Manipulators
So I think I’m actually making some progress, currently using Fedora Core 4 test 2. Yesterday I connected through RDP to my XP laptop then SSHed back to the Linux box… pretty cool. Eventually I want to figure out how to either have the Linux box serve an RDP session or better yet access an Xforward session from the PC and do it the other way around, all graphical.
My desire for graphical interfaces is of course something of a problem, everything in Linux is console based and installing things makes one wonder… how’d this OS ever get off the ground?
With some help from Google I used YUM to update Firefox, but I’ve thus far failed entirely to switch to the nvidia graphics drivers. Downloaded them, read the file, a bit mystified as to how I’m supposed to quit Xserve… changed the runlevel to 3 which closes X but… no console underneath, just the status from boot showing which services passed loading… grr. Did it through SSH with the box still in run level 3, even edited the X config file as instructed in the nVidia readme, then X can’t start (at least it makes a new config file after a couple failed loads).
So these are the questions I have so far:
1) Shouldn’t a dual PIII 600 with 1GB of RAM run well? It’s not molasses but it’s certainly not snappy… there’s lag before running even the simplest utils in either gnome or KDE. How much would the nvidia drivers help with that?
2) How do a I get a shell in runlevel 3 (or less)? I do get one eventually in the ‘X failed to run’ mode, but when I just change runlevel all I get is the screen about the services loaded.
3) How many things aren’t working because I’m using this test release? I figured a ‘test 2′ or 3 would be equivalent to an MS RC2, but maybe it’s not even as well tested as an MS Beta2…? Is this the reason that the nvidia driver will not install or that up2date seems entirely useless? (Yum will connect, and I used it to update YUM and up2date, but up2date still won’t connect.)
4) How does one at least find out (or maybe go as far as setting) the IP address in the command line? I tried netstat, but if it does tell you IPs it doesn’t tell you DHCP assigned ones that I can find. Basically looking for the equiv. of ipconfig /all
And one final, not entirely Linux question, WTF is the point of BitTorrent when it’s only downloading the test 3 DVD .iso at 5 to 75 Kb/s??
–Update: Working on downloading the full Fedora Core 4 which was released today (Fedora keeps their release scheduals…), but BitTorrent’s even less impressive on a 5Mb/5Mb dedicated fiber line… So far: nada.