The Linux Mint Planet » July 15, 2008

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• July 15, 2008
• 19:25

  Configurar workspaces y areas de trabajo en Gnome

   » ‎ Linux Mint Hispano
  Glatelier (http://glatelier.wordpress.com/2007/12/24/como-configurar-tamano-ubicacion-y-area-de-trabajo-de-ventanas-en-gnome/) para configurar las áeras de trabajo, o workspaces , y configurar tanto el tamaño, como los programas que queremos que se abran al inicio del sistema, y en el escritorio que elijas (cada cara del cubo...
• 19:10

  Entrar en el foro la unica esperanza

   » ‎ Linux Mint Hispano
  DarkMiguel ha preparado un fondo titulado Entrar en el foro la unica esperanza , en tono de humor para fomentar la entrada a la comunidad. A mi personalmente me ha encantado, espero que os guste:...

• 18:59

  Updates on the NVIDIA drivers in Intrepid

   » ‎ Alberto Milone

  What is ready

  • Currently there are 4 flavours of the NVIDIA driver: 177, 173, 96, 71.

    They are all compatible with Xen and work only with 2.6.26 kernels (no 2.6.24, sorry).

    They all use DKMS therefore you will have to keep the linux-headers installed.

    CUDA is now supported by default (drivers 173, 177).

    The packages can replace each other without any need to remove one driver before installing the other. All it takes is a simple “sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-VERSION”.

  NOTE: these drivers won’t be backported to Hardy. The “-envy” flavour in multiverse will be kept updated on Hardy.

  Problems

  xorg-server 1.5

  The xserver was updated to version 1.5, which broke the ABI compatibility. As a result, drivers 96 and 71 (and fglrx) dont’ work with the new xserver and unfortunately the -IgnoreABI option of Xorg doesn’t solve the problem. This is something that only NVIDIA can solve. (177 and 173 work well)

  Dist-upgrades

  Currently when you dist-upgrade from Hardy to Intrepid, there is no way to update an old driver, say, nvidia-glx-new, to a driver with the new name scheme, say, nvidia-glx-173. You will have to install the driver manually with, for example, “sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-173″ (there’s no need to uninstall the previous driver, since it will be replaced by the new one).

  Currently we can’t rely on dependencies to make dist-upgrades smooth. If you compare the situation in Hardy with the one in Intrepid and especially if you think that NVIDIA could add and remove the support for more models to/from their drivers in the future, you will see why relying on dependencies wouldn’t be the best choice now.

  SITUATION IN HARDY:

  nvidia-glx-new (169.12):
  Geforce 5xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx, and a few models of the 8xxx series

  nvidia-glx-new-envy (173.14.09):
  Geforce 5xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx, and a few models of the 8xxx series

  nvidia-glx, nvidia-glx-envy (96.43.05) in Hardy is a legacy driver which supports:
  Geforce 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx, 5xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx up to 7800

  nvidia-glx-legacy, nvidia-glx-legacy-envy (71.86.04) is another legacy driver which supports:
  RIVA TNT/2, Vanta/Vanta LT, GeForce 256, GeForce DDR, GeForce2, Quadro2
  Pro

  SITUATION IN INTREPID:

  nvidia-glx-177 (177.13):
  Geforce 6xxx, 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx, GeForce GTX 260, GeForce GTX 280

  nvidia-glx-173 (173.14.09):
  Geforce 5xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx

  nvidia-glx-96 (96.43.05):
  Geforce 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx, 5xxx

  nvidia-glx-71 (71.86.04):
  RIVA TNT/2, Vanta/Vanta LT, GeForce 256, GeForce DDR, GeForce2, Quadro2 Pro

  As Martin Pitt suggested, we could have metapackages for each card series so that, for example, if NVIDIA decides to drop the support for GeForce 6xxx from driver 177, we can make the metapackage depend on driver 173 instead of 177. This is something which we might do in the next future when the hardware database for Jockey is ready. In the meantime we have no way to see which card series a card belongs to by relying only on its pci-id. Therefore we are working on an alternative solution (see the “Plans” paragraph).

  nvidia-xconfig

  Please be careful if you’re planning to use nvidia-xconfig. Xorg-server 1.4.99.901 removed support for the RgbPath option but nvidia-xconfig will add the following line to the “Files” section of your xorg.conf:

  RgbPath "/usr/lib/X11/rgb"

  You will have to comment it out.

  NVIDIA should fix this soon.

  Jockey

  Jockey doesn’t support the new NVIDIA drivers yet, therefore you shouldn’t use it to install the NVIDIA driver (yet). I’ll work with Martin on this so that Jockey can keep rocking as usual.

  Plans

  Dist-upgrades

  We will handle 2 cases: dist-upgrades done through Update Manager and the ones done from the command line.

  Update Manager

  If any version of the nvidia driver (with the old name schemes) is installed, basic hardware detection should be performed and the appropriate driver should be installed.

  Command line

  If the dist-upgrade is done from the command line we can’t install the appropriate driver automatically during the dist-upgrade (you can’t call apt while apt is in use). As Martin suggested, all we can do is warn our users through debconf so that they will know what to do. I have already implemented Martin’s idea by creating “nvidia-common”, which you can find in my PPA (NOTE: this is not the final release).

  How does nvidia-common work?
  nvidia-common depends on 4 new packages (nvidia-VERSION-modaliases) which contain the lists of the pci-ids of the NVIDIA cards supported by NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers. Such lists are generated automatically when the packages of the drivers are built therefore, when a driver is updated, its list of pci-ids will be updated too.

