The Linux Distro Thread (maybe)

[ej-solutions]

Thought I'd start this one off, rather than continue on another thread.

As a quick catch up for others:

Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).

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[otherego]

Strange - can't get the Browser version of Puppy working - it scans for ages when asked to find a wireless or ethernet connection, but finds neither - must get round to burning another CD and trying again. Ultilex sparked up fine on the old Thinkpad - although I haven't actually played with it yet.

But on to today's topic - I've decided that I'm too much of a coward to dual-boot Linux with Windows on any computer costing more than £50 - it's obviously not without its hazards, including the potential loss of Windows.

Some would argue this is simply an opportunity to expand the Linux partition, of course.

I recently endured a total lack of success trying to make a Macrium linux CD work on a Vista laptop (which will teach me to try to show off, and to play in future with my own humble machines out of the glare - in both senses- of other computer owners. Actually, the giggling is worse than the glaring, especially when no harm is done.)

A little reading does suggest that Vista is particularly obnoxious in this respect.

This site might be of interest.

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD

Laptop manufacturers, it seems, delight in supplying not a proper Windows DVD, but a "recovery CD." Whilst this allows you to reinstall everything as it was when your computer left the factory, it seems that it does not include options to repair your Windows system - you lose all your date and installed apps during the restore installation.

Worse, it seems that some manufacturers only provide a recovery partition. If you neglect to make a copy of the recovery DVD from this, or if the hard drive goes the hard way, you're faced with paying the manufacturer for a recovery DVD.

Someone's come up with a Vista Recovery Disc (as per the site above). It doesn't install Vista (so no need for any anxieties over piracy!), but gives one a shot at repairing a non-booting Vista installation.

Might be a useful addition to the toolkit - especially those who can afford modern laptops AND can't resist trying to dual-boot Vista with a Linux distro.

Interesting.

[ej-solutions]

Interesting site (downloaded EasyBCD). Won't be relevant for me unless I pick up a cheapo laptop with a legit copy of Vista on it (gawd forbid). ;-)

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[otherego]

unless I pick up a cheapo laptop with a legit copy of Vista

I think I can relate to this! Even trying to find something with legit XP AND a disk to reinstall if necessary is not easy.

"Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3 preinstalled" now raises a couple of red flags - only discovered recently that these SPs could be down-loaded easily.

And amazing how many computers with 128mb RAM, less than 1 ghz processors and tiny hard drives (some less than 6gb) have "fresh" or "clean" installations of Windows XP. I can't believe anybody would buy a licence costing more than the laptop is worth to install an OS it was never designed to cope with - I've even seen 64mb RAM machines advertised with XP. (I do realise MS claims this is possible.) So just how genuine that copy of the world's favourite (hah!) OS might be remains arguable.

I enjoy window shopping for laptops, but I think I would only buy if a) it's cheap and b) it comes with at least a manufacturer's restore disc.

Or better still, if the seller fesses up to fake Windows and knocks of the cost of the Windows licence - giving me an affordable portable on which to play with Linux.


Actually, from what I've seen of Vista, it's a very adequate OS - the trouble is that it manages to irritate people. Hopefully this has been sorted out in Windows 7, which allegedly has more modest hardware requirements.

And I'm increasingly unsure what any of them has to offer over modern Linux distros for average users like me.

[ej-solutions]

At long last, after much trawling of the internet, I've got pen input working correctly in Ubuntu (minimal install method). It required a very obscure (and only mentioned once) option to the pen configuration - "TrackRandR" which relates to screen rotation (which I haven't attempted, yet).

The next step is to continue looking at lightweight window managers - some of which are pretty rapid on low spec machines. Instead of consuming around 100Mb, they 'weigh in' around 40-50Mb, leaving more for applications.
Ubuntu MID looks to be a very interesting option for any touchscreen PC.

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[otherego]

This compulsion to spend hours playing with obsolete equipment is really quite inexplicable. It's a relief to find that others occasionally do the same.

