Ubuntun Trial

[nikster]

Hey,

I am trying out Ubuntu 6.10 thanks the the excellent install CD. Ubuntu looks nice - this is a desktop where the people in charge actually have some taste.

It's also working on my Acer TravelMate 8204, at least for the most part. I need to get two things done before I install this on another partition though - the screen needs to recognize my 1680x1050 native resolution, and the graphics need to be hardware accelerated.

It's currently running in 1400x1050 which makes everything look fat. When I go to Preferences-Screen Resolution, my only options are 1400x1050 and lower.

I did some searching on the Ubuntu forums and was told to look in the xorg.conf file.

I did this, and it seems to have recognized my graphics card and the 1680 resolution - see here for a snippet on that:

Section "Screen"

Identifier "Default Screen"

Device "ATI Technologies, Inc. ATI Default Card"

Monitor "Generic Monitor"

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"

Depth 1

Modes "1680x1050"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 4

Modes "1680x1050"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 8

Modes "1680x1050"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 15

Modes "1680x1050"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 16

Modes "1680x1050"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 24

Modes "1680x1050"

EndSubSection

EndSection

So - this doesn't even mention any resolutions other than 1680. Yet, I don't get 1680x offered in the preferences popdown menu.

Anyone know what could be the problem? The whole idea is that I want to try and see if I can get it running properly - including resolution and everything - and try it out so I can see if it would be an alternative to Windoze.

Issue #2 is that the graphics are definitely sluggish, for example resizing the window. Not something I could accept considering this is a dual core 2GHz machine with ATI X1600 graphics card. The only explanation is that it's not running accelerated.

[cdnvic]

I've seen a few people having issues with ATI video drivers in the Ubuntu and Linux forums. It may not be the Ubuntu itself.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-he...resolution.html

You'd probably get better answers in the Ubuntu Support Forums

[nikster]

I've seen a few people having issues with ATI video drivers in the Ubuntu and Linux forums. It may not be the Ubuntu itself.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-he...resolution.html

You'd probably get better answers in the Ubuntu Support Forums

Hmm... I looked in the ubuntu forums, and indeed, there's a lot of ppl who have problems with ATI.

The driver install instructions looks horrible - both getting these drivers to work and making them run accelerated. I think that's it for my trial this time around

If it was just a matter of downloading ATI drivers and double-clicking them for install - OK. Fair enough. But it's not - one has to run all sorts of commands from the command shell and edit config files.

Edited February 3, 2007 by nikster

[cdnvic]

I'd just play around with it at the lower resolution and decide if you like it. If you come to the conclusion that you want to use it, get a different video card, if you decide Ubuntu isn't for you it's not a big deal.

[nikster]

I'd just play around with it at the lower resolution and decide if you like it. If you come to the conclusion that you want to use it, get a different video card, if you decide Ubuntu isn't for you it's not a big deal.

The thing is, I can't get a different video card - this is a laptop. So - too bad, not for me.

I have made a promise to myself in 2003 - the promise was to switch to Linux full time as soon as it installs on my system without any problems.

I would go and do the necessary partitioning, but I specifically excluded from this deal 1) compiling the kernel or 2) mucking with some properties files.

I am soft on 2), if there's some simple thing I can enter, like "use 1680 resolution" and "use acceleration", OK, I would do it even though I think the system should be smart enough to do that for me.

For example, Windows Vista installed on the laptop without a problem. It worked, it even automatically downloaded all hardware drivers as soon as it was running. That's what I mean by installing without problems.

Sadly, that's not the case yet for ubuntu. I liked the ubuntu desktop though. Maybe in another few years?!

I am going to have this laptop for another 2 years but I have sworn to myself that I will never buy a machine with ATI card again so next time the chances for Linux will be much improved. The X1600 has decent performance but the drivers are just crap, not just for Linux also under Windows.

Edited February 4, 2007 by nikster

[nikster]

There's yet hope - Somebody pointed out to me that there is an automated installer script for ATI / NVidia cards available:

http://lunapark6.com/?p=2717

It's great somebody did this - thanks Alberto Milone! The Envy script checks which card you have, then proceeds to download proprietary drivers from ATI/NVidia, then goes through all the magic steps to make it actually work on your system.

It's baffling that this is not included in the standard ubuntu install. I mean.. really?! The other instructions I found for "making ATI cards work" were ridiculously complicated, up to recompiling the kernel etc. From experience, I know very well that recompiling anything is a recipe for trouble 9 out of 10 times. It's "easy" as long as you do it every week or so and keep abreast of the latest developments and horror for everyone else.

I might try this next weekend when I have time on my hands...