  My Python program will detect the pci-id of your card and find the newest driver which supports it. If you have more than 1 one card plugged in, then it will look for a driver which supports all your cards and install that if available, otherwise the newest driver will be chosen (since I guess that you would prefer using your GeForce 9xxx rather than your GeForce 2).

  This check is (currently) triggered in 3 cases:
  1) when nvidia-common is installed
  2) when the kernel image is installed/updated
  3) when the kernel headers are installed/updated

  If you haven’t a driver with the old name scheme installed or if your card is not supported you won’t see any debconf dialog, otherwise you should see something like this:

  

  How to test it on Hardy:
  add my PPA to your software sources:
  deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/lrm-intrepid/ubuntu intrepid main

  and install only nvidia-common (revision ubuntu12 or higher) and let it install its dependencies (i.e. the modalias packages). Then disable the PPA. Do NOT install any other package. You should see a debconf screen. The same will happen if you reinstall the kernel headers or image.

  Backports
  The drivers will be updated in the backports repositories as they will be actually backported from Intrepid+1 to Intrepid.

  Credits

  Ben Collins:
  gave me some tips on TLS for the drivers.

  Bryce Harrington:
  has been very available and has followed all the steps of the migration to the new NVIDIA drivers.

  Mario Limonciello:
  tested the packages and gave me a few useful tips.

  Martin Pitt:
  guided me through the migration and has been very available. He gave me a lot of feedback on the packages, on the new name schemes and on how we should deal with dist-upgrades. His experience has been invaluable. Furthermore he is doing all the uploads for me.

  Timo Aaaltonen:
  did the merge of the Debian package with my initial package (hoping that the changes could be merged back into Debian) thus providing me with a new base to work on.
  Furthermore he suggested the use of a dynamic dependency on the server ABI (so that we don’t have to hardcode it in the source) like the Intel driver does.

• 12:44

  Weekly Newsletter - Issue 53

   » ‎ Linux Mint Blog

  Welcome to the Linux Mint Newsletter

  A security flaw in the DNS protocol has been fixed. This is for all operating systems and every appliance connected to the internet. Probably one of the most serious threats to the internet so far. Some background here - updates already in mintUpdate, please update your system. A warning has been posted in the forum

  * News about Mint

  I can’t guarantee it but it seems that a release of the Elyssa KDE edition is immanent - we are testing a beta with all problems hopefully solved. It is no easy task to make a good KDE edition. I also think the XFCE edition is near a public beta

  Clem has been busy and  posted a bunch of interesting info

  Sections of the Mint repository

  Some news about development  We had to postpone the developement of QT frontends for the Mint applications in the KDE CE.  The implications of Ubuntu 8.04.1 for development are considered

  The implications of branding has been discussed. We like freedom, but not the freedom to use the Mint name and logo in any way or fashion.

  Elyssa is used by 60% of the Mint users

  mintInstall 4 released in Romeo (Romeo is the “unstable” branch of Mint repositories)

  How should the Mint tools be named? This has wide implications and mintUpdate 2.8 will be released soon as “Update Manager”

  There’s a poll for the naming here

  The forum is growing and so is the interest for it from spammers. Please help keep the forum neat and report all spam you see.

  The repositories were down for about half of July 7 It’s unclear if this was a hacker attack but there seems to be attempts to take the site down

  * News about Linux

  Linux Magazine has an article covering what they call “Spawn of Ubuntu” (which includes Mint)

  GNOME hires Stormy Peters as Executive Director She has a past as an executive in HP

  Xandros acquires  Linspire - this obviously happened behind the scene and was not made public until some two weeks after it took place

  openSUSE Build Service 1.0 Released  The openSUSE Build Service allows developers to create and maintain packages for openSUSE and many other Linux distributions, including CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Red Hat, and Ubuntu.

  ATI promises faster Linux drivers

  A new version of Gentoo was released

  Greg Kroah Hartman on the Linux Kernel  (Youtube video)

  An interview with Mark Shuttleworth

  * News about IT

  Samba 3.2 released

  Web threats hits 12 month high

  Vmware changes CEO and puts in a Microsoft veteran as CEO

  The Windows version of VLC has a security flaw

  As I stated in an earlier newsletter the Swedish law permitting bugging of all electronic communication that passes the country boundaries is aimed at Russia

  The US congress passes amendments to the “FISA” Act which is similar to the Swedish act (Haven’t found a good link for this)

  * Hardware news

  Threats to the GPS system has been reported recently

  The world may run out of some rare elements needed to make computer chips in a few years time

  * Trivia and other links   

  

  * More about Linux Mint

  You find the Wallpaper of the Week in the Blog

  Home page

  Blog  The planet  Wiki   Forum

  * Editors comment

  As always - if you find something I’ve missed in the newsletter please tell me - you can post a comment here

  Enjoy life

  Husse

• 1:22

  Wallpaper Of The Week Winner (Issue 7)

   » ‎ Linux Mint Blog

  The votes are in, and the winner of this weeks WOTW is…..

  In The Trees by akaNed
  

  Congratulations to akaNed for his excellent work on this wallpaper.

  This is going to be the last Wallpaper Of The Week, as we are changing to a new format, Wallpaper Of The Month. I will be posting more on this, and the reasons for the change in another announcement.

• 0:22

  The Linux Action Show! Season 9 Preview: Kindle oops!

   » ‎ LAS (podcast)

  Enclosure: [download]

  Bryan and Chris give you a preview on Season 9’s first episode of The Linux Action Show! Watch a take that you won’t see in the final episode.

  PS. Good thing Bryan handles Product review bookings! We’ll see you August 3rd!

  • UPDATE: My brain had a kernel panic, it is not season 2, it is season 9.. Ah well, now if I could get our buddy that did the video to make a version that said SEASON 9