Ive been playing around with Linux today and tbh I am close to labeling it as "turd" and throwing it away...

I have tried 2 different Live CDs (Knoppix and Mandriva) and also a HDD install of FC5 with no luck.

I have tried all 3 of these distributions on 2 different machines w/ different HW builds and I have had the same problem with them all on all the machines !!

A short time after logging in / XWin starting up they hang. Completely die and never come back ?!

What would cause that ?
They all identify the GFX Card (ATI 7000) and the Monitor (F-419) correctly and even set the correct default res (1280x1024) before dying !!


The HW I am currently using is:

P4 3ghz
2 * 512mb PC3200 DDR 400
ATI 7000
Intel S865PERL-E mobo


I have also tried 4 * 512mb Corsair XMS PC3700 with no luck ??



....
While typing this, the Knoppix CD has hung while "Restoring session" @ 0% !



edit: I should have said that previous to trying FC5 on the machine, it had been running XP Home happily for about 3 weeks w/ 0 crashes or BSOD !

What would cause the hang? Likely sh*tty ATI drivers. Blame ATI, as the community has tried their hardest.

Youll want to install something that can last long enough for you to install proprietary drivers. Or try something like PClinuxOS that includes a lot of proprietary stuff. Dont know if it has ATI drivers tho.

Cant really label *nix a turd when its a problem with a hardware companys awful support.

Dunno m8, its a bit chicken and egg really...

Cannot have SW without HW but then theres no need for HW without SW !

Id have thought that *nix wouldve been capable of creating a standard VGA driver that would support anything thats thrown at it...after all, MS have done it

I dont think I have any other brand of GFX card kicking around and tbh, if it is an issue with ATI then it will rule *nix out for us as all of our servers run some model of ATI card or other !

You sometimes need to specify a boot prompt to get it to go plain Vesa. Varies from distro to distro.

With a Ubuntu install, as thats what Im most familiar with, installation of the fglrx driver is easy, if you dont mind a little command line work. When you get kicked out of X, or "ctrl/alt/f1" to get a prompt, just do this:

# sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx

Once that is complete, you need to edit an aforementioned file.

# sudo nano -w /etc/X11/xorg.conf

From here, look up:

Section "Device"
Identifier "..."

and change your driver to "fglrx".

Reboot into X.

because you mentioned that there was a problem with ATI gfx I started searching on that topic. During the search I came across some random post that said booting a Live CD with the "acpi=off" switch had solved the problem for him...

...its solved it for me too

So now I have to find another Mobo to try *sigh*

edit:
Yeap, been mincing around on Knoppix now for at least 20mins without it hanging !! That means its something to do with the interface between the Kernel and ACPI layer on this mobo :/

How do you download a newer kernel ? Is that even possible ? Am I talking strange Linux Noob talk ?

Apparently my problem could well be caused by the Intel SATA chipset on my mobo. Apparently the problem is fixed in a Kernel update ??

If youre running live from disc,  you cant replace a running kernel.

If youve got a debian derivative installed, or even Suse, Mandrake, or PCLOS, you can use a package manager to grab the latest package info from the remote repositories, and install the latest kernel that way. Usually it will leave the old kernel in place so you have to choose the new kernel upon boot. If it works, you can uninstall the old kernel.

Quote from: NimrodHow do you download a newer kernel ? Is that even possible ? Am I talking strange Linux Noob talk ?

Grabbing, compiling and installing the newest kernel is actually easier than you might think, theres a full guide here (ignore the bits about 2.4, its the guide for 2.6 you want, use make menuconfig for a graphical setup).

Recompiling kernels. Lets party like its 1999!

Tis the only way if you want the very latest kernel though, most distros arent packaging anything higher than 2.6.15 at the moment, grepping through the changelogs it does seem like theres been a few ACPI fixes/etc since then.

Stick in an ubuntu CD and choose the option for normal graphics at boot up. (forget the way they put it soz).

i have the same issues with my ATi card but once the OS has loaded you can install the proper drivers.

Im about 99% thats its ACPI and not GFX as once I did knoppix acpi=off the problem went away !

The real problem I have now is that I cannot figure out how to get FC5 to boot without ACPI. Which means that its not stable long enough for me to even attempt to dl a kernel !

Well, tomorrow is another day to waste looking at this

Quote from: NimrodIm about 99% thats its ACPI and not GFX as once I did knoppix acpi=off the problem went away !

The real problem I have now is that I cannot figure out how to get FC5 to boot without ACPI. Which means that its not stable long enough for me to even attempt to dl a kernel !

Well, tomorrow is another day to waste looking at this

whats with this non-ubuntu install  :shock:

how dare thee

youll stick on ubuntu like everyone else and like it young man  

lol, all this just because XP Home wont let me do ACL based sharing and I am too tight to buy another Pro License !

That said, I had no idea that Linux was still so poorly supported by HW vendors. Just goes to show really that for all the fanboys and flag wavers, the industry still doesnt really take it seriously.

If I could find a distro that would definatly work with my Intel D865PERL mobo and ATI 7000 I would download it in a flash. However, given that the distros are in the region of 4gb + updates (~600mb), I could do without spending the entire weekend downloading and making pretty Linux coasters

Its things like this that are giving me the fear...

QuoteThere are no red flags for Linux compatibility here as there are no particularly troublesome integrated peripherals, although youre going to encounter serious trouble if youre not using at least the 2.4.20 stable kernel. I didnt test out the firewire capability in Linux but I dont see any reason why it shouldnt work.

The Fedora Core release says that it is built on Kernel 2.6 ?!

QuoteThis distribution is based on the 2.6 series of the Linux kernel.

Finally we have this little nugget from 3 years ago that is decribing a similar (if not the exact) problem I have on the exact HW I have...3 years later !!
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2003-28/0324.html



Seriously, I know MS take their time patching but 3 years ??

Easy enough to disable acpid with bum or sysv-rc-conf.

As to the "I had no idea that Linux was still so poorly supported by HW vendors". Thats just silly. It works on more hardware out of the box than MS will even think about doing. Apple is also fairly poorly supported by quite a bit of hardware. Big deal. Wanna build a *nix box, get *nix compatible stuff like Intel or Nvidia graphics, both which have run flawlessly for years with great framerates.

There are limitations no matter what you run. I find it irritating that wanting to run multiple language sessions or being able to choose your gui environment at log in makes MS unappealing to me for most chores. Doesnt really matter all *that* much tho.