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Mailing lists / lazarus / 2010-01

Window body dragging

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Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

Hello,

I am investigating how to make a component act like the title bar, in the sense that it can be used to drag the window around.

We have 2 solutions at the moment:

1 - Use MouseMove, MouseUp, MouseDown to emulate this, but in my Mac it sometimes looses track of MouseMove because the mouse was faster then the window, so not 100% good

2 - Use platform-specific APIs. It's easy in Windows and we already have an idea in X11, but nothing yet in Carbon.

Has anyone tryed this before and knows if option 1 is good enough or how to implement 2 well?

thanks,

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

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dmitry boyarintsev
to Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho
Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote
1 - Use MouseMove, MouseUp, MouseDown to emulate this, but in my Mac it sometimes looses track of MouseMove because the mouse was faster then the window, so not 100% good

Yep. I've noted the same effect on OSX (using MouseUp/Down move), but was able to handle it in cross-plaform way.
Please see the sample at this thread:
http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,8186.msg39331.html#msg39331 (testTransp.zip)

thanks,
dmitry

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Michael Joyner ᏩᏯ
to Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho: I am investigating how to make a component act like the title bar, in the sense that it…
Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote 19 lines
Hello, I am investigating how to make a component act like the title bar, in the sense that it can be used to drag the window around. We have 2 solutions at the moment: 1 - Use MouseMove, MouseUp, MouseDown to emulate this, but in my Mac it sometimes looses track of MouseMove because the mouse was faster then the window, so not 100% good 2 - Use platform-specific APIs. It's easy in Windows and we already have an idea in X11, but nothing yet in Carbon. Has anyone tryed this before and knows if option 1 is good enough or how to implement 2 well? thanks,

This may be of help:

http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,7962.msg38255.html#msg38255

Create a new project.
Create a blank form.
Change border type to none.
For this example, I will leave the default name of 'Form1'. //for this example
Save all your files.
Goto the global var section for Form1.
Add:
Code:

  MouseX, MouseY: Integer;

Using the object inspector on Form1, create an event handler for 'OnMouseDown'.
The purpose of this event handler is to record the mouse position on the form for use later.
Code:

procedure TForm1.FormMouseDown(Sender: TObject; Button: TMouseButton;
  Shift: TShiftState; X, Y: Integer);
begin
     if [ssLeft] <= Shift then begin //only interested in left mouse button...
                                  //using <= as we are dealing with SETS.
        MouseX := X; //used later as an offset for the move
        MouseY := Y; //used later as an offset for the move
     end;
end;

Now for the actual movement.
We will respond the OnMouseMove event, as the setbounds sets the upper left corner of the mainform, we have to subtract out the form relative position of the mouse pointer from the new screen position so that the top left corner stays relative to the mouse during the move. Code:

procedure TForm1.FormMouseMove(Sender: TObject; Shift: TShiftState; X,
  Y: Integer);
    var P : TPoint;
begin
     if [ssLeft] <= Shift then begin //only left mouse button again.
                                  //using <= as we are dealing with SETS.
  P := ClientToScreen(Point(X, Y)); //convert to screen relative numbers instead of form relative numbers.
SetBounds(P.X-MouseX, P.Y-MouseY, Width, Height); //Move form to new location.
//Note that we subtract the mouse's relative position in regards to the upper left of the form.
     end;
end;

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Graeme Geldenhuys
to Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho: I am investigating how to make a component act like the title bar, in the sense that it…

2010/1/2 Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho :

1 - Use MouseMove, MouseUp, MouseDown to emulate this, but in my Mac it sometimes looses track of MouseMove because the mouse was faster then the window, so not 100% good

Normally that means you did not capture the mouse. Both XLib and GDI have "mouse capture" API's. I would image Mac does to. In fpGUI I had problems you describe, and enabling mousecapture/mouserelease solved it - no matter how fast you move the mouse.

2 - Use platform-specific APIs. It's easy in Windows and we already have an idea in X11, but nothing yet in Carbon.

In X11 it's possible without programmer intervension. Alt+Click anywhere on any window and then move the mouse without releasing the buttons. I think 99.9% of window managers support this.

Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

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Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho
to Graeme Geldenhuys
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote
Normally that means you did not capture the mouse. Both XLib and GDI have "mouse capture" API's. I would image Mac does to. In fpGUI I had problems you describe, and enabling mousecapture/mouserelease solved it - no matter how fast you move the mouse.

