On 3/5/07, Charles Curley <charlescurley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 11:33:07AM -0700, Charles Curley wrote: > I have two machines that use livna kmod packages, one kmod-ntfs, the > other a Radeon fglrx driver. I've been using the ntfs drivers > sucessfully for several months. I have just installed the Radeon card, > so cannot be sure this isn't a new installation issue. Followup. This morning's updates brought the missing kernel in, and I installed it. I now have two kernels of what apprear to be the same major, minor and patch numbers on my system: kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.6.4.fc6.i686 kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.fc6.i686 Huh? I went ahead with the normal stuff to get the driver enabled. Running glxgears indicated that the system now runs slower than it did before I installed the driver. Again, Huh? I finally rebooted. On the way up, the system locked up. I rebooted again. The system came up, and glxgears reports speeds ranging between 500 and 1000 fps, not exactly a steady rate. However, GoogleEarth now works at a reasonable rate.
Even though glxgears is not a benchmarking tool, you should let it sit and it will eventually give a steady framerate. If there are problems in 3D acceleration with a closed source driver from a third party repository then those problems should be addressed with the proper people. Fedora in general really has no say in these matters.
* Why is a reboot necessary to install a driver module? Why are two reboots necessary to install a driver module? This is not Windows.
A reboot is typically not necessary to install a module. However if that module is linked to a specific kernel version, then you must be booted into *that* specific kernel to use (load) it. Since there is no way to restart a kernel, any kernel update will require a reboot to start that kernel. Some kernel modules don't work well being inserted into and removed from the running kernel. Some can't be removed at all once inserted without a reboot. Considering you are using a propreitary closed source kernel module and with the limited information you provided, it is hard to say whether or not all of your reboots were entirely necessary.
* Why do I need what appears to be two different installations of the same kernel on my system?
These are 2 different kernels: kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.fc6 was released Feb 13 (based on 2.6.19.3) kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.6.4.fc6 was released Mar 2 (based on 2.6.19.5) You don't need both of them. You 'yum' installed them. Typically more than 1 kernel is left when using yum like this. Eventually old kernels get removed.
I'm getting irritated at Fedora being a bit too bleeding edge for my taste. I have work to do, and can't afford the time I spend farting around with this stuff. Maybe I should join Mr. Raymond over at Ubuntu.
It would appear from your previous email that the livna repository had already synced and recompiled to 2.6.19-1.2911.6.4. Apparently the particular fedora mirror you were using was out of sync. There will always be lags in syncing mirrors. I like Ubuntu. It is a fine distribution. If it better suits your needs, by all means, please do use it. -Mauriat
