Ranter or evangelist?
by gilpel＠altern.org
Why is it that, when I insert an audio disk, I see it as an audio disk on
my desktop, but when I click it, GNOME shows the .wav files that are
present. No application is suggested, even under "Open", to play the
damned music. If I go to Application, sound and video, the first option,
"Audio Player", opens XMMS.
Great! I click the forward button... I'm presented with a list of the...
no, no, no! not the files on the CD, but the files in my home directory!!!
Wow, we're really moving forward! I painfully navigate to /media, there's
nothing in /media.
Let's check mtab, my DVD/CD is on sr0, I believe. Nope, nothing there.
Well, if the intend was to scare away Mac and Windows users, I would think
that the success rate is 100%. I've been using Linux for 8 years and even
"I" am scared! I do understand Fedora is for geeks, but would it make
their life that difficult if things kinda worked? Didn't anybody notice
that the present set-up makes absolutely no sense?
At least, normally, you should go to => System, Preference, File
Management, Media to select a default CD and DVD player. Still impossible!
No option to change anything. I wrote about this. Nobody replied.
Who's responsible for setting things this way? Is anyboby responsible
somewhere or is it "We do all this together in a haphazard way" ? If so,
never expect any significant market share for Linux. Radio-Canada will
continue to use Windows Media because "Linux is too hard for ordinary
people" (MSFT trademark).
You think I'm a ranter? I've been told this quite often. But, while some
people write code, I write to the Quebec Press Council.
I explain that a certain so-called journalist is just a Microsoft
sycophant. Every time he used Windows Vista, of course, there were a
few... almost bugs. but certainly no show stopper.
With Linux, the question is more complex. When a new version of Firefox
comes out, for instance, instead of waiting for the upgrade, he gets the
executable at Mozilla and, then, everything gets really complicated.
Of course, the Press Concil understands perfectly what's going on. I made
sure my basic complaint was very easy to understand: I explained the
journalist NEVER discussed the appropriateness for the State --
television, amongst others -- of using proprietary format and never
discussed tied sales. That's it, that's all.
Still, after counceiding that the Press organisation lawyers had well
understood my POV, the Council judged that the journalist gives a lot of
coverage to Linux -- they didn't elabore on the kind of coverage: they
can't evaluate, of course -- and, you know, given that Linux hardly has 1%
of the market share, they found the coverage was adequate.
So, I filed an appeal... and sent a copy to the Professional Federation of
Journalists... I got my appeal.
But the fight is far from over. The Press Council is heavily subsidized by
the employer of said journalist, and Radio-Canada, another member of the
Microsoft club. Seeing subsidies vaporize scares the shit out of those
learned men: they could lose their precious jobs!
So, they'll try every trick in the book to give a very mild tone to their
judgement. But I have a few other tricks in my book to set the records
straight, though having the support from the Linux community would
certainly help.
Cause... do you really believe I got any help from local coders for this
fight? I got none, absolutely NONE. Why? Cause I'm a ranter. In other
words, though I am not a programmer, when I see things that are not done
correctly, I say so. They tell me I should fix the bugs.
Why is it that there are so many programmers and I can't even set a
default application for reading CD and DVDs? While I'm alone to do what I
consider my job, why is it that the whole community doesn't get its act
together to do such simple things?
Sometimes I wished I could proselytize in a more positive way. I'd like to
tell Apple users that Linux equals or surpasses OS X in user friendlyness,
but it doesn't. It was like this ten years ago, it is still like this now.
Countrary to what we could think from the success of Steve Jobs at the
helm of Apple, in the Linux world, the only people who count are
programmers. They'll fix things... soon.
But Linux is not so young anymore. After 18 years, it has 1% market share.
I believe there are some organizational bugs that need to be ironed out.
For now, from an administrative POV, Linux is a merry-go-round that
doesn't make much sense.
What do you say, am I a ranter or an evangelist? Is it good for Linux to
be ruled by programmers, the alternative not being necessarily the
marketing department? :)
Red Hat has some clout. How come they don't say "We want a music player
that first detects CD files and plays them" and accept to include them on
the default CD only on this condition?
Etc., etc., etc.
8 years, 3 months
Re: Ranter or evangelist?
by Jackson Byers
Tim wrote
>There's gnome-mplayer (there's probably a KDE variant), and smplayer, to
>try out, at least.
>I have used GUI programs like XMMS or Audacious to play streams, but
>sometimes you need to tweak the preferences, to increase cache sizing,
>to avoid skips. Totem is too much of a black box (not enough options to
>play with).
