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What's wrong with Ubuntu 7.04
Now I'm as fond of Ubuntu as the next penguin, but I'm a bit of distro whore really -- I'm always trying new ones and my current system has all of Gentoo, SuSE and Ubuntu installed (and some other niche operating system on the other partition - Windows Vista I think it's called). |
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Comments (12)
I usually try most of the Debian deratives and lately 'nothing' except Debian proper and sidux (very impressive) get my 1600x1200@85hz 24bit radeon right in the initial install. Kbuntu and Mepis just don't hack it and usually leave me in 1024x768@70hz at 16bit.
Personally, I don't think it's newsworthy and I am going to be a bit more selective on what I submit to LXer.com in the future...Opinion of helios isn't news, LOL
BUT...if you note the time of posting, you will see the author of this piece and I may have had a psychic link.
Either that or it was a really bad chili dog. That's been known to happen with me...and deviled eggs as well.
http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/154-She-DOES...
BUT...if you note the time of posting, you will see the author of this piece and I may have had a psychic link.
Either that or it was a really bad chili dog. That's been known to happen with me...and deviled eggs as well.
http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/154-She-DOES...
The system (despite me setting the resolution at 1280x1024x16 at boot, why they don't include 32-bit is beyond me) still only gives me a maximum resolution of 1024x768.
Theres no 32bit on linux. 24bit is our equivalent of windows' 32bit, without the 8bits added by marketing.
Nothing seems to get my hardware correct, with a catch. My old 17" monitor had its 'best' value at 1024x768, even though I wanted it at the highest level possible, 1280x1024. Now, if my monitor itself thinks I should be using 1024x768 is it really linux' faullt that this is setup automagically this way? I figured this out by looking at the 'appropriate' behaviour on XP (and later on by reading the manual...), where exactly the same thing happens.
So, long story short, it's pretty easy to add a resolution to the graphical modes in xorg by hand to override the factory defaults, if you so choose.
Regards,
ABCC
Theres no 32bit on linux. 24bit is our equivalent of windows' 32bit, without the 8bits added by marketing.
Nothing seems to get my hardware correct, with a catch. My old 17" monitor had its 'best' value at 1024x768, even though I wanted it at the highest level possible, 1280x1024. Now, if my monitor itself thinks I should be using 1024x768 is it really linux' faullt that this is setup automagically this way? I figured this out by looking at the 'appropriate' behaviour on XP (and later on by reading the manual...), where exactly the same thing happens.
So, long story short, it's pretty easy to add a resolution to the graphical modes in xorg by hand to override the factory defaults, if you so choose.
Regards,
ABCC
oooh... deviled eggs :)
oooh... deviled eggs :)
Worth every bit of one night on the couch.
h
Worth every bit of one night on the couch.
h
I had to put Ubuntu 5.10 on my son's latest HP laptop because Ubuntu 6.10 wouldn't work with it, and neither would Ubuntu 6.04 ... So I'm not so sure I want to even bother with Ubuntu 7 ... I may just byte the bullet and do a FTP install of Debian.
We'll see if it will even recognize the Belkin WiFi PC that Ubuntu 5.10 does with no problem.
We'll see if it will even recognize the Belkin WiFi PC that Ubuntu 5.10 does with no problem.
Quoting:Kbuntu and Mepis just don't hack it and usually leave me in 1024x768@70hz at 16bit
SimplyMepis 6.5 did set my HP nc6023 to 1400x1050@70hz automatically, but when I changed it to 1024x768, it periodically switches back to 1400x1050 at boot.
I tried recent PCLOS 2007 TR4, it sets it to 640x480 initially and was a challenge but was able to set it to 1024x768.
Edited: I should have said "It was a visibilty challenge" meaning I couldn't see the bottons to save the simple to do change. PCLOS should have used something like 800x640 instead of 640x480 as default at the least.
Here's my review of 7.04 for the benefit of all the Ubuntu "fanbois" in here (heh heh heh):
Hardware:
1. Dual processor Xeon with AMD64 extensions. Used 64 bit OS. Nvidia 7950 GX dual graphics card. Audigy 2 audio card
2. Single processor P4 3.2Ghz. Nvidia Geforce PCX 5900. Used 32 bit OS Audigy 2 audio card
3. Linux certified ultra lightweight laptop 2.0Ghz intel centrino. intel graphics card. External pcmcia wireless card.
4. Single processor P4 2.8Ghz Nvidia Geforce4 Ti 4200 Used 32 bit OS Audigy 1 card
I upgraded all systems from 6.10 using the recommended graphical upgrade. All systems had many 3rd party upgrades over and above a standard 6.10 installed.
Results:
ALL systems upgraded with NO ISSUES whatsoever and video and audio all worked as expected despite the presence of two soundcards in some of the rigs.
Being a smart-arse I decided to try the nvidia-glx-new package on the old P4 system and it failed. I then had a helluva job reinstalling nvidia-glx because nvidia-glx-new leaves a file on the system that is not deleted on reversion to nvidia-glx (known bug).
