Help me please..... on Linux

[Mephistopheles]

OK, this is not actually a hardware question, but...

...I'm kind of in a rush to learn how to use SuSe Linux (I've installed version 9.1 yesterday). I currently have two HDDs, with one XP Pro boot drive and the other Linux... Doing so, I completely avoid OS selectors, because I just select the boot drive from bios.

I'm very familiar with Windows, but not with SuSe. First question: I have a dual-processor machine. It reads those two processors in "system information" utilities, but how can I be sure that the installer actually provided me with the <b>multiprocessor kernel</b> instead of the uniprocessor one?

Also, I need to learn C/C++ ASAP. My graduation course has only taught me the ages-old pascal language, and I wanted something more powerful. And lastly, I'll be using a set of graphics routines - very trivial, like opening a window and plotting pixels at position x,y with color indices r,g,b. Does anyone know of a good way for me to get started?

(if not, no problem, I'll just have to force my way through... ouch)

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 10/12/04 05:18 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[raretech]

<i>I'm very familiar with Windows, but not with SuSe. First question: I have a dual-processor machine. It reads those two processors in "system information" utilities, but how can I be sure that the installer actually provided me with the multiprocessor kernel instead of the uniprocessor one?</i>

several ways. Easiest is to open a comman prompt and issue the command:
uname -r
This will return the version of the currently running kernel. This number should end with SMP.
Another way is to switch to a VC, ctrl+alt+F4 for example, and see what's listed as the welcome text before the login.
Another way is to check in /proc/cpuinfo. Issue:
more /proc/cpuinfo
you should have listings for processor 0 and 1.
I gave you more than one way because each one is interesting in it's own right if you're just starting out. Uname is what you'd use most of the time. Do a Uname -a to see a long list of info.

Also, I need to learn C/C++ ASAP. My graduation course has only taught me the ages-old pascal language, and I wanted something more powerful. And lastly, I'll be using a set of graphics routines - very trivial, like opening a window and plotting pixels at position x,y with color indices r,g,b. Does anyone know of a good way for me to get started?

For C/C++, I'd use KDevelop if you're using KDE as your desktop. It's an IDE that works a ton of different languages, including GNU C/C++.

For the graphics you want to do, there's probably a hundred ways to do it and 50 of them are relatively easy. Before I give a recommendation, what do you mean by graphics routines? Do you already have routines written in a particular language? Are you looking for routines for a particular language? Are you not bound by a particular language? etc...


<i>Cigarettes - No cholesterol, high in fiber, low in fat, how could they not be good for you?</i>

 

[Mephistopheles]

Thanks a lot for the answer.

First, about the multiprocessor kernel, I got that one figured out by now, but I'll try your suggestions, thanks. CPU 0 and 1 are listed all the way, and I'm positive I'm actually running the multiprocessor kernel alright.

And as for the KDevelop suggestion, thanks. I'll be looking into that; I'm currently using KDE 3.2.

And actually, I have already written the program I need to run. It's a small wave propagation simulator/wave renderer. However, it's in Pascal and in Windows only! I'm currently using FreePascal (from <A HREF="http://www.freepascal.org" target="_new">www.freepascal.org</A>), but I was disappointed by the performance this compiler has to offer. I think I'd have better performance if I actually tried to rewrite the whole thing in C/C++. Plus, the graphics library I'm using is a very primitive one. Under linux, attempts to compile the program so far have mostly failed or ended up in executables that needed root access, could crash the whole system and provided only 43Hz vertical refresh rate output, which required a very old monitor - and even then, the graphical output was beyond recognition. (talk about bizarre, eh?...)

The procedures are all ready in the sense that the pascal program can calculate the (x,y) positions and (r,g,b) indices even as of now under linux. It's slow and painful, though, and I do not have the means to display the final picture. (writing it to disk somehow with freepascal under linux is still possible, though - the math part is OK, it's the graphics I need to do from scratch. But those are VERY primitive.)

