I have some problems with Gnome 3 (Gnome Shell) with the Nvidia 3. The main thing is that sometimes texts will get corrupted when you scroll down a website under Firefox. It can take some efforts to to click some links in Firefox for some websites (like the links below any LinuxToday articles). The first link is there, but when you scroll down and try to click it, it disappeas and the text below that becomes corrupted. Most likely it is an Nvidia driver problem but I have updated to the latest version from Arch. And I do not have such a problem under Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity.
In the end the workaround provided in Arch Forum works, press ALT+F2 and type "r" and then everything is fine.
Quote from that Arch Forum article:
"Have you tried Alt+F2 to open a command prompt then entering r ? I think I get the same thing you get when I come out of suspend and r at the command prompt resets the Gnome Shell and fixes the problem. I'm also using the closed source Nvidia driver."
Notes added on 17 July 2011: it still does not work well, still has the garbled text problem. So I just switched to the Fall Back mode by default.
Notes added on 21 July 2011: it seems that the latest NVidia driver improved on the issue (275.19-1 version) but I still see text corruption when scrolling with a mouse under Firefox and Gnome 3.
Showing posts with label Arch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arch. Show all posts
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Gnome 3 and Gnome Shell First Impression
I just updated my Arch Linux installation and it has Gnome 3 by default. I followed the Arch Wiki about Gnome 3 for the installation and it went smooth.
As for the first impression, it is at least much better than Ubuntu Unity interface. For one thing, it does not have the annoying Global Menu. However, I still prefer the old Gnome 2 interface. Anyway, the new interface is at least tolerable, not like Ubuntu Unity. I think I can get used to it soon even though I still miss the Gnome Panel Applets.
I tend to think Unity is one way for Ubuntu to differentiate it from other Linux distros, let's wait and see if that really pans out well for Ubuntu or not.
Notes added on 17 July 2011: however, the problem is with the Nvidia driver. Gnome 3 just does not work well with the Nvidia driver right now under Arch Linux. So I have to switch back to the Fall Back mode.
As for the first impression, it is at least much better than Ubuntu Unity interface. For one thing, it does not have the annoying Global Menu. However, I still prefer the old Gnome 2 interface. Anyway, the new interface is at least tolerable, not like Ubuntu Unity. I think I can get used to it soon even though I still miss the Gnome Panel Applets.
I tend to think Unity is one way for Ubuntu to differentiate it from other Linux distros, let's wait and see if that really pans out well for Ubuntu or not.
Notes added on 17 July 2011: however, the problem is with the Nvidia driver. Gnome 3 just does not work well with the Nvidia driver right now under Arch Linux. So I have to switch back to the Fall Back mode.
Monday, April 20, 2009
KDE 4.2 under Arch Linux
After some good impressions with the new Arch Linux installation (with LXDE and XFCE and also Gnome), I decided to give KDE 4.2 a try on Arch Linux. The installation with pacman is easy. The result seems to be better than both Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10.
Now I have a problem with KDE 4.2 under Fedora 10 that console-helper will hang during startup with a dialogbox titled "Query" when I tried to run programs like yumex or other programs which require root access. Logout under Fedora 10 is also very slow compared to others. KDE 4.2 under Ubuntu seems to be a bit more smooth but the login/logout are both a bit slow compared to Gnome.
KDE under Arch seems to better. The logout process is faster than both Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10. Still various program will still come out many warning messages. This is across thee distributions I tried KDE 4.2. So it seems to me KDE 4.2 is not ready for prime time yet. But it is promissing. I did not like KDE 4.1 under Ubuntu 8.10 at all. Nor did I like previous KDE 3.x under Ubuntu. Now KDE 4.2 at least gives me some incentives to try out KDE again after using Gnome since I re-discovered Linux back in 2005 with Ubuntu 5.04. Before that I tried various Linux distros (Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, Caldera, Corel, etc) on-and-off from 1998 to 2002.
Now I have a problem with KDE 4.2 under Fedora 10 that console-helper will hang during startup with a dialogbox titled "Query" when I tried to run programs like yumex or other programs which require root access. Logout under Fedora 10 is also very slow compared to others. KDE 4.2 under Ubuntu seems to be a bit more smooth but the login/logout are both a bit slow compared to Gnome.
