MEPIS Community Forum

Which version of Mepis are you running?

With Mepis 11, the easiest way to get newer Nvidia cards to work is by installing the proprietary Nvidia driver using the sgfxi script. See more about it here:

http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php? ... 28sgfxi.29

Basically, you just intall the script, then follow the instructions on that page to run it, and it will download and install the latest Nvidia drivers for you.

For example, I've got an Nvidia GT 440 (relatively inexpensive "Fermi" based card that runs from PCIe Bus Power) with 1GB of GDDR5 that I use with Mepis 11 now. When I got it, I ran the sgfxi script and it downloaded and installed Nvidia Driver Version 285.05.09, which worked fine with it. I've since ran it again and updated the driver to Nvidia Version 290.10. Both driver versions support the Nvidia cards you're looking at.

Click on the middle tab for "Supported Products" on this page for Nvidia Driver Version 290.10 for Linux and you'll see the cards you're looking at (and you'll see the same cards listed under both the 32 bit and 64 bit driver versions):

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-disp ... river.html

sgfxi handles installing the latest driver for you automatically. Just note that sometimes you may need to run the script more than once. For example, when I upgraded from Nvidia 285.05.09 to 290.10, I had to reboot and run the sgfxi script again (the first run removed the old driver and the next run after a reboot installed the latest 290.10 driver). Running it more than once without a reboot didn't work for the update. But, running it again after a reboot intalled the latest driver version with no issues.

You can do the same thing with ATI video cards and integrated graphics chipsets (use the sgfxi script to download and install the latest accelerated driver). Again, you may need to run it more than once before it works (as it sounds like you tried it and ran into some issues the first time around). That's just a "quirk" with the way it works (sometimes needs running two or three times to complete removing the old driver and installing a newer once).

In any event, it sounds like you've got your existing ATI chipset working OK. But, for future reference, with Mepis 11, it's pretty easy to install the latest manufacturers' proprietary driver if desired by using the sgfxi script. So, if you don't see an nvidia or ati card model specifically listed as being supported on a Wiki page somewhere, just check to see if the latest video chipset manufacturer's linux driver supports it and use the sgfxi script to install the latest proprietary driver.

Thanks, JimC, for your detailed instructions for the installation of the drivers, and reference to Supported Products! This is a big help for this area that I've not had experience. I have SimplyMEPIS-64 - 11.0.09.

Perhaps I should venture another question at this point, because I'm not sure where I should be posting these other problems I'm having. The question will be "Should all these problems be placed in one post because it's a problem I have, or should they all be entered separately because it's a Mepis problem?"

One of the first things I noticed was that LibreOffice Writer does not have "Macro Record" as an option. I was disgusted, and wondered why Mepis used LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice, and how I could change the repositories so I could install OpenOffice. Then yesterday or the day before I was astonished to see that the OpenOffice in my SLED11 (suse) had lost its "Macro Record" function! And I said "What is going on?!".

Another was that the Panels are very fragile. I prefer the main panel at the top, and an app launching panel at the left. In neither case will the icons stay put through a re-boot. For example, I started with the "Lock/Leave" icon at the top of the left panel. On reboot it was covered by a Dolphin icon. So I put it at the bottom, and then it jumped to the middle and others covered each other up. At the top, I put the "Menu Launcher" icon at the left, and next the "Pager" and "Task Manager". But the "Task Manager" knew no boundaries. It covered everything from left to right. To fix this, I finally divided the top into 2 panels, with the "Task Manager" and "Pager" in the left panel, and everything else in the right panel. I did use the "Lock Widgets" option.

With the "Menu Launcher" at the left, it acts like there's a hole in the middle, inside the circular arrow. If I click the cursor inside the hole, the menu displays, but as the cursor crossed outside, the menu goes away. If I click above the hole, then cross the hole, then menu goes away. If I put the menu launcher any place other than the left, it's OK.

I am having significant errors displayed during boot, one of which said it was fatal. The first time, I expected it not to boot, but it did. I decided I wanted a boot log so I could study and post the problem. I found somewhere the instruction to change "No" to "Yes" in the file /etc/default/bootlogd, and the log file would appear in /var/log/boot. This file, however, remains empty.

