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]

Ta, ej - I'll report back shortly.

The joy of Unetbootin - when it goes wrong, press the off switch, then fire it up and try again.

[otherego]

I suspect I'm messing up the wording, somehow - all I get is "Error parsing the config file."

But as I said earlier - there does seem to be a known problem with Mint/Ubuntu and this particular laptop.

The infuriating thing is that only modest editing is required to sort out the resolution - but the refresh rate is proving a major obstacle. I wonder whether the driver available via the Ubuntu forums has a "bug"?

I'm just going to have one more bash at it. In the final analysis, Mandriva would do everything I need - but it would be satisfying to sort this out!

[otherego]

Hmm - it still doesn't want to know.

I also tried the suggestion here:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help/127240-solved-trouble-screen-resolution-3.html

which resulted in a max resolution of 1024x768, with an 85Hz refresh rate. Reducing to 800x600 (I think) still resulted in a refresh rate of 81Hz. One extreme to another.

Coffee break, I think!

[ej-solutions]

The vesa driver is a non-starter as that will restrict resolution, likely to 800x600.

Remove the "modeline" - that's probably what's causing the error - may require a module to be active to work.

This portion is promising:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 30-71
VertRefresh 50-160
EndSection

Change the underscored to what is in the Mint one, by default (can't see it on this screen at present).

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[otherego]

That gives 1280x768, refresh rate 0, or 1028x76 85Hz.

It's certainly not giving up without a fight.

[ej-solutions]

"refresh rate 0" - is this an issue? Does it actually work - might just be a GUI reporting problem? Zero could just mean default rate.

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[otherego]

That's a good point - and I think I might just go with that setting.

Do you ever get to that stage where it's just numbers and they don't make much sense? I'll leave it for a bit and try again tomorrow.

The more I think of it, the more the idea of a GUI reporting problem makes sense. The only noticeable problem is rather jerky scrolling.

Still - I'll play a bit more on the morrow and report back.

In the meantime, I found this interesting - given the world's Favourite Software Vendor's attitude to attempted piracy of its products:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8197990.stm

[ej-solutions]

:8}
They don't like it up 'em! The whole point of XML is to be an open standard, not some proprietary locked-in format.

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[otherego]

I think they'd like to buy the rights to every bit of software on the planet and then charge lots of money for it - thank goodness for the resilience of the open-source community.

Thanks for all the assistance - I'll have another shot on the morrow.

[ej-solutions]

Get 'nasty':
Change VertRefresh 50-160 to 85-160 - see if you still get the same resolution. If that doesn't work try 60, then 70, 75, 80 and 81 until you get to a stable screen.
:-)

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[otherego]

Even getting nasty didn't do the trick. Was definitely worth a try, though.

I tried playing a couple of YouTube videos with the 0 refresh rate - they kept freezing, although I realise there could be all sorts of reasons for this.

When I scroll down pages with 0 refresh rate, they move in a series of hiccups. So there does seem to be a snag there.

When I get back later, I think it's time to see whether I can figure out how to fit the new hard drive - doesn't look too hard, touch wood - and install Vista. A couple of guides I've seen suggest using Vista's own partitioning ("disc management" or something) program to shrink its partition, so it's probably easiest to install it first in any case.

I've posted a query on the Mint forum, too, but no response so far. I'll check this evening before I do anything, anyway - perhaps someone has solved the mystery.

Googling reveals quite a lot of threads suggesting this to be a hassle with this computer and Ubuntu-based distros - it seems to be a little hit-and-miss whether folk resolve it satisfactorily or not. None of the suggestions has worked for me - some of that may be due to lousy editing skills, but my impression is that, yet again, no two computers seem to behave exactly the same
way.

It would still be nice to get Mint on to it as I'm hoping to make this an everyday doing-stuff machine as opposed to an experimental victim - but there might be good things to be said about having Mint on the desktop and Mandriva on the laptop. Oddly, I had problems with the resolution in DreamLinux - which is not typical - it's spoken of in one or two places as a distro that DOES work with the V5535

I actually prefer Mandriva, although I agree that DL is better for showing off to non-linux types!

[ej-solutions]

Otherego:
http://ncc-1701a.homelinux.net/~linux-sis/index.php?page=FrontPage

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[ej-solutions]

Learn something new every day - must've improved the Vesa specification:

"The VESA driver can do the trick

First of all it IS possible to achieve the graphic chip's full resolution with only the default VESA driver at hand. So if you don't need the extra performance of a dedicated driver or you want to run 100% free quality software you can get away without installing additional software. All you have to do is to fine tune the X server's configuration. This means you have the change some settings in the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. The information given here has been tested on a Fujitsu-Siemens Esprimo V5535 notebook which is just one of those low-priced notebooks offered these days."