In LCL-Carbon setting the capture didn't solve it. The problem is when another window has focus and then I click and drag my window, then it loses track very quickly. It even does some wierd stuff like trying to resize it if I go with the mouse in some places =D If my window has focus and I drag it then it works perfectly.

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

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Graeme Geldenhuys
to Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

2010/1/2 Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho :

In LCL-Carbon setting the capture didn't solve it. The problem is when another window has focus and then I click and drag my window, then it loses track very quickly.

Are both those windows part of the same application? Or is it when you move from another application's focus window to your application's window?

I'm thinking along the lines of maybe you are using the wrong window handle when calling "mouse capture". I made such a problem in fpGUI when on mouse down the focus window wasn't the one I expected (order of events could cause this), and I then passed the wrong window handle to the mouse capture API. This caused strange/incorrect behavior.

Not sure if that is your problem. Also, I don't know Carbon (or Mac OS) at all, I also don't know how low level you are working - only with LCL API, or direct windowing API?

Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

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Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho
to Graeme Geldenhuys
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote
Are both those windows part of the same application? ?Or is it when you move from another application's focus window to your application's window?

Between different applications. But the handle can't be the problem, because I am specifically using Self.Handle

Not sure if that is your problem. Also, I don't know Carbon (or Mac OS) at all, I also don't know how low level you are working - only with LCL API, or direct windowing API?

Only LCL, I saw that SetCapture is implemented for Carbon and trusted it.

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

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Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho
to Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

I think it's a limitation of Mac OS X, I just noticed that while I can drag Firefox clicking on it's toolbar, if the click comes while another application has focus, it doesn't drag. Firefox probably cancelled this direct drag because it doesn't work very well.

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho

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Hans-Peter Diettrich
to Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho: I am investigating how to make a component act like the title bar, in the sense that it…
I am investigating how to make a component act like the title bar, in the sense that it can be used to drag the window around.

Is this investigation related to docking?

When you are interested in non-rectangular windows, without a title bar, I have no idea how to implement that.

Show quoted text 11 lines
We have 2 solutions at the moment: 1 - Use MouseMove, MouseUp, MouseDown to emulate this, but in my Mac it sometimes looses track of MouseMove because the mouse was faster then the window, so not 100% good 2 - Use platform-specific APIs. It's easy in Windows and we already have an idea in X11, but nothing yet in Carbon. Has anyone tryed this before and knows if option 1 is good enough or how to implement 2 well?

Actually different window managers are involved, not bound to specific widgetsets. It may be easier to ignore the existence of such window managers, instead of adding another dimension to the already existing choice of an targetOS and an widgetset.

I had an idea to add another docking button to the title bar of a window, that can be used to emulate dragging forms without assistance by the window manager. Since I couldn't implement such an button myself, I added an dock grip icon (red pin) to all dockable forms. That workaround interferes with the child controls of the windows, and is mereley a proof of concept instead of a solution for dragging forms.

A slightly different implementation could check e.g. the CTRL key, in order to distinguish between moving and dragging forms from the title bar. This solution would not change the appearance of the title bar, but I have no idea whether it's feasable with the various window managers.

DoDi

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Hans-Peter Diettrich
to Graeme Geldenhuys: 2010/1/2 Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho : Normally that means you did not capture the mouse.…
Show quoted text 6 lines
> 2 - Use platform-specific APIs. It's easy in Windows and we already > have an idea in X11, but nothing yet in Carbon. In X11 it's possible without programmer intervension. Alt+Click anywhere on any window and then move the mouse without releasing the buttons. I think 99.9% of window managers support this.

What's the expected result of this procedure? Nothing happens with the clicked window on my openSUSE/KDE, at least it doesn't move with the mouse. But the window manager seems to have entered some special state, which is not reset when the mouse button is released. How to return to "normal" processing?

DoDi

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Juha Manninen
to Hans-Peter Diettrich
Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote 13 lines
Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb: >> 2 - Use platform-specific APIs. It's easy in Windows and we already >> have an idea in X11, but nothing yet in Carbon. > > In X11 it's possible without programmer intervension. Alt+Click > anywhere on any window and then move the mouse without releasing the > buttons. I think 99.9% of window managers support this. What's the expected result of this procedure? Nothing happens with the clicked window on my openSUSE/KDE, at least it doesn't move with the mouse. But the window manager seems to have entered some special state, which is not reset when the mouse button is released. How to return to "normal" processing?

