macawgumbo

I have had an oppurtunity to use Fedora and SuSE before. I would say Fedora is is very much similar to SuSE, the only difference being the YAST2 tool. I love it. I can configure everything during setup and rerun it at anytime to reconfigure things. I think that you will appreciate the YAST2 tool, Dapper Dan. Let me know what you think. As for now, I will do an FTP install of SuSE 9.1 and stick with it. Please feel free to continue to post though. Include other distros if you want.

Let's put it this way, I love SuSE, but don't want to skimp on the availability of programs. Is the FTP Install the same as personal or in between Personal and Pro. By the way, I tried Gentoo and got headaches. I loved the learning experience but the curve was too steep. ALSA wouldnt work right so I gave up. Shame on me. Oh well. For now I want a packaged distro like redhat and suse. ANyways can someone give me some more advantages of Suse?

I have a choice to make. For reasons not explained here, I have narrowed my linux distro search to two distributions, Redhat Fedora Core 2 and SuSE 9.1 FTP Install. I absolutely love SuSE's YAST2 tool. It makes configuration so much easier. I also like the fact that I can easily choose a mirror for updates instead of like in Fedora having to use Redhat's dog slow servers. I am only concerned about the fact of package selection in SuSE compared to Fedora. I will need to use this computer as a Windows replacement (full productivity, surfing, music, cd burning, gaming etc.) along with Apache to do some PHP/MySQL development. Which would be faster on an nForce2 platform? Any thoughts would be great.

says its compiled for the 2.4 kernel series

I want to upgrade my kernel to 2.6.x on an NForce2 mobo with IGP graphics. I need some help with upgrade process and need to know if the unified driver tarball from NVIDIA's website will work along with my ethernet. Help with (hopefully i this order) 1. Upgrade from 2.4.x to 2.6.x in Fedora Core 1 running athlon xp 2500 on NFORCE2 2. Install 3D drivers for better performance on my IGP Geforce4 MX 3. Install Forcedeth if better than nvidia's driver 4. Install ALSA sound if better than nvaudio Also, I did a complete install of all the packages available in install (5.3GB) will all these work with 2.6.x or will it be a nightmare fixing version mismatch errors?!

I'd say support with all the features you want under Linux is probably NVIDIA. I would recommend the Geforce FX 5600 for midrange to low budget ( a little under 200 or so). If you do any gaming in Windows, though, and want the best peformance overall, I would say ATI. I have seen benchmarks where ATI whoops on NVIDIA in the low to mid range. Also, the All in Wonder series has a built in tv tuner and such if that interests you although you will pay extra for it. I would recommend a Radeon 9600 in mid range. The pro is worth the extra money for years to come unless you plan on upgrading in the near future. If you have the budget, buy an All in Wonder Radeon 9600 pro or an 9600 XT. 9800's are good to, but get a 9600 pro before you get a regular 9800 due to clock speeds and such. The ultimate kick ass card from NVIDIA for $500 will beat out a Radeon 9800 XT. This card is the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra with 256MB RAM. Since most people dont have a budget such as this, I would recommend the earlier cards. Also the ultra version of the GeforceFX 5600 is worth the extra money. I would also like to say that I am a fan of ATI but in linux I think NVIDIA is supported with 3d and such more thoroughly, but check ATI's website to see if they have drivers then it will be just as supported. Also remeber to compare specs between vendors. Some have slight adjustments in clock speeds. No matter how small such as 10MHz core clock speed just remeber that these cards are probably running around 350MHz which is slow compared to todays processors and if a jump in FSB speeds from 400 to 533 in the P4 can make a big difference think about the small minute differences in the core clock speeds. Remember, spend enough to get you well ahead of current games so you wont be lagging next spring. Make sure it is DirectX9 compliant if you run windows and even if you dont. I would base your minimum specs on DOOM 3 or Half Life 2 specs as bare minimum since games having higher requirements will be out in the next year.

i got nvnet to work and whatever else was in nvidia's driver suite. It seems to work fine, so I think i'll leave it until i learn a little more about upgrading the kernel and recompiling the drivers into it.

drivers for igp would be greatly appreciated too. cuz 3d stuff sucks right now. for 2.6 kernel if you can get me some info on compiling kernels with the other drivers mentioned earlier in this thread. ex: ALSA, FORCEDETH (KERNEL 2.6), now NVIDIA GEFORCE4 MX IGP

Thanx so much for your help. One more quick question is that is there a link or something that will provide some info on recompiling a kernel and applying patches to it? Any background info is greatly appreciated on kernel compiling also.

So do you recommend upgrading my kernel to 2.6.whatever, or leave @ 2.4? What about using ALSA or NVAUDIO? What about using NVNET or FORCEDETH? What about IGP graphics drivers, will I need those, or is it fine if I leave them with the generic? {minion.de??}

Can I use the redhat 9 rpm for fedora from nvidia's website and install it on Fedora? What about installing redhat 9 with the driver and then upgrading (if possible) to fedora? Would that work?

Also, i have everything set up but i am not sure if the video is working full throttle because some of those simple 3d screensavers seen unussually slow (despite the performance of the onboard geforce4 mx440 being bs). I can render directx under windows quicker than that and thought the performance was suppose to be faster in linux than windows. Oh well, at least it's working. But it is a generic geforce4 mx driver. Any thoughts? Ethernet help is still greatly appreciated.

I have been around the web and cannot find some simple easy to follow directions about how to get the drivers installed for my nforce2 chipset under Fedora Core 1. I have searched this forum and found something about minion.de but am still confused because it says something about kernel 2.6 and I didnt want to undergo a kernel upgrade (still somewhat new at this). I read something about forcedeth but it still is in alpha version and there are no gurantees. I really need to get my ethernet to work so i can start getting everything set up with more useful programs than the canned set and access the internet of course (oh and some networking stuff to work on). I really need help. Last night I tried installing nvidia stuff off there website, but with no luck. Anything please! My kernel is the standard 2.4 that came with Fedora Core 1 Biostar M7NCG PRO (no agp card) integrated graphics

Which file do I need to edit under Fedora Core 1 in order to mount the windows partition upon boot up? Any other info would be greatly appreciated about this and startup.

This is how to mount a windows partition in redhat 9 graphically: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/getting-started-guide/s1-q-and-a-windows.html