Okay, more assorted questions from me:
These regard two different computers:
Desktop- 1.4GHz Tbird, 256MB, SBLive, GF2MX400 64MB. Running E16 over RH72.
Laptop- 133MHz P54c, 32MB, ESS audio, Cirrus graphics. Running WMaker over RH72.

-- Licq stopped connecting, as if the server it uses, icq.mirabilis.com, went down... but it has remained down for over a day. I tried using the server Windoze ICQ is connecting to but it won't accept licq. The alternate servers are also down.
I know this isn't that good a place to ask this, but I'm asking a bunch of other linux questions here so I might as well add this one... What is a reliable licq-compatible ICQ server?

I can't find a resolution-change program that works with my system. (desktop)
I found one (fbset), but it only works if my video card has a device in /dev/fb?, which it apparently does not. I tried the first few anyway and it didn't work.
When I installed the nvidia drivers the resolution set itself to 1600x1200, which is fine, but it also set the refresh rate to 65Hz, which is EVIL. My eyes hurt.

On my laptop, the sound runs in slow motion and very low. I was able to get functional sound in SoundTracker by setting the bitrate to 8KHz or 16KHz, but other programs (xmms) don't support those. (11KHz is broken)
The drivers I'm using are SB16, and the chip is an ESS AudioDrive of some sort. I tried all the ESS drivers with the same result as the SB16 and SBPro.
Anyone know how I can get the high quality sound working, or at least how to make all sound play at 16KHz (or maybe 32KHz) so it doesn't screw up?

I need a program for my laptop that will allow me to use mathematical symbols and stuff. OpenOffice has an excellent one, but my attempt to get it running on the laptop was agonizing, and when I finally got it installed, it ran slower than ass.
All I need it to do is take notes - no actual calculations. It has to run on an extremely crappy computer. While researching I found about something called "LaTeX" that might be what I'm looking for, but the programs I found that used it were either textmode or bloated. I think MathML is what OpenOffice uses, but I couldn't find any other programs that displayed it and allowed simple editing.

I also have a font problem with Openoffice, it uses an ugly font that looks like it has spaces between every letter for all the menus, and I know it's not right. I tried installing the ttf's from Windows which have not helped yet, but I haven't rebooted or restarted X since then, so that might help.

Last thing I can think of-- I can't find Epplets anywhere. I found about three custom ones and the base package, but the only app launcher I found doesn't work.
I've seen screenshots with large numbers of thin epplets that appear to be program launchers- where can I get this?

Final note: Just for the hell of it, I'm including a link to a screenshot I took of my desktop to make a friend jealous.
http://www.digitalshado.com/backup/s...-01_145344.jpg

Edit:
I forgot to mention that ctrl-alt-plus and ctrl-alt-minus didn't work.
But I just realized that I used my right ctrl and alt, which were disabled by the evil nvidia drivers, when I tested it... it works with the left ones, yay. One question answered.
And one more brought back- i want my right ctrl and alt so I can use ctrl-alt-left while dragging to move windows between desktops. How?

Another edit:
I restarted X and not only do the fonts work right in Staroffice the right ctrl and alt work. Now I must quickly go to sleep before more problems start fixing themselves, or else this post will be pointless! Oh No! (checks if licq started working) (it did :P)

D'oh.

Ah, I just crashed X half-way through this post... yippee



Its kinda refreshing making a Linux box act like a windows box sometimes.



Anyway,
The sb module is probably the wrong one for your soundcard. ESS means ensoniq, which was a pretty generic card for onboard sound back in the P1 family. I've got one in my P200 and my PPro200. The right module is probably either es1370, esi, esp, es1371, or maybe even, but doubtfully essolo. Try,

less /proc/pci

which will give you the id's straight off the card. Mine's an Ensoniq somethingsomethingPCI, and uses esp. If the output from that is useless, try rmmod'ing all of the sb modules and then:

ls /lib/modules/2.4.9/kernel/drivers/sound/es and instead of hitting enter, whack tab a couple of times. Try modprobing everything listed and see what doesn't yak. That's almost definately the right one. Oh, this is assuming also that you're running 2.4.9, which I think was the default kernel for 7.2... er, if I remember right. I had issues with 7.2 and all that in-kernel pcmcia yenta_socket stuff, so I didn't use it for very long.

Then whip up xmms and see if you've got the right quality of sound.

Hope your other problems come out smoothly.

Cheers,

Finegan

It doesn't matter anymore, the damn screen broke.
Anyone have laptop repair experience?

(It displays random garbage. Sometimes it shows a mostly working screen and I can tell the computer still works, I can even mess around in X. It's too screwed to use though)

Oh, another addition to the resolution question:
I can use ctrl-alt-+/- to switch current X resolution, but it's like a zoom mode... moving the mouse around moves the screen around a 1600x1200 desktop. I'd like a way to raise/lower my desktop size, like if my monitor fries and I use some crappy one lying around, or if I upgrade to a huge screen that does some obscene res in the 3000's.

What you're experiencing is the "virtual desktop" creature. You can turn it off by commenting out the "virtual" line in the Display subsection of your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file (I believe setting it to "virtual 0 0" will also do it). There may also be a way to do it from within the GUI, but I don't know what that would be

The screen majickally stopped being broken.
I'm talking about a screen with cracks in the housing. It just started working. No good reason for it, either.


Yay.

I'm trying every sound driver loaded on the damn thing. One note- the ESS Audiodrive I said I have is completely different from the Ensoniq AudioPCI 137x. When this computer was new, PCI audio basically did not exist. (It was once a top of the line model. I'm not sure Pentium 200's were around when this was new.)

I'm testing every sound driver. This will be too long for this post so results will be posted at http://www.digitalshado.com/backup/results.txt
if I can get through the connection problems I'm having (damn excite!)

Whoops, didn't realize the sound card was that old. You might want to try the Alsa project sound modules, which aren't part of the RedHat standard install, but I think there's probably an RPM for them on the CD. They support all of the older ESS hardware. There's a good how-to for how to set them up: here

Luck,

Finegan