ex tempore

In rPath Linux, Foresight Linux, et al. there are some quircks in order to achieve an optimal user experience for those with nvidia cards, demanding performance and willing to use the nvidia proprietary driver. For a start the installed xorg will load, at start, the mesa based glx module which causes any app attempting to use glx (as glxinfo) to crash X. The simple fix is to edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and replace the entry …

Load “glx”

by

Load “/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so”

and then restart X.

As an aside i’ve made a nvidia-kernel recipe (1.0-8762) patched to work with kernels up to 2.6.17 and even (using the ‘xen’ use flag) in a xen Dom0. They are already cooked, and ready to install, against the 2.6.16.14 kernel, currently default in Foresight, both in SMP and UP versions.

Regarding kernels if you wish to be in the bleeding edge then…

sudo conary update kernel=kernelbits.rpath.org@rpl:1/2.6.17.1-1-0.1[kernel.smp]

And then reboot. For nvidia, with any of theses kernels (either the one mentioned just bellow, either de default ones at foresight) you only need to …

sudo conary update nvidia=dellm90.reboot.sh@rpl.devel
sudo conary update nvidia-kernel=dellm90.reboot.sh@rpl.devel[nvidia-kernel.i686, nvidia-kernel.smp] –keep-existing

Just do note that if you upgrade to 2.6.17 you need to update ipw3945. I cooked the new version, just for 2.6.17. This new version no more needs ieee80211 as an external dep, using the ieee8011 that comes with the newer kernel. it’s as easy as…

sudo conary update ipw3945=dellm90.reboot.sh@rpl.devel[ipw3945.i686, ipw3945.smp] –keep-existing

Google Earth and Picasa are now conveniently packaged for conary. As easy as

conary update google-earth=reboot.rpath.org@rpl:devel
conary update picasa=reboot.rpath.org@rpl:devel

the full eclipse-sdk can now be installed in foresight, and other rPath Linux distros, in native packaging. just do…

sudo conary update eclipse-sdk=arq-rad.rpath.org@rpl:devel

I just made available some conary recipes in order to full utilise ipw3945 drivers, Intel’s latest wireless mobile chipset used in the current generation of centrinos, under rPath Linux and derivative distros. They are beta quality but are working for me. You can get them cooked against this kernel (2.6.16.14-1-1 ~!kernel.debug, ~!kernel.debugdata, ~!kernel.numa, ~!kernel.smp is: x86(cmov, i486, i586, i686, ~!mmx) ) in foresight linux by just doing (as root)…

conary update ipw3945-fw=dellm90.rpath.org@rpl:devel
conary update ipw3945config=dellm90.rpath.org@rpl:devel
conary update ipw3945=dellm90.rpath.org@rpl:devel

taken in Paris, March 9th.