In the end, what I actually wanted to do is ditch my old program and rewrite everything (or at least a part of it) in a more powerful language - which I will need to know in the future! - and use fully windowed output in KDE. If I really tried, I could manage to use windows with Freepascal; but then again, if I really tried, I could use the very little I know about C/C++ and learn more and make things cleaner. I know exactly what it is I need to program. Plus, I could throw away some garbage in the original program algorithm... Although the critical part (the slowest one) has already been cleaned up as far as I can see it...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 10/13/04 02:57 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Mephistopheles]

Ow damn, KDevelop seems to be a part of suse professional, not of suse personal. And suse professional seems to be a product you must purchase rather than download.

What now?...

 

[raretech]

Well you have a bunch of different options. You can download KDevelop, but remember, that's just the IDE. You're also going to need a graphics library. I was going to suggest SDL, but that might not not be the easiest way. Check your Private Messages.

<i>Cigarettes - No cholesterol, high in fiber, low in fat, how could they not be good for you?</i>

 

[Schmide]

I believe the 90 bucks you have to pay for professional as a suite is well justified. Yast2 makes updates very easy. To bad installing the nvidia driver is such a bear.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[raretech]

Hey Schmide,

You had probs with the Nvidia driver 9.1? I know in 9.0, you had to drop to runlevel 3, run their installer, then sax2 with the nvidia command line option. In 9.1 though, all I had to do was use the Yast online updater, and restart X. Of course, if you hose your drivers, you have to use the old way to fix it for whatever reason. That's been my experience anyway.

<i>Cigarettes - No cholesterol, high in fiber, low in fat, how could they not be good for you?</i>

 

[bjpatrick]

""I believe the 90 bucks you have to pay for professional as a suite is well justified. Yast2 makes updates very easy. To bad installing the nvidia driver is such a bear.""

Installing Nvidia drivers is a joke. Install the driver. Open your favorite editor. Hack the X11 config a little bit. Save your work and exit the text editor. Then type "startx"

Wow, that was hard!

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by bjpatrick on 10/14/04 02:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Schmide]

I just got 9.1 a few weeks ago. I hadn’t run linux since Red Hat 6.2. Yast was never able to install the nvidia driver. I have a 6800GT. I had to:

install kernel source (wanted that anyways)
(did a full yast update)
enter the shell (ctrl+shift F1)
init 3 (this should be in the nvidia documentation)
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-1.0-6111-pkg2.run -q --kernel-source-path=/usr/src/linux
sax –m 0=nvidia
init 5

To bad my MSI K8N Neo2 is RMAed. So it’s on hold now.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[raretech]

You shouldn't have to touch X11 config files in Suse 9.x or higher.

Schmide,

Don't bother this now, but if you find yourself installing that elsewhere, keep this in mind for future reference... You have to go into Yast, online updater, then select installed or installable patches, then scroll through the options there. They don't have it listed with the other updates, you have to select that "installed or installable" patches option. I think that's the option. Then you'll see it listed.

<i>Cigarettes - No cholesterol, high in fiber, low in fat, how could they not be good for you?</i>

 

[Schmide]

LOL. I tried to edit my X config (poorly I may add) and X wouldn’t start. The above method worked better for me. Then again a lot of my linux knowledge is years old.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[Schmide]

I tried the "installed or installable patches" thing selected the nvidia driver, no dice.

Even worse was installing UT2004 on the system.

This made it all better.

<A HREF="http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=18" target="_new">http://www.linux-gamers.net/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=18</A>

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[raretech]

That sucks. It worked for me... At least till I hosed my drivers by doing something stupid. It wouldn't work after that. Oh well, the old way really isn't all that bad. Compared to where we were a few years back.

<i>Cigarettes - No cholesterol, high in fiber, low in fat, how could they not be good for you?</i>

 

[Schmide]

I’m very impressed. I think now we expect so much more from linux (and get it) that we forget how tedious and lacking things were in the past.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[bjpatrick]

Companies like Nvidia and others make guides so that editing your configs is easy. God save you if one is afraid of command line and works in the routing and switching world.

Hacking configs is fun if there is a backup copy made

Such as the cp command? Just maybe?


One thing that I do. Bring up sshd on my linux box then with the program putty. Open an ssh sesion from a windows box so that I can read the guide and hack the config all at the same time.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by bjpatrick on 10/14/04 07:19 PM.</EM></FONT></P>