System requirements - Graphics Card

[PossibleConvert]

Trying to make sense of this Linux stuff, by trying to install Fedora 14. First impressions are it’s a parallel universe populated by those who hark back to the era of Windows 3.1 / DOS, and earlier, where command line instructions and messing around with .ini files was all the rage.

Which might all be a great little hobby to go back to, being more 'at one, and intimate' with my machine and learning a new skill to take some pride in, but all it means so far is my patience is being really tested by needing to learn it all from scratch!

The installation guides seem to suggest that if your graphics card is not good enough then the installation will default to the text based one. Which is what happened in my case. I can get to the login prompt after the installation, but that's the point where it gets really frustrating in having my machine think it’s a mid 1980s Commodore 64 or something!! Never mind PEEK and POKE, I just want to THUMP or KICK it.

I read somewhere I should start X Start to start the GUI. Nope, x start or xstart doesn't do anything. I then read that only works if I had installed X Windows. Can't find where or how I install X Windows though! I then read, as I say, things default to purely text if your graphics card is not good enough, but then I can't find anything about what the minimum spec is. Seems odd that a card that can cope with Windows can't work with a system as basic as linux/fedora with its frustrating command line-intensive way of working.

Anyone know:
- what the minimum graphics card spec is to enable GUI?
- how to install this X Windows thing?

[rowanp28]

frst things first what are you installing from? is it a live cd or the full dvd installer?
graphics wise anything can work even down to a ati rage 128 with its massive 8mb of memory.

su -c 'nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

enter that into the comand prompt, look for the Section "device" and change whatevers in speach marks after driver to "vesa" then to try getting to a gui

startx

once your there you can start to figure whats going on in a more "windows" like environment
also what Graphics are you using?

---------- Post added at 12:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:22 AM ----------

if no gui is available then you need to

su -c 'yum groupinstall "X Window System"'
su -c yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"

and try again

[PossibleConvert]

Ok, thanks. Shall try again tomorrow. Downloaded a full DVD iso from what I thought was some sort of official Fedora website. Took a lot of hunting around, as it kept at first offering only a lighter weight version of c.600MB, that just froze after the multi-coloured expanding bar thing crept across the bottom of the screen towards end of installation, instead of the c.3.5GB DVD ... which does the multi coloured bar trick only to then, as I said, present me with a login prompt.

Next dumb question then, though not an unreasonable one I'd argue ... should I look to type your suggested instructions in after I've done the login (for which I guess my user name is "root" ... or am I missing something there too?) or does this "su" stuff need go into a line somewhere within a file somewhere within the iso?

[rowanp28]

the above would only come into play once you have an installed system
the 600mb cd from here http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora is all you should need. you may have been unlucky and got a corrupt download or a bad cd. use the "check installation medium" option when you boot from the cd to ensure theres no errors on the disk. it should be obvious where it is when the cd loads

[bob]

Just a suggestion, but with the level of frustration you've already expressed, I'd suggest your first effort with linux should be here: http://www.linuxmint.com/

Why? Well, Fedora is a FOSS (Free & Open Source) distro, which means that a lot of the codecs you're used to having are copyrighted and a bit more difficult to set up for Joe Average. It also means that your graphics card may need to be set up manually. Oh sure, we've got a ton of guides (look up there, for instance), but I really think that Fedora may be something you try in a few months, once you're convinced that linux works well for you.

Mint is an excellent distro and is configured to do it all for you, up front and easy. Your choice of many different variations, from the "lightweight" lxde and Xfce to the stable versions of Debian and Mint10 and the more-Windows-like KDE.

In any case, this is a fun trip, not a chore, so take it easy and explore a bit.

[PossibleConvert]

Well, for your amusement (I notice the relase of Fedora I have is called Laughlin, after all) I typed "root" at the user name, because that seemed the clever thing to do, then my password.

That changes the prompt to

[root@localhost ~]#

so I put in the suggested

su -c 'nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and that drops the line from [root@localhost ~]# down to a simple >

Promising, me thinks.

So I continue with startx.

Nothing happens.

