Linux

Could work? Portable HDD would be better.

I wouldn't intentionally shake my workstation to induce physical damage as I'd be using a VM guest for testing (no spare hardware around anymore due to VMs). I'll have to find something that can induce file damage without hardware damage and within just th VM HDD space.

If something gets decommissioned soon at work, I could also give it a half foot drop onto the workbench while it's working.

X does hardware config on the fly during start up now in many distributions. Xorg.conf can still be used to supersede this but is more often not needed at all.

If I break my Windows GUI, I don't have much recourse without backups or a recovery install. if I break my X, the natural separation between platform and GUI presentation layer means I have a chance of fixing my X with one or two easy commands.

(I'll admit, I buy hardware known to work well across platforms which improves the behavior of all my platforms.)

"X does hardware config on the fly during start up now in many distributions. Xorg.conf can still be used to supersede this but is more often not needed at all."

Nice to have standards. Sometimes it's needed, sometimes it's not (but you can still use it), what a joke.

I've never had a windows gui crash. In fact, all the family and friends I have supported over the year have never reported that problem to me.

If it does happen, it can always be fixed by safe mode or if that does't work there are tools on the installation disk to take care of problems like that.

Now the Linux Gui, that's a whole new ballgame. I've had crashes, dumps, been thrown into a command prompt, etc., especiall when upgrading to current hardare (espeially graphics hardware - i.e. video cards).

No HOME USER is going to put up with that crap. When they install their shiny new ATI or NIVIDIA video card, the GUI won't crash, games will look fantastic and they will have many more game choices than tux.

Don't BS me and tell me the Linux GUI is better than even XP's GUI. And compared to windows 7, linux lags even further behind.

Xorg.conf is an important part of ALL linux distributions, no matter what you say. I have many times have had to go into it and modify it's contents by hand with no GUI help. Thankfully I understand the file and can manage it. But most HOME USERS don't even know it's there.

BTW the "Linux guru" that posted and didn't even know what xorg.conf is, should order some updated books on Linux and learn about the changes to the newer distros....

So let me get this strait. Your claiming that X.org being able to configure it's hardware during setup or read settings out of a config file is a disadvantage of some sort? Do you also take issue with this strange ability for people to buy a car from more than just Ford in more colours than just black?

And do you really want to get into a discussion about standards given the frequency with which Microsoft breaks standards in the name of higher profits rather than better end user experience?

"have never reported that problem to me"

If my support guy was as close minded as you apear to be. I'd go elsewhere for help also.

"Don't BS me and tell me the Linux GUI is better than even XP's GUI. And compared to windows 7, linux lags even further behind."

Ah.. I see.. you don't actually know what your talking about. Which Linux GUI, which Linux distribution, What version. When was the last time you looked at modern distributions? How many of win7 and Vista's GUI elements existed in no other DE previous to the finally delivered Longhorn?

I've had no trouble with Nvidia on Debian or Windows. Sinister has had no issues with Mind and, what I'm guessing is, a pretty bleeding edge beast of a GPU. When your done venting this frustration you've work yourself into, would you like some help getting your system working? Or did you just want to continue making claims without any hands-on experience?

Also, the "Linux guru" as you contemptiously refer to SinsisterSlay is actually a fellow Windows user primarily and an extremely heavy gamer to boot. They are actually fairly new to Linux based platforms as more than just a five minute look. I dare say that they offer a far more educated and balanced opinion than anything you've had to say thus far. (I say "they" meaning a single person because gender is irrelevant and I didn't want to specify either way)

Tell me again about how everyone is blindly attributing falsehoods to your character with you only the poor victim trying to defend yourself from accusation and injustice cause I don't think that joke is ever getting old.


(PS; I'm still waiting to hear about that website you posted due to medication caused harm. Completely separate from our disagreement on technology, that is a topic with real life consequences. The bottom of this comment is not the best place for a re-request of the URL. private message it over if you like but I'd be honestly interested to read it over.)

I don't think you can stroke that part of my ego.

Still trying to figure out why when I click Save config in Mint on the display settings, it comes up saying "Cannot Parse xorg.conf".

