So, after finally fixing my environment, and manually having to use 3.17 kernel, I have a running environment, but Dungeon Defenders still hangs, and Dota 2 has graphic rendering issues – meaning I miss the opponents and they can creep up behind me, along with enemy grunts.
Guess I won’t be playing anything Steam-based for a while….
I think I have figured out why my machine has been playing up.
In both cases, my machine was trying to run kernel 3.19, but after checking Kernel.org, I found that this kernel version has been marked EOL.
I installed Fedora 21, which came with kernel 3.17 and worked, but after updating, it stopped working, with kernel 3.19. Forcing it to run on 3.17 was okay, though.
Summary:
Good: Fedora, with Linux 3.17.4-301.fc21.x86_64
Bad: Fedora, with Linux 3.19.7-200.fc21.x86_64
Latest kernel release is 4.0.4, so I need to wait for Fedora to update.
Interestingly, it could also explain why I was also having trouble with Ubuntu, as it also ran 3.19. When trying to reinstall Ubuntu from the latest install image, it hung, presumably because it was trying to use the 3.19 Kernel. In theory, I could use an older installer (e.g. Utopic Unicorn) instead.
So now, I’m running Fedora with a 3.19 main kernel (which fails) and 3.17 secondary kernel. I was going to file a bug on Kernel.org, but found out about 3.19 being EOL, which means no bug fixes will be released, so there is no point in filing the bug.
On the plus side, my machine seems SO much more zippier running Fedora. Although trying to run Dota 2 seems a bit quirky. Dust: An Elysian Tail worked pretty well, as did Second Life (I was able to crank Singularity Viewer up to Ultra without major speed loss).
I still need to reinstall BOINC and any other missing apps I might have, and get used to using yum, yumex and dnf instead of apt-get, aptitude and synaptic all over again, but apart from that, it should be all good.
This is what I like about studying for certifications. They force you to look into subjects at a deeper level than you may otherwise have done. One of the topics in LPIC-2 is Kernel maintenance - understanding the kernel, how it works, the concept of dynamically loaded modules, compiling the kernel and modifying the configuration prior to compiling. It is very intriguing learning about this low-level part of the Linux OS.
It is a complex topic though, and compiling a kernel can take a while, depending on configuration. I managed to compile and install my first kernel today. :)
Meanwhile, since I’ve now obtained my SUSE 11 CLA from Novell (not sure if anything will come through in the post, though), I must really refresh my memory on openSuSE. My primary distributions have been Ubuntu and Fedora.
Whilst downloading various linux distributions including the latest versions of Ubuntu and Fedora, I found out that I could download SteamOS, which is Valve’s own distribution for running its Steam platform. Problem is it only supports x64 which I don’t have (yet)
The recent linux kernel update has screwed up my admin accounts on both my Ubuntu-based boxes (Lubuntu & Ubuntu Studio). I’ve spent three hours creating a new user, making them sudo-enabled, then moving my files from my old profile to my new one and tinkering with a few scripts and desktop shortcuts that were still pointing at the old home directory.
Mind you, it’s given me an opportunity to test my LPIC-1 knowledge.