I continue with

su -c 'yum groupinstall "X Window System"'
su -c yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"

Nothing.

Just >

I could write

> This is a waste of time
> And its absolutely dismal that a 3.5GB installation file for an OS in the 21st Century
> Can't manage to be more user friendly

and it would still just merely return a ">".

What exactly is the fascination with Fedora / Linux ??!?!?!?! A 1983 Oric-1 was more responsive than this (just).

[sidebrnz]

The command su is used to switch user, generally to root. Using "su -c" only changes it for one command. As you've already logged in as root, you don't need to use it. Try it this way:

yum groupinstall "X Window System"
yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"

and see what happens. Good luck!

[marriedto51]

PossibleConvert: the problem is that you have not typed the last single-quote character. So: make sure you enter

su -c 'nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf'

and not just

su -c 'nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

(Without that closing quote mark, everything else you type is regarded as part of the same command. Nothing will happen unless or until you type another single quote.)

That said, using the computer is meant to be fun or at least productive. If this way of using it is annoying to you, I would personally suggest you try something else.

I hate sowing: I sometimes have to sow on a button or a patch, but I hate it. My mother-in-law sows for hours on end and apparently enjoys it. We don't all have to be fascinated by the same things!

[markkuk]

If you are already logged in as root, then using "su -c" is redundant. You can just type in the commands without enclosing them in single quotes. Trying to edit xorg.conf with nano is pointless because the file doesn't normally exist in F14. If you want to get from minimal text mode installation to full graphical desktop, the following steps are needed before you can"startx":
1. configure and enable networking
2. install graphics card drivers if necessary
3. install the desktop environment of your choice (Gnome, KDE, LXDE or XFCE)

[rowanp28]

Originally Posted by marriedto51

PossibleConvert: the problem is that you have not typed the last single-quote character. So: make sure you enter

su -c 'nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf'

and not just

su -c 'nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

(Without that closing quote mark, everything else you type is regarded as part of the same command. Nothing will happen unless or until you type another single quote.)

That said, using the computer is meant to be fun or at least productive. If this way of using it is annoying to you, I would personally suggest you try something else.

I hate sowing: I sometimes have to sow on a button or a patch, but I hate it. My mother-in-law sows for hours on end and apparently enjoys it. We don't all have to be fascinated by the same things!

oops my bad

[PossibleConvert]

Well, progress report ...

Tried all that nano and yum stuff, with and without the ' ... and without much success.

Without the ' I got something about cannot find the path to something, and a message about [something].dll came up, but I had no idea what it was trying to find on the path it couldn't find, nor how to change the path.

Next I rebooted with the install DVD and noticed I had been choosing the first option, which was something about a New Install, but I noticed the second option was something about installing with a basic video driver. That in fact sounded more like what I wanted.

But that didn't make any difference.

During the installation I saw a momentary message about cannot start X system, or something like that

So then I thought I'd try Ubuntu. I noticed they claim to offer a server OS complete with other packages in a LAMP that will fit on a CD whereas these Fedora folk take five or six times the installation file size to achieve nothing.

But no.

Something about cannot start video driver in ubuntu.

Which takes me back to the very first question - what's the minimum spec for this Linux stuff?

Took the graphics card out. Its a 4MB PCI Creative Labs Graphics Blaster Exxtreme PCI Video Card. model no CT6610. A few years old now, but works fine for Windows XP!

The motherboard I'm trying to set this lot up on - a Supermicro P4DC6+ has a 4x AGP Pro slot so shall have a look on ebay for something cheap and cheerful that might yet put a bit of life into things

[marko]

Originally Posted by PossibleConvert

Well, progress report ...

Tried all that nano and yum stuff, with and without the ' ... and without much success.

Without the ' I got something about cannot find the path to something, and a message about [something].dll came up, but I had no idea what it was trying to find on the path it couldn't find, nor how to change the path.

