>> I didn't do anything to the kernel - I changed the graphics card. And
>> witout X, I have *no idea* how to configure X. (Well, without
>> reinstalling anyway. And that's so much bother...)
> 
> XF86Config used to be the way to do it.  And it actually wouldn't run (at 
> least as I recall) if X was running - it required text mode.

Actually I'm pretty sure when I first tried RedHat, XF86Config would 
produce a config file but X11 still wouldn't actually run, I had to go 
in with Vi and made some crucial change. (I forget what exactly.) And 
then I had to reboot the PC to get out of Vi. :-P

But then, that was *waaaay* back in the days when you needed to know 
which RAMDAC your graphics card uses and the vertical sync frequency of 
your monitor. Thankfully, the Linux install process usually figures that 
out automatically now. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way 
to make it re-figure-that-out when you change something afterwards. :-(

>> OpenSUSE has fixed this; you can now run the configuration tools in
>> text-mode.
> 
> Text mode X11 configuration apps have been around for a while, longer 
> than sax2, in fact.

...which is of no help whatsoever if you can't *find* them.

>>>> (E.g., klogic. It does almost exactly what I want. But it doesn't
>>>> *work* properly. It randomly segfaults, and sometimes it GIVES YOU THE
>>>> WRONG ANSWER. It's also fiddly to use for no good reason.)
>>> And did you submit bugs against this, or did you just say "this thing
>>> doesn't work" to yourself and go somewhere else.
>> Well, without an Internet connection, how am I going to file a bug?
> 
> You still don't have an Internet connection?  How did you obtain the 
> Linux installation in the first place?

Mail order.

You remember? That thin that existed before the Internet became popular?

(Actually, at the time I tried out klogic, we *did* have an Internet 
connection, but I didn't even bother to *attempt* to make it work under 
Linux. Making the "simple" stuff work was hard enough...)

> That doesn't mean they didn't (or don't, in the case of Loki) exist.  
> Don't buy into the FUD that says "there's absolutely no gaming available 
> on Linux AT ALL" and take it for the gospel truth.

I didn't say "none", I said "not much", which would seem a fair 
assessment. (Isn't there some dealy called Tux Racer or something now?)

Weirdly, almost all of Valve's games run on Linux - or rather, the GAME 
SERVER runs on Linux. The clients are Windows-only. (In fairness, what 
does a game server do? It sends and receives UPD datagrams. Can't be 
*that* hard to port it. Drawing 3D graphics is another matter...)

>> Mmm, that's impressive. (Given that what Wine does should be impossible
>> in the first place...)
> 
> Why should it be impossible?  Reverse engineering isn't impossible work, 
> it's been done for hundreds of years.
> 
> If you see a finished Lego Technics car and have no instructions, do you 
> assume nobody could ever build that same car again, even if they have the 
> ability to take the one that's there apart?  Same thing applies to 
> software engineering and identifying the inputs/outputs of functions.  
> It's time consuming, but time consuming != impossible.

Right. Because a Lego Technics car is of similar complexity to the 
Windows operating system. Sure. So you've got several GB of data, and 
you can only pick apart a few dozen bytes of it per day. Sure, shouldn't 
take long. Much like given a large enough group of monkeys, one of them 
is *sure* to type the complete works of Shakespear eventually...

Besides, I was under the distinct impression that it's *illegal* to 
reverse-engineer Windows. And that its implementation is covered by 
several billion patents precisely to prevent anybody ever making 
something compatible with it, for that matter.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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