Also can't seem to get it to project to my TV screen (Hooked up via PC-VGA plug). It knows it's there but it keeps saying no signal. I assume there should be an easy way to do it. It's the nVidia control panel, so I cannot really blame the distro. Though I had a look at the distros native config and it's nasty looking.
So far I am doing beyond what a home user should do. Considering I know some complete computer ignorants set up their HD TV's on their own, attached to a computer. XP/Vista/W7 made it too easy. Restart your computer and suddenly it knows you have two monitors. Click the Extend Screen checkbox and it magically works.

Also got to find a better video players for Linux. The default one in Mint works and can play all my files BUT it lacks a lot of options I want. Such as ability to remember song position, ability to use different rendering methods, and ability to change sound device (so it uses the integrated sound and thus uses the TV's speakers rather than the PC speakers).


-Edit
A thought, maybe it doesn't have a xorg file. Failed to parse could be a general error handle for any sort of error during saving. I am just using a USB version with perm storage on it, so that could be it.

or the nVidea one? I ask, as to save to a .conf file usually requires you to be in Super User or Root mode and some third party apps are not that good at triggering the SU mode.

I'm no Linux guru either, with only a few years actual proper experience with it, but I do find my copy of O'Reilly 'Linux in a Nutshell' very useful to understand what's happening, in general. I first had exposure to Linux back in 1998 with red Hat 6 in a college class I was doing as one of those needed to get the qualifications to say I know what I'd been doing for the last couple of decades, but never got around to doing much with Linux until I dumped XP to go to something that wouldn't crash and burn every few months due to Microsoft corrupting what had been a good install with a forced update it wouldn't let me refuse.

I should be the super user far as I know (i never get prompted for a password before doing any other changes)

But it sounds kind of dumb that it would require administrative rights to do something simple like change resolution.

so its
chmod 777 /etc/xorg.conf
? for all permissions to everyone for that file?

as 777 means anyone can change it at any time - you may wish to make the change and then run a chmod 555 to restrict everyone to read and execute ability only. The full command should be

chmod 777 filename

chmod 555 filename

the filename should also include the path on how to get there from where you are, unless you've already switched to the directory the file is in. In my system the xorg.conf is in the path //etc/X11/ so giving the command from root would be:

chmod 777 etc/X11/xorg.conf

or

chmod 777 //etc/X11/xorg.conf

depending upon how that Linux distribution is looking for the path information to be formated. If I move to the X11 directory first, then it's a simple:

chmod 777 xorg.conf

NOTE: This will only work if you are already root or the user you are already has the right permissions to change that file in that folder.

Damn, haven't done that sort of command line stuff for ages, but a quick read of Linux in a Nutshell, and a bit of memory of all the times I've done that stuff in DOS and the one class on Unix and one on Linux back in 1998, and it all comes back to me.

My most command command line stuff today is still basic DOS stuff on Windows boxes, usually a ping or ipconfig or iprenew command to fix network problems because different versions of Windows don't like playing with others.

edit to add

The Linux permissions can be given in a couple of ways, but the easiest are as a three digit number. Each digit is a value for a user level: User - Group - Others. The values are: Read - 4, Write - 2, Execute -1 and you add together the values you wish applied. Thus read/write/execute = 7 while read/write = 6, read/execute = 5, execute only = 1 etc. So a read/write/execute for the user is 7 in the first spot, a read/execute for the group is 5 in the second spot, and a read only for others is a 1 in the third spot, making it 751. So 777 is read/write/execute for all, the best for general usage is 555 to give read and execute permissions to everyone; or 755 giving the user who created the file full permission and limiting others to read and execute.

With chmod, "7" means read/write/executable. making xorg.conf executable will likely only return an error if it somehow gut run but adding 777 to a file blindly is just a bad habbit to get into. This is like putting all user accounts in the Administrator's group rather than properly managing privileged setting on Windows.

If you must open up permissions on that file at least leave out the executable bit; chmod 666 xorg.conf (resulting in read/write owner, group, world). This isn't great but it's much better than blindly 777 everything. Either way, remember to give it a chmod 644 (owner read/write, group read, world read) once your done with it being opened up.

Other options would be using "kdesu nvidiaconfig" where you'll have to replace nvidiaconfig with whatever the config's correct name is. You could do that from the start menu's Run command (like Start -> Run) or from a terminal window (xterm, eterm, konsole..). You should then be asked for a root password in the same way that Windows Runas works. You'll at least be sure that kdesu is running it with root privileged.