I have OpenSuse 11.2 with KDE 4.3 and I can Alt-drag a window. Alt Gr does not work, you must use the left side Alt.
I haven't seen that special state either.

Juha Manninen

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Michael Schneider
to Juha Manninen
I have OpenSuse 11.2 with KDE 4.3 and I can Alt-drag a window. Alt Gr does not work, you must use the left side Alt. I haven't seen that special state either.

The same here with openSUSE 11.0 and KDE 3.

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Graeme Geldenhuys
to Hans-Peter Diettrich: What's the expected result of this procedure? Nothing happens with the clicked window on…

2010/1/3 Hans-Peter Diettrich :

What's the expected result of this procedure? Nothing happens with the clicked window on my openSUSE/KDE, at least it doesn't move with the mouse.

It allows you to drag a window around on the desktop - just like you can do with the title bar. The nice thing of
Left_Alt+Left_mousebutton_click is that you can drag and reposition windows, even if you can't see the titlebar, and you can click anywhere in that window.

But the window manager seems to have entered some special state,

I don't know about that, but Left_Alt+Click has worked since (I'm guessing here) the last 10+ years.

There are many other such options too:

* Left Alt + middle mouse button = resize a window while dragging the mouse. Resizing behaviour is based on where in the window you click.

* Left Alt + right mouse button = brings up the system menu

* etc..

Most if not all X11 window managers implement these features. It's one of those "always been available" yet hidden to new users features - similar to the select text and middle mouse click to paste (separate clipboard is used compared to Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V)

Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

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Juha Manninen
to Hans-Peter Diettrich
Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote
Then I don't understand why it doesn't work in openSUSE 10.3 :-( Perhaps it's broken by VMWare?

If you decide to update your OpenSuse then I can recommend version 11.2. Everything is fast and snappy. KDE4 is "ready", KDE3 programs are not needed any more. I even marked QT3 and KDE3 base libs as "never install" in YaSt package manager, so I don't accidentally install any old progs.

Juha Manninen

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Hans-Peter Diettrich
to Juha Manninen
If you decide to update your OpenSuse then I can recommend version 11.2.

I'm still waiting for a version that does a proper install. I don't want my other systems affected by that install, as happened on my last test of the 11.2 :-(

DoDi

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Graeme Geldenhuys
to Hans-Peter Diettrich

2010/1/4 Hans-Peter Diettrich :

Show quoted text 7 lines
Juha Manninen schrieb: > If you decide to update your OpenSuse then I can recommend version 11.2. I'm still waiting for a version that does a proper install. I don't want my other systems affected by that install, as happened on my last test of the 11.2 :-(

During the last week I played with SuSE 9.1 (for Kylix 3 testing) and Slackware 12 (first ever linux distro I used: back in the early nineties). I forgot how nice it is to have FPC, Lazarus and other development tools work "out-of-the-box" (no extra downloads required) compared to Ubuntu.

But I guess that's the price you have to pay if you choose a distro that is only 1 CD download in size (Ubuntu). Sometimes convenient and sometimes not. :-) I remember I really used to like SuSE too, but it's always a 5 CD download... bandwidth I don't have. :-(

Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

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Juha Manninen
to Graeme Geldenhuys
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote 7 lines
2010/1/4 Hans-Peter Diettrich : > Juha Manninen schrieb: >> If you decide to update your OpenSuse then I can recommend version 11.2. > > I'm still waiting for a version that does a proper install. I don't want > my other systems affected by that install, as happened on my last test of > the 11.2 :-(

How did it affect your other systems?
Installation to different partitions works, and selecting different OSs from boot menu. You may have to select "expert" partitioning during installation, instead of accepting the defaults.
Creating and resizing partitions works, too.
Or, is the problem related to some virtual machines?

Show quoted text 10 lines
During the last week I played with SuSE 9.1 (for Kylix 3 testing) and Slackware 12 (first ever linux distro I used: back in the early nineties). I forgot how nice it is to have FPC, Lazarus and other development tools work "out-of-the-box" (no extra downloads required) compared to Ubuntu. But I guess that's the price you have to pay if you choose a distro that is only 1 CD download in size (Ubuntu). Sometimes convenient and sometimes not. :-) I remember I really used to like SuSE too, but it's always a 5 CD download... bandwidth I don't have. :-(

No, it has changed for OpenSuse. It is now either 1 CD or 1 DVD. You need the bandwidth anyway. With DVD install you need it for downloading the image. With CD install you need it for installing additional SW (like FPC/Lazarus) from repos. At that point the OS is functional already and downloads can happen in background. It worked well for me. I have a 1 Mbit ADSL connection now but a slower one is OK, too.

