Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Help/Advice needed with lot's of Linux related stuff.....


MiiJaySung
08-13-2001, 04:57 PM
To make it easy, I will section this into parts....

1. LinModem trouble (Don't just luv AMR !)
2. Themes for KDE/Gkt/E/WindowMaker
3. Emulators and Machine Virtuisers (and how do i compile Plex86)
4. Instant Messenger clients for Linux
5. BT488/9 TV cards in Linux (XawTV)
6. Sound cards.

1. /-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

First of all, My nasty AMR PC Tel 56HSP MR modem.....

After a lot of looking about on PC-Tel modem drivers that will work on my 2.4.3-20 mandrake 8 kernel; I managed to download a bunch of PC-Tel drivers for my mandrake 8 box, all seem to be pretty much the same. Anyway I think I installed the drivers OK, coz there wasn't any errors and the drivers have installed (the two .o files) in the /lib/modules/2.4.3-20mdk/misc folder.

I can insmod them from the terminal, and they don't complain about the kernel version, so they mush have installed, except when I dial up to the internet it says Modem Busy when I dial up via /dev/modem (which i guess points to the virtual comm port /dev/ttyS15). Lucky i have an external modem which I canin depespiration use /dev/ttyS0 to dial up to, but I would like to put that on mum's NT4 box, and use this silly AMR modem, because it's a fair bit faster, and it saves the clutter (it's bad enuf with having a TV card + TV out, and all of the other bits hooked up to the PC)

Anyone have any ideas on how to get my sh*tty PC Tel modem to work. It's an AMR thing that came with my PC Chips 810LMR motherboard.

Any suggestions ?

2. /-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Also does anyone know of any other good sites like Themes.Org ?? As Themes.Org is down until the 22nd of August (bit of the site are up). I need some *GOOD* themes, and seeing as I did use Mandrake-linux 6 (and RedHat 5.2) about 17 months ago for a very short period, I still am still a newbie to Linux as I'm using it for the first time 2day for over 17 months, and therefore need a lot of twealing to get drivers, nice themes, and basicly get all the apps I need for my daily use on the PC. I hate the way Mandrake 8 has only 5 KDE themes!

3. /-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Software Enulation....

Well I'd like to know some good emulators. I know there is WINE, which isn't really suitable for running my Windows Apps. I've got a Windows Evaluation version of VMware, which is very good, but DOESN'T support VESA. This annoys me as the graphic LILO doesn't work etc etc. I also program the odd VESA based Apps, as I programm the odd Qbasic games/programs, thou I haven't done much programming for ageis, and really I want to switch to C++. I think I'll use DOS Emu for my DOS programs, as that is easy to use and I have got lots of things to work on that, I will also probably use borland Turbo C++ to start learning C++ and then move to DJGPP (as I think this is DOS and POSIX compatible), and maybe start doing Linux Programming once I get to grips with Linux and C++, as well as doing the odd bit of Direct X stuff if I think it's worth learning Borlands windows compiler. I've seen Bochs, I find that is way too slow for my needs, but I have Plex 86 source. Is Plex86 any good, and if so how do I compile it ? I've only used Linux for about 1 month and that was over a year ago, so I really know nothing about it when it comes to technical stuff. Is there any other good windows emulatiors/x86 machine virtualisers out there? I've heard that Sun microsystems made a program called WABI, what does that do? is it any good ? Also what Amiga, and Gameboy emulators are out there that are worth using. Is there any n64 emulators, not That I'd really use the n64 emulator I have in windows.

4. /-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

IM clients. What good ones are out there? I really would like something that is stable and does MSN, AIM, and ICQ messengers, perferably in a single application. I will look at Gabber later if I get it to work, and I think I may have a copy of EveryBuddy, which I've heard about from a friend, but is there anyother good ones out there ? I use Trillain in windows, which is amazing, but only works Windows.

