Installation nuisances
Hi all,
I had enough trouble doing an install that I thought I would relay
it to you-all in hopes the issues might get categorized and addressed
some day. :)
The base machine:
MBoard: ECS KV2 Lite
CPU: 2GHz AMD64x2
Memory: 2GB
Video: NVidea chip on EVGA e-GeForce MX 4000
First off, the install CD kept locking up. It took a while to figure
out that the install software was running 32 bit and choked on a memory
size of -2GB. (Um, one could use unsigned numbers, but the motherboard
supports 4GB of memory, too. That would wrap around to zero.)
After figuring out that I did not have bad memory and de-installing the
second bank, I got further. I tried a net install. I had the IP address
of the installation server, but it turned out that I needed some convoluted
path down to some directory that was hard to figure out. I got to the
directory of the ISO images, but that was the wrong place. So, I downloaded
and burned them. (The CD images because my file system did not support
files larget than 2GB.)
The installation seemed to go nicely until we got to the video. The most
recent stable release is from last July, so it mishandled the video stuff
and I had another mess. I downloaded and burned a "test" release because
the stable AMD64 has not been released yet. Started over.
I finished the install, configured XFree 86 (it recognized the video!!)
and logged in. I ran "startx" only to discover that it blows up because
the default install installs XFree86, but not libXau. Oops. I could not
determine which "apt-get" to get that supplied libXau. It wasn't indexed.
After a bunch of Googling around, I "apt-got" the right thing and I had X.
Cool.
Next, I wanted to determine if both cores were operational, so I ran the
"system monitor" thingey from the pull down menu on the desk top. It saw
CPU-1 was running. No evidence for CPU-0. I tried to join an online
support
discussion, but xchat was not installed. Despite wanting an "essentially
everything" install, next to nothing was installed, so I had to be sure I
knew how to spell the package I wanted that had the xchat client and did
another "apt-get". Eventually, it was suggested that I try "top". Sure
enough, it showed that CPU-0 was operational, but it said nothing about
CPU-1. (Does the system monitor do CPU-1/2 vs. 0/1 ???) (How about an
index between package names and the applications they provide?)
I still do not know if both my cores are operational. (Yes, I am using
the "smp" kernel and /proc/cpuinfo shows that the OS knows it to be a
dual core chip. However, it only shows one CPU to be operational.
Technically true, but an SMP kernel is required due to the completely
separated operating contexts. Are both cores working?)
Thanks - Bruce
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