OT - configuring XWindows

[Lone_Wolf]

Before i forget : Very nice laptop, bugbear !

I did some searching and found M17xR3 on Linux.

the problem is definitely the 2 videocards, and switching between them is barely supported and very experimental under linux.
(AMD catalyst driver 11.5 is first one that has some support for it)
While you will need a recent kernel to get decent performance (especially graphics), the best bet for now seems to be to try to get the system working with 1 videocard.
I'm inclined to advise you to make this a multi-boot system :
windows 7 (switching videocards is only supported in windows 7 afaik)
debian squeeze (since X works there)
test

first thing we'll need is the /var/log/Xorg.0.log , so we can see what X detects.
that file is rather big, so i suggest you put it on http://pastebin.com , not on oolite BBS.

[Bugbear]

Before i forget : Very nice laptop, bugbear !

Thanks Lone Wolf. It is this year's birthday present to me. I apologise in advance for bragging, but I did a navy mission which involved a massive Thargoid invasion - there must have been 30 or 40 objects within scanner range, and fps didn't drop below 55. I also highly recommend the solid state drive...

but back to the task at hand.
Nice bit of google-fu there...I've got me some reading to do.

I'll get back to you.

[Bugbear]

Thought I'd sign back in with my latest with this ongoing saga - there's been a bit happening.

I reached a crossroads a few weeks back. Back then I was dual booting Win7 / Debian GNU/Linux and all was ok, except for the fact that Windows Update was hassling me to install SP1. My first attempt at installing this update failed. Some searching revealed that SP1 wanted to update the MBR (or something)...bottom line was that it was screwing with the bootloader, which I didn't find very polite.

So I figured, if a Windows update is going to start screwing around with the bootloader, then it can't be trusted to touch the bare metal of the laptop. That was the final piece of motivation I needed to repurpose the 50GB Windows partition to a 'dev' Linux partition and run Windows applications via a VirtualBox VM.

Now I have no choice but to get my hardware issues sorted. At this point, at least, everything that I care about is working with the exception of the display and the laptop speakers (although headphones are ok...).

Still having issues getting a Debian test install to behave, so I've decided to see how far I can get with updating the display drivers on a stable install. Trying to see what help I can get from the Debian community, but to be honest, the people here are much more friendly; I won't repost all the gory details but if you're interested, here's what I've tried with regards to updating the on-board Intel display drivers

(Rereading the contributions on this thread; I really should give one of the *ubuntu distros another try. Maybe they have some secret sauce that is absent from Debian stable...)

I really can't take the 'Pelican back out into the spacelanes with this reality distortion filter bug...

[Micha]

You could always try Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) - it runs from the latest Debian branch, is a rolling release, and they have more hardware and multimedia support out of the box.
They also repackage Ubuntu.

Personally I was reasonably happy with Ubuntu until they shoved Unity down my throat. Thus my desktop is stuck on Maverick, and my new (second-hand) laptop is running Debian Wheezy. By all accounts I'm luckier with the laptop than you as most everything just worked out of the box (including the built-in webcam), and I even managed to get the fingerprint sensor working with minimal hassle.

I hope and pray that by the time I'm eventually forced to go to Gnome3 that they have sorted out the Gnome Panel to be just as usable as in Gnome2. Gnome Shell / Unity - fine for tablets (and possibly netbooks), crap (IMHO) for real machines.

[Bugbear]

Hi Micha,
Well last night I tried XUbuntu and Happy Days all the critical pieces of hardware were detected and set up.

I've now got 1920 x 1080 display with sound available via headphones (still no speakers though). In addition, everything installed without my need to tinker. Having said that, I need to see whether my graphics card is being utilised. Oolite, with all my OXPs, seems as smooth as I was accustomed to when it was on the Win 7 partition. For a tougher graphics test I'll be downloading Pioneer and cranking up the graphics.

I'm not sure of the desktop interface though - I've gotten used to the 'cleanliness' of Gnome2 that Squeeze uses, so that may be good reason to give LMDE a run.

[fronclynne]

I'm not sure of the desktop interface though - I've gotten used to the 'cleanliness' of Gnome2 that Squeeze uses, so that may be good reason to give LMDE a run.

Ha, "desktop"?

Code: Select all

evilwm &
rxvt &
xsetroot -cursor_name ul_angle -solid grey23
xset b 10 150 10
setxkbmap -option compose:lwin -option ctrl:nocaps
bclock -geometry 80x80-1+1

Now there's a desktop.

[Micha]

Now there's a desktop.

Heh, that's a bit on the minimalist side!

I quite like WindowMaker when I'm not running Gnome2.