The latest distraction, and ensuing request for expert advice, involves a Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo Mobile V5535. (Really silly name, but I like the look of it despite its lack of "features." Or perhaps because of its lack of features.) Much as advertised, it doesn't really work, but I'm not without hope.

I can live with the dead battery, and if a certain Channel Isles on-line seller ever gets its act together, there should be a hard drive on the way (ordered on the 2nd; not even sent yet).

My hope is that I might get the machine dual-booting its own Windows (Vista Home Basic - hmmm) and Linux Mint.

I'm having huge difficulties getting the screen resolution sorted out. It's a 15.4" screen with a resolution of 1280 X 800. Mint only offers a maximum of 800 X 600, which is pretty horrible.

Browsing the Mint and Ubuntu forums reveals the V5535 to be pretty horrible where Linux is concerned. Its SiS graphics seem to involve drivers that Ubuntu based distros don't have.

A couple of folk have managed work-arounds, which involve downloading and installing drivers, then editing the xorg.conf file.

The experts are all very helpful, but their accounts don't make it clear exactly where in xorg.conf one inserts the new text. My efforts so far have had varying results, ranging from the impression of having lost my glasses, through endless loops between warning messages, to total and irrevocable blackness.

At one stage, following one set of suggestions, I achieved a resolution of 1280 X 768. This was actually perfectly acceptable - it looked very nice. The only questionable bit was the refresh rate - which was 0. As in nothing at all. By that stage, I'd already established that on line video played fine (BBC footage, at any rate) - scrolling was a little jerky, perhaps.

Ubuntu 9.0.4, unsurprisingly, produced exactly the same results. Mepis coped fine with the screen resolution, but no way could I get the wireless working. (I seem to be haunted by Atheros wireless and Linux's seeming dislike of it - first the Eee PC, now this - at least this screen is easier on the eyes than the Eee's 7".)

So, a couple of questions, if I might - any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

1. Does anyone know a site that explains xorg.conf and how to edit it in really simple language?

2. I know that too high a refresh rate can damage a screen - would too low a refresh rate also be hazardous? I'm thinking of my achievement of a refresh rate of zero...

I'll check in from time to time. Having spent hours on the new toy (latest old heap???), I need to spend at least part of tomorrow continuing to try to figure out this HTML lark - I apologise in advance for THAT impending thread - no doubt it's perfectly simple once one's done it a couple of times.

[ej-solutions]

Take the simple route:
You appear to have got past the "Xorg -configure" point. 🙂
Fire up Mepis and open up the resultant xorg.conf.

Take note of the following, then duplicate on the Mint install:

Section "Module" (drivers)
Section "Device" (video card specifics)
Section "Monitor" (refresh rate and physical dimensions)
Section "Screen" (resolutions and bit depth [colours])
Section "DRI" (if mentioned in "Module" above)

Any help. ?:|

[Only worry about too high a refresh rate - more applicable to CRT but I wouldn't recommend it for any screen type ;-)]

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[otherego]

I didn't actually think of simply copying from one distro to another - and will give that a try on the morrow.

I must say, a laptop with no hard drive is an excellent excuse to waste a huge amount of time trying out various live CDs, and trying to install things to USB flash drives. The latter with very limited success, it has to be said - simply installing as if the flash drive were the machine's own HDD. Just for the fun of it, so no harm done when it doesn't entirely work.

If the poor thing survives until the hard drive arrives, it'll be interesting to see whether I can actually dual boot Vista and Linux - Vista has a bit of a poor reputation in this respect - but it will be interesting trying. Especially since the only Vista installation medium to hand is the Fujitsu Recovery CD.

[grumpy-cook]

Just spotted this - http://linuxmce.com/ - and immediately thought of Otherego. A nice little project for you to get your teeth into. ;-)

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[ej-solutions]

Nice one - that'll keep 'im quiet for a while. 😮
[Not a fan of KDE m'self].

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[grumpy-cook]

I've decided to replace my Ubuntu installation (which I dual boot with XP on my main PC). I'm torn between Mint and DreamLinux. Any views that may sway me?

