On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:58:49 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> 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. :-(

Yeah, that's the way it used to be back in the dark ages.  :-)

>>> 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.

http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=x11+text+mode+configuration

:-)

>>>>> (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?

I still have some discs from it - the 'net was popular, but broadband 
wasn't.  Walnut Creek CD-ROMs. :-)

I still get them on DVDs, in fact - from Linux Format magazine (out of 
the UK).

> (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...)

Well, then, there's really no excuse for not submitting bugs, is 
there? ;-)

>> 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?)

Tux Racer has been around for dog's ages (the last *update* is 7 years 
ago, in fact).  "Not much" isn't a good assessment unless you've bought 
into the FUD.

> 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...)

Not if you use a crossplatform library like openGL or Mesa.  Plenty of 
people write games that use those libraries.

>>> 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...

It's not about the complexity, it's about the concept.  And the tools.

> 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.

Reverse-engineering is not generally illegal.  There are specific 
techniques used in reverse-engineering to make sure you don't include 
patented code or whatnot - like "clean room" reverse engineering.

In that, you have one team that determines the specs (within software, 
this would be the inputs and outputs of function calls).  You compile a 
specification for those functions.

Then you turn the specifications over to a second team that has not 
looked at the code for the original and have them reimplement it.

That's how we ended up with clone PCs - clean room reverse engineering of 
IBM's BIOS.

Have a look at WINE's FAQ about Windows patents and whatnot.  You'll 
learn a lot.

Jim

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