Regards,
Juha Manninen

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Graeme Geldenhuys
to Juha Manninen

2010/1/5 Juha Manninen :

No, it has changed for OpenSuse. It is now either 1 CD or 1 DVD.

But I guess the OpenSuse 1 CD will be similar to Ubuntu. No development packages are pre-installed, no TeX support by default etc.. That means I can run Lazarus IDE, but I cannot compile and link any projects. :-( Like I said, they price you pay for a smaller download. With Ubuntu I need to download about another 200-300MB of packages to get LaTeX and programming (linking) to work on such a system. With SuSE 9.1 and Slackware 12 I did not have to download and install anything extra.

You need the bandwidth anyway. With DVD install you need it for downloading

We have a few Freedom Toasters in our area. I normally go there and burn the DVD distros for free. Freedom Toaster is a touch screen kiosk where you can get most Open Source software for free. Another sub-project created by Mark Shuttleworth. Is Freedom Toasters available in other countries too? I'm from South Africa.

http://www.freedomtoaster.co.za/

downloads can happen in background. It worked well for me. I have a 1 Mbit ADSL connection now but a slower one is OK, too.

Unfortunately, it's not about the speed for me (I have 3.7MB wireless 3G connection and get a avg 2 Mbit download speed), it's about the data limit. I normally purchase a 500MB data bundle per month, though last month I had to purchase a 2Gig data bundle, but such data bundles are very expensive in South Africa.

Anyway, I'll have a look next time I visit the Freedom Toaster to see if the OpenSuse DVD version is available. I think Ubuntu also has a DVD edition now, I'll have to double check.

Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

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Michael Van Canneyt
to Graeme Geldenhuys
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote 23 lines
2010/1/5 Juha Manninen : > > No, it has changed for OpenSuse. It is now either 1 CD or 1 DVD. But I guess the OpenSuse 1 CD will be similar to Ubuntu. No development packages are pre-installed, no TeX support by default etc.. That means I can run Lazarus IDE, but I cannot compile and link any projects. :-( Like I said, they price you pay for a smaller download. With Ubuntu I need to download about another 200-300MB of packages to get LaTeX and programming (linking) to work on such a system. With SuSE 9.1 and Slackware 12 I did not have to download and install anything extra. > You need the bandwidth anyway. With DVD install you need it for downloading We have a few Freedom Toasters in our area. I normally go there and burn the DVD distros for free. Freedom Toaster is a touch screen kiosk where you can get most Open Source software for free. Another sub-project created by Mark Shuttleworth. Is Freedom Toasters available in other countries too? I'm from South Africa. http://www.freedomtoaster.co.za/

Nice project. It does not exist here, as far as I know.

Show quoted text 10 lines
> downloads can happen in background. It worked well for me. I have a 1 Mbit > ADSL connection now but a slower one is OK, too. Unfortunately, it's not about the speed for me (I have 3.7MB wireless 3G connection and get a avg 2 Mbit download speed), it's about the data limit. I normally purchase a 500MB data bundle per month, though last month I had to purchase a 2Gig data bundle, but such data bundles are very expensive in South Africa.

Hah. And I thought the situation in Belgium was bad :(

Michael.

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Juha Manninen
to Graeme Geldenhuys: 2010/1/5 Juha Manninen : But I guess the OpenSuse 1 CD will be similar to Ubuntu. No…
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote 7 lines
We have a few Freedom Toasters in our area. I normally go there and burn the DVD distros for free. Freedom Toaster is a touch screen kiosk where you can get most Open Source software for free. Another sub-project created by Mark Shuttleworth. Is Freedom Toasters available in other countries too? I'm from South Africa. http://www.freedomtoaster.co.za/

First time I heard of that now. There seems to be one in India and one in Ethiopia. It would be useful in many other less developed countries, too. Good!

Juha

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Graeme Geldenhuys
to Juha Manninen

2010/1/5 Juha Manninen :

First time I heard of that now. There seems to be one in India and one in Ethiopia. It would be useful in many other less developed countries, too. Good!

