Extreme Newbie

[AspDotNetGuy]

Hello,

Please excuse my ignorance.

I installed suse linux 10 on my old P3 733 and it seems to be running decent. It freezes every once in a while and I am not sure why. I did the checksum my installation iso was good.

Its probably a driver issue or something. I am not that worried.

What I really want to do is learn to use GCC. This is the first I have ever seen of Linux so I am having trouble figuring out where to start. I did install the GCC but now how do I open it?

If someone can point me in the right direction by giving me a helping a hand or sending me to a site where I can do some reading I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.

[techieMoe]

I installed suse linux 10 on my old P3 733 and it seems to be running decent. It freezes every once in a while and I am not sure why. I did the checksum my installation iso was good.

Its probably a driver issue or something. I am not that worried.

What kind of video card do you have in the computer? I've had random freezing problems before when SuSE tries to use the open-source nv driver on an Nvidia card rather than the more generic "vesa" driver. You can tell what driver is being used by looking at your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Scroll down toward the bottom and look for a section named "Device". It will look similar to this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Nvidia Card"
    Driver      "nv"
    BusID      "PCI:0:12:0"
EndSection

If the "Driver" section says anything other than "vesa", change it, save, and restart. See if that fixes your random freezing. Also, you'll need to edit that file with root privileges, so either open up a Root Console, or use a regular terminal and type su <enter> followed by your root password.

To edit the file from the terminal you can use nano.

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Quit is CTRL+X followed by "y" when it asks if you want to save your changes.

What I really want to do is learn to use GCC. This is the first I have ever seen of Linux so I am having trouble figuring out where to start. I did install the GCC but now how do I open it?

GCC is a compiler, not an entire graphical integrated development environment (IDE) like you might be used to in MS Windows. You run GCC from the command line.

There are graphical IDEs available for Linux and GCC. Some popular ones are Anjuta, KDevelop, and Eclipse (with the C/C++ plugin).

[AspDotNetGuy]

Woah. Awesome. Found the terminal window, created a c file, saved, compiled, and ran it! Woohoo.

I love this!

It looks like its an ATI card. ATI Theater? I also have ati rage 128 which is likely newer but still at least three years old.

Maybe I should try that one?

My sound blaster card doesn't work either. Can drivers be downloaded like on windows or do you have to hand edit settings?

[techieMoe]

It looks like its an ATI card. ATI Theater? I also have ati rage 128 which is likely newer but still at least three years old.

The vesa driver should work fine with just about any card, it just won't do 3D accelerated graphics. If you have a Rage 128, you're likely not worried about that sort of thing, though.

My sound blaster card doesn't work either. Can drivers be downloaded like on windows or do you have to hand edit settings?

That I'm not sure about. I've never had a Sound Blaster. Hang in there though, I'm pretty sure someone has.

[gogalthorp]

Woah. Awesome. Found the terminal window, created a c file, saved, compiled, and ran it! Woohoo.

I love this!

It looks like its an ATI card. ATI Theater? I also have ati rage 128 which is likely newer but still at least three years old.

Maybe I should try that one?

My sound blaster card doesn't work either. Can drivers be downloaded like on windows or do you have to hand edit settings?

Have you tried to configure it?

go to Yast-Hardware-Sound

[AspDotNetGuy]

Have you tried to configure it?

go to Yast-Hardware-Sound

Umm, like I said EXTREME NEWBIE lol. I didn't even do that. So I just tried. It worked, easier than on the PC. I honestly cannot believe how awesome this is. It has a great UI as well.

And to this board thanks for all your help, and no giving me the RTFM treatment. THats not to say I have problem with that. It's just sometimes you don't even know where to start or its too overwhelming not to mention time time time

[AspDotNetGuy]

By the way I had a TV incard in the box as well I pulled that out. Thinking it could have been the problem. So now I just have the ATI theatre.

[gogalthorp]

Ok you probaly want some of the multimedi stuff. This does not ship with Suse because it is propritary. CHeck out this site for a nice overview of what you need and how to get it

http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/254

It is for 10.1 but just substitute 10.2 any where you see 10.1

[kahoona]

Ok you probaly want some of the multimedi stuff. This does not ship with Suse because it is propritary. CHeck out this site for a nice overview of what you need and how to get it

http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/254

It is for 10.1 but just substitute 10.2 any where you see 10.1

Here's the same thing only written for Suse 10.2:

http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/60/