The laptop adventure continues...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| nicsmr May 07, 2008 2:02 PM EDT |
Hi There. My adventures with the new laptop continue (see my previous thread…Need some advice on laptop video selection...) After loosing a minimal amount of sleep worrying about dual booting, I decided to install LINUX only and not dual boot. Since I have an ethernet wire to my office networking is not a problem except that I would like to know that wireless works for when I go on the road. So far I’ve tried/installed • Mepis 32 & 64 – Not the same as before somethings changed… Looses the mouse pointer, have to reboot to get it back. Wireless works but have to fart around with network setup to start the network. Iwconfig wlan0 command doen’t work have to use network setup. Where’s the pump command? • Debian – Installs but I get a blank screen when it boots up after install. Can’t log in or do/test anything. Wireless ? I’d really like to get this going. Anyone know what’s happening to the video. • Pclinuxos – minime- Worked ok, had to fiddle with downloading wireless drivers while on live cd but wireless did eventualy work. Did not install, to minimal for me. • Pclinuxos full – Works ok. Installed. Lots of software missing & when I try to install some basic sw, lots of update/install sites unavailable. Wireless did not work even with downloading same drivers as for minime. Very disapointed as it is very much touted. Tried to view a dvd movie but could not see my drive??? Wtf. • SUSE latest - Live CD booted fine looked good until I saw NO NETWORK EXTENSIONS. Never installed • Mint - Live CD booted fine looked very good until I saw NO NETWORK EXTENSIONS. Never installed • Xubuntu – works but can’t get used to windows manager. Wireless works. Very Fast on this laptop. • Kubuntu – works ok but goes to sleep permanetly. Have to CTRL-ALT-BackSpace to revive. Wireless? gave up trying as this laptop is wired to our home router. Think it might work but the sleep problem is bugging me and I don’t want to sink much more time. Also what’s with the lack of software? (firefox?) Konqueror doesn’t do it for me. Adept is a strange animal. Can’t seem to mark a bunch of sw for install have to mark each one individually. Minor inconvenience. I just downloaded Mandriva 2008 Spring KDE and since I’ve had a very short tryst with Mandrake 9.2 (and lost my cd drive in the bargain) and frisbeed the disk, I have to ask the experts out there (you know you are) how is Mandriva with wireless networking (broadcom/dell wireless NIC)? Thanks Nick I am keeping extensive notes and hope to write a full accounting of these adventures, hopefully it'll help someone else. |
| herzeleid May 07, 2008 2:56 PM EDT |
I've had my own desktop adventures, with a compaq v6000 my son gave me. He'd installed suse 10.3 on it, and he'd remarked that wireless "doesn't seem to work", which is what I thought of when I saw your comment "NO NETWORK EXTENSIONS" regarding suse. On my laptop, I did an lspci, saw broadcom wireless, and so I went to yast software manager, searched for wireless, and installed the broadcom driver and the broadcom firmware/cutter, after which the wireless came to life. One problem though, is that when coming back from suspend or hibernate, wireless didn't come back up. When hardy heron came out, I nuked the disk and installed ubuntu 8.04 on the laptop. I found that the wireless setup was easier, and to my relief, hibernate and suspend worked better; the wireless connection now comes right back up on resume. That was enough to sell me - and also, the fact that the gnome desktop on ubuntu is nice enough that even a kde guy like me has fun using it. |
| nicsmr May 07, 2008 3:41 PM EDT |
Did you do anything to the hibernate settings in Ubuntu? I just had to CTRL-ALT-BS get back on. Nick |
| bigg May 07, 2008 3:58 PM EDT |
> Xubuntu – works but can’t get used to windows manager. Wireless works. Very Fast on this laptop. Do you mean you don't like XFCE? If everything works without a problem, install Xubuntu and then just install ubuntu-desktop or kubuntu-desktop from Synaptic. Or you can install both, and then log into KDE, but you'll have Firefox, Synaptic, and anything else that you want. |
| herzeleid May 07, 2008 4:33 PM EDT |
> Did you do anything to the hibernate settings in Ubuntu?