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[otherego]

Aha!

Thanks, ej, I'll have a good look at that when I get in.

Looks like Vista's a sod to dual boot - hates having its partition resized (but there do seem to be ways and means - easeus (I think) for instance, and at least one chap succeeded with GParted. We'll see.

I still find it annoying that some hardware manufacturers actually seem to resist Linux support.

Although I'm still very much feeling my way here, I get the impression that the xorg.conf has been "automated" in recent Ubuntu type distros. I still haven't had much joy with the

"sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg"

I see there's a suggestion to follow it with:

"sudo apt-get remove xserver-video-sis671"

Yikes, must scuttle - but I'll have a good play with the live disc later, and maybe venture a spot of partitioning and installing if the results are encouraging.

[ej-solutions]

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg - MUST be done whilst X isn't running, usually by choosing a console session, prior to logging in and running sudo init 3

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[otherego]

It looks as if it'll be worth installing Mint, anyway - messing around with xorg.conf and the like on a flash drive or live CD has its limitations - like when ctrl-alt-backspace doesn't work after a change. And a reboot for a system running in RAM is a touch pointless.

Meanwhile, I seem to have divided the hard drive in two, using EASEUS - so far, so good. For a while, it hung at the "Windows didn't start" page, with the request to insert the Vista Disc - Fujitsu restore disc, yeah right - then it started. Annoyingly, the used disc space is six and a half gb greater than before I halved the partition size. A Vista mystery - and that was before turning the page file, system restore and hibernation back on.

I'm not losing too much sleep over that just yet, but have decided to run a full chkdsk - which will doubtless take a while, even if Windows only has half as much space left.

If the chkdsk goes OK, I plan to install Mint on the remaining hard drive space. It would be useful to have a common partition to store files which could then be worked on from either the Mint or the Vista partition.

It's a 149gb hard drive - What thoughts on 74gb NTFS (Vista's new home), 10gb FAT32 for both systems to use for "common working files", and the remaining 60 -odd gb for Mint? I was wondering about splitting Mint's partition into 10gb root (might get away with less?), 2gb swap (more than necessary, perhaps? - the computer has 2.0gb RAM, 256mb of that snaffled for graphics), and the rest for a home partition - all in an extended partition, I guess.

Suggestions welcomed - I'm a little wary of the shared FAT 32 partition (security, fragmentation?), but don't feel too confident about trying to install ext 3 drivers for Vista, and can't figure out from my googling whether Mint can read from and write to ntfs.

And then I can try to sort out this wretched display problem on an installed system - might be less fiddly!

As a last resort, it should be simple enough to install Mandriva to the same partitions.

[ej-solutions]

I use a 40Gb 'shared' NTFS. 8Gb Mint root, 1Gb tmp, 512Mb swap and 6Gb home. Plus others - dedicated photos, Distro images etc. on a 160Gb disc. [XP does reside in only 6Gb, with 8Gb for Programs, though].

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[otherego]

At the moment, I'm happy to keep it as simple as possible - but can see the advantage of giving Mint at least separate root and home partitions. 8 gb is probably a more realistic figure for root, I guess.

After a couple of days battling with Vista, I still cannot believe how rapidly that OS chews up disc space - 28gb used, and nothing in any of the user folders other than half a gig of downloaded apps. (The initial installation, before installing any drivers, came to 8.49 gb. I have no idea what it includes). Despite happily installing everthing in sight, I've only got this Mint installation to 2.8gb of root space.

Presumably Mint simply works with your NTFS partition. Do you have to allocate it a specific mount point, in order for Mint to recognise it when it's the active distro?

[ej-solutions]

No does it automagically - I did have an entry in /etc/fstab to load it on boot but not got round to putting it back in, since a re-install (me messing about too much, I hasten to add).
The separate home partition can save a bit of grief, if you fancy starting afresh 😉

Just bear in mid that if you use folder/file compression in Windoze (as I do), then Linux can read/write to them no problem but new files that are created in the same folder (I hate that - directory!) will not have any compression.

I'm sure, just like XP, that you can stop a lot of extraneous rubbish: System Restore, Indexing, pre-fetching etc. etc....
Compress little used directories, such as Service Packs/i386 - if you wish to retain them. Delete all the stored updates in the system directory, those $kb....$ files etc.

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[ej-solutions]

Note: I usually stick with 6Gb for root but have been 'playing' with server-type programs recently, so went for a bit more space. I could have created symbolic links to another partition but couldn't be bothered. :_|

[Insert missing 'n' in previous post].

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