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[ej-solutions]

DreamLinux has that swishing Vista-like face, whereas Mint is more sombre; a cross between Ubuntu and OpenSuse.
Mint is my daily flavour and DL is my near-permanent secondary Linux (in case I need to show off to Vista users ;-)).
Which reminds me to reboot to the other partition to update DL. :-D

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[grumpy-cook]

I think I am going with DL3.5. The Mint Gloria release notes say it's based on Jaunty, which I'd not upgraded to because it has issues with ATi graphics cards. Plus, I already have a copy of DL3.5 on cd. I can always change my mind if I don't like it.

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[otherego]

There comes a time when one needs to give it a break, I think.

I found myself feeling terrible after upsetting the little lady from Lloyds who rang me in the middle of dinner ("If you're going to be rude..." Didn't think I had been - a little short, perhaps) - then had one more go at sorting out my screen resolution.

There's quite a lot on various forums, and it seems that a number of Linux enthusiasts regard SiS chipsets with the same warmth and affection as they show for Mr Gates and his company. Infuriatingly, the one or two who've managed to make Mint work on a V5535 only mention one or two lines of code - and trying the suggestion of copying other distros' xorg.conf files, I found that every single one is quite radically different.

Good thing I don't have a cat. (Not nice to kick cats.) And I did say "sorry" to the girl from the call centre (and I believe made it reasonably clear that I never, ever wanted them to ring again - still don't know what they wanted.)

Thankfully, I have none of the gadgetry which would make g-c's suggestion in 307 even more tempting - would definitely end up in the funny farm.

If the brain starts working again, I'll venture onto the Mint forums on the morrow, I think. Someone may have solved this one by now.

Mandriva One works very nicely, and is a possible alternative - but for actually doing useful stuff, Mint is my favourite at the moment. Mepis is easier than Mint on this machine, but wireless is fiddly and I haven't really warmed to the K-menu. For some reason, I battled with Dream Linux, but this may be something that the dreaded Eee PC has done to that particular USB drive!

If anyone stumbles across any (simple) solutions to the problem of screen resolution/refresh rate using Mint on a Fujitsu V5535, please point me in the right direction!

In the meantime - ej, thanks very much for the advice. At least I feel that I'm learning something - including the fact that no two computers seem to behave the same with identical software... And once I get this out of my system, I'll have another go at the HTML studies. Which will probably result in Truff deciding it's time for his summer hols.

[ej-solutions]

:^O

I use TPS, so ANY call centres get short-shrift. 😉

[Send me an ASQ/CAM to forward on the xorg.conf files/variations that you have and I might be able to cobble something together]

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[otherego]

Thanks for that - I'm going to have one more bash, then call it a night - but will certainly take you up on that on the morrow if I get nowhere!

All part of the learning curve.

[otherego]

Another for ej...

Forgive my posting this here, but I'm not sure I could get it all into the eBay message system! Additionally, it might prove of interest to others considering Linux.

Good evening, "Old Guy"!

The problem, briefly, is that I'm battling to get the screen resolution sorted out on a Fujitsu Siemens V5535 laptop running Linux Mint. This is evidently quite a common difficulty, and seems related to the lack of a suitable driver for the SiS chipset in the V5535.

A driver ("sis671") has been compiled (no 3D, unfortunately)-and appears to be incorporated in Mint 7 - SiS_drv.so in /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/.

The V5535 should have a screen resolution of 1280x800, with a refresh rate of 60Hz.

Much googling revealed a partial cure:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
HorizSync 28-72
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection

-The Mint Display Preferences only “sees” Monitor: Unknown – the Detect Monitors button does nothing

-The default xorg.conf only allows screen resolutions of 800x600; 640x480 – refresh rates of 61 and 60Hz respectively;

-The configuration shown above allows 1280x800 (16:10), refresh rate zero;1024x768(4:3), refresh rate 61Hz; 800x600(4:3), refresh rate 61Hz; 640x480(4:3), refresh rate 60Hz.


I'm reassured by ej's comment that it is only a high refresh rate that will damage the screen - but for a permanent installation, it's obviously better to get it right!

