Linux OS and Everything Else

I was looking at an old copy of Fringeware Review from 1996 the other day. They had a catalog in the back pages with some software on floppy disk for $60. This made me wonder what good software might be out there from 95 - 98 era that may now be in public domain and furthermore might run flawlessly on Puppy Linux or (pick your version) under Wine or whatnot. Something to ponder anyway.

2 days ago my Mandriva install failed to boot back up on my pc with the MSI board in it. I could try to fix it or look for something new. I chose the latter and found the new Alpha release of Ubuntu 8.04 called Hardy Heron (Desktop Edition). I booted the Live CD - OH YEAH!! Everything worked Sound , Video, Internet - Good to go - did the install - no problems - installed the Nvidia (non Free Driver) OH YEAH - Desktop Effects work - 3d games are working - yeah yeah yeah!!!

I had some issues with Linspire and Java so I looked around and decided to give PC-BSD another try - I had tried this before but had some sound problems last time. This time all is well - and I like the PBI’s for software installation - very easy although the selection is a bit limited - the Good News is they had everything I needed to run in PBI format. My tests worked - shoutcast streams play although when just launching one it opened Kaffeine Player and totally crashed Firefox - just now I’m not kidding - the music is playing fine and the good thing is - somehow it kept what I just typed so I did not have to type it all over again.
YouTube works in Firefox with sound and Runescape works with sound - so all is well. I did have to download Java via a pbi file but it was very easy - when I was going to try to get java working in my Linux Distros it was going to be a maual process whereby I would have to login to a shell and create symbolic links - I had attempted this before and totally put Firefox out of commission so I did not want to travel that road again. Well the music is still playing and my browser is still up so I guess I’m good now.

So this is going good so far. I had to dig up some information on adding more software repositories so that I could download all the software that I needed but once I figured that out it’s been great - very stable - I am using the Metisse (Window Manager?) also had to dig up some information on using that - has some nice 3d Type effects you can do moving the axis of your windows and so forth - I played with it but I’m not sure productivly why I would need to shift my windows in such a manner - however the transparent effects are very nice. I don’t like the 9 different desktop windows on my Taskbar/Kicker/Panel?? I have not removed them yet but I may - they take up way too much space down there. Flash works, Java works (playing Runescape last night). Some of the 3D games I installed did not work - but that is due (I assume) to the generic drivers that got installed for my hardware - I did submit my Hardware to Mandriva when asked to on the install (although that part came up in French) I think I did it right. So maybe they will work on getting some drivers for this board so I can actually Game in 3D. Overall though this is a very nice Linux distribution - I love it.

Finally I think I have found a working Linux Distro for my board the MSI K9NGM3. I will comment that I have not tried the latest Ubuntu on it , so that may also work but - tonight I downloaded and burned Mandriva One 2008. I am in the Live CD right now and my video display is perfect, my network/internet connection was found, and I just checked my control panel for sound through the Sound Test and I had sound - I did have two minor glitches YouTube has no sound in Firefox - common for some reason right now on many Linux Distros that  I boot up - and I tried playing a Shoutcast stream and Kaffeine attempted to play it and totally crashed. Other than that the KDE 3.5 is totally beautiful and my plans are to actually install this on my hard drive in the next couple of days. I used to use Mandrake quite some time ago but as it progressed into Mandriva I had some issues with it - but it seems like it might be ok now so maybe I’ll give it a spin.

More testing tonight of this motherboard. This time I have an IDE CDROM Drive installed. Dyne 2.5.2 Boots up into graphical desktop - but no nic or sound. Puppy 2.16 no nic no sound boots into graphical desktop. NimbleX Graphical Desktop no nic no sound. Gos Live 2.0 would not even boot. Knoppix 5.1.1 loads graphical desktop but no beryl 3d, no sound, no nic.

Now for the sort of good news. Slax 6.0 boots into graphical desktop, nic works , sound works but my display is set at a very high resolution and everything is very tiny, I can barely read any text because it is so small, Volume was set to zero at first - so check that first if you think you have no sound. When I tried to login to blog.com it hung at about 50% and would not load this page. So although Slax seems to run on this board I can’t really say it is good or very usable - but it is better than anything listed above.

If anyone else has got any Linux distro’s to run “GOOD” on this motherboard please post a response and let me know. When I google this board I keep finding myself so evidently I am the only one running these tests and posting results at this moment. I will continue to do so.

I must test further. After several more attempts at running any type of linux on my new pc - I now think it is my DVDRW causing the problems and not the motherboard. I went total SATA with my DVDRW and My Hard Drive not thinking this would somehow be a problem. The thing is that all of my Linux Distros are looking for an IDE based DVD/CD Drive when they go to boot and cannot find one. So either I have to search for Distros that can find a SATA drive , not use Linux on this PC, or install an IDE DVD drive (which I did not want to do). I was trying to keep the pc simple and clean and only put in what I needed - Now in order to run any of my Linux Distros I am forced into installing an IDE Drive. So I’m sorry if anyone reading has taken my advice on the board not running Linux - this may not be the case at all - I will not know anything further until I tear my pc down and add an IDE DVD Drive. Then I will be able to report better about that motherboard. MSI K9NGM3

I tried 2 (new to me) online page/website creation tools today. First I tried Uber, this was quite easy to use and my pictures uploaded very fast - but it just was not quite what I was in search of - it makes a portfolio of your works and looks nice - I’m glad to have tried it and also that I used it first today. Second I came to Weebly - wowee wow wow!! This is the best website creator I have ever seen or used. It was a complete joy to use, very easy, many templates to choose from, everything does exactly what it supposed to do - drag and drop works great - built in google maps - easy to edit - easy to add pages - I have tried using so many different tools/software to make sites even have purchased some software - I know how to code with notepad and have made several sites that way also - but this Weebly pretty much makes perfect websites - it is guided and very very easy to use. I would recommend this to anyone that needs to make a nice quality website very fast - I did mine in about 4 - 5 hours - a lot of time was spent downloading and cropping my pictures  -  finding the links I wanted - and thinking/designing the layout - the actual process of using this tool “Weebly” would not have taken 4 - 5 hours if I had all of the preliminary work done beforehand but I kinda just did everything as I went along - I didn’t know I was going to end up replacing my main website tonight with the one I made on Weebly - it came out that good - that I am now using my Weebly creation as my main website.

Lately I am having issues finding a version of linux to run on the MSI K9ngm3. If anyone knows a good distro or two that work well with this board please advise, thanks. I figured since it had the Nvidia chipset I would be alright - I am using the board straight with no cards - XP works fine but having trouble finding good linux match

I sit typing this post using my Puppy Dragon Linux! Awesome - the feel is so nice - everything is working - boot up is so fast with my saved configuration files - it is amazing. Any Linux lover should try out this distro - Dragon-Puppy