FC4 does not work, "out of the box" for me; GUI/X11 fails

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005, Derek Martin wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 29, 2005 at 09:56:16PM -0700, David Abbott wrote:
>> I have to say.  Being new to Linux and trying to administer my own
>> system I have had loads of trouble.
>
> That's pretty normal, when you're new to something, generally.
>
>> I am trying to work out how to compile my own kernel because the
>> basic setup to install the Nvidia drivers doesn't work on my Dell
>> Inspiron 9300.  The Go6800 is a pretty standard card. i wouldn't
>> have imagined that it should be difficult.
>
> This you can blame on nvidia, for refusing to release the specs of
> their hardware so that a proper driver could be integrated into the
> Kernel.  Instead, we're dependent upon them to try to support a
> binary-only kernel module on dozens of different versions of the Linux
> kernel (both official releases, and also vendor-modified kernels).
>
> They are clearly not up to the task.  Not that we should expect they
> would be; it's a pretty big task...  But it becomes a small task if
> nvidia either releases source code for their drivers, or releases
> complete specs to their hardware, so that a driver can be written and
> maintained as part of the Linux kernel proper.

But (rightly or wrongly) video card makers consider these two pieces of 
information to be their competitive edge.  So you are not likely to see 
them releasing either, at least for their latest cards.  Also, Linux users 
still aren't a very large fraction of their customer base.

It also would be a small task if there were standards that allowed them to 
write a single installer that would work with any distribution, without 
having to deal with loads of special cases.

Nevertheless, I've found that the NVIDIA drivers work reasonably well.  I 
use the RPM packages from rpm.livna.org, but there are also packages from 
atrprms.net.  These are updated rapidly when new official kernels come 
out, and they aren't hard to rebuild if necessary for other cases.

You could also "blame" Red Hat and Fedora for their policy of not 
including proprietary/binary-only packages in their distributions.  I 
admire them for sticking to their guns on this issue, but it does affect 
usability, particularly with respect to cartain hardware drivers and 
multimedia codecs.

>
> Another issue is that Fedora Core is intended to be a cutting edge
> development platform, and as such there will always be bugs.  In some
> ways I think it is really not a very good choice for someone venturing
> into the world of Linux for the first time... particularly for people
> who are not already somewhat adept with computers.  Except that you
> will learn a lot by figuring out how to fix all the bugs and make your
> system work the way you want it to.  So in that regard, it's a good
> thing. ;-)
>
>> I will persist, and continue my studies in how this all works.
>
> Good; if you do, you will be rewarded with a much greater
> understanding of how your machine works, and why it works that way.
> Enjoy!
>
>

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs