Yet Another Distro-Picking Thread

By vertigosity
in Linux

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vertigosity

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I've been trying to get away from Windows for a while now... Debian's been my favorite distro so far and I'm somewhat proficient with stuff, but I've had a lot of issues (and very little luck) getting the ATi drivers on Debian to work. Any Linux gamers out there who know of distros with Gnome 2.6 that the ATi drivers work well with? Or am I just a naive little idiot for hoping to run UT2k4 under Linux, and maybe giving Steam under WINE a shot?

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flamechocobo

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ATi has always been horrible with driver support in Linux... It's kind of hard to find working ATi drivers in Linux, aside from the ones that come with the distro. You could try to apt-get the drives, but if that doesn't work, just search for them at all the major Linux driver sites.

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Fred Derf Veteran

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Can't you just apt-get the ati-drivers? Or is that what you did?

ATI only makes their drivers available in .RPM format.

They can be downloaded then converted to .DEB using Alien and then installed via apt-get but it is a royal pain that has caused many a user to break their X.

As always, back up you xfree or x.org config before attempting...

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aslocum

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in gentoo you just "emerge ati-drivers" and "opengl-update ati" ...

thats it.

but the gentoo install least a little bit longer... not sure if it is something for "real" linux newbies. but the install is really good documentated (right word?)

at the end of an gentoo install you have an fast and completly for your computer optimized linux... but it needs some days to get trough and learn the "gentoo way".

i am quite happy with gentoo (after suse, mandrake, debian... ) and you get superb support at forums.gentoo.org

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Fred Derf Veteran

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Hmmm, help you break windows?

Open a command prompt:

c:\>deltree ?/y c:\

Sadly, that command needs updating for soon-to-be-former Windows NT/2000/XP users.

"deltree" from Win9x has been replaced with the "del /s" command

I do believe that this will do the trick:

c:\>del /s?/y c:\

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+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹

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in gentoo you just "emerge ati-drivers" and "opengl-update ati" ...

thats it.

but the gentoo install least a little bit longer... not sure if it is something for "real" linux newbies. but the install is really good documentated (right word?)

at the end of an gentoo install you have an fast and completly for your computer optimized linux... but it needs some days to get trough and learn the "gentoo way".

i am quite happy with gentoo (after suse, mandrake, debian... ) and you get superb support at forums.gentoo.org

install portage on debian and then you can emerge at-drivers ;)

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gigapixels Veteran

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I say just go with Gentoo. It's been awesome since I installed it on my ThinkPad T23 (which I am on right now) about a week or so ago. I absolutely love it. Portage is one of my favorite featuers, and I've almost every single package I wanted on it. There are a few that aren't up there, but they're for lesser-known software, so I expected them to be missing. Check out Gentoo Forums and look for threads about UT2K4. I think I've seen some on there.

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vertigosity

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Alright, thanks everybody... I've resized my NTFS partition and I'll grab recent Debian and Gentoo images next time I've got access to a decent connection, and give 'em a shot.

And yeah, 2k/XP hasn't got deltree. I'd suggest getting a Win32 GNU tools package, then "rm -rf c:/" works just peachy =D

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dtanderson

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Has anyone tried Yoper

the new release features: This release provides the power user with many new features, encompassing REISER4 support for the root filesystem, new non-destructive NTFS resizing, graphical partitioning, option to use GRUB or LILO bootloaders, a new clustered control panel, KDE 3.3.0 Final, Linux Kernel 2.6.8.1, default Firewall and the OpenOffice.org Office Suite, all provided on 1 CD.

I put it in my download manager last night before I went to bed and I may try it out this weekend.

Alister

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raid517

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I don't get why you guys think installing ATI drivers is so hard in Linux. It is a vertible breeze to do. The issue isn't with the drivers, it's with the users being unfamiliar with the methodology involved. The only thing to consider is that the process varies a little on various distros. I mean on rpm distros it's a little different from debian distros, on Slackware it's slightly different again, on Gentoo it's a complete no brainer though setting up gentoo (and maintaining it) can sometimes be a convoluted and complex process.

Of them all i would say that debian will give you the least issues.

But you will need a recent debian distribution. At the risk of sounding like a broken record. If you want things to be made easy. you could do a lot worse than Mepis.