Before seeing above response,
I had just tried smplayer and it seems to be working well
no skips
smplayer -playlist xxxxxxxxx.pls
and it comes up with a small window that has volume slider and mute
just what i want..
I havent tried it yet to play audio dvd
Seems like I can remove Totem
Jack
8 years, 3 months
How do I switch mirror for rpmfusion?
by gilpel＠altern.org
I'm still having problems downloading from liberty.edu . Ex, installing
kdenlive:
Total download size: 13 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
(1/15): GraphicsMagick-1.1.14-4.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 2.4 MB 00:05
(2/15): dvdauthor-0.6.14-8.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 187 kB 00:00
(3/15): dvgrab-3.4-2.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 133 kB 00:01
(4/15): ffmpeg-0.5-2.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 160 kB 00:01
(5/15): ffmpeg-libs-0.5-2.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 2.5 MB 00:15
(6/15): imlib2-1.4.2-4.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 228 kB 00:01
(7/15): jack-audio-connection-kit-0.116.1-5.fc11.x86_64. | 203 kB 00:01
(8/15): jack-audio-connection-kit-example-clients-0.116. | 42 kB 00:00
(9/15): kdenlive-0.7.4-2.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 2.6 MB 00:15
(10/15): libfreebob-1.0.11-5.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 160 kB 00:01
(11/15): mlt-0.4.2-1.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 144 kB
00:30 ...
http://mirror.liberty.edu/pub/rpmfusion/free/fedora/updates/11/x86_64/mlt...:
[Errno 4] Socket Error: timed out
Trying other mirror.
(11/15): mlt-0.4.2-1.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 3.4 MB 00:09
(12/15): openjpeg-libs-1.3-4.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 66 kB 00:00
(13/15): recordmydesktop-0.3.8.1-1.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 65 kB 00:00
(14/15): schroedinger-1.0.6-1.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 233 kB 00:01
(15/15): sox-14.2.0-2.fc11.x86_64.rpm | 458 kB
00:02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 137 kB/s | 13 MB
01:35
I very often get those "Socket Error: timed out" interruptions. How do I
switch mirror for rpmfusion?
8 years, 3 months
Setting up HP laserjets (1012) to work with Fedora 11
by gilpel＠altern.org
Unrelated to topic:
I lost quite a bit of messages downloading them from Altern to Thunderbird
and not being able to upload afterwards* but I would like to thank Todd
Zullinger for reminding me that welcome messages are not just a way for
forums owner to be polite :) But somethimes, you have many things to
read...
* ping smtp.altern.org
ping: unknown host smtp.altern.org
This used to work, but not anymore, according to lantre.org.
So, I'll have to set up a Gmail account. Later.
-----------------------------
Setting up HP laserjets (1012) to work
I discovered a bug with the setting of my printer, an HP 1012. The
configuration seemed really easy as it was identified correctly on a USB
Port. A few clicks, and I was done. I didn't even check to see if it
worked: I never had a problem setting this printer for years. Then, I
tried to print and I had a message saying that the printer wasn't
connected.
Weird: CUPS was installed, the wire was OK. I went back to configuration
and I saw there's an option for using HAL, the Hardware Abstraction Layer.
I do believe HAL has always been part of setting my printer. So, I
selected it but received the message that the HPIJS driver was not
available. (Note that I tried the Gutenprint driver when the printer
wasn't set to use HAL: it didn't work.)
I installed hpijs, now everything is fine.
I don't remember ever being asked to use HAL with another distro: it was
always put to contribution, I suppose. So, there must be a way around
this. Most newbies will never consider an option that isn't selected by
default for a printer.
Most probably other printers that use HPIJS have the same problem. Those
that use ppd files, probably not.
8 years, 3 months
Did I really install Kmod-Nvidia ?
by gilpel＠altern.org
There are all sorts of instructions as to how to install Kmod-Nvidia on
Fedora, but I thought yum would do a better job of guessing my
configuration (x86_64, 9400 GT) to get the most up-to-date correct package
and getting everything right. So, I just typed:
yum install kmod-nvidia
Now, /etc/X11/xorg.conf looks like this:
# Xorg configuration created by livna-config-display
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
The file is only a few minutes old... So, I suppose it's a new config for
the Kmod driver. But the process was so transparent, I can't help but
wonder if all those modifications to the kernel that I read about in the
doc have been made.
If so, why not provide the documentation that all that is needed is to
type the yum command?
