SIS historically sucks

Story: Linux Consumers Should Still Avoid S3 GraphicsTotal Replies: 6
Author Content
helios

Nov 12, 2012
10:48 AM EDT
SIS motherboards have always been a challenge on which to install Linux. We were donated 2 dozen Fujitsu notbooks a couple of years ago and I think we tried somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 distros...none of them would install. The majority of them would not even boot. PCLinuxOS was the closest we came to a booted live system but the graphics froze three seconds after the login screen and that was at 256 colors at the lowest resolution possible. We ended up selling them on our ebay store for operating funds.

Thankfully, we run into fewer and fewer SIS systems these days and the main player for these motherboards seemed to be Fujitsu.
caitlyn

Nov 12, 2012
1:36 PM EDT
Quoting:notbooks
Was that deliberate or a type which ended up expressing your frustration, Ken?

I still have a circa 2001Toshiba Libretto L1 (600MHz Transmeta Crusoe, 384MB RAM) which still runs decently with a lightweight Linux distro. It has an S3 Savage IX graphics chipset and that actually works well and has always been pretty well supported. My only complaint is that under Windows ME (the factory OS) it supported 1600x1200 resolution. That was also true back in the day when XFree86 was the standard X implementation. Under X.org, for a long time, I could only get 1280x1024 out of it under Linux. With the latest SalixOS I actually can get the full supported resolution again.

The point is that once upon a time there were S3 drivers that worked and then X regressed for a very long time.
jdixon

Nov 12, 2012
1:56 PM EDT
> The point is that once upon a time there were S3 drivers that worked and then X regressed for a very long time.

Yes. We had an S3 motherboard at one time, and it worked well.
helios

Nov 12, 2012
4:42 PM EDT
notbooks = they suck
caitlyn

Nov 12, 2012
4:58 PM EDT
Quoting:notbooks = they suck
I've never had a Fujitsu so I sure won't be arguing with you :)
gus3

Nov 13, 2012
1:35 PM EDT
I like my not(e)book. In fact, I'm using it right now.
Fettoosh

Nov 13, 2012
3:13 PM EDT
I am on travel and my wife has a work Toshiba NB205. I installed Linux on it and works great. Unfortunately, she needs Windows for work related and I have to use it.

She also has an iPad. But until tablets acquire and can run standard office apps., Netbooks are still much better when traveling.

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