a rant, not a request for support

[pedora]

I'm getting constant crashes with K3b and my colours are flickering like crazy.

I'm not sure what this is but I think there's too many issues with Fedora. I'm going to go back to Debian (or equivalent/similar Debian-based distro).

So, these are the issues so far:
1) Clock - not configured or properly available - time settings not available; have to configure via CLI... not impossible but c'mon...
2) colours - KDE Kwin etc - flickering like crazy....
3) K3b constantly crashes - I want to burn a CD iso (image) - I have tried over four times... same thing.... app stops responding.... I have to click cancel and then I get the message that the program will 'terminate' as one of the options - this is like Windoze!

Maybe this is all KDE-related but then that suggests to me that Fedora neglects KDE or is indifferent towards it. I think it's bad to have an attitude like 'Ubuntu's'

I guess that's all I wanted to say... I don't know if there are solutions for any of the above but too many bugs/issues are causing a lot of probs...

[bbfuller]

Hello pedora

1. In KDE System Settings?

2. Not on any of the six KDE F12 machine I have access to.

3. Same as 2

[Dan]

Understood. Fedora is very Gnome-centric.

http://www.debian.org/
http://www.linuxmint.com/
http://www.ubuntu.com/


Any of those should help. Also please note that historically, Mandriva was a KDE distro. You might try them too.

http://www2.mandriva.com/

[pedora]

Hello pedora

1. In KDE System Settings?

2. Not on any of the six KDE F12 machine I have access to.

1. *Yes*
2. *Yes, I haven't updated much so maybe this means I need to?*

Understood. Fedora is very Gnome-centric.

Why does Fedora prefer Gnome that much?

I am not overly 'favorable' towards one over the other but I didn't like Gnome at about Ubuntu Hardy so I switched to 'KDE distros.' In some respects, I like Gnome but I'm more familiar with KDE. What I've read, too, KDE seems more configurable and more potential for development but I'm only speculating.

I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu and Mint. I like that Fedora/Red Hat contributes back to the kernel and other related Linux projects.

I only have experience with Mandriva when trying Live media. It looks intriguing, though, I admit. I just don't know about long-term support and development.

[pedora]

Actually, please excuse the majority of my complaints on these topics save for the clock.

It is probably a KDE-centric 'beef' anyway. I was probably a bit unfair and would like to meet halfway as long as someone can sympathize with my problems/issues. :)

As for the problems of the flickering and other KDE stuff, it could be that my current state of Fedora is older, with an older kernel .27 and older KDE version. How can I discover what ver. KDE is at on my system? Look at yumex and type 'kde' or?

[beaker_]

.27 ~ F9 = half baked video drivers + kde 4.0 (beta, arguably alpha).

Grab F12 and install both gnome, and kde. Xfce isn't bad either and beside HD space is cheap. Good luck.

[stoat]

Actually, please excuse the majority of my complaints on these topics save for the clock.Roger. Wilco. And for your busted clock, the time now is 8:25 AM.

[Dan]

ROTFLMAO!

Priceless. You just can't make this stuff up! <..:p..>

[pedora]

.27 ~ F9 = half baked video drivers + kde 4.0 (beta, arguably alpha).

Grab F12 and install both gnome, and kde. Xfce isn't bad either and beside HD space is cheap. Good luck.
Well, my laptop's drive is *not* cheap and it's old tech, PATA/IDE. Xfce in Fedora? Interesting.

Roger. Wilco. And for your busted clock, the time now is 8:25 AM.
Yeah, it's time something got fixed. ;-)

[bbfuller]

Hello Pedora,

Just how old is that laptop in any case?

I've got Fedora 12 working on a netbook, Intel Atom 1.6GHz, IMB memory; and a 1.7MHZ early Athlon with 512MB memory. Both of them are running KDE with the spinning cube desktop.

[pedora]

Hello Pedora,

Just how old is that laptop in any case?