Edited February 6, 2007 by nikster

[endure]

I have an Acer laptop on which various flavours of Linux either fail at about 20% or complete their installation but direct the video output to the external video so you finish up with a running system but a blank laptop screen. An investigation on the net reveals that this is a known problem which can be fixed by plugging in an external monitor and doing a bit of CLI. This has been the case for quite a while. XP/2000 just install and work.

[nikster]

Tried LinuxMint which is based on ubuntu but includes the automatic installer for ATI cards and other things.

Unfortunately, the Live CD is much worse than ubuntu - no feedback on progress, I thought it had crashed because it took so long. Then it booted into a completely messed-up screen - smears of color instead of a desktop. Clearly something wrong with gfx drivers...

[silvero]

So you have been using live CDs so far?

The ATI proprietary drivers would be your best bet and installing them looks pretty easy too, but I'm not sure if you can install them using the live CD because they normally need a reboot.

You could try installing them and then instead of rebooting, press ctrl-alt-backspace, you should arrive at a login screen and user 'ubuntu' will automatically login. I can't guarantee it'll work but it may be worth a try.

If you do this, and you are left at a command prompt after hitting ctrl-alt-backspace, type startx<enter> and then if you are still at the command prompt, hit ctrl-alt-F7.

If you do this, once you are back logged in, check whether you now have direct rendering by opening a terminal and typing:

glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"

Hopefully you will see:

direct rendering: Yes

If not, then confirm which driver you are using by typing this at the command prompt:

less /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down and look for something like this:

Section "Device"

Identifier "<your device name probably ATI X1600 something something>"

Driver "<this is the driver name>"

Good luck

[nikster]

So you have been using live CDs so far?

The ATI proprietary drivers would be your best bet and installing them looks pretty easy too, but I'm not sure if you can install them using the live CD because they normally need a reboot.

You could try installing them and then instead of rebooting, press ctrl-alt-backspace, you should arrive at a login screen and user 'ubuntu' will automatically login. I can't guarantee it'll work but it may be worth a try.

If you do this, and you are left at a command prompt after hitting ctrl-alt-backspace, type startx<enter> and then if you are still at the command prompt, hit ctrl-alt-F7.

If you do this, once you are back logged in, check whether you now have direct rendering by opening a terminal and typing:

glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"

Hopefully you will see:

direct rendering: Yes

If not, then confirm which driver you are using by typing this at the command prompt:

less /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down and look for something like this:

Section "Device"

Identifier "<your device name probably ATI X1600 something something>"

Driver "<this is the driver name>"

Good luck

Installing the ATI drivers didn't look easy to me - I found many posts on the Ubuntu forums about who got their ATI card working etc. None of them reported success with my particular model, the ATI X1600 (mobility).

The other thing is that Ubuntu correctly identified my card as X1600, it would just not offer the screeen resolutions I needed. Which makes me sceptical.

I just now tried the Sabayon live CD which is pretty excellent - it started up from CD, then provided me the option of installing OpenGL based accelerators. It also detected the card correctly. The 3D desktop has much more WOW effects than Vista, going a little overboard there but fun and all configurable so it was cool.

The only caveat: Sabayon didn't recognize my wireless card.

I have the feeling we are "getting there" with Linux... a long slow process, but it's getting better...

[Jimmy in Bangkok]

Hi nikster,

I am so happy I stumbled across this thread mate! I'm running exactly the same laptop (with Vista Ultimate at present) and was seriously about to give Ubuntu a try myself as a couple of other people are saying it's getting quite easy to use. having been spoon fed MS all my life I have always been a bit put off by Linux and the difficulties in using it. I'm certainly no computer guru and some of the open source stuff gets pretty technical but due to a few recent comments by others I was about to partition my drive and give it a go, now I'm glad I have held off after reading this. In all fairness though as they bring a new version out every 6 months maybe it won't be too far in the future and these minor problems will be fixed and I'll have another look. I do love the ease of Windows and I guess I've become quite spoiled although I am keen to try another OS of some type......maybe I'll give Mac a stab, that's supposed to be a pretty good OS as well.

Cheers

[jackk]

they bring a new version out every 6 months maybe it won't be too far in the future

Next release is planned for next month (april 19).

[Jimmy in Bangkok]

they bring a new version out every 6 months maybe it won't be too far in the future

Next release is planned for next month (april 19).

Hi jackk,

Thanks for the info mate. I have been poking around since my last post and I'm actually now dual booting with Vista and Xandros. I have (so far and with my nearly non existent experience of Linux) been extremely impressed with Xandros and how easy it is to use but I may be straying slightly off topic here so I will just say that I'm giving Ubuntu a miss for the time being and see how I go with Xandros.

Cheers

Jimmy