the drivers installed. I ran sudo nvidia-glx-config enable and it updated my xorg.config. I'm guessing it's all right by now, is it?

[Jinto]

Well in your window manager... if you run nvidia-settings and go to OpenGL/GLX and it tells you its on, then you have the nVidia 3D acceleration up and running.

[WanderingKnight]

OK, now I've screwed up. After running that command, I rebooted, and now the thing has conflict between the drivers and the xorg.conf (and thus, any sort of graphical interface). I've tried getting back a backupped version of the xorg.conf but it's still the same. I'll write down the error entirely and come back, but I'm kinda scared. I hope I can solve this...

[WanderingKnight]

Okay, the error says the following:

Failed to start X server
(WW)NVIDIA: no matching
Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:0) found
(EE) No devices detected
Fatal error: no screens found

Now I'm guessing it's not uploading the drivers, or the drivers aren't correctly set up to load my card, and thus it doesn't load anything. Any idea?

[Jinto]

Do you have the nv (nvidia) kernel module (if yes build your kernel without it)... can I see that xorg.conf?

[WanderingKnight]

I don't know what you are referring as to build my kernel without it. I figure I have the nv kernel module, since I ran "sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-kernel-common" and no files were upgraded.

Here's my xorg.conf

Spoiler for xorg.conf:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder3) Thu Nov 9 17:55:20 PST 2006

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf(5) manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen" 0 0
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# path to defoma fonts
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "i2c"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "stylus"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "eraser"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "cursor"
Driver "wacom"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4" # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 28.0 - 51.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 60.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

If it's any help, in recovery mode I can run my graphic interface with no problem, but I'm guessing I haven't got the Nvidia drivers properly functioning anyways.

PS: Reading the xorg.conf, my video card isn't being recognized... o_O

[Jinto]

Below Driver "nvidia"
add these lines:
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
Option "DRI" "true"

maybe it'll help.

edit:

please do dmesg, I want to know what was detected by hotplug