I've got Fedora 12 working on a netbook, Intel Atom 1.6GHz, IMB memory; and a 1.7MHZ early Athlon with 512MB memory. Both of them are running KDE with the spinning cube desktop.
It's a Thinkpad T41 with an ATI FireGL Radeon 9000 card. I found 3D/Desktop Effects, when turned on, to be problematic on several distros although Fedora 12 seemed pretty good on it but I only tried via Live CD. It seems slow on a Mepis 8.5 install (not bad but some lag when trying some applications). There is a bit of a wait with the icon bouncing and such. Not all the time, though. I was wondering if I should go to a lighter desktop or just disable 3D effects when I want things more snappy.

Edit: I googled 'Intel Atom 1.6GHz v.s. Pentium M.' I am wondering if a large part of the problem is my older Radeon card. Regardless of processor speed, I guess if the drivers of the radeon card aren't too good, the 'overall performance' might suffer and it might *look like* my computer is too slow?

[bbfuller]

Hello pedora

I think your statement about the graphics card is very near the mark.

The machines I've been talking about have either Intel graphics, where the free driver has decent 3D support or nVidia graphics, where I've installed the proprietary drivers which do very good 3D support.

You don't have the option to install the ATI proprietary drivers in F12. You would have to look to see if they supported your card even if it were possible.

The free Radeon driver which comes with Fedora does have 3D support, but as I understand it, it is limited and experimental at present. Keep watching for the updates.

Some other distributions patch the X Server so that you can install the proprietary ATI drivers - assuming they support the card - and that may be one way to go.

I've not tried 3D effects on a lighter desktop like XFCE. If you get round to trying it I'll be interested to hear if it makes a difference. Though if it is the graphics card/drivers then I do wonder if it will.

Incidentally, I think running 3D on the live CD will always be problematical. Even menu opening can be a bit sluggish.

The speed of installs these days it may be worth doing one to see what difference it makes. The updated KDE in F12 is really rather good.

[beaker_]

Yeppers, those. Video card drivers make a big difference. I can't speak for yours, you'll have to check for support, but on F12 those 'experimental' drivers make an otherwise disapointing intel or ati rather pleasant.

[pedora]

Thanks for those replies, bbfuller and beaker!

I believe there is only one option for these radeon cards in question (Radeon Mobility 9000 FireGL) and that is the open source radeon driver (OSS). It's not supported by the fglrx aka proprietary ati driver anymore. The problem is, there are so many intangibles now with respect to this OSS driver and this particular radeon card. It can be very tricky to assess support and performance, imho. I have only tested Live CDs except for recently installing Mepis 8.5 since I am more familiar with Debian and didn't think Ubuntu would work (9.10 was a no-go).

I think I read that ATI/AMD only provides support for the one driver, the open source radeon driver to hardware up to Radeon HD 2100. So, any ATI hardware of that vintage and older has support with OSS radeon driver *only*. I guess using older X.org versions (what that entails, I don't know, but not something I want to try) would allow more options.

I tested via Gnome and KDE with: Fedora 12, Mandriva 2010, Ubuntu/Kubuntu 9.10 and sidux momos
The first two passed and worked fine with 3D / Desktop Effects enabled. They seemed fast enough considering I was also using Live media. Ubuntu 9.10 and the KDE cousin were not usable with 3D effects enabled. I had to edit xorg.conf, in effect creating brand new xorg.conf file. It would only work with certain settings there too and not worth the trouble. Ironically, Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha looks like they did something different or the update in the kernel (and other updates???) solved the problem. The desktop effects are enabled by default and I could boot up fine and move the windows (with the jiggle/wobbly windows etc.) without problem. Seemed responsive, too, by comparision.

I think Fedora 12 would also be fine but was wondering whether an actual install would make any difference as you do more things since it's installed, duh.... Well, I am sure that is way more info than you wanted or needed. LOL!

[beaker_]

Sounds like you have a bunch of live OSs and an existing install which you're unhappy with so backup what you plan to keep and blow the rest away by installing from cd. It's a faster install route anyway. If its fedora and you're comforatable with partitioning then don't use lvm because you don't need it (laptop, 1 HD) and it'll take time to initialize (speed). Just make the trio (/boot, swap, and /root; ~512M,512M,remainder respectively). Or is 1G min now? Anyway you can then use yum to update and groupinstall what you want. Assuming you have inet access i.e.,