The Nouveau driver worked very well and, since I'm not too sure I'll
install 3D, maybe I could have kept it. But my screen kept blanking once
in a while for a few seconds. This happened with my previous computer too
-- it had an old ATI card, the same monitor and a very standard open
source driver for ATI -- but not so often and not for so long: it was just
a quick blank. I thought this might fix the problem.
Also, I intend to install a TV card and, it anything doesn't work, I'm sure
the first suggestion from Nvidia will be to install their driver. As the
material I buy is only on a one week money back guarantee, I prefer to
make sure everything works in advance.
Also, as it often happens when I download new packages, there was a socket
error and a long (~ 1-2 min) halt before another server took over. (I
forgot to save the console screen before I rebooted, but the name
"liberty" was part of it.)
After the installation finished, the rx/tx light of the modem began
flashing very fast as if there was a download occuring... or maybe an
upload if some information on the installation has to be sent back to
rpmfusion or nvidia.
No indication of what was going on appeared onscreen. Is this anything to
be concerned about? Any idea What this transfer was about?
8 years, 3 months
Re: Getting more juice from a preamp?
by Antonio Olivares
--- On Sat, 7/11/09, gilpel(a)altern.org <gilpel(a)altern.org> wrote:
> From: gilpel(a)altern.org <gilpel(a)altern.org>
> Subject: Getting more juice from a preamp?
> To: fedora-list(a)redhat.com
> Date: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 10:34 PM
> I listen to sound on my system with
> headphones, so I only use the preamp.
>
> This aft, I was watching this feature on the cause of
> Beethoven's death:
>
> http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/decouverte/2008-2009/Reportage.asp?i...
>
> but the sound is a bit weak. You don't miss anything, but
> you feel you
> have to be very attentive. Maybe they wanted to make you
> feel like you're
> getting deaf yourself :)
>
> I checked alsamixer, but volume control is maxed out. Is
> there any other
> control somewhere else? Anything in alsactl or pulseaudio,
> for instance?
>
> Thnaks!
>
> --
Try the following:
$ alsamixer -c0
then
$ pavucontrol
after adjusting those to your preference save your settings with
$ su -c '/sbin/alsactl store'
put in your password and settings should be saved for next reboot, ***unless*** an update(s) breaks your configuration and let us hope that those things don't happen :)
Regards,
Antonio
8 years, 3 months
Problems with 3COM 3C900Combo
by Christian Moller
Hi all Fedora users,
I have just joined this list. I am running the latest Fedora but I can't get
my 3C900Combo networking card to work. I can see that the card is installed
but no IP-address is asigned to it and I can't set it. So I think that there
is a bug in that driver. Any other user out there who have a solution for
this?
Best regards and thanks,
Christian
8 years, 3 months
RAGE XL Framebuffer
by Yanick Quirion
Hi all
I know that is not a specific question about Fedora, but I can't find answer on the kernel mailing list.
Is somebody having server with integrated ATI RAGE XL video card? Is it possible to patch the kernel to support this video card? If I add VGA=791 in my grub.conf, I will have a resolution of 1024x768 which is good, but the display is very slow (especially when the screen is scrolling). If I use I this: "video=aty128fb:1024x768@70" it will not work. I'm using kernel 2.4.22 but I will try 2.6.0-test11 today.
If somebody has a patch, a link or anything else that can help me, it will be appreciated.
Thanks for your help.
Regards,
-----------
Yanick Quirion
Administrateur Réseau/Network Manager
NEOKIMIA INC.
Institut de Pharmacologie de Sherbrooke
3e étage (Édifice Z5)
3001 12e avenue Nord
Sherbrooke, Québec
CANADA
J1H 5N4
Tél.: +1 819 820-6040
Direct: +1 819 820-6855
Fax.: +1 819 820-6841
email: Yanick.Quirion(a)neokimia.com
8 years, 3 months
Soundblaster
by Antonio Montagnani
I have two similar PC (old Pentium but workin fine)
In Pc no.1 I upgraded from RH8 to Fedora and it went fine: Soundblaster
is working fine
In Pc no.2 I made a fresh installation but in redhat-sound-config Fedora
doesn't see any card, that was working on Redhat 9 after soundconfig...
Where is the trick?? I assume that my Sounblaster is an old 16...but
fine on a router/firewall.
Tnx
Antonio
8 years, 3 months
What happened to floppy drive support?
by n2xssvv.g02gfr12930
I've been using a floppy boot disk as reserve if my HD boot fails, But
it appears floppy support as now been removed. Why? Then how can I
create an emergency media that is flexible enough to be updated as required?
JB
10 years, 2 months