Apart from that glitch I have had zero problems on the four different hardware setups. That includes wireless on the laptop where network-manager works flawlessly with WPA and also no longer nags for a password for wpa. If you had told me this story 2 years ago I would not have believed you.
Richo's unbiased Ubuntu rating ;-) 9.5/10.
1. Dual processor Xeon with AMD64 extensions. Used 64 bit OS. Nvidia 7950 GX dual graphics card. Audigy 2 audio card
2. Single processor P4 3.2Ghz. Nvidia Geforce PCX 5900. Used 32 bit OS Audigy 2 audio card
3. Linux certified ultra lightweight laptop 2.0Ghz intel centrino. intel graphics card. External pcmcia wireless card.
4. Single processor P4 2.8Ghz Nvidia Geforce4 Ti 4200 Used 32 bit OS Audigy 1 card
I upgraded all systems from 6.10 using the recommended graphical upgrade. All systems had many 3rd party upgrades over and above a standard 6.10 installed.
Results:
ALL systems upgraded with NO ISSUES whatsoever and video and audio all worked as expected despite the presence of two soundcards in some of the rigs.
Being a smart-arse I decided to try the nvidia-glx-new package on the old P4 system and it failed. I then had a helluva job reinstalling nvidia-glx because nvidia-glx-new leaves a file on the system that is not deleted on reversion to nvidia-glx (known bug).
Apart from that glitch I have had zero problems on the four different hardware setups. That includes wireless on the laptop where network-manager works flawlessly with WPA and also no longer nags for a password for wpa. If you had told me this story 2 years ago I would not have believed you.
Richo's unbiased Ubuntu rating ;-) 9.5/10.
"I then had a helluva job reinstalling nvidia-glx because nvidia-glx-new leaves a file on the system that is not deleted on reversion to nvidia-glx (known bug)."
Another sterling example of the kwality and inovation of proprietary software!
Another sterling example of the kwality and inovation of proprietary software!
Here's my experience on a Presario C502US, a cheap ($430 at Circuit City) laptop with mostly Intel on the inside.
Feisty works, but with a few problems.
It detected all hardware correctly. Even the special buttons to adjust/mute the volume work out of the box. My Belkin USB wireless is detected automatically (apparently works with open drivers). I used network manager to connect to my WPA wireless network, no problems. USB drives were recognized without problems. I could read files on the Vista partition without a problem. After the installation, it even included Vista in the menu, booting without making changes to any files.
The problems were as follows. First, 1280x800 is not available. This is a well known problem - as mentioned above. Even with 1280x800 working, the fonts look horrible. Solution: Use a Fedora Live CD to see 1280x800 done right, and that includes Vista. I haven't figured out 1280x800 with Feisty.
The wireless card (not the USB card that I plugged in later) is detected as "Dell Wireless 1390". Many laptops have this card, and Ubuntu always uses the wrong driver. Solution: You have to download the driver from Dell or elsewhere and install it using ndiswrapper. You have to blacklist the wrong driver. Fedora Live has the same problem, but also runs the Belkin USB wireless card. This bug is well known.
Hibernate works some of the time. Most of the time, I have to reboot the computer. It's worse than not having hibernate at all. Solution: Don't use hibernate.
Everything else works. However, these problems are by no means trivial.
Feisty works, but with a few problems.
It detected all hardware correctly. Even the special buttons to adjust/mute the volume work out of the box. My Belkin USB wireless is detected automatically (apparently works with open drivers). I used network manager to connect to my WPA wireless network, no problems. USB drives were recognized without problems. I could read files on the Vista partition without a problem. After the installation, it even included Vista in the menu, booting without making changes to any files.
The problems were as follows. First, 1280x800 is not available. This is a well known problem - as mentioned above. Even with 1280x800 working, the fonts look horrible. Solution: Use a Fedora Live CD to see 1280x800 done right, and that includes Vista. I haven't figured out 1280x800 with Feisty.
The wireless card (not the USB card that I plugged in later) is detected as "Dell Wireless 1390". Many laptops have this card, and Ubuntu always uses the wrong driver. Solution: You have to download the driver from Dell or elsewhere and install it using ndiswrapper. You have to blacklist the wrong driver. Fedora Live has the same problem, but also runs the Belkin USB wireless card. This bug is well known.
Hibernate works some of the time. Most of the time, I have to reboot the computer. It's worse than not having hibernate at all. Solution: Don't use hibernate.
Everything else works. However, these problems are by no means trivial.
> Another sterling example of the kwality and inovation of proprietary software!
Yep. nvidia drivers have different versions for different aged hardware. Bloody mess.
Yep. nvidia drivers have different versions for different aged hardware. Bloody mess.
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I do not have a widescreen monitor.
The system (despite me setting the resolution at 1280x1024x16 at boot, why they don't include 32-bit is beyond me) still only gives me a maximum resolution of 1024x768. What's weird is that this problem seems to be almost universal on my machine, which essentially makes being able to fix the damn problem the defining "is this a good distro" feature.
(Explains my preference for KDE - their resolution tools allow me to specify my monitor model, after which it gives me the correct options. Why GNOME can't take a leaf out of their book is beyond me.)