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| Random Nonsense / Geek Stuff All those random tech ramblings you can't fit anywhere else! |
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10-20-2003, 01:47 PM
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#1 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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Fun with Gentoo Linux
This weekend I began turning a business away from the dark side by installing Gentoo in the place of Windows XP on one of the desktops as a test case. I installed the following:
Gentoo w/ win4lin sources KDE 3.14 Gnome 2.4 LiSA Everything SAMBA Crossover Office/Plugin Win4Lin Workstation 5.0 running WinME (!) MS Office XP Assorted proprietary Winblows apps Mozilla 1.5/Firebird 0.7/Thunderbird OpenOffice 1.1 CUPS I installed a KDE Luna theme and mangled the K menu to mimic the Winblows menu almost perfectly. Then I set WinME to open in desktop 4 automagically upon login. Once done, I dragged the owner over and sat him down at the machine to look at my handywork. After about 10 minutes he asked me why the start menu didn't say "Start" anymore ... I kid you not! Anyway, the guineapig that works at that machine is loving every minute of working on it. He's already gone completely away from IE6 and Outlook and is exlusively using Firebird and Thunderbird. Already we've ported all of his Excel spreadsheets to OpenOffice and he's digging it. I've already done this at home and I never boot into windows anymore except to play certain games (others I play in the Win4Lin environment with a slight performance hit). The nice thing about Win4Lin is that Linux handles most of the underlying resource handling and now I find it almost impossible to crash WinME (the most crash happy of the Winblows bunch), and it allows me to run most of my Windows only software (the stuff that doesn't work under WINE) without a hitch and with almost no performance penalty. I even have my graphical LCD software working! Of course at home I use XFCE4 (very nice and clean), but it will be a while before I can free my test subject here from desktop icons and a start menu. Anyway, for those of you that want free of Windows but are still shackled due to one or two irreplacable apps, this may be a solution that works for you. I fully intend on converting every machine to linux over the next few weeks and I can't wait until I can convert over to a strictly linux network. OfficeXP will die at that point (Access is the sticking point now, though I'm working to port everything to MySQL/PHP as fast as I can), and other than a few proprietary Windows apps (irreplacable by ANY linux apps) this store will be a Microsoft-free zone. Just thought I'd motivate you guys to switch ... it really is rewarding. The nice thing about Gentoo that would cause me to point you that way (if you have the intestinal fortitude to make it through the install) is the sheer amount of customization available, the speed advantage of a machine tailored system, and the ease of upgrades. To upgrade every piece of linuxware on your box all you have to do is open a prompt and enter the following: emerge -u world. The next morning when you wake up you'll have the latest and greatest of everything.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-20-2003, 04:18 PM
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#2 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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How is Win4Lin?
I've been using Gentoo off and on for a few months and gave it its own 40GB partition a month or so ago so I could get it out of virtual pc. To me, its one of the easiest distributions to use as everything's easy to install and manage (portage is the best). Supposedly Gentoo doesn't perform as well as other distributions though, even though it compiles with your specific optimizations. Still don't know what's up with that... I was running my main system in it for a few weeks, but afterwards I had to return to XP as there were too many missing things (and wine doesn't like install shields). NVidia has yet to get video overlay working properly in linux so right now its setup to just clone. I had a few concerns about linux as the main os, but I don't remember what they were. If I remember them, I'll be sure to ask you  Basically, there's so many windows-only apps/games that I haven't been able to get running under linux. Edit: Connecting to "shared folders" on a windows box in linux? I searched for a bit last week but gave up. Right now I have to login to the windows pc through ftp and upload/manage files from there. Over a network, is there still problems with writing to ntfs or do the protocols take care of that? Know how I'd be able to link to a network drive? Just use a symbolic link? |
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10-20-2003, 04:57 PM
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#3 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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Win4Lin is great. I can connect to windows shares easily through it, and I can also do the same via Samba. Either way, the files are easily accessed via the Linux file system once you pull them down.
As far as how it runs, other than a few hardware access quirks it is just like using windows by itself. I would recommend it highly.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-20-2003, 06:03 PM
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#4 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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What about this:
bash: /var/db/pkg/app-emulation/win4lin-5.0.1/win4lin-5.0.1.ebuild: Permission denied Must be doing something wrong... Edit: Got it working...but now a nice Error 54: Cannot install Windows because the Windows files have not been loaded. The command loadwindowsCD or the GUI equivalent is used to load the Windows files. I've followed the instructions up to this point, but yet another nice error. Going to try a few things Last edited by SGSeeker; 10-20-2003 at 07:11 PM. |
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10-20-2003, 07:06 PM
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#5 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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emerge sync and try again ... that is pretty darned weird. Did you emerge as root? Also, keep in mind that you only get a 15 day trial through emerging and you must be using win4lin-sources to properly emerge it.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-20-2003, 07:20 PM
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#6 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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Do you have a bootable floppy image for ME or 98? Its complaining about that now. I don't have a drive in there so I gotta go with an image.
