Dell XPS M170 now on OpenSuse 10.2

Hobbes

Ok I finally got the laptop setup. I used Open Suse 10.2 (Registered DVD).

I went for registered because I get the support, although my current brush with support isn't that great so far.

So going to document issues I had.

1. Most painful issue
I had a nightmare of a time trying to get the wireless setup. I could not for the life of me figure out why the network wasn't working.

Turns out that the Wireless card 2200 Intel light will no longer go on if it is disabled/enabled. I just toggled it and noticed it didn't go on, so I tried again and the network works. In windows this light goes on.

Everything so far seems ok. I want to set up XGL though and it doesn't reconise the graphics card. Will wait for it to be fully patched and try again.

maidhc

My only experience of linux support was with Red Hat 7 years ago, but I do find that having an extensive support community like with Ubuntu is far more useful.

And the 2200 works out of the box with Ubuntu too, I tried running the live CD on my dads Latitide D610.

I hate sounding like a fan boy, but it is the first linux distribution that I have kept on my computer for more than a week, and have not yet succumbed to reverting to windows XP!

Hobbes

Got Xine setup so I watch all my videos again. Some issues with some of my DVD's but not a biggie.

I got XGL set up, its very very sweet.

My only gripe now is I use two keyboards (English + Korean). In windows you press ALTGR to switch keyboards, in Suse though it is SHIFT+SPACE which is causing me issues when I start a sentance.

Anyone know how to change the key?

Hobbes

ok that was a noob question. Fixed that (just hit the settings).

Blowfish

Hobbes wrote:

I had a nightmare of a time trying to get the wireless setup. I could not for the life of me figure out why the network wasn't working.

I've the same laptop, and when I got it I installed suse 10.0, and actually never got around to sorting out the wireless

Hobbes wrote:

Everything so far seems ok. I want to set up XGL though and it doesn't reconise the graphics card. Will wait for it to be fully patched and try again.

It should work fine, the nVidia drivers are usually fairly solid. Where is it not being recognised, in yast or is it xgl that doesn't recognise it?

Hobbes

Blowfish wrote:

I've the same laptop, and when I got it I installed suse 10.0, and actually never got around to sorting out the wireless

Pressing FN+F2 is what solved it for me, after I confirmed the router would allow the machine access.

It should work fine, the nVidia drivers are usually fairly solid. Where is it not being recognised, in yast or is it xgl that doesn't recognise it?

I have XGL setup fine now. Trying to get Cedega working in Eve with no joy. Says OpenGL isn't working but I have it working fine for everything else.

Going to give VMPlayer a bash instead

joe_chicken

Hobbes wrote:

I have XGL setup fine now. Trying to get Cedega working in Eve with no joy. Says OpenGL isn't working but I have it working fine for everything else.

Not sure if it's the same issue, but a friend was installing WoW with cedega (on SuSe too), and had to disable XGL to get it working with OpenGL... not sure if it's the same issue.

Hope it helps.

Blowfish

joe_chicken wrote:

Not sure if it's the same issue, but a friend was installing WoW with cedega (on SuSe too), and had to disable XGL to get it working with OpenGL... not sure if it's the same issue.

It could be, I had some issues with XGL and games. Beryl is supposed to have sorted that out though.

flamegrill

I find XGL is a right pain the ass. Apps consume 100's of megs of memory and I have to kill X in the face and restart it. Got rid of XGL then a while ago and now all is well. Beryl looks so damned pretty!

Paul

humbert

I don't know much about the inner workings of opengl but xgl uses it and so while it's running other things that use opengl don't work well. I've got it installed but I often comment it out in the kdm config file so the computer boots with a standard X display when watching videos or simply when I want linux to be as zippy as possible.

Hobbes

yep I disabled XGL and Cedega works fine. Have Eve working, quite well from initial tests I see.

Currently redownloading CS:S as well.