I found a few more international ones not listed on the website. One in Canada and one in USA too. It seems the idea is catching on. :-) We also have a distance learning university in South Africa (called Unisa) than spread there coarse material to students across the country - one kiosk in every registration office.

http://washlee.net/toaster/software
http://cdot.senecac.on.ca/projects/toaster/

The last one shows a nice step-by-step process of how they built the toaster.

Maybe I should see if I can add FPC and Lazarus (maybe as a pre-build VirtualBox session) to our local Freedom Toasters.

Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

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Howard Page-Clark
to Graeme Geldenhuys
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote 6 lines
We also have a distance learning university in South Africa (called Unisa) than spread there coarse material to students across the country - one kiosk in every registration office.

I guess you meant to write "...spread their course material..."! Students, if not the rest of us, have encountered too much coarse material already!

Regards

Howard

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Florian Klaempfl
to Graeme Geldenhuys: 2010/1/5 Juha Manninen : But I guess the OpenSuse 1 CD will be similar to Ubuntu. No…
Show quoted text 11 lines
2010/1/5 Juha Manninen : > No, it has changed for OpenSuse. It is now either 1 CD or 1 DVD. But I guess the OpenSuse 1 CD will be similar to Ubuntu. No development packages are pre-installed, no TeX support by default etc.. That means I can run Lazarus IDE, but I cannot compile and link any projects. :-( Like I said, they price you pay for a smaller download. With Ubuntu I need to download about another 200-300MB of packages to get LaTeX and programming (linking) to work on such a system. With SuSE 9.1 and Slackware 12 I did not have to download and install anything extra.

There is also an Ubuntu DVD image available? Though I don't know what it really contains.

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Hans-Peter Diettrich
to Juha Manninen: How did it affect your other systems? Installation to different partitions works, and…
Show quoted text 5 lines
>> I'm still waiting for a version that does a proper install. I don't want >> my other systems affected by that install, as happened on my last test of >> the 11.2 :-( How did it affect your other systems?

After an upgrade from 10.3, my machine didn't boot any more. The same when I did a fresh install into that partition. Also my other machine didn't boot after a new installation. I only could make the installation work in a VM, and there it remains now.

DoDi

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Juha Manninen
to Hans-Peter Diettrich
Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote
After an upgrade from 10.3, my machine didn't boot any more. The same when I did a fresh install into that partition. Also my other machine didn't boot after a new installation. I only could make the installation work in a VM, and there it remains now.

An upgrade for an old release could be a problem but a fresh install should really work. I have done it for 3 machines using the 1 CD installation. My own computer, then a super modern ASRock ION 330, and then one laptop with Windows Vista already installed. No problems. Windows appeared on the laptop's boot menu automatically and can be booted. This week I will install it to one more machine.
OpenGL doesn't work for all display cards but that is not really Suse's fault.

In future Suse version can be upgraded by changing package repos and then running "zypper dup" (like Distro Update). I tested zypper dup already for KDE4.3.4 upgrade. No problems there either.

What could be your problem? Corrupted installation media? You could try downloading again.

Regards,
Juha Manninen

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Flávio Etrusco
to Graeme Geldenhuys: 2010/1/4 Hans-Peter Diettrich : During the last week I played with SuSE 9.1 (for Kylix 3…
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote 24 lines
2010/1/4 Hans-Peter Diettrich : > Juha Manninen schrieb: > >> If you decide to update your OpenSuse then I can recommend version 11.2. > > I'm still waiting for a version that does a proper install. I don't want my > other systems affected by that install, as happened on my last test of the > 11.2 :-( During the last week I played with SuSE 9.1 (for Kylix 3 testing) and Slackware 12 (first ever linux distro I used: back in the early nineties). I forgot how nice it is to have FPC, Lazarus and other development tools work "out-of-the-box" (no extra downloads required) compared to Ubuntu. But I guess that's the price you have to pay if you choose a distro that is only 1 CD download in size (Ubuntu). Sometimes convenient and sometimes not. :-) I remember I really used to like SuSE too, but it's always a 5 CD download... bandwidth I don't have. :-( -- Regards, ?- Graeme -

Err, unless I got you wrong, why don't use the ubuntu dvd?

-Fl?vio

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Graeme Geldenhuys
to Flávio Etrusco

2010/1/6 Fl?vio Etrusco :

Err, unless I got you wrong, why don't use the ubuntu dvd?

