Challenge for yeh Linux buffs

[albatorsk]

But if you could please post your /etc/inittab and /etc/resolv.conf it would really help.

[Marshmallowman]

IF you buy Mandrake you get access to all the proprietry drivers direclty using mandrake update and you can install the mandrake configured ATI driver rpm with just a point and click, something I would recomend for don't have much luck with computers

But usually the driver from ATI should install and work without any problems.

I will find you a link for a good ATI howto in a bit....
Have a browse here

http://www.rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=61

usualy doing a

cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod
./make.sh
cd ..
./make_install.sh
fglrxconfig

should get you going, you have to have the kerenl source installed so the ATI driver can build its custom AGP thingy.

[leech]

If I recall correctly, there was some place I read that if you had AGP fastwrites enabled for certain ATI cards, it could cause slowdowns and such with your system. But of course if your removed the drivers and are no longer using the module for the ATI drivers, and there's still slowdown...

If you just play around with your linux box, I'd have to say RH 9 is not the one to do it with. It gets too messy if you install rpms from all sorts of different places. At least that's been my experience with it. That's why I run Debian unstable branch. Though occasionally some of my 'outside of debian' packages conflict with others, it's pretty easy to fix. "dpkg -i --force-overwrite package" usually does the trick.. Though I wouldn't suggest doing that ALL the time, but when it says that an ICON is in two different packages.....

Leech

[The PIT]

Originally posted by albatorsk
But if you could please post your /etc/inittab and /etc/resolv.conf it would really help.

Yeh I will do but sometimes I like to go to bed you know.
If you be working with pc's all day you need a break.

[The PIT]

Just had a look at a file on a mandrake system and it's the same as RH9 at home identical.

[albatorsk]

Originally posted by Albatorsk
just open up /etc/inittab with a text editor and change the first uncommented line from 4 to 3. The line should look something like this:

:id:3:initdefault:

Originally posted by The PIT
Well theres nothing in inittab that corrasponds to what you wrote here. Looking elsewhere right now.

I'd say that resembles your first uncommented line pretty much:

id:5:initdefault:

These numbers are not universal, and may change from distribution to distribution. There should be instructions in the upper part of the file telling you which number represents normal multiuser and which is graphical multiuser.

This is what I was talking about (a whole 9 rows down in your inittab)

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by Mandrake Linux are:
# 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
# 1 - Single user mode
# 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
# 3 - Full multiuser mode
# 4 - unused
# 5 - X11
# 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)

Now, if you'd just please let me decide if the resolv.conf was important or not and just post it

[The PIT]

; Generated by Sbin/dhcpclient-script
192.168.0.1

[albatorsk]

Do you run a DNS on 192.168.0.1?

[The PIT]

Does for the winxp os on this machine. If it wasn't surely I wouldn't be able to post from the Linux machine surely???

Just checked to make sure I didn't also hardwire the dns servers into XP as well I haven't.

[The PIT]

Someone else suggested that the dma maybe off on the hard drives it isn't according to the logs just to let you know.

[albatorsk]

Good. Then we can rule out that problem. I've seen other suggest turning on DMA, but I don't think that's it, since it would mean that your harddisks and CPU load would be maxed out for the 30 seconds it takes to log in as the controller is trying it's best to read data in PIO mode. But it's always a good idea to see if it's enabled anyway.

Does it take as long to log in on the console as it does in X?

[The PIT]

The login itself is quick but it's the loading of the desktop afterwards that slow it used to fly through that. Thats via the graphical login. Don't know if you seen KDE loading but if you have theres a set of around five or six icons that light up as everything is loaded. This bit has slowed down and the panel and desktop are the slowest.

[The PIT]

Solved it. You were on the right lines can you guess what it was.

[albatorsk]

Well, then all of a sudden it DOES sound like a DMA problem. Well, except for what you said earlier:

Hard drive doesn't churn away cpu load just a few percent.

Now I'm not so sure of what you meant when you said that. Should it be "Hard drive hardly churns away any CPU load, just a few procent", or "Hard drive doesn't churn away, and the CPU is just a few percent loaded"?

EDIT: I'm not trying to be a smartass here, just that what you said would make a lot more sense to me if I know what you meant

[The PIT]

Hard drive doesn't church away. Cpu only a few percent loaded.

Anyway solved it can you guess what it was??