5. /=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Finally the dreaded TV card. That doesn't want to work. Mandrake 8 finds the card and installs it OK, but when I use XawTV, it won't pick up the channels. I live in UK, I guess we use the Europe-West setting, and The coding system we use is PAL-I, like South Africa. But It only has PAL, PAL N, PAL M and PAL NC. One of those must work, I gather it must be bog standard PAL. Even with those setting I don't pick anything up. I know many ppl don't much about TV cards but if some one can help it would be nice. If anyone need to know the Channels slots for Brithish TV they are 21, 24, 27, and 31, and these channels are inbetween the 470 and 550 Mhz range. The OS doesn't ask me what tuner type I have, I only assume that Harddrake found this. It is meant to be a Temic Tuner (thou I think in BeOS it worked under some other Tuner Names). Basiclly, XawTV won't detect any channels at all, and when I speficy in the channels in the .xawtv file in my home folder, it doesn't do much.

As it is I've spent ageis trying to get good Win2K drivers for this damned TV card for Window XP (blo*dy closed source manufacture dependant drivers made this tricky in winXP !)

6. /-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Oh, one other thing, Sound cards.

I have two sound cards, an SiS onboard AC97 compatible sound card, which again Harddrake will find OK, along with my SB live, but I can't seem to get the it to go. The SB live works OK, but I have to tell XMMS to play sound via the SB Live, coz it, like Dumb@$$ WindoZe will default to the Onboard sound, is there a way of GLOBALLY setting the sound to play to the Sb Live (as I use the onboard sound, but only in windows, so all of the annoying event are not played loudly out of my Sb Live when I listen to music, but this lets notification sounds, like messengers play a sound quietly without the whole room shaking). I guess there must be a way of linking /dev/dsp to the SBlive (I seem to have /dev/dsp, /dev/dsp1 and /dev/dsp56k in my dev folder). I would like to do this so I can get DOS Emu to play sound to the SB Live. I don't know what the /dev entry is for my SbLive. Can anyone help.

Thanks for trying to help me with all of these newbie-ish Kestions :)

Jason Earl

seeker22
08-13-2001, 05:41 PM
Yeah Trillion is a good program, You can use GAIM it connects to everything Trillion can. MSN,IRC,AIM,Yahoo!,ICQ,Jabber and more and has alot of cool plug-ins you might want to get the nightly build of GAIM tho because that is the one that can connect to MSN because MSN changed there servers around. http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

Malakin
08-13-2001, 05:46 PM
If you're looking for game emulators check out http://www.emuhq.com or you could try some searches on freshmeat.net or sourceforge.net

You might want to try out some programming in Linux. One of the things that makes it easy is all the sample code you have to look at out there or projects you can help out. KDevelop is nice.

You sound like you're already answering your questions about IM's. Personally I use Licq, everyone I know is on that network since icq came out before anything else. Everybuddy looks good for supporting multiple networks.

Is there a way to disable your onboard sound in the bios? Or you could just stop linux from installing the module for it.

Jason Earl
08-14-2001, 06:38 PM
Ummm, I've managed to sort out my Sound problem now, I've got DOS Emu working nicely along with the exaluation version of VM ware and managed to find out how to install the Nvidia GFX card drivers, but I have not got any futureer with my Lin/WinModem.

Also How do I compile the plex 86 code ??
There are no instructions on how to compile this. I will look for a make file, but I am not exactly how to go about source code tar balls. -sigh- if only all installations were as simple as clicking an RPM file (the same applies to windows !)

I also still need help with the TV card if anyone knows how to.

I looked at GAIM too, I couldn't get it to compile with the instructions supplied, it seemed in the './configure' command that some *.h header files were not found. I can't be bothered getting it to work as there will probably (hopefully) be am RPM version soon.

As for emulators, Well seeing as DOS Emu is working so well, I'll use some DOS emulators for the Amstrad CPC and Amiga :) DOS EMu Rocks ! I got my GUI That I wrote for DOS to work, and that is a pretty good twest, as that uses VESA, EMS, XMS, Mouse etc etc. It even runs VESA screeen modes in a X-Window !. I also got Astro trance, an old project I never got round to completing, which also runs, althou DOS emu isn't picking up my sound like it used to.

Oh, does the Nvidia Drivers support TV out ?

Thx 4 ya help every1

Jason Earl :)