Fedora Core 5 questions and complaint

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Tbirdkid

At that point he might as well just use Windows. There are free drivers available for his hardware, he's just having problems getting them working.

because of one driver? no. thats like saying using firefox you may as well go back to windows. drivers and utilities are being used across the board. its a driver, and a package that you use.

He's having trouble using the actual drivers? I thought i read in the beginning that he couldnt find support.

Read again. He didn't install any wireless support because he couldn't find any.

So i am thinking that if he cant find support, at least open, with installation instructions, then use ndiswrapper until he can figure it out. Its an option. I cant do without my wireless. I live off of it. I couldnt get mine working with fc5 either, so i used ndiswrapper for now until i can find time to get it going or spend the time building a driver for it.

Fedora doesn't have support for it, but there are open drivers available. I'm just disappointed I have to do the happy Windows dance. You know, hunting the web for working drivers.

Dont complain about it, fix it. Nothing gets done in this world without us working it out.

Which wireless card is it so maybe I can help as I said before.

Generally, the wireless support comes in the updated kernel. Mine did, but i couldnt get it working, so as i said, i used ndiswrapper.

Here's the output from lspci:

00:0e.0 Network controller: RaLink Ralink RT2500 802.11G Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)

ndiswrapper is an abomination. Why use an open source operating system if you're going to rely on closed drivers? No thanks, open and free all the way.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I haven't tested it yet, but here's an update:
I built the driver, and manually copied it to the module directory. I adjusted the permissions, ran depmod -a (creates a list of available modules I guess, pulled it out of the makefile) and then tried to load the driver. I'll test it out later.

I wish I knew what went wrong with the make install.

 

[Nothinman]

because of one driver? no. thats like saying using firefox you may as well go back to windows. drivers and utilities are being used across the board. its a driver, and a package that you use.

Hardly, FF was designed to run on Linux and is included with every distro that I can think of, ndiswrapper is a huge, ugly hack and should only be used in extreme circumstances.

He's having trouble using the actual drivers? I thought i read in the beginning that he couldnt find support.

He said it didn't have support out of the box like it should and while he's right, there are FOSS drivers out there they're just not in the base kernel yet.

So i am thinking that if he cant find support, at least open, with installation instructions, then use ndiswrapper until he can figure it out. Its an option.

It's the very last option and a lot of the time it's not even worth considering. The only closed driver I even consider running is the nVidia one and I have to live with the problems it creates. ndiswrapper takes code that was never meant to run on Linux and drops it in the kernel, to me that's just asking for trouble.

Generally, the wireless support comes in the updated kernel. Mine did, but i couldnt get it working, so as i said, i used ndiswrapper.

But his won't, the rt2x00 drivers haven't been submitted for inclusion in the main kernel yet so no amount of updating packages will help.

I'll be playing with it more later. It really doesn't make any sense, but when I checked /lib/modules/blah/blah/blah I was left with nada. And a reboot confirmed that something was amiss.

All I can say is that I've never seen that happen.

 

[Nothinman]

ran depmod -a (creates a list of available modules I guess, pulled it out of the makefile) and then tried to load the driver. I'll test it out later.

It generates a list of modules, their dependencies and what devices they support. If you run 'modinfo <modulename>' you can see what modules it depends on. modprobe needs this so you can tell it to load a PCI ID and it'll load the right driver, udev uses this so that it doesn't have to know what modules support what cards it lets the modules declare what they can do.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'll be playing with it more later. It really doesn't make any sense, but when I checked /lib/modules/blah/blah/blah I was left with nada. And a reboot confirmed that something was amiss.

All I can say is that I've never seen that happen.

I'm going to try to dig more into it later. Submit a bug report if nothing else. I've proven that I can fix the issue, so if there's something new to test I could do it.

Maybe I'll pull the latest CVS code too...

 

[SleepWalkerX]

I've been compiling and running the rt2570 (cvs) module for a couple months now. I know its not the same thing as the rt2500 module, but its worked quite well and I've rarely had any issues with it.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Fedora is closer to what I use at work, so that's why I chose it.

Do you use Redhat Enterprise Linux at work? If so, CentOS would be a closer match, but most everything on Fedora can be done exactly the same, word for word, on RHEL or CentOS.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm going to try to dig more into it later. Submit a bug report if nothing else. I've proven that I can fix the issue, so if there's something new to test I could do it.

If it really happened there has to be a bug in the Makefile, that's the only place any shell commands are expanded and the only place an 'rm' should be is in the 'clean' target.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'm going to try to dig more into it later. Submit a bug report if nothing else. I've proven that I can fix the issue, so if there's something new to test I could do it.

