Live and Learn....
Oct. 19th, 2009 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI've been pretty pleased with how my linux experience has gone overall. There've been times when I've been horribly frustrated by it not doing something that ought to be simple, or doing things I didn't want it to do. As a rule, I've been able to hammer out the issues sooner or later, even if sometimes it required a complete reinstall--though that hasn't happened in a long time now.
On the other hand, I had the same experience with Windows, so "user friendliness" or the lack of same, is hardly unique to Linux.
On the other hand, of late I've been having more and more difficulty with getting videos or java applications to work. I kept getting "you need to update to the latest java" messages--and no matter how many times I tried to download and install it, the problem didn't go away. So this morning, when I got that message again, I started Googling for answers.
I began to get an inkling of the problem. I opened YAST and looked for Firefox. I saw that the latest version was available but not installed. Funny--I HAVE the latest version installed. And that was the clue I needed. I had manually installed Firefox to the wrong directory. It worked...mostly. But the OS wasn't seeing it, so some of the addons and plugins that should have been cooperating weren't.
I installed the latest Firefox via YAST and fired it up. Now when I type "about:plugins" in the Firefox bar, I get a long, long list of plugins I wasn't seeing before. Yay! No more issues with java apps or videos not running. Now I've uninstalled the erroneous installation (and checked, and the correct installation still works as it should). Hurrah!
Now, if only I could upgrade to a more current version of OpenSUSE. I'm still running 10.3 and they're up to 11.something. Alas, when I've tried to begin upgrading, I lose my monitor. I don't think that's a Suse issue, though. It's a monitor/video card issue.
I installed a wide-screen flatscreen monitor a year or two ago. Alas, my (old) video card doesn't have the capability of doing true wide-screen imaging. It's just sort of...stretching the images horizontally a bit to fill the screen. Which is an adequate work-around until I figure out what sort of video card WILL provide true wide-screen imaging AND will work with my several-years-old motherboard...but apparently, trying to upgrade the OS causes the system to default to a format that doesn't register.
Again, I'm sure there's a way around this, but I haven't been willing to invest the time and effort to find it, since I suspect it would require finally figuring out what video card will work with my motherboard and also give me the video performance I'd need. That, and I don't want to spend any money on it just now.
On the other hand, I had the same experience with Windows, so "user friendliness" or the lack of same, is hardly unique to Linux.
On the other hand, of late I've been having more and more difficulty with getting videos or java applications to work. I kept getting "you need to update to the latest java" messages--and no matter how many times I tried to download and install it, the problem didn't go away. So this morning, when I got that message again, I started Googling for answers.
I began to get an inkling of the problem. I opened YAST and looked for Firefox. I saw that the latest version was available but not installed. Funny--I HAVE the latest version installed. And that was the clue I needed. I had manually installed Firefox to the wrong directory. It worked...mostly. But the OS wasn't seeing it, so some of the addons and plugins that should have been cooperating weren't.
I installed the latest Firefox via YAST and fired it up. Now when I type "about:plugins" in the Firefox bar, I get a long, long list of plugins I wasn't seeing before. Yay! No more issues with java apps or videos not running. Now I've uninstalled the erroneous installation (and checked, and the correct installation still works as it should). Hurrah!
Now, if only I could upgrade to a more current version of OpenSUSE. I'm still running 10.3 and they're up to 11.something. Alas, when I've tried to begin upgrading, I lose my monitor. I don't think that's a Suse issue, though. It's a monitor/video card issue.
I installed a wide-screen flatscreen monitor a year or two ago. Alas, my (old) video card doesn't have the capability of doing true wide-screen imaging. It's just sort of...stretching the images horizontally a bit to fill the screen. Which is an adequate work-around until I figure out what sort of video card WILL provide true wide-screen imaging AND will work with my several-years-old motherboard...but apparently, trying to upgrade the OS causes the system to default to a format that doesn't register.
Again, I'm sure there's a way around this, but I haven't been willing to invest the time and effort to find it, since I suspect it would require finally figuring out what video card will work with my motherboard and also give me the video performance I'd need. That, and I don't want to spend any money on it just now.
