Author: Tony

Warning, this post is going to be mostly written in the language of the geek. So, if you’re not one of us, please let your eyes go out of focus and scroll on down to the nice posts about turkey and graduation…

I’ve been using RedHat’s new “community-supported” distribution Fedora since the day it was announced. Now that Fedora-Core-1 has been released, I’m using it full-time. Everything was going great until I installed the NVidia drivers for my video card. Here are a few tips for anyone else having problems.

First, the NVidia drivers don’t include modules for the Fedora kernel. Luckily, the installer will compile them for you if you have everything set-up correctly before you start. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Install the gcc32 compiler installed if you don’t already have it. In a terminal window type “up2date gcc32”.
2. Make sure you have the kernel-source package installed – “up2date –force kernel-source”. Up2date won’t normally install kernel packages so you have to use the –force option to make it. Also note that this is a very large download (14MB+) so you might be better off installing it from your original CDs if you have a slow connection.
3. Download the latest driver from http://www.nvidia.com/ if you haven’t already.
4. Log out of GNOME
5. Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to the first console
6. Log in as root
7. Type “telinit 3” to switch to runlevel 3 and kill the X Window System
8. Change to the directory where you saved the driver
9. Make the driver executable by typing “chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4496-pkg2.run”
10. Tell the system to use the gcc32 compiler by typing “export CC=gcc32”
11. Install the driver with the command “./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4496-pkg2.run” (that’s a dot and a forward slash followed by the name of the file you downloaded)
12. After answering a few questions, the installer should compile a new module for you and install it.

Now we need to edit the XF86Config file so X will actually use the new driver. I normally use VI for editing files, but for these instructions I’ll use nano since it’s easier.

1. Type “nano /etc/X11/XF86Config” to open your config file for editing.
2. Scroll down to the line that says Load “dri” and put a # at the beginning of the line. This makes that line a comment which means it won’t be read by the X Server.
3. Now keep scrolling down to the line that says Driver “nv”. Change the “nv” to “nvidia”
4. Press Ctrl+O to save the file and Ctrl+X to exit

If you restart X right now, it will come up, but anytime you try to run a 3D application you’ll get this message Xlib: extension “XFree86-DRI” missing on display “:0.0”

I found a solution for this on the nV News Forums. Here’s what you need to do now:

1. Get rid of a directory with some conflicting files by typing “mv /usr/X11R6/lib/tls/ /usr/X11R6/lib/tls-bad/”
2. Tell your system about the change by typing “ldconfig”

You can now restart X and have good 3D acceleration. Type “telinit 5” to restart the login manager and get back into GNOME.

I’m sure this will make someone very happy one of these days. I still get e-mail about the last bit of technical advice I posted.

I love the headline at Apple.com – Hell froze over. Apple has just released their awsome CD Ripper / CD Burner / Music Organizer / Music Store for Windows. They call it the best Windows app ever.

If you’re interested in music at all, then you owe it to yourself to check out iTunes. I’ll be downloading it at work tomorrow to play with on my laptop. Since I’m running nothing but Linux at home now, I guess I’ll stick to Rhythmbox and buy my music the old fashioned way…

As graduation approaches I’m starting to think more and more about what I’m going to do once I get my degree. My current job is not too bad. The people are friendly and the time off is great. I’d like to make more money, but who wouldn’t. Besides, once I get my degree I expect to get a raise.

A while back I posted about starting my own software company. That’s something that will happen, and soon. I already have several working programs that I think other people would pay money for, and I have a few more either in progress or at least in mind. It seems like I’m always trying to think up some new program to make people’s lives better.

My latest obsession is so-called social software. These are programs that bring groups of people together with similar interests.

The first example that most people have experienced is Amazon.com. You can buy books just about anywhere, but where else can you get detailed reviews from people all over the world, and recommendations based on your past purchases and ratings. Another popular social site is eBay. On eBay, it’s easy to see who’s a good seller or if someone is a deadbeat bidder. Everyone on the site works together to make a strong community.

Another example would be weblogs and discussion boards. I’m a big fan of Slashdot.org. At Slashdot, the editors take submissions from visitors for interesting news stories. The editors pick the ones they like, then all of the visitors discuss them. Site visitors are also sometimes given the ability to moderate other visitor’s comments in the discussion. This way, the meaningless comments are eventually eliminated and an interesting discussion emerges. Kuro5hin.org takes this concept a bit further. At Kuro5hin, the readers of the site decide what stories to run on the front page. Anyone can submit a story and then vote on which stories are interesting enough for further discussion.

For some people, social software goes beyond complex sites such as these. CC’ing a group of people in e-mail and then using reply to all can be a great way to communicate with a group. The group I’m in right now uses this technique quite a bit. We have discussions on everything from the design of our program, to who is bringing what for dinner at the next meeting.

Here’s a list of websites that I just added to my bookmarks about social software:

• Many-to-Many
• Social climbers

That should be enough to keep me busy for at least the next few evenings…