I have used Knoppix for many a system administration job — rescuing PC’s or enlarging a virtual hard drive.
I just found a great video about Knoppix that might come in handy at some point in the future.
Nvidia Drivers for Fedora 9
This will probably be fixed by the time Fedora 9 is released, but I had trouble getting the NVidia drivers to work.
I tried the rpm packages from AtRPMS, but I couldn’t get them to work. First of all, they forced me to downgrade to the kernel version 2.6.25-1 (I was at 2.6.25-8). Then, they didn’t install the nvidia-settings program and didn’t update xorg.conf. Finally, when I tried to update xorg.conf, XWindows wouldn’t start.
So, I decided to manually install the drivers.
The latest version that I found on the website was:
NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1.run
I had to update to the latest kernel release again because I couldn’t find drivers for the one that I was on. And, when I tried to compile it, I got an error. Looking in /var/log/nvidia-installer.log, I found:
/tmp/selfgz5981/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1/usr/src/nv/nv-vm.c: In function
‘nv_flush_caches’:
/tmp/selfgz5981/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1/usr/src/nv/nv-vm.c:364: error:
implicit declaration of function ‘global_flush_tlb’
make[4]: *** [/tmp/selfgz5981/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1/usr/src/nv/nv-vm.
o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [_module_/tmp/selfgz5981/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-169.12-pkg1/usr/src/n
v] Error 2
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
NVIDIA: left KBUILD.
nvidia.ko failed to build!
make[1]: *** [module] Error 1
make: *** [module] Error 2
Then, I found an FTP link where later drivers were listed. I tried the 173.08 version. After manually deleting a broken link created by the previous install (/usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so), it compiled without a problem. But, I could not start the XWindows.
Here is what I got:
(EE) module ABI major version (0) doesn't match the server's version (1)
(EE) Failed to load module "glx" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
================ WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING ================
This server has a video driver ABI version of 4.0 that this
driver does not officially support. Please check
http://www.nvidia.com/ for driver updates or downgrade to an X
server with a supported driver ABI.
=================================================================
dlopen: /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libwfb.so: undefined symbol: miZeroLineScreenIndex
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libwfb.so
(EE) Failed to load module "wfb" (loader failed, 7)
(EE) NVIDIA(0): This video driver ABI is not supported.
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Use the -ignoreABI option to override this check.
The best information that I can find so far, is that NVidia does not support the latest version of XWindows yet.
Conclusion
So far, I have determined I have to wait for NVidia to update their drivers. I am hoping they will have it done in the next couple of weeks only because Fedora 9’s release dates is in 14 days.
Resources
Creating a SourceForge Project with Eclipse
I have been wanting to try my hand at an open source project. The new project is ContactDB.
First, I had to create my SSH key. I followed the OpenSSH instructions here.
This is the command that I used to create the key:
ssh-keygen -t dsa -C "myusername@shell.sourceforge.net"
- Remember to replace the “myusername” with your actual user name.
- I used the default location to save the key (/home/myuser/.ssh/id_dsa)
- I entered a passphrase.
Once I had the key generated, I opened the file in a text editor: /home/myuser/.ssh/id_dsa.pub and copied the new line that I just created. On my account page at SourceForge, under the section “Host Access Information”, I clicked “Edit SSH keys for Shell/CVS”. I pasted the line that I copied into the large textbox and clicked update.
I couldn’t do the initial import in Eclipse for some reason. So, from the command line:
CVS_RSH=ssh; export CVS_RSH export CVSROOT=:ext:myusername@contactsdb.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/contactsdb cvs import -m "initial project files" contactsdb initial start
In Eclipse, I created a new workspace. Then, I created a new project (File, New Project …). For the type, I chose CVS, Projects from CVS.
Next, it asked me for the repository location information (remember to substitute contactsdb with your project name):
- Host: contactsdb.cvs.sourceforge.net
- Repository path: /cvsroot/contactsdb
- User: you user name
- Password: the password you set in the SSH key generation
- Connection Type: extssh
- Port: Use default port
Next, Eclipse asked me to select a module. I chose the “Use specified module name”, and I chose my project name for the module (“ContactsDB”).
Links about Git
Reading Rich Manalang’s blog, I came across some links relating to git. I am mainly blogging these as a reminder to go back and spend some more time on them at some point.
Source:
Information on Fedora 9
I just found the Summary page for Fedora 9 development:
https://linuxsagas.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php
This is a good place to watch.
Gnome vs. KDE
Linux Format Magazine pointed out an excellent post regarding Gnome vs. KDE. I really liked the observations in the article.
From GNOME to KDE and back again: old computing habits are hard to break
New Beta Releases of Fedora and Ubuntu
Linux Format Magazine pointed out that Fedora has released a beta of Fedora 9 and Ubuntu has released Ubuntu 8.04.
These features caught my eye from the Fedora 9 Feature List:
- Firefox 3
- Update X Server
- Randr Support — hopefully, this should make plugging and unplugging my laptop into my monitor easier
- Fast X Start time — will my laptop boot faster?
They also pointed out that Open Office 2.4 has been released! Will it be in Fedora 9?
Java: Nimbus Look and Feel
In the announcement for Java 6 SE Update N b12, they mentioned a new Look and Feel called Nimbus. Here is a link with code that shows how to use it:
https://jdk6.dev.java.net/testNimbus.html
Here are some screenshots:
Installing Firefox 3 beta3
I mostly followed Ubuntu Geek’ instructions.
I made the backup of the profile directory:
sudo cp -R ~/.mozilla ~/.mozillabackup
I checked in Synpatic package manager and found that libstdc++5 was already installed.
I followed the link they provided for downloading the new version.
I extracted it as they suggested to the /opt directory:
sudo tar -C /opt -jxvf firefox-3.0b3.tar.bz2
For the plugins, I created the link that they suggested. Make sure you see that you have the right plugins directory — it looked like there could be various locations for the plugins.
cd /opt/firefox/plugins/
ls /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/* .
I found some information about controlling profiles, and so, I created a different profile for Firefox3. First, I created a copy for Firefox:
cp -r .mozilla .firefox3
/opt/firefox/firefox -P “firefox3”
The first time, it brought up the “Choose User Profile” dialog. So, I clicked on the Create Profile button and created a new profile by the name of firefox3. For the path, I chose $HOME/.firefox3/firefox/tgvjuj9r.default (the copy of my default profile).
Open Office 3.0
I just found this article from LXF about Open Office 3.0. It sounds very exciting — I can’t wait for it to come out. Here are they links they pointed out:
The presenter screen feature is one feature that I am really interested in: