Ubuntu Edgy running AIGLX/Beryl

Submitted by Nick on Sun, 02/11/2007 - 5:58pm

Some of the notebook stats:

  • 2-year old Sager NP4780 ULTRA Laptop
  • 17" WXGA+ (1440 x 900) TFT Active Matrix
  • ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 PRO w/128MB DDR
  • 2.8GHz Hyper-Threading Intel Pentium® 4 Processor w/512k L2 Cache - 800MHz System Bus Speed
  • 160 GB Hard Drive
  • 1GB (2 SODIMMs) PC3200 DDR400 Memory

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Comments

trigear@trigear...

Thu, 02/15/2007 - 9:36pm

Ubuntu looks uber sexy, I have to say, but my experience with Linux has been shaky, at best.

As a nerd, I so desperately want to run Linux (even as a second boot, just for fun). It's one of the ultimate nerd merit badges. But the problem is that it's so big and scary! I've tried several times to install Linux.

The first time was with Red Hat (before the advent of Fedora). After a few ulcer-inducing attempts at installing it (anything involving hard-drive partitions, formatting, and dual-booting induces an ulcer these days), I finally got it working pretty well, but I couldn't get it to support my wireless connection. Without internet access, I didn't know what to do or how to do it, so the whole thing was just an exercise in "let's see how quickly I can break it". I got bored and moved on.

More recently, I tried to get Knoppix to boot from my DVD drive (because I heard they support wireless). Meh, I couldn't even get it to recognize my top-of-the-line graphics card well enough to display in VGA. All I got was distortion and static across the screen... completely unusable.

What I'd really like is a secondary (low-end) PC that I keep around just to fiddle with Linux. Even if I couldn't get the internet connection to work, I could always use my primary PC to look up instructions and download apps, and then burn them to disc and transfer them over. But alas, the last time I bought a new PC I gave the old one to my then-girlfriend, and besides, I really don't have a lot of room right now for even my first PC, let alone a second one.

Oh well, maybe some day I'll get to be a full-fledged nerd. :(

Nick

Fri, 02/16/2007 - 7:18am

Bah, just cause you don't run Linux doesn't mean you're not a "full-fledged nerd". Truthfully, I don't play roleplay games all that much. I guess I should turn in my "nerd" badge card then... :P

As for Linux (and this applies to all of the ditributions: Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc.), yeah, hardware support is probably always going to be a problem, especially with video cards and wireless hardware. Though I'd wish people would place the blame for that in the right area: at the feet of the manufacturers that refuse to give support to Linux, not the volunteers that have to try to reverse-engineer that hardware to create drivers for the O.S.. It seems if you want maximum support, you need to use Intel video cards and wireless cards, since they have actually released open-source drivers. I've hit issues in trying to install Ubuntu in my gaming machine with an Nvidia 8800 GTS; I have to go into text mode, open up a configuration file in a text editor (go go vim!) and force the standard VESA graphics mode to even be able to use the system in Ubuntu. The latest possibly-illegal binary-blob drivers nvidia provides don't work yet for me. It could also be an issue with the nForce4 motherboard, too. But hey, it's primarily my gaming system, so I'm not up in arms about it.

Or, you can always get a system from system76, where they set everything up for you from what I understand (Hey... that sounds like *another* operating system... or two...), but that could be a little pricey just to "try it out". Actually, I would recommend getting VMware Server (It is free to use!) and install any Linux distribution in a virtual environment. Big plus is if you have multiple core processors and plenty of RAM (at least 1 Gig), which, if you have a top-end gaming machine, you should already meet that recommendation. You won't have 3D graphics ability (I.E., you won't be able to run the Beryl windowing system that I have pictured above), but at least you can tinker with almost every other aspect of Linux in a safe, virtual environment (no having to do tricky partitions, you can have a snapshot backup to go back to, etc).

Plus there's the time spent learning a different way of doing things. I use Linux as desktop for work, myself, but I didn't before April 2006. But since really spending time in Linux and learning how to do things in it, I find that I appreciate why things work the way they do in the system. Then again, not everything is properly documented, too... I'm not sure if there's any books I could recommend... I never used one for Linux itself. I would also see if there's any Linux User Groups near you that you can get help from (I didn't, but I'm in the middle of bumfuck Louisiana...).

Good luck if you continue to try out Linux. You can email me at email@nickistre.net or use the "Contact Me" link above if you need help. Keep in mind that I'm more familiar with the Debian distribution and its derivatives (Ubuntu, Mepis, etc.), but I am learning about the Red Hat environment (via. CentOS) at work.

DanMac (not verified)

Mon, 02/19/2007 - 1:40pm

I just started running ubuntu and kubunutu on some of my machines. the features themselves are good enough for the switch without even thinking about not having to deal with the microsoft bs. the 3d cube desktop system is straight outta swordfish.

Nick

Mon, 02/19/2007 - 5:25pm

Heh. Yeah. All I pretty much use Windows for these days is to test out websites and play games. For real work, I've been using Linux for the past year. :)

Funnily enough, my current employer is willing to purchase a MacBook Pro for me to use. I'm taking him on that offer!

trigear@trigear...

Thu, 02/22/2007 - 12:24am

Thanks, man. I downloaded VMWare server, and I'm downloading a distro of Fedora to try out. It may be a while before I get a chance to set everything up, but I want to try it anyway.

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