[64studio-devel] My experiences with 0.9

[Daniel James]

Hi Jacco,

> 1) The filesize of the iso IS a problem. I never thought it would be but 
> I got errors with K3b (unable to send CUE sheet).

It works with overburn enabled, or alternatively by burning to DVD-R. I 
agree, it's less than ideal. The dilemma we face is: artificially 
restrict the packages so that the installer still burns to a single 
CD-R, or provide everything we think the user needs.

> 2) My laptop really needs the Nvidia driver to work. The default "nv" 
> doesn't work properly with my GeforceGo 6200. And I can't reach max 
> resolution without the nvidia driver. Not to mention not having 3D 
> capabilities.

The situation with nVidia drivers is far from ideal, but it looks like 
it will be with us for some time.

> I tried installing it from the Nvidia installer, but got:
> 
> The compiler used to compile the kernel (gcc 4.1) does not exactly match the
> current compiler (gcc 4.0).  The Linux 2.6 kernel module loader rejects 
> kernel
> modules built with a version of gcc that does not exactly match that of the
> compiler used to build the running kernel.

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised it didn't work smoothly. There are some 
notes on installing the drivers on Debian systems with X.org 7 here:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=72490

See also these patches:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=72488

Please let us know how you get on.

> I certainly do hope future versions will have no trouble building the 
> Nvidia drivers.

There are enough users that need them, it's true. When we have a stable 
1.0 release, which works well enough in other respects, we'll be in a 
position to provide a ready-built package. Of course for licensing 
reasons, this package would be very unlikely to be included in the main 
distro.

> ps. Perhaps with the release of 0.9 it is a good time to start a forum. 
> That's a good way to help lost souls and find the most common problems 
> users encounter.

Yes, a new website for users (rather than just developers) is one of 
things we have to build in time for the 1.0 release.

Cheers!

Daniel