You need to become root with su -

Note that su -c "command here" is nothing like su -

the former just runs one command, the latter makes a persistent shell session but with the environment of the target user, since the target user was empty/blank, it defaults to root

the dash makes su (switch user) pull in the root's full environmental details, the important one here is the root's path so it can find all the exe files needed here and libraries you needed. If you just use the switch user command without the - flag, it doesn't import the environment and the usual user account in Fedora doesn't have the same path as root (for security/ safety reasons)

Next I rebooted with the install DVD and noticed I had been choosing the first option, which was something about a New Install, but I noticed the second option was something about installing with a basic video driver. That in fact sounded more like what I wanted.

But that didn't make any difference.

During the installation I saw a momentary message about cannot start X system, or something like that

So then I thought I'd try Ubuntu. I noticed they claim to offer a server OS complete with other packages in a LAMP that will fit on a CD whereas these Fedora folk take five or six times the installation file size to achieve nothing.

If you install from the Installation DVD, you can pretty easily strip down the stuff you think is unnecessary, the easiest way to do that would be to select "Minimal" installation. Or you another easy way is to boot the Live CD, and then run the "Install to Hard disk" icon from the Gnome desktop you land in. Another way is to check the "Customize Now" box from the DVD and uncheck the groups you don't need.

Since the CD is so much smaller than the DVD it has much less code. Fedora in general is bigger than Ubuntu because they have radically different design goals. Fedora is the cutting edge test bed and development platform for Red Hat Enterprise while Ubuntu is trying to be a basic user desktop.

[markkuk]

Originally Posted by PossibleConvert

Which takes me back to the very first question - what's the minimum spec for this Linux stuff?

A SVGA card and monitor with 800x600 resolution.

Originally Posted by PossibleConvert

Took the graphics card out. Its a 4MB PCI Creative Labs Graphics Blaster Exxtreme PCI Video Card. model no CT6610.

The important thing to know for Linux compatibility of any card is the chipset type, not the marketing name. Creative Labs is one of the manufacturers with a bad habit of changing the hardware configuration of their cards without bothering to change either the name or model number. According to this page the card could be 3Dlabs Permedia 2 -based, so it should work with the xorg-x11-drv-glint driver included in Fedora (and Ubuntu). For some reason it doesn't get correctly detected in your system. The output when attempting to "startx", various log files and "lspci" output could help diagnosing the problem but that's probably too much to ask from a Linux beginner.

[PossibleConvert]

Originally Posted by markkuk

A SVGA card and monitor with 800x600 resolution.

The important thing to know for Linux compatibility of any card is the chipset type, not the marketing name. Creative Labs is one of the manufacturers with a bad habit of changing the hardware configuration of their cards without bothering to change either the name or model number. According to this page the card could be 3Dlabs Permedia 2 -based, so it should work with the xorg-x11-drv-glint driver included in Fedora (and Ubuntu). For some reason it doesn't get correctly detected in your system. The output when attempting to "startx", various log files and "lspci" output could help diagnosing the problem but that's probably too much to ask from a Linux beginner.

Hmmm, well, apparent on-screen output when StartX in Fedora was either nothing or gobbledegook, and in anycase I have since given up on Fedora and am trying Ubuntu.

In Ubuntu I got some sort of start-of-installation error like gftdisplay.dll not found, or something like that, but a quick Google told me you just type HELP to kick start the installation again, and sure enough that happened. Installation proceded with various Yes / No prompts, then it restarted after completing installation and reverted to a meaingless command line prompt. I thought I'd try the same StartX trick, which at first didn't do anything but at least Ubuntu prompts you with what to type to get StartX working. So I did that, then tried StartX again and amongst other things it came up with a message about screen found but cannot display ... and something about cannot work at depth 24. Further Googles gave some clues but decided to switch this stupid 1980s-teenage-boys-in-their-bedrooms-design-their-own-operating-system off again for the night and shall try again when I get a new, larger memory, graphics card and some renewed patience to p*^& around with this steam and sellotape driven Linux rubbish to see if that helps finally crack it.

[DBelton]

stupid 1980s-teenage-boys-in-their-bedrooms-design-their-own-operating-system

ummm.. that was Bill Gates and DOS.. and a garage instead of a bedroom..