i recently noticed i had never bothered uninstalling some of the default things that come with openSUSE 11. there were things i had installed that i never ended up using or didn't end up being what i wanted. well, a few days ago i decided to try removing some of these extras, and somehow i ended up breaking firefox. it would not load.
in opensuse, the mouse cursor changes with a little mini icon bouncing up and down to indicate that a program is loading. i would see the firefox logo bouncing, but shortly afterwards it would just close without saying anything. since my flock browser was unaffected, i wasn't worried about it much. soon afterwards though, i noticed vlc (a media player) was not loading as well. this could not be!
after a bit of investigation, here is the story of the fix...
since i was not getting an error, i decided to google "firefox not loading opensuse" to see if there was any help. i did not find direct help, however i did find a user having the exact same symptoms with ubuntu linux. ubuntu and opensuse do things a little different, however i noticed that one of the suggestions was to try loading firefox from the terminal. the terminal is a command line text interface... and anyway most programs can be started from terminal simply by typing the name of the program. so, i opened up a terminal and typed in "firefox". i was met with the following message:
Could not find compatible GRE between version 1.9.0.5 and 1.9.0.5.
so, i googled this message and found that it means something was wrong with a software that firefox (and apparently vlc) use to run. well, i went to the software administration in opensuse and searched for this troubled software. running a search for "mozilla" in the software administration pointed me to the software giving problems - in my case it was called mozilla-xulrunner190. but what is this? it was already installed and already the right version.... or was it?
after many attempts of removing and adding and pulling my hair out, i stumbled upon the problem and solution. while true that the software was the right one, it was installing a version not meant for my computer. i simply highlighted the xulrunner program, clicked on the "versions" tab, and changed it to the version for my machine. (version 1.9.0.5-.1.x86_64 not 1.9.0.3-.1.i586).
as soon as i changed the version, opensuse pointed out that one of the programs i had removed was now required to be instaled again. who would have thought that taking out a spell check tool would have such a crazy effect? somehow by removing and adding that tool...the other software switched and made a mess.
well, immediately after the changes were applied, i clicked on the firefox launcher and to my delight, everything was exactly as it was the last time i loaded firefox. my browsing history, my previously open tabs...everything! vlc is now working normal too.
and so its the continuous love-hate with linux. i don't know it well enough to prevent myself from messups like this, BUT the help is out there (and its really awesome that you don't have to restart for every little thing).
i'm glad to have my firefox back :o)
Showing posts with label opensuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opensuse. Show all posts
07 January 2009
06 August 2007
opensuse video issue on a G3 iMac
This past Saturday I purchased an old G3 iMac blueberry for REALLY cheap. The guy included os9 disks, and said he had wanted to put Linux but lost interest in the project. It sounded a little fishy to me, but after seeing that the cdrom worked and that the machine actually booted, i went ahead and bought it.
At first, I loaded OS9, and it was really really easy. The whole thing finished in about 20 minutes. The "problem" with OS9 is that its not a current operating system. For me, it meant that I couldn't install Firefox, my web browser of choice. So...i went ahead and downloaded the powerpc version of opensuse 10.2. Using bittorrent and a high speed connection, I had all 5 disks in about 2.5 hours. There is also a dvd version which simplifies things, but this only has a cdrom.
Anyway, while it was downloading, I upgraded the memory to 512mb (from 64mb) and changed the hard drive to 80gb (from 6gb). The install went great, but my problems started after the install.
For some reason, the screen was shifted to the left. This meant that a little of the left side of the screen was cut off, and on the right side of the screen there was a big black bar. Since my plan was to sell this machine, this would not do.
I searched google, and found this page explaining the issue and somewhat providing a fix. I tried variations of the numbers but could get nothing to work. Suddenly it hit me to try something else. I searched google for "iMac G3 modeline", and sure enough I found someone who had it working, but was having a different problem.
So anyway, here is a summarized version of what I did to get the damn thing centered.
1) open a command terminal
2) type "sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf" -theX11 is case sensitive.
3) type in your root password when prompted
4) scroll down to Section 'Monitor'. Hit Insert key. Set HorizSync to 29-61. Set VertRefresh to 59-78.
5) scroll down to Section 'Modes'. Comment out the current 1024x768 modeline by putting a # in front of it. If anything fails and you end up stuck in a command terminal, just uncomment and restart to go back to what it was.
6) copy and paste the following modeline in its place:
Modeline "1024x768" 78.525 1024 1049 1145 1312 768 769 772 800 +hsync +vsync
7) hit escape key to get out of insert mode.
8) type a colon (:) to enter command mode.
9) type wq to write changes and quit vi.
10) reboot and enjoy!
now of course there are just the setting that worked for me. it is a blueberry imac 350mhz. it is possible that newer or older ones use different timings, so i suggest google searching. i wrote this all out so that i'd have it for future reference. it took me 2 days, mainly because i'm a little rusty with my linux commands. luckily i had time. :o|
in the end it will be worth it. i have a buyer for the machine already, and they'll be that much closer to just using the machine instead of thinking its broken. i only hope they don't wipe it and go back to os9! but hey, even if they do, now i'll have the experience.
At first, I loaded OS9, and it was really really easy. The whole thing finished in about 20 minutes. The "problem" with OS9 is that its not a current operating system. For me, it meant that I couldn't install Firefox, my web browser of choice. So...i went ahead and downloaded the powerpc version of opensuse 10.2. Using bittorrent and a high speed connection, I had all 5 disks in about 2.5 hours. There is also a dvd version which simplifies things, but this only has a cdrom.
Anyway, while it was downloading, I upgraded the memory to 512mb (from 64mb) and changed the hard drive to 80gb (from 6gb). The install went great, but my problems started after the install.
For some reason, the screen was shifted to the left. This meant that a little of the left side of the screen was cut off, and on the right side of the screen there was a big black bar. Since my plan was to sell this machine, this would not do.
I searched google, and found this page explaining the issue and somewhat providing a fix. I tried variations of the numbers but could get nothing to work. Suddenly it hit me to try something else. I searched google for "iMac G3 modeline", and sure enough I found someone who had it working, but was having a different problem.
So anyway, here is a summarized version of what I did to get the damn thing centered.
1) open a command terminal
2) type "sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf" -theX11 is case sensitive.
3) type in your root password when prompted
4) scroll down to Section 'Monitor'. Hit Insert key. Set HorizSync to 29-61. Set VertRefresh to 59-78.
5) scroll down to Section 'Modes'. Comment out the current 1024x768 modeline by putting a # in front of it. If anything fails and you end up stuck in a command terminal, just uncomment and restart to go back to what it was.
6) copy and paste the following modeline in its place:
Modeline "1024x768" 78.525 1024 1049 1145 1312 768 769 772 800 +hsync +vsync
7) hit escape key to get out of insert mode.
8) type a colon (:) to enter command mode.
9) type wq to write changes and quit vi.
10) reboot and enjoy!
now of course there are just the setting that worked for me. it is a blueberry imac 350mhz. it is possible that newer or older ones use different timings, so i suggest google searching. i wrote this all out so that i'd have it for future reference. it took me 2 days, mainly because i'm a little rusty with my linux commands. luckily i had time. :o|
in the end it will be worth it. i have a buyer for the machine already, and they'll be that much closer to just using the machine instead of thinking its broken. i only hope they don't wipe it and go back to os9! but hey, even if they do, now i'll have the experience.
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