[solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

ninjaprawn · 2009-02-16 19:51:40

hi,

i have used the proprietry nvidia drivers for ages! every distro for the last few years, but i am wondering if the oss nvidia drivers have caught up or overtaken! anyone using them, n what with? i dont use any heavy graphical apps, just xcompmgr with openbox, or compiz-fusion stand-alone!

ive used ext3 as my main fs for ages, recently tried reiserfs for a change n not noticed much difference! just wondering what ext4 is like? ive read a bit about it, but not sure whether its worth a mass jugling of files to format! opinions welcome!

thanks

Last edited by ninjaprawn (2010-02-19 17:15:56)

Inxsible · 2009-02-16 19:59:09

ninjaprawn wrote:

hi,
i have used the proprietry nvidia drivers for ages! every distro for the last few years, but i am wondering if the oss nvidia drivers have caught up or overtaken! anyone using them, n what with? i dont use any heavy graphical apps, just xcompmgr with openbox, or compiz-fusion stand-alone!
ive used ext3 as my main fs for ages, recently tried reiserfs for a change n not noticed much difference! just wondering what ext4 is like? ive read a bit about it, but not sure whether its worth a mass jugling of files to format! opinions welcome!
thanks

I just switched over to ext4 for my home. No problems yet. Also I converted to ext4 -- so I cannot go back. About the speed and such...its too early to tell - atleast for me.

My root is still ext3 -- but I want to move over to ext4 -- just that I am a bit lazy because I will have to do it via the live cd.

ninjaprawn · 2009-02-16 20:05:29

ive got slitaz on a 128meg usb stick (best tiny distro going!), so going to use that 2 move arch, but the laziness is my problem! cant be bothered clearing space to move my root fs somewhere re format, then move it back, then do the same again for the other 2 partitions!

Xiong Chiamiov · 2009-02-16 20:53:50

Reiser is known for being good with lots of small files; there are some Archers who have a separate Reiser partition for /var, since that's where pacman keeps all of its teeny little files that it uses instead of a database.

I use the proprietary nvidia drivers because I don't have problems with them, and I like the performance I get when I occasionally play UrbanTerror or Guild Wars. AFAIK, the oss driver doesn't support compositing, so if you use compiz, you'll need to use the proprietary one.

ninjaprawn · 2009-02-16 21:34:38

Xiong Chiamiov wrote:

Reiser is known for being good with lots of small files; there are some Archers who have a separate Reiser partition for /var, since that's where pacman keeps all of its teeny little files that it uses instead of a database.
I use the proprietary nvidia drivers because I don't have problems with them, and I like the performance I get when I occasionally play UrbanTerror or Guild Wars. AFAIK, the oss driver doesn't support compositing, so if you use compiz, you'll need to use the proprietary one.

thanks for that on video drivers! i'll be sticking with proprietry then!

is it possible to format my root partition? without reinstalling arch? if so, any advice on how to back up the root fs?

ninjaprawn · 2009-02-16 22:35:31

ignore me, im just tarring the /

Ranguvar · 2009-02-16 23:23:35

There are two open source drivers (excluding the generic vesa driver). nv is a 2D-only driver which works quite well on all cards. Nouveau is an attempt at a driver that works in 3D mode. It doesn't work on the 9xxx and GTX 2xx series, and is unstable on older models, from what I can tell. Please give their site a visit anyways - they need more people submitting dumps to help them work.

For using ext4, you could (I *think*) do that (with some changes to stuff like your fstab), but there's a new CD with ext4 support coming any time now. Check the arch-releng mailing list archives for more info.

ninjaprawn · 2009-02-17 19:05:54

i did a lot of reading about ext4! im not one for re-installing if i can help it! thats why i use linux instead of windows! i had to re-install windows every year to keep it working properly! thats one of the initial reasons i moved!

ext4 cant be used for root at the mo cos grub doesnt support it yet! grub2 in development does tho, maybe well get a clever patch to make grub work with ext4? who knows? for the time being tho, root isnt changing! changed my others without playing with the data stored there by unmounting and using the following;

tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/sdaX
fsck -pf /dev/sdaX

@Ranguvar;
thanks for that on Nouveau. i thought that after all these years, someone must be developing oss nvidia drivers that support 3d! ill take a look!

Inxsible · 2009-02-17 19:22:12

ninjaprawn wrote:

.....
ext4 cant be used for root at the mo cos grub doesnt support it yet! grub2 in development does tho, maybe well get a clever patch to make grub work with ext4? who knows? .....

As far as I know, the Arch grub has been updated with a patch to support booting from ext4. Of course if you are talking about the grub package on the 2008.06 ISO CD, then yes that doesn't support ext4....but if you use that CD to install, you can simply do a

pacman -Sy grub

after setting up the network.

ataraxia · 2009-02-17 19:30:38

ninjaprawn wrote:

ext4 cant be used for root at the mo cos grub doesnt support it yet!

Arch's grub can boot from ext4 just fine. I've done it.

ninjaprawn · 2009-02-19 21:33:55

ataraxia wrote:

ninjaprawn wrote:
ext4 cant be used for root at the mo cos grub doesnt support it yet!
Arch's grub can boot from ext4 just fine. I've done it.

awsome! ill change my root right now! thanks

Arch Linux

#1 2009-02-16 19:51:40

[solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#2 2009-02-16 19:59:09

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#3 2009-02-16 20:05:29

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#4 2009-02-16 20:53:50

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#5 2009-02-16 21:34:38

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#6 2009-02-16 22:35:31

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#7 2009-02-16 23:23:35

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#8 2009-02-17 19:05:54

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#9 2009-02-17 19:22:12

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#10 2009-02-17 19:30:38

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

#11 2009-02-19 21:33:55

Re: [solved]2 questions | nvidia drivers (oss v proprietry) & ext3 v ext4

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