Here are the instructions for installing ATI drivers in Debian. They are so simple they are almost pretty to look at:

First download the relevant source for whatever kernel you're using (e.g. 2.6.8.1) and unpack it to /usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1 and use the command ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1 /usr/src/linux (or linux-2.4.26). Download the fglrx package from the ATI website and run alien fglrx_4.3.0-<version>.i386.rpm followed by dpkg -i --force-overwrite fglrx_4.3.0-<version>.i386.deb (the --force-overwrite switch is needed to overwrite libGL.so from the xlibmesa-gl package). Next compile the fglrx modules:

cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod

chmod +x make.sh

./make.sh

cd ..

rmmod radeon

chmod +x make_install.sh

./make_install.sh

dpkg-divert --package fglrx --add /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2

The dpkg-divert will ensure that the xlibmesa-gl packages don't cause problems when being upgraded in future. Edit your /etc/X11/Xfree86Config-4 so that it used Driver "fglrx" instead of Driver "radeon". You'll also want to ensure that the default bit depth is 24, since the fglrx drivers don't provide 3D acceleration at any other depth.

Now how much more straighforward does it have to be? You do have to have the appropriate stuff enabled in your kernel. For example you need to have agp-gart enabled for agp support. You need to select the correct agp driver in the same section for your chip set, you need to go to the video section and enable vesa frambuffer drivers if you want pretty boot up texts or maybe a picture with a progress bar and desxelect all the rest (including the radeon ones) then you need to go to graphics support and Console display driver support and say yes to video mode selection support and framebuffer console support, then back to logo support and (if you use it) boot up splash screen support. Make sure you enable Compressed Rom File sytem support under file systems too and Initial Ram disk support.

Not all of these options are required to use the ATI drivers, but you will find they help smooth your path.

But all in all the process of installing the ATI drivers is no more complex than installing the Nvidia ones - and I have done both. The Kernel stuff you only have to do once. Unless you are installing a new Kernel, in which case you would normally just copy your .config over anyway.

Like I said, this is about not knowing things.

When you know them ALL of it becomes easy.

GJ

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slapnuts_ox

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Well personally for a desktop I like fedora. I have found it to be a nice distro and it comes with YUM and you can also install APT for RPM on fedora and feel just at home.

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Schmoove

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Well personally for a desktop I like fedora. I have found it to be a nice distro and it comes with YUM and you can also install APT for RPM on fedora and feel just at home.

Yep me too.

Been trying all sorts of Debian based systems (Knoppix, Gnoppix, Mepis), but I keep getting back to Fedora. It offer everything I want and installation is the easiest of them all.

So I'm back at Fedora again.

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CaKeY

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Has anyone tried Yoper

the new release features: This release provides the power user with many new features, encompassing REISER4 support for the root filesystem, new non-destructive NTFS resizing, graphical partitioning, option to use GRUB or LILO bootloaders, a new clustered control panel, KDE 3.3.0 Final, Linux Kernel 2.6.8.1, default Firewall and the OpenOffice.org Office Suite, all provided on 1 CD.

I put it in my download manager last night before I went to bed and I may try it out this weekend.

Alister

Ya Ive been using V2 for the last month or so. I really like it. Havent had a single problem with it actually. Very fast and stable. The only thing I dont like about it is it's KDE based, but it was easy enough to add Gnome and XFce4.

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QuarterSwede

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I've been trying to get Fedora to work but I am having trouble. First of all, Fedora Core 1 installed fine but the screen would cut off randomly. I tried to installed the latest ATi drivers to no avail (I am a complete linux and unix newbie) so I downloaded and tried to install Fedore Core 2. The problem is that at the beginning of the installation it locks up or tells me that my partition is faulty and then locks up. The funny thing is that by that time I haven't even told it where to install to (I have 2 hard drives [1 for XP and 1 for Linux]). So I am stuck waiting for Fedora Core 3 or trying another distro.

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dtanderson

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Ya Ive been using V2 for the last month or so. I really like it. Havent had a single problem with it actually. Very fast and stable. The only thing I dont like about it is it's KDE based, but it was easy enough to add Gnome and XFce4.

KDE is one of the reason that I was looking at Yoper because I prefer KDE over Gnome :D

Alister

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markwolfe Veteran

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... The funny thing is that by that time I haven't even told it where to install to (I have 2 hard drives [1 for XP and 1 for Linux]). So I am stuck waiting for Fedora Core 3 or trying another distro.

Chances are very good you did tell it (or it at least it told you, and you clicked "next").

And there is nothing wrong with trying other distros. In fact, it is a Good Thing. (Y)

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boomn

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The problem is that at the beginning of the installation it locks up or tells me that my partition is faulty and then locks up. The funny thing is that by that time I haven't even told it where to install to (I have 2 hard drives [1 for XP and 1 for Linux]). So I am stuck waiting for Fedora Core 3 or trying another distro