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10-20-2003, 07:58 PM
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#7 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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Download a ME boot disk and find a converter that will convert a disk to a DSK file. It took me about two hours to hunt one down. Or, download mine at http://www.airspirit.net/ME.dsk ... if that link doesn't work then just delete the www from the url. That'll do ya. (IP is 68.168.65.180 if it is being really ornery)
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-20-2003, 08:02 PM
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#8 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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I've been trying to download an image, but not one that "must" be copied to a disk. Bootdisk.com's suck. Been trying to get one off xmule for 30 minutes
Edit: Making MDA Image. MERGE_NL: dos: ERROR: Win4Lin drivers are not loaded or not available for use. Cannot run DOS or Windows. Either Win4Lin is not fully installed on your system, or the drivers cannot load, or too many simultaneous users. WARNING: MDA image was not made. (10) WARNING: No image files were made. WARNING: Images creation failed. ERROR: Failed to make all DOS image files. Installation of DOS partialy failed. Error: Minimal automatic pre-installation of DOS7 failed. =/ Edit 2: Now the installing needs to be redone: Windows is already loaded or partially loaded. If you want to completely remove the currently loaded Windows files and reload fresh from the Windows installation CD, then use the 'reload' option. BUT...I have no idea how to use the reload option as the win4lin command can't load yet. I've tried starting it and get a nice: cat: /proc/tty/driver/serial: No such file or directory [ ok ] Last edited by SGSeeker; 10-20-2003 at 08:45 PM. |
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10-20-2003, 09:55 PM
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#9 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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I'm through with this for today. I've gone through forums and trying everything on these problems, with no luck. Stuck with MDA image errors. Different versions of win4lin, windows, bootdisks, kernels, and trying to start the program different ways. Too stressful wasting time not getting anywhere.
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10-21-2003, 09:26 AM
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#10 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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Try the boot disk I offered you. It works with windows me. To uninstall a windows installation you just enter unloadwindowsCD as root in the prompt. To install, just enter "winsetup &" as root to load the boot disk and then as a user enter it again and go to "load personal windows installation". Did you try my file? It is already formatted and it doesn't require a floppy drive or anything. Save it to your root folder and when it asks for a disk say "N" and when it asks for an image say "Y" and then "/root/ME.dsk". It works like a charm.
Make sure that the win4lin option is checked in the menuconfig for your kernel. If you have problems with screen init errors then you may have to leave your desktop manager and relogin as the user that is going to run the setup manager for that step (very annoying and it only happened to me on one machine ... the rest worked fine). If you have any more problems let me know. I should be able to step you through it.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-22-2003, 10:21 PM
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#11 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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I've been having trouble with win4lin's kernel all day (its not loading modules) so I'm back on XP now. The 2.4.20-gentoo-r7 works fine but 2.4.20-win4lin-r1 is just sucking. Set it up exactly the same as the gentoo kernel and the errors are still there. Not a single module is loading. I tried following gentoo's own installation guide on a new kernel but still no modules are loading at the point where they should. It gets annoying, especially when the audio isn't working so its dead silent in the room. Which kernel are you using? I may just ditch the kernel and start another one from scratch.
Threads on Gentoo's forums and linuxquestions.org's forums haven't helped me one bit. Closest I found to the same problem was someone who didn't enable something in the kernel which had to be on. I've had it on the entire time. Its just weird. Installed EXACTLY the same way as the other kernel, but nothing. |
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10-23-2003, 12:04 PM
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#12 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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You didn't remake your symlink, 10 to 1. Go into your /usr/src directory and run ls -l. You'll find that all of your modules are still associated with your gentoo-sources kernel and not the win4lin-sources kernel. No wonder it doesn't work, right? I had that problem going from 2.4.20 to 2.6 on one of my machines until I realized how retarded I am.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-23-2003, 12:06 PM
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#13 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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I think the syntax for changing the symlink (IIRC) is:
rm /usr/src/linux ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.4-win4linblahblah /usr/src/linux That will do you.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-23-2003, 01:21 PM
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#14 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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I already did that...
image deleted Last edited by SGSeeker; 10-25-2003 at 01:49 AM. |
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10-23-2003, 01:34 PM
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#15 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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And you re-emerged all your drivers for the new kernel? They don't transfer over automagically since the module directories have changed. Also, if you are implying that you just copied your .config over, then you will have problems. You must ensure that any and all kernel patches are re-applied to the new kernel, and you must manually select some of the new options (since they are different in the new kernel). I opened make menuconfig for each side by side to ensure that everything was migrated correctly. Once done, if you still have problems with module loading, try to manually load them via modprobe. If you still can't then you have more serious troubles.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-23-2003, 01:46 PM
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#16 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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I've reemerged them in the new kernel (only alsa/nvidia so far but it seems to still be trying to load things I haven't tried to load yet). Everything was pretty much from scratch besides when I brought all the same settings over from the other kernel (side by side menuconfig like you did). win4lin's kernel has less than the gentoo-specific one so there's even less to worry about configuring. Modprobe doesn't work with anything I try to probe. I don't have time to go and get the error messages again (leaving for class for 6 hours) but I'll bother with that when I get home. I'm thinking I'll just unmerge and remove the kernel and restart again with hopes that it'll work properly. Something's just not right. Be back.