I only found out recently that it exists, but I don't know what is included on the DVD. Hopefully some *-devel packages. I'll try and Google to see what's on the DVD first.

Regards, - Graeme - _______________________________________________ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

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Hans-Peter Diettrich
to Juha Manninen: An upgrade for an old release could be a problem but a fresh install should really work.…
What could be your problem? Corrupted installation media?

No media problem. In the meantime I tried Ubuntu 9.10 and had it up and running after a few minutes. A few minutes later I had downloaded and installed the nVidia drivers, and configured my multi-monitor desktop. The system also goes properly into standby. Only TV support didn't work, no difference to Suse, seems to be a special hardware issue.

Encouraged by this success I tried Suse 11.2 again, what turned out as a nightmare. After an hour of media check, configuring and installation I got an desktop without display options. No chance to set the display resolution, or multi-monitor support, and the desktop showed garbage every now and then. No network connections, neither via USB-DSL nor WLAN, only after I plugged in a network cable (across my room) I could use the Internet. But even then I couldn't install the nVidia drivers, the system went into text mode and was "confused" about something, and finally blanked the screen :-(

The only good news: the multi-boot works, so that I can still boot 10.3.

In my next try I'll check Kubuntu, and consider to make it my new working system.

DoDi

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Juha Manninen
to Hans-Peter Diettrich
Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote 14 lines
Juha Manninen schrieb: > What could be your problem? Corrupted installation media? No media problem. In the meantime I tried Ubuntu 9.10 and had it up and running after a few minutes. A few minutes later I had downloaded and installed the nVidia drivers, and configured my multi-monitor desktop. The system also goes properly into standby. Only TV support didn't work, no difference to Suse, seems to be a special hardware issue. Encouraged by this success I tried Suse 11.2 again, what turned out as a nightmare. After an hour of media check, configuring and installation I got an desktop without display options. No chance to set the display resolution, or multi-monitor support, and the desktop showed garbage every now and then.

There is no more link in Yast for the old SAX2. KDE's control center has display resolution settings which apparently replace SAX2. I started SAX2 from command line myself.

Show quoted text 5 lines
No network connections, neither via USB-DSL nor WLAN, only after I plugged in a network cable (across my room) I could use the Internet. But even then I couldn't install the nVidia drivers, the system went into text mode and was "confused" about something, and finally blanked the screen :-(

Sounds bad!
I don't have multi-monitor or even WLAN and Suse has worked for me, but I must believe it has problems with hardware more than some other distros do. Pity! When it works it is the best KDE-based distro, and now it is also optimized better than before (speed and memory).

Juha Manninen

The only good news: the multi-boot works, so that I can still boot 10.3. In my next try I'll check Kubuntu, and consider to make it my new working system.

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Juha Manninen
to Hans-Peter Diettrich: No media problem. In the meantime I tried Ubuntu 9.10 and had it up and running after a…

@DoDi

This is little OT at Lazarus list but I want to tell about my success with Opensuse 11.2 on a new mini-laptop.
After your comments (below) about WLAN and all I was curious if I get it working.

Show quoted text 9 lines
Encouraged by this success I tried Suse 11.2 again, what turned out as a nightmare. After an hour of media check, configuring and installation I got an desktop without display options. No chance to set the display resolution, or multi-monitor support, and the desktop showed garbage every now and then. No network connections, neither via USB-DSL nor WLAN, only after I plugged in a network cable (across my room) I could use the Internet. But even then I couldn't install the nVidia drivers, the system went into text mode and was "confused" about something, and finally blanked the screen :-(

... but no, everything worked like charm for me. I copied Suse CD-image to a USB stick with "dd" command, then edited laptop's bios settings to enable F12 boot menu. Then I booted from USB and installed everything using mostly defaults. WLAN worked automatically. There is a free WLAN in our school for everybody. I only typed a password and it started to move data > 50 Mbits/s. I have 1 Mbits/s ADSL at home so it feels snappy (I thought wireless is slower).

The machine is Acer eMachines em250. About like this but has smaller HD (160GB) and Windows XP:
http://www.liliputing.com/2010/01/closer-look-at-the-emachines-em250- netbook.html

It is rather cheap (236 euros) but has all the features the high-end machines had 3 years ago. It has more memory than my desktop machine has. With an external monitor I could easily use it as my only machine. Recommended!

I really don't know what caused your problems with Opensuse 11.2. Must be some combination of hardware.

Regards,
Juha

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