Compatibility

[Nigel]

I'm wondering if you have some non-standard setting in your BIOS that Windows is happy with but Linux (due to not having manufacturer-supplied mobo drivers) isn't.
One thing you could try - some BIOSes have a setting on (I think) the PCI configuration page that allows you to tell the BIOS whether you have a "Plug'n'Play" operating system or not - I always set that to "No" for Linux machines, although I believe the recommendation for Windows is to set it to "Yes".

[alloydog]

One thing you could try - some BIOSes have a setting on (I think) the PCI configuration page that allows you to tell the BIOS whether you have a "Plug'n'Play" operating system or not - I always set that to "No" for Linux machines, although I believe the recommendation for Windows is to set it to "Yes".

I had this on an old MSI mainboard - if the option was set to "[b]Yes[b]", most distributions of Linux tried would fail to boot, usually with a kernel panic.
I set it to "[b]No[b]" and both Linux and Windows 98 worked OK.

[johngrinham]

Which was the version of Knoppix that worked for you, and have you tried that version again lately?

Am using it now to talk to this forum. Tried for about two hours last night, no crashes yet.
It's Knoppix 3.3.
Now, here is something I hadn't noticed till today, this version of knoppix is on a cover disk of a magazine called APC (Australian Personal Computer). The version of Xandros that worked for me was off a cover disk for Australian PC Authority. Both Australian magazines, could it be set specifically somehow for Australia. Surely it can't be that simple.

[johngrinham]

PCI configuration page that allows you to tell the BIOS whether you have a "Plug'n'Play" operating system or not - I always set that to "No" for Linux machines, although I believe the recommendation for Windows is to set it to "Yes".

Mine is probably 'plug 'n' play, I will try this one tonight, thanks

[johngrinham]

Sorry Nigel, very short lived that one, plug and play is already set to no. Any other settings that may be a problem. ??

[Nigel]

Am using it now to talk to this forum. Tried for about two hours last night, no crashes yet.
It's Knoppix 3.3.
Now, here is something I hadn't noticed till today, this version of knoppix is on a cover disk of a magazine called APC (Australian Personal Computer). The version of Xandros that worked for me was off a cover disk for Australian PC Authority. Both Australian magazines, could it be set specifically somehow for Australia. Surely it can't be that simple.

No, but it does sound like there is a problem with the Linux 2.6 kernel on your machine that doesn't exist with the 2.4 kernel.
You could try using Slackware - I believe that gives you the option of 2.4 or 2.6

What boot switches are you providing to your newer Linux systems ? Have you tried "pci=noacpi" and/or "apm=off" and/or "acpi=off" ?

[johngrinham]

What boot switches are you providing to your newer Linux systems ? Have you tried "pci=noacpi" and/or "apm=off" and/or "acpi=off" ?

Have tried some of the command line arguments when booting, no luck so far. The three above are all different ? or all different ways of saying the same thing

[nelz]

That's why I asked if the older Knoppix still worked, it does look like it may be something to do with the 2.6 kernel. Later Knoppixes default to 2.6 but I think they have an option to use a 2.4 kernel, which would be worth trying.

Look for any options relating to apm, acpi and apic (they are all different) and try disabling them one at a time.

[johngrinham]

Here is, I believe, absolute proof that I have an incompatibility problem (as I have always suspected).
Today I bought another magazine with Knoppix 4 on the cover DVD. In less than two minutes it displayed the same tendancies to crash, in the same programs, at the same places as the LXF DVD did.
So I googled for problems with nVidia and found so many entries I didn't know where to start. I turned off the computer, pulled out the nVidia card, replaced it with some cheap card out of an older machine, fired up knoppix 4, and now I CAN'T MAKE IT CRASH. No more dots and dashes on the screen when I move windows, I've opened NVU and loaded a file, which is a first for NVU. Tried a couple of games, no problems.

Conclusion, nVidia is NOT compatible in my machine, and will not be going back in.

On that note, can someone recommend a video card that is linux safe. The one I have put in is a VANTA /TNT2M64, which I know nothing about

[Nigel]

I think you will find that the card you have put in contains an earlier nVidia chipset

The other thing that happened to most Linux distros about the same time as the change in kernel from 2.4 to 2.6 was that the X Windows server got replaced - they all used to use XFree86; most now use Xorg. Now I've never had any hassles with the Xorg nv driver, or (once I get it to actually run) the proprietary nVidia driver, but given the number of cards that use the nVidia chipset it's quite possible that the one you originally had is reporting itself back to the driver in a slightly different way from most, which XFree86 could cope with but Xorg is misinterpreting.
What is the exact make & model of the card you pulled out ?