Mepis came closer, but Mandriva One 2009 produces the desired effect - its xorg.conf is much longer, though. Please bear with me:

# File generated by XFdrake (rev 247269)

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the xorg.conf man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"
#DontZap # disable (server abort)
AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work
#DontZoom # disable / (resolution switching)
EndSection

Section "Module"
Disable "dri"
Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx" # 3D layer
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
Option "XkbOptions" "compose:rwin"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "SynapticsMouse1"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "monitor1"
VendorName "Generic"
ModelName "Flat Panel 1280x800"
HorizSync 31.5-90
VertRefresh 60

# Monitor preferred modeline (59.9 Hz vsync, 49.3 kHz hsync, ratio 16/10, 98 dpi)
ModeLine "1280x800" 71 1280 1328 1360 1440 800 803 809 823 -hsync -vsync

# TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
# 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 50.00 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630

# 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
ModeLine "768x576" 63.07 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616

# modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
ModeLine "1280x800_120" 181.21 1280 1376 1520 1760 800 801 804 858 -HSync +Vsync

# modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
ModeLine "1280x800_100" 147.89 1280 1376 1512 1744 800 801 804 848 -HSync +Vsync

# modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
ModeLine "1280x800_85" 123.38 1280 1368 1504 1728 800 801 804 840 -HSync +Vsync

# modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
ModeLine "1280x800_75" 107.21 1280 1360 1496 1712 800 801 804 835 -HSync +Vsync

# modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
ModeLine "1280x800_60" 83.46 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 828 -HSync +Vsync

# modeline generated by gtf(1) [handled by XFdrake]
ModeLine "1280x800_50" 68.56 1280 1336 1472 1664 800 801 804 824 -HSync +Vsync
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]"
BoardName "SiS SiS 670 / 671-based cards"
Driver "sisimedia"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultColorDepth 24

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "layout1"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "SynapticsMouse1" "SendCoreEvents"
Screen "screen1"
EndSection

I know I could simply install Mandriva, but would really like to stick with Mint if at all possible. Everything else, including the wireless, seems to work fine.

This evening's entertainment is to try to figure out how to install the hard drive which has arrived for the laptop. The plan then is to use its restore discs to reinstall Vista (Home Basic - I know, I know - but gives me a chance to play with Vista if it'll reinstall), and to try to use its own software to shrink its partition to allow room to use the rest of the hard drive for Mint (hopefully) or Mandriva - might actually be posting a separate question about that!

Any suggestions to sort out the resolution/refresh rate gratefully received!

[otherego]

PS:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

(and the associated actions) suggested on various forums seemed to do nothing at all.

[blackburn_stevie]

otherego ..... That post takes me back to when I was about 13. I went to a school that was well into this town twinning lark and, because one of the governors had business contacts in Ceylon, as it then was, we were encouraged to contact Ceylonese school kids as pen pals.
Your post above reminded me instantly of the feelings I used to get on the day that a letter arrived from Jinda.
Delighted to see it but didn't have a clue what she was saying :^O

Some people are like Slinkies: No purpose whatsoever, but still fun to watch fall down the stairs.

[ej-solutions]

That seems pretty straight forward - would be even better if you could get a hold of the sisimedia driver on its own...
Most of it is fairly easy substitution - take a backup copy, then..
For Mint xorg.conf:

Replace/add extra lines.
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
VendorName "Generic"
ModelName "Flat Panel 1280x800"
HorizSync 31.5-90
VertRefresh 60
ModeLine "1280x800" 71 1280 1328 1360 1440 800 803 809 823 -hsync -vsync
EndSection

Match the undelined Identifiers below (make them the same name)
Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
....
....
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultColorDepth 24
....
....

Add in all the subsections.
Subsection "Display"
....
....
....
EndSubsection
EndSection

See how it goes with that. Should X not start up, reboot to a command prompt and copy the xorg.conf to xorg.bad? copy your backup file to xorg.conf - you did take a backup?

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[otherego]

You're one ahead of me there.

I haven't a clue what I was saying!