Re: Clarification on a few things

[Paul <Paul.Corner-at-tesco.net>]

Hi David

 I would agree with both Ray and Ian - If you install a few of the other
XFree86 drivers, you can either edit the symbolic link /etc/X11/X to point to a
different driver. Or run kudzu, setup, or Xconfigurator to change the settings.
RH6.2 has no trouble with my Appian dual head graphics card - Even if it will
only allow me one monitor !!
Really must try out XFree86-4.0.2 and see if I can get it to work.

I don't think there is any real difference between RH5.2 or 6.0/6.1 - A lot of
the packages will be more up to date. RH6.2 has one or two problem areas (the
assembler seems to generate an excessive amount of errors) - As for RH7.x, nuff
said.

Most of the current EMC development is being done on machines using more recent
RH installations, along with Mandrake & SuSE. It is not the linux distro that
you have that is important, rather the kernel. 
In my opinion, 2.0.36 and rt-09J should really be considered as legacy code.
The 2.2.xx kernels with any of the rt-2.x patches are stable - The kernel I use
is 2.2.17 with the rtl-3.0 patch applied. I have this running on all but one of
my linux boxes full time.
I believe most current EMC installs are now using 2.2.14 & rtl-2.2 (judging by
the number of posts).

Regards, Paul.


> > Thankyou very much for your replies. After reading your reply Ray, I thought
> > I'd best have a closer look at my system,and on booting up I noticed 5.2
> > showed Red Hat Linux release 5.2 (Apollo) Kernel 2.2.14-12 on a i586, and
> > 6.2 showed Red Hat Linux release 6.2 (Zoot) Kernel 2.2.14-12 on a i586.

> > I've heard that 6.2 is
> > very sensitive regarding the type of video card used, but at this point
> > sorting that problem is very low on my priority list
 
> Your startx problem is a video driver problem.  Unless you have some hot
> gamers system, the generic SVGA drivers and a low res (800x600) setting will
> get you going.

> I worked with the beta BDI for about an hour last evening and was not able
> to make it crash.  (I'm getting good at crashing EMC)  It seemed to be rock
> solid.  If that proves to be the case, I won't install any other way or
> any other release.  The board that I used has
> an S3 chipset and the install found a better svga driver than Mandrake 7.2
> finds.  (Blessings on you Paul, until you're better paid)

You're too kind Ray..