As to recommendations - I like cards based on the nVidia MX4000 chipset (some systems detect it as an MX400, but that's OK as they're fully compatible), as they don't seem to need an on-board fan so are a bit quieter than some other cards. But then I don't do much 3D stuff, just the occasional game of TuxRacer.

I also like Matrox cards - but the ones I use don't do 3D at all (Millenium II & the AGP equivalent)

[nelz]

Here is, I believe, absolute proof that I have an incompatibility problem (as I have always suspected).
Today I bought another magazine with Knoppix 4 on the cover DVD. In less than two minutes it displayed the same tendancies to crash, in the same programs, at the same places as the LXF DVD did.

That's because it's the same thing. Both use the Knoppix 4.0 DVD release.

So I googled for problems with nVidia and found so many entries I didn't know where to start. I turned off the computer, pulled out the nVidia card, replaced it with some cheap card out of an older machine, fired up knoppix 4, and now I CAN'T MAKE IT CRASH. No more dots and dashes on the screen when I move windows, I've opened NVU and loaded a file, which is a first for NVU. Tried a couple of games, no problems.

nVidia cards do work with Linux, they are generally considered the best supported, I use them in three machines.

There are two sources of nVidia drivers, the open source ones provided with X.org and the binary drivers from nVidia. nVidia recently changed these so that the later drivers don't work with older cards, I'm not sure if yours is classed as a legacy card in this respect, the GF2 certainly is.

If the problem is caused by Knoppix loading the official nVidia drivers and using too recent a version, this is a bug in Knoppix and should be reported as such.

I'm not sure this is the case though, when I ran into this, installed the first non-legacy version on a GF2, I couldn't get X to start properly, certainly not enough to run a program a few times before something fell over.

On that note, can someone recommend a video card that is linux safe. The one I have put in is a VANTA /TNT2M64, which I know nothing about

Guess what? that's an nVidia card. The TNT2 chipset is the one before the GeForce and only works with the older nVidia drivers 9or the free nv driver).

I have a TNT2 and a GF2 using the older nVidia drivers and an FX5200 running the latest driver from nVidia, none of them have any problems.

[johngrinham]

Thanks Nigel and Nelz, yes, I discovered not long after my post that the Vanta is indeed an early nVidia, however, I'm now up to about 4 hours without a crash, so something about the card I pulled out is not right, and I won't be putting it back in. I don't think it's faulty because it never failed under windows or Knoppix 3.3 or Xandros 2, however it failed under quite a few 2.4 kernels so it's not a 2.6 thing, in fact I couldn't wait for the 2.6 kernels because I thought I would finally get something that worked. I was wrong.

The following is from a sticker on the nVidia card,

GF4 MX440-8X ver:C
| || ||| | ||||| || ||| | ||| |||||
WR030607864
Made in China

Ok Nelz, TNT2 is working for you and that makes me feel more confident. This is the first time I've had a consistently clean display since I started with linux 2 years ago.

[Nigel]

John, I'd say there is a problem with your previous graphics card. The MX440 chipset is known to play nicely with Linux, so it may be some of the on-board memory is starting to fail - Windows uses memory in a different way to Linux, and I think that goes for the graphics cards as well.

Why not run with the TNT2 card for a while ? It may be a little long in the tooth, but it is still a good card (I still remember the "wow" factor from the first one of those I installed) and it should give you good results with Linux. You can always put your GF4 into the old machine if you need to keep that one going...

[johngrinham]

Why not run with the TNT2 card for a while ? It may be a little long in the tooth, but it is still a good card (I still remember the "wow" factor from the first one of those I installed) and it should give you good results with Linux. You can always put your GF4 into the old machine if you need to keep that one going...

Thanks Nigel, I will try the TNT2, but I want to use the older machine as a test bed for other distro's, so I can't justify putting the GF4 back in. For the moment it probably has more value as a paper weight. Are TNT2's still available.?
ps. I've spent the last 24hours trying all the live distro's I have that have never worked, and now they do, so I guess the full install's that wouldn't, probably will now.

[Nigel]

Try ebay... you'll probably end up paying more for the postage than for the card itself

I think I may have an AGP TNT or TNT2 card in my spares box at work, but I'm not back in the office now till 3rd Jan. If you're still looking for one then, send me a private message & I'll take a look...

Merry Christmas,


Nigel.