KDE under Arch seems to better. The logout process is faster than both Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10. Still various program will still come out many warning messages. This is across thee distributions I tried KDE 4.2. So it seems to me KDE 4.2 is not ready for prime time yet. But it is promissing. I did not like KDE 4.1 under Ubuntu 8.10 at all. Nor did I like previous KDE 3.x under Ubuntu. Now KDE 4.2 at least gives me some incentives to try out KDE again after using Gnome since I re-discovered Linux back in 2005 with Ubuntu 5.04. Before that I tried various Linux distros (Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, Caldera, Corel, etc) on-and-off from 1998 to 2002.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Arch Linux Revisited
I tried to use Arch Linux back in 2007 (0.8 through 2007.08). Somehow I did not use it often and then a system update (pacman -Syu) would ask for large amount of updates and the mirror is not that fast (no Singapore mirror). So I did not tried it with the current Acer desktop.
I am trying out some small installations using LXDE and XFCE (4.60 was just out). I tried them on a minimum Ubuntu 8.10 installation and it did not work well even though they
both work fine with a normal Ubuntu 8.10 installation. It is said that minimum Arch installation works fine with LXDE and XFCE. So I decided to revisit Arch Linux.
The basic Arch installation using the USB flash disk image is quite fast. Basic setup is fine with editing a few configuration files with nano. The beginner's guide and other Arch Wiki pages are really helpful.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
After the initial setup, I got LXDE and XFCE basically working. Still I got no sound. Then I decided to try out Gnome first to see if I am missing something and used Shaman. Shaman is far away from the smoothness of Synaptic used in Ubuntu. I think it has a long way to go. Gnome is basically working as well. But still I got no sound.
Then I installed pulseaudio to help to solve the sound problem. Unfortunate it is broken: libcap updates broke pulseaudio.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=69750
Rebuilding pulseaudio with the fantastic ABS system does not help with the sound issue as well. The device is listed, the mixer is fine, there is just no sound from any applications. I like the abs system, kind of like the FreeBSD ports system. It is actually quite easy to rebuild a package.
Turns out it is because of the old TV card (Compro Videomate X50) which is not working under Linux (but fine under Windows Vista) . After disable the loading of that module (cx88xx), the sound is working. Take note I do not need to do this in Ubuntu or Fedora. This is strange.
iBus was not working initially. With the help of Google, it turns out that I need to update ~/.profile instead of ~/.bashrc with ibus settings. This is another strange thing.
export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
I am happy with Arch after these initial problems. Arch Linux seems to be faster in Gnome, LXDE and XFCE than under Ubuntu 8.10. Maybe it is less polluted now since less pplications have been installed. The next step may be to remove major part of Gnome and see if I can survive under XFCE and LXDE.
So Arch Linux is more difficult than Ubuntu (which normally just works). But it does have some advantages since I learned quite a bit with the settings. LXDE may be similar.
I am trying out some small installations using LXDE and XFCE (4.60 was just out). I tried them on a minimum Ubuntu 8.10 installation and it did not work well even though they
both work fine with a normal Ubuntu 8.10 installation. It is said that minimum Arch installation works fine with LXDE and XFCE. So I decided to revisit Arch Linux.
The basic Arch installation using the USB flash disk image is quite fast. Basic setup is fine with editing a few configuration files with nano. The beginner's guide and other Arch Wiki pages are really helpful.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
After the initial setup, I got LXDE and XFCE basically working. Still I got no sound. Then I decided to try out Gnome first to see if I am missing something and used Shaman. Shaman is far away from the smoothness of Synaptic used in Ubuntu. I think it has a long way to go. Gnome is basically working as well. But still I got no sound.
Then I installed pulseaudio to help to solve the sound problem. Unfortunate it is broken: libcap updates broke pulseaudio.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=69750
Rebuilding pulseaudio with the fantastic ABS system does not help with the sound issue as well. The device is listed, the mixer is fine, there is just no sound from any applications. I like the abs system, kind of like the FreeBSD ports system. It is actually quite easy to rebuild a package.
Turns out it is because of the old TV card (Compro Videomate X50) which is not working under Linux (but fine under Windows Vista) . After disable the loading of that module (cx88xx), the sound is working. Take note I do not need to do this in Ubuntu or Fedora. This is strange.
iBus was not working initially. With the help of Google, it turns out that I need to update ~/.profile instead of ~/.bashrc with ibus settings. This is another strange thing.
export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
I am happy with Arch after these initial problems. Arch Linux seems to be faster in Gnome, LXDE and XFCE than under Ubuntu 8.10. Maybe it is less polluted now since less pplications have been installed. The next step may be to remove major part of Gnome and see if I can survive under XFCE and LXDE.
So Arch Linux is more difficult than Ubuntu (which normally just works). But it does have some advantages since I learned quite a bit with the settings. LXDE may be similar.
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