Which linux distro ?

[Ozzie]

I've been trying to read up on it - I'm using the x1950 - it has two ports. What I've been reading is the hardware acceleration is being used on both and it's creating a bottleneck. Also something about disabling TCP/IPv6?

[Ozzie]

Maybe I should try popping in a simpler card and see if it helps?
Nah...I don't want to do that - then it messes with my whole rig to change back and forth. I have a separate drive and just boot to it in the BIOS.

[Ozzie]

I tried Fedora 6 today...this one might be my distro...it has that snappy feel and the refresh is working good even without the ATI drivers. I'm sure that'll all change as soon as I try to play a dvd.
Now as soon as I can figure this thing out... - it's been a looong time since I had my head into this.

[Ozzie]

Yup - thank you! That part is working great now...dvd's and mp3's can now be played...
I'm slowly starting to get things working...just a little at a time. It's starting to have enough functionality to keep me interested...as soon as I can figure out newsreaders and burning I'll be more inclined to stick with it.
Thanks to those that are helping us poor souls get into this...I need to keep my options open as I refuse to have anyone tell me what I'm going to use...

[k0NG0]

I rarely boot Windows XP these days. I'm a bit surprised, actually. That I like openSUSE this much. A fully functional shell is ooooh so sweet, I've noticed. At first I was miffed that I couldn't create a playlist for mplayer as easily as in BSPlayer, then I realized it was just a matter of knocking together a shell script/macro thingie, which is often faster than doing things with a mouse in Windows anyway.

With mplayer and VLC together handling most of the video formats out there, I can't say I miss much. If I had a faster computer, I would use virtualization to run Photoshop and things like that (the GiMP kinda sucks, I'm sorry to say), and then I'd still probably only boot XP that way.

[k0NG0]

Photoshop is slow as it is in XP on this old clunker of a rig. So virtualization, regardless on what level, will make it pretty much unusable. And a reboot only takes a couple of minutes. Once I upgrade, I will virtualize myself.

[FlameGrilled]

I've tried a few distros on and off over the last couple years. I've pretty much settled on Linspire. It detected all my hardware, and is pretty friendly. I'm still pretty weak on installing stuff, so the CNR service is nice. Anyway..my 2 cents on a good distro.

[FearFactory]

PCLinuxOS 2007 here, great distro

[yamawho]

Originally Posted by FearFactory

PCLinuxOS 2007 here, great distro

I have PCLinuxOS 2007 installed on a P4C800e deluxe system. I haven't played with it very much but it runs fine.

The onboard NIC ran slow so I installed a Dlink pci card and how it's good.
I had this issue as well running ubuntu. It was very easy setting the system to use the new NIC.
I would like to add that I found the install to be alittle weird since a reboot is required. The installer seemed to create three unformatted partitions on my hard drive and upon reboot nothing happened. The installation instructions make no mention of this reboot process and I had no idea where to begin. I don't remember exactly what I did to make it work. I think I reran the install and selected the partitions it created the 1st time. Used the custom option, I then formatted them and it installed after that.

I use Mepis everyday on two systems since March. Both used for Firefox mostly and some ktorrent on the side. I also have the newest Puppylinux running on an old Compaq with a 900mz duron.

[Cogar]

I investigated PCLinuxOS about a year ago and gave the newest release PCLinuxOS 2007 a try a couple weeks ago. For the computers on which I have tried it (3), it was disappointing. The live CD would not start on two machines. On the third, things seemed to go well, but even with the network indicating that it was up, it had no wireless connectivity. It was also slow--even by live CD standards--to the extent that running it as a live CD has only one real purpose in my opinion: to confirm whether the distribution can recognize your hardware. I am not posting this to criticize PCLinuxOS, but rather to let anyone know that if they have an unpleasant experience on their machine, do not give up on Linux, there are other distributions that will work fine.

[k0NG0]

Originally Posted by Cogar

OK. Getting application specific responses is something I never investigated (or even imagined). If the standard feature set that works in Windows with each button or the scroll wheel without special drivers also works the same in Linux, I am satisfied. It appears that I am not a "high tech" mouse user.

Wow I found this old post whilst Googling something. Weird.

I actually have proof-of-concept Python code doing the whole "map a mouse button differently based on which application has focus" thing in less than 100 loc.

The neat thing is that it's mouse-agnostic. You just need the evdev driver, and Python's X bindings (and xvkbd currently, but that's required for xbindkeys too) and it works. (Modulo error checks, a neat GUI and config files and all those "handy" things of course.)

[Cogar]

There are lots of good answers buried here at ABX.

I started using the evdev drivers in the last few months, but can't really say whether all the buttons are working correctly or not. I recall that the buttons swap around depending on whether I am using Windows or Linux, but otherwise there have not been any issues. Since this thread started, I've switched to using a G5 mouse on my "main" computer. I am not sure I like it better, but one of my older generic mice gave out and I had to add another one to the "rotation" in our house.

[k0NG0]

Yeah, the mouse support is better with evdev, but what the buttons do can still be modified by both the order of how you define them in xorg.conf and by xmodmap. For example, if you read about the MX1000, you're sometimes told to define them something like "1 2 3 5 4 ..." because the side-scroll is swapped, but for me now, side-scroll right scrolls left. So it isn't exactly very good.

Not to mention the SmartScroll thing, where clicking the up/down scroll buttons adjacent to the wheel, actually sends two mouse button presses, for the button and the wheel. (You can disable that using Lomoco though.)

I indend to solve that by adding a simple calibration stage. So even if left-click has logical button number 143 instead of the usual 1, things should work. Ultimately, it would be great with functionality like the Logitech "Uber"-driver, only mouse-agnostic.

HID support is one of the things in Linux distros that sucks the most.

[swannema]

BTNX is a great tool to modify your mouse behaviour.
OlliSalonen.com : btnx

btnx is a daemon that enables rerouting of mouse button events through uinput as keyboard and other mouse button combinations. For example, you can configure an extra mouse button to send a Ctrl+Alt+Right command to switch workspaces. This is especially useful for mice with more buttons than Gnome or KDE can properly handle, or mice that need evdev and a 100 step howto to register button events at all. btnx integrates revoco, a program that allows changing MX Revolution's wheel behavior.

[k0NG0]

Nice link, thanks.

See, I've Googled like a madman and never found that. Meanwhile, you could choke on all the xbindkeys pages that throw themselves at you as soon as you think about searching for something like it.

Hadn't heard of uinput for faking user input. I use grabs for keys and buttons through X and send X-events instead. So btnx would work even when there was no X involved, which is nice if you do stuff like that a lot.