> I just had to CTRL-ALT-BS get back on. No, this was "out of the box", no tweaking involved. Maybe it just likes my hardware... |
| nicsmr May 07, 2008 4:46 PM EDT |
As I write this I'm running mandriva live cd on the laptop. Networking drives are known but not avalable on this disk. I have to buy the powerpack edition, also I can revive the screen so that cut Mandrivel out. I'm goin to retry Xubuntu and do as BIGG suggests I'll update this soon. Got to take son to soccer. Nick |
| number6x May 07, 2008 5:23 PM EDT |
I would suggest trying a straight Ubuntu install, then add xfce. sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install xubuntu-desktop I would use synaptic to add some of the other xfce goodies as well. Other xubuntu links: http://www.xubuntu.org/ http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/xubuntu https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu https://help.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/desktopguide/C/index.html I got a dell laptop with ubuntu installed about three months ago. XFCE has made life with Ubuntu pleasant. I always gave up on Ubuntu after two or three weeks in the past, but I'm finding it useful and not too annoying. I'm still at 7.10 and I don't plan to upgrade unless I have to. The xubuntu and debian xfce's are pretty bare, but a few trips to xfce community websites will help you out. You may want to test out: http://www.zenwalk.org/ http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/ http://vectorlinux.com/website2/ http://wolvix.org/ http://www.sam-linux.org/ all fine xfce distros that have worked well live on my laptop. The fedora 8 xfce spin works well too, but is very bare bones like Xubuntu and debian. http://spins.fedoraproject.org/ |
| Steven_Rosenber May 07, 2008 6:38 PM EDT |
If Xubuntu works, go with Ubuntu. You can add just about anything you want after that. I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 on a Gateway Solo 1450 laptop right now, and I haven't found a better distro for this computer yet. I still prefer Debian Lenny, and I'm keeping it in a dual-boot setup, but I have to hand it to the Ubuntu team, who have come up with a long-term support release that is quite good. |
| nicsmr May 07, 2008 6:46 PM EDT |
Steven, do you have any ideas about why, after install, @ the first reboot the it gets to a certain point and when the screen wants to go into X it goes blank. I too would prefer pure debian. Nick |
| number6x May 07, 2008 7:15 PM EDT |
the old method of using "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" won't work in 8.04. Ubuntu now has a 'configurless' xorg set up. Except for all of the people like you that need to configure it! First check if it really is working, and you are not just at the wrong terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+F7 and see if that brings up the GDM screen. If not boot to single user "recovery" mode. and try the new config stuff here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config |
| nicsmr May 07, 2008 7:27 PM EDT |
Im sorry I wasn't clear... When I install Debian (etch) at the first boot after the install the screen goes blank. Sorry for the confusion Nick |
| Steven_Rosenber May 07, 2008 7:42 PM EDT |
I think the key to figuring out configuring X is to save every successful xorg.conf file on any given computer. Use it to help you tweak xorg.conf in a new distro that's not working. But DON'T just copy the entire file. Instead, use the information from one file to make changes in the xorg.conf file that is created during the install. And always make a backup before changing anything. In my own experience, I tend to prefer distros that do X well on the given machine. If you get X to show up right during the install, but it doesn't work on reboot, try copying and/or printing out xorg.conf BEFORE you install. The system creates one for you, and maybe that version will work after you reboot. Of course, without X, you need to be able to use the command line to redo your xorg.conf. |
| Bob_Robertson May 08, 2008 4:16 AM EDT |
> use the information from one file to make changes in the xorg.conf file that is created during the install. That is exactly what I had to do to get X working on my Vaio when I first got it in 2003. KNOPPIX would get a good screen, but nothing else worked. So, I saved the xfree86-config file from that and used it as a template. Nick, the first time Debian reboots, it tries to go into Xwindows. Ctrl-Alt-F1 _should_ give you a console window even if X isn't working correctly. Can you get a console at all, or is console also failing? |
| nicsmr May 08, 2008 7:50 AM EDT |
Bob, Xubuntu installed last evening (kid's soccer interrupted), I left it at the reboot screen all night. This morning I went back to it and lo and behold... no mouse cursor. The laptop *woke up* fine this morning except for the missing cursor. (Mepis and now Xubuntu with this problem). I Had to shut it down anyways as the power company will be doing some work and shutting off the power for a few hours today. I'll have to re-install debian tonight and try out your solution. BTW how is Debian with wireless. I do a netinstall using the wired NIC but will want to get the WIFi NIC going. I'll make a copy of the X config files on xubuntu to a usb flash drive before I blow it away. Can you specify what files to backup? Steven... I'm Ok with the command line so modifying files will be no problem. As an aside, I almost always use the command line apt-get/cache to update/upgrade my pc or install/find software. Thanks for your advice... Nick |
| Bob_Robertson May 08, 2008 8:01 AM EDT |
/etc/X11/xorg.conf |
| nicsmr May 08, 2008 6:03 PM EDT |
It doesn't look like too much in the xorg.conf file. check it out... # xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file) # # This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using # values from the debconf database. # # Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page. # (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.) # # This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only* # if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg # package. # # If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated # again, run the following command: # sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Generic Keyboard" Driver "kbd" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Configured Mouse" Driver "mouse" Option "CorePointer" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad" Driver "synaptics" Option "SendCoreEvents" "true" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Protocol" "auto-dev" Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Configured Monitor" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Default Screen" Monitor "Configured Monitor" Device "Configured Video Device" EndSection Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Default Layout" Screen "Default Screen" InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad" EndSection I'll be reinstalling debian etch tonight and let you know what transpired... Nick |
| nicsmr May 08, 2008 7:12 PM EDT |
No dice... Reinstalled debian etch restarted and the last think to comeup on the boot sequence was starting statd then the screen goes black. Can bring up any console. Have keep on searching. Very disappointing. Nick |
| tracyanne May 08, 2008 7:35 PM EDT |
This is why I've stuck to my friend's advice (the one who showed me to Linux in 1999, himself a Debian user). His advice "you won't like Debian, use a different Distribution." |
| nicsmr May 08, 2008 7:41 PM EDT |
So Tracyanne How do you think mandriva will do with the wireless card (check my starting post up top)? I've got a copy of the kde iso ready to go. It didn't do well with the PC at work. Bad video. Nick |
| rijelkentaurus May 08, 2008 8:07 PM EDT |
For PCLOS, choose the Indiana University repositories, that usually takes care of software issues. And I wholeheartedly recommend the MimiMe distro, you can then install what you want and only what you want, although the defaults on the full install are pretty good. And what exactly do you mean by "bad video" on the PC at work? |
| nicsmr May 08, 2008 9:15 PM EDT |
rijelkentaurus... I mean. Firefox with no menu, toolbar,address/url textbox, or searchbox. or content. A frame with almost nothing in it. just one tiny icon that had no links, just there. Oher window frames with no content etc. menu that appeared but nothing hapened when I click on them. Gave up on it at work. Might try it on the laptop install it on it to see if the wireless will work. Nick |
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