Do you feel that these are evidence of a major problem I have, to be addressed as a unit, or are each separate problems that Mepis has, to be addressed individually?

Thanks,
Lauren

Oh... I dunno. I think some of the reasons many distros (not just Mepis) switched to LibreOffice is because a lot of the OpenOffice developers moved over to LibreOffice (and some of that was probably because of concerns about Oracle's stewardship of the product after they purchased Sun). Now that the OpenOffice code was donated to Apache, perhaps that will change in the future. In any event, it's not something I'd be very concerned about. I've switched to LibreOffice on all of my computers (including in Windows installs).

Macro Recording is considered to be an experiemental feature in the version of LibreOffice currently installed. To enable it, just go to Tools>Options and look under the LibreOffice>General menu choice; and check the box to "Enable Experimental (unstable) Features", then click OK.



Yea... KDE can be a bit tricky to setup. I tend to Lock Widgets after any tweaks to make sure I don't mess anything up; and when I do make any changes, I'm very careful about it. It just takes a bit of practice. lol

Another think you can do is just add a new panel if you mess one up so that it's too much trouble to fix. See this thread with some of the available options:

viewtopic.php?p=273450

I like KDE, and I've got mine setup the way I'm comfortable with it now. But, I make sure to leave Widgets Locked so that I don't mess it up by accident.



I doubt it's anything major. It's probably just learning more about how the system works and taking it one step at a time. Any operating system will have some amount of learning curve to it.

You might want to install "kystemlog" via Synaptic. It is a graphical system log viewer and will make it easier to study some of your problems selectively.

Open the Mepis System Assistant (under Settings in the main menu), it'll ask for your root password. Then on the Options tab uncheck the Clear system logs at boot choice. ksystemlog is a good program for checking them.

Always lock Widgets unless you are changing something.

These pages will help a lot: http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php? ... E4_desktop
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Dolphin

And the User Manual (link is on your Desktop) is a valuable resource.

Thanks again for your suggestions. I've made good progress.

JimC, I was really surprised that the problems at this link "viewtopic.php?p=273450" that you gave me were the same problems I was having. Also, thanks for this reference: "go to Tools>Options and look under the LibreOffice>General menu choice; and check the box to "Enable Experimental (unstable) Features", then click OK". That fixed the missing "Macro Record" function. In my quick look at Open Office, I didn't find it. I suppose it was experimental there, too, but they didn't admit it.

For the unstable Panels, the first thing I did was tackle the side panel. I deleted it, and reconstructed it, and rebooted. It still scrambled the icons. Then I got side tracked. I wondered if the "Show the Desktop" icon has the option of a keyboard shortcut. It does, so I made the shortcut "Meta+Alt+Space" to show the desktop, and worked on putting my apps there. That was valuable to know, but I should have worked on the top default panel first. When I deleted what I had, and replaced it with a new Default, it was stable after reboot. Not only that, but the side panel was in order, all lined up from the top. Since then, however, they've shifted to the bottom, with the "Lock/Leave" icon separated a little up from the rest. I've always had them locked. I'll see what the future brings.

Thank you for that note. I did install that, and found the part I saw during boot, except there are differences. I did a search on a couple of the phrases, and now I have another concern. A person at this link http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/archiv ... 44150.html said the Hard Drive was going bad. The situation wasn't the same, but now I'm wondering. What I get at boot is this:
I couldn't get all the differences in the time it gave me during boot, but for one thing, the phrases "hard resetting link" were not there. Now I've got a new thing to worry about.

That choice was already unchecked. I still don't have anything in the /var/log/boot file.

Thanks everyone for your help!
Lauren

Gsmartcontrol is in the repositories and will give the ability to check the hard disks built-in diagnostics.

Hey! This is great! After shutting down (Saturday), and rebooting the next day, it didn't fail, and hasn't failed since. I thought maybe one of the other OS's might have created an environment that affected it, but this morning I tried all options, and it is still good. I had thought maybe Debian6 was causing a problem because it doesn't do a complete reboot when "Restart" is selected, so I have to press "Reset".
Thank you for that great suggestion! What a valuable application. It says all my disks passed the health check.