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10-23-2003, 07:16 PM
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#17 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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Starting over, I get a nice:
Calculating dependencies ...done! [blocks B ] <dev-perl/ExtUtils-MakeMaker-6.05-r6 (from pkg dev-lang/perl-5.8.0-r12) [ebuild N ] dev-lang/perl-5.8.0-r12 [ebuild N ] sys-kernel/win4lin-sources-2.4.20-r1 Something's not right...and I don't know how to fix perl. root@xp1700 sgs # emerge -p perl These are the packages that I would merge, in order: Calculating dependencies ...done! [blocks B ] <dev-perl/ExtUtils-MakeMaker-6.05-r6 (from pkg dev-lang/perl-5.8.0-r12) [ebuild N ] dev-lang/perl-5.8.0-r12 root@xp1700 sgs # Ideas? Edit: nm, I got it. Reemerging perl now. |
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10-23-2003, 07:53 PM
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#18 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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When in doubt, check for blockers and emerge -C them first. Then emerge -u *package* and you'll update all the dependencies again if any were updated. Many things like gnome 2.2->2.4 require this kind of manhandling.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-23-2003, 08:09 PM
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#19 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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I know how to keep the system running like it should (just didn't know how to handle packages within a package...pretty much the same way). Got the fresh kernel compiled, modules are working, and alsa is installing now. Still have no idea why it wouldn't work before. Guess I'll never know.
Alsa's done and working, nvidia drivers now Nvidia done, moving on to win4lin My 98 cd is so scratched up, it doesn't work in this cdrom =/ So I had to go with ME Last edited by SGSeeker; 10-23-2003 at 08:44 PM. |
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10-23-2003, 09:59 PM
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#20 |
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Cooling Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington
Posts: 14
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There's no opengl or d3d support in win4lin?
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10-23-2003, 11:32 PM
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#21 |
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Cooling Savant
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Oregon, USA
Posts: 230
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I've heard talk of this win4lin thing, would I be able to install 2000 over it and use it within Linux? (or have I completely gotten the consept wrong) :shrug:
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Signing out... Yo-DUH_87 If it works, fix it until it's broke! Then, after it's broke, add duct tape! Affordable webhosting! |
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10-24-2003, 10:27 AM
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#22 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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I haven't really tried with D3D or OpenGL. I'll give it a shot in a few.
edit: I guess it doesn't ... whatdayaknow. I knew I left that dual boot on there for something .... I'll keep investigating this however and see if there is a workaround. As for Win2000, all NT based releases are not supported yet. I'm hoping they get to that quick because WinME makes my eyes want to bleed.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied Last edited by airspirit; 10-24-2003 at 10:44 AM. |
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10-28-2003, 05:11 PM
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#23 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: USA
Posts: 156
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Ahh, glad to see that more people have found Gentoo Linux. It's really a great distro. Actually, I saw airspirit around on the Gentoo Forums (which are also great
 ).As far as running Windows programs go, running Chip's Challenge with WINE is pretty fun Anybody testing kernel 2.6 yet? |
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10-28-2003, 07:25 PM
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#24 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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I tried it on my primary at home and I couldn't get X to work (I have a 9800 Pro on a NForce2 board ... not the easiest to configure). This was quite possibly because I was dual booting 2.4.22 and 2.6 but whatchagonnado, eh? Now that they have an "official" build, I'm extremely tempted to do a start from scratch again and re-up my entire gentoo install (with some flag and USE optimizations that I'm kicking myself for not including earlier). Unfortunately, there is no known win4lin patches for 2.6, so I can't try it out at work on any of the machines I'm now converting (or I would most gladly do it to all of em). My secondary gentoo box at home just got a vid-graft (another ATi card) so it isn't up, and my junkbox laptop requires a full stage3 to install, so I'm not even going near that one ... now that it works somewhat I'm done screwing with it.
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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10-28-2003, 08:16 PM
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#25 |
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Been /.'d... have you?
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
Posts: 1,986
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Here are some gratuitous screenies. Yes, the desktop is purposeful: it is to remind the dumbasses that use this machine that it is NOT a windows box and if I find that they installed anything on it I will rip off their nuts and charbroil them (I deal with spyware addicts here).
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#!/bin/sh {who;} {last;} {pause;} {grep;} {touch;} {unzip;} mount /dev/girl -t {wet;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} {fsck;} echo yes yes yes {yes;} umount {/dev/girl;zip;} rm -rf {wet.spot;} {sleep;} finger: permission denied |
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