If it really happened there has to be a bug in the Makefile, that's the only place any shell commands are expanded and the only place an 'rm' should be is in the 'clean' target.

I'll poke around some more. It really did happen, and it's pretty reproducable for me so I'm sure the make install did it.

I don't see any rms outside of the clean directive, so that's not it. Maybe it's doing some funky fedora thing where it tries to mess with the modules in the kernel source tree or something and never quite finishes.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen
Do you use Redhat Enterprise Linux at work? If so, CentOS would be a closer match, but most everything on Fedora can be done exactly the same, word for word, on RHEL or CentOS.

Yeah, I know about CentOS, but Fedora is close enough to what I use at work (RHEL) in that most of the administrative stuff is the same (service and chkconfig commands), but I'm not restricted quite as much in software.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen
Do you use Redhat Enterprise Linux at work? If so, CentOS would be a closer match, but most everything on Fedora can be done exactly the same, word for word, on RHEL or CentOS.

Yeah, I know about CentOS, but Fedora is close enough to what I use at work (RHEL) in that most of the administrative stuff is the same (service and chkconfig commands), but I'm not restricted quite as much in software.

If I can't find software, I enable the centosplus repo, and if still not, I add in the c4-testing repo. I've never had to go beyond the c4-testing repo, but you could also add in Dag Wieers repository and at that point you have pretty much everything Fedora has.

Not that I think CentOS is necessarily better for you than Fedora... just letting you know.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen
If I can't find software, I enable the centosplus repo, and if still not, I add in the c4-testing repo. I've never had to go beyond the c4-testing repo, but you could also add in Dag Wieers repository and at that point you have pretty much everything Fedora has.

Not that I think CentOS is necessarily better for you than Fedora... just letting you know.

I appreciate it. I'll probably setup centos in a VMWare session or two. That's why I'm running Linux in the first place. :beer:

 

[Nothinman]

I'll poke around some more. It really did happen, and it's pretty reproducable for me so I'm sure the make install did it.

Well you could always see what make -n and make -d say about what it's doing.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Anyone have some good software repositories? :beer:

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
I've been compiling and running the rt2570 (cvs) module for a couple months now. I know its not the same thing as the rt2500 module, but its worked quite well and I've rarely had any issues with it.

The rt2570 is USB device. He has got a MiniPCI and I beleive the rt2500 should work. The best bet for using them if the 'stable' rt2500 drivers dont' work is the nightly snapshot versions.

The real development for these cards is based around d80211 protocol stack (devicescape protocol stack). These are the rt2x00 beta4 drivers. These, along with a branch of the bcm43xx drivers, are being used as a 'test mule' for testing and getting d80211 good enough for full kernel inclusion.

The nightly snapshots of the paticular rt2500 or rt2570 or whatnot should be used if the 'stable branch' stuff doesnt' work. Those snapshots should include any latest bug fixes and such and shouldn't have any big breakage as these are in mostly maintainance mode.

The active development is ongoing on with the rt2x00 beta4 branch. Use rt2x00 only if you want advanced features, using non-x86, or smp machine. Probably these drivers won't be realy usefull until the d80211 branch gets into the kernel. (once it does it should provide better network performance, faster network connectivity and feature parity with windows xp wireless support for not just ralink devices, but all network cards that use d80211 (which should eventually be all newer devices))

Anyone have some good software repositories?

For Fedora Core I always liked Dag Weier's stuff when using Fedora stuff.
http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/

In his FAQ he has a list of repositories that he uses. I copied that and was happy with it.

They work together with Freshrpms and some other people to get very good compatability. I think they tried to team up and make rpmforge.net, but I don't know how that works out. They support all the Redhat family of stuff. (EL, Fedora, CentOS)

Other people like other stuff. Note that I don't use Fedora or CentOS much. With FC 4 I was realy put off by lack of 3rd party repository support. Things turned sour for a while. Nowadays there should be higher compatability and everything should work with 'Fedora Extras'. Maybe they've solved their problems and now they work together?

Most my experiance comes from FC2-FC3 days though. I haven't kept up.

edit:

Looks like people prefer Rpmforge + Fedora Core Extras.
rpmforge is a conglomeration Freshrpms + dag + dries + planetccrma.

The other incompatable option is Livna + Fedora Core Extras.

Also there is 'atrpms', which molests base packages and then there is a kde-redhat repository.

I think that covers the big ones.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Anyone know which of these little configuration programs lets me add window managers to GDM?

How about a way to add an application to the applications menu if it isn't listed with a check box?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag

Anyone have some good software repositories?

For Fedora Core I always liked Dag Weier's stuff when using Fedora stuff.
http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/

In his FAQ he has a list of repositories that he uses. I copied that and was happy with it.

They work together with Freshrpms and some other people to get very good compatability. I think they tried to team up and make rpmforge.net, but I don't know how that works out. They support all the Redhat family of stuff. (EL, Fedora, CentOS)

Other people like other stuff. Note that I don't use Fedora or CentOS much. With FC 4 I was realy put off by lack of 3rd party repository support. Things turned sour for a while. Nowadays there should be higher compatability and everything should work with 'Fedora Extras'. Maybe they've solved their problems and now they work together?

Most my experiance comes from FC2-FC3 days though. I haven't kept up.

edit:

Looks like people prefer Rpmforge + Fedora Core Extras.
rpmforge is a conglomeration Freshrpms + dag + dries + planetccrma.

The other incompatable option is Livna + Fedora Core Extras.

Also there is 'atrpms', which molests base packages and then there is a kde-redhat repository.

I think that covers the big ones.

I appreciate the response, but it looks like dag stopped using FC too...

 

[drag]

I think he stopped his own branch, but continiues with Dries and other stuff.

http://dries.ulyssis.org/rpm/

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Anyone have some good software repositories?

For Fedora Core I always liked Dag Weier's stuff when using Fedora stuff.
http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/

In his FAQ he has a list of repositories that he uses. I copied that and was happy with it.

They work together with Freshrpms and some other people to get very good compatability. I think they tried to team up and make rpmforge.net, but I don't know how that works out. They support all the Redhat family of stuff. (EL, Fedora, CentOS)

Other people like other stuff. Note that I don't use Fedora or CentOS much. With FC 4 I was realy put off by lack of 3rd party repository support. Things turned sour for a while. Nowadays there should be higher compatability and everything should work with 'Fedora Extras'. Maybe they've solved their problems and now they work together?

Most my experiance comes from FC2-FC3 days though. I haven't kept up.

edit:

Looks like people prefer Rpmforge + Fedora Core Extras.
rpmforge is a conglomeration Freshrpms + dag + dries + planetccrma.

The other incompatable option is Livna + Fedora Core Extras.

Also there is 'atrpms', which molests base packages and then there is a kde-redhat repository.

I think that covers the big ones.

Last I checked, RPMForge basically equalled Daq, but maybe some of the other guys are chipping in more. I always followed the FedoraFaq yum configuration which if I remember correctly, switched your main repo to livna and you could enable other repos as needed (either by changing enable bit in the config file or adding "--enablerepo=whatever" to your yum install line.

If you use KDE, than the KDE-Redhat (which is included in the fedorafaq config) is a good one to enable. I've never heard of it breaking anything and it keeps KDE very up to date with the latest stable packages.

 

[n0cmonkey]

How tacky, replying to myself.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Anyone know which of these little configuration programs lets me add window managers to GDM?

I couldn't find a way to do this graphically, but I found the answer. It'll just have to wait until I boot the computer up to post it. Basically it boiled down to finding the gnome.desktop and kde.desktop files (somewhere in /usr/share I think), and adding a wmii.desktop file. Very simple, just the documentation is buried.

How about a way to add an application to the applications menu if it isn't listed with a check box?

I created a launcher and that should work. If I boot gnome again.

/me :heart: wmii

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

How about a way to add an application to the applications menu if it isn't listed with a check box?

I created a launcher and that should work. If I boot gnome again.

Have you used Alacarte? I'm rusty on GUI stuff but I know Alacarte lets you do some custom stuff with the applications menu.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

How about a way to add an application to the applications menu if it isn't listed with a check box?

I created a launcher and that should work. If I boot gnome again.

Have you used Alacarte? I'm rusty on GUI stuff but I know Alacarte lets you do some custom stuff with the applications menu.

Nope, never heard about it. I might try giving it a shot, but I'm not sure how useful gnome will be until I get more ram. 512MB is not enough.

 

[bkbriggs918]

You should probably switch to Tinkerbell Linux.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: bkbriggs918
You should probably switch to Tinkerbell Linux.

I'll try it out in vmware first.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

How about a way to add an application to the applications menu if it isn't listed with a check box?

I created a launcher and that should work. If I boot gnome again.

Have you used Alacarte? I'm rusty on GUI stuff but I know Alacarte lets you do some custom stuff with the applications menu.

Nope, never heard about it. I might try giving it a shot, but I'm not sure how useful gnome will be until I get more ram. 512MB is not enough.

I'm running Gnome right now with 128 megs of RAM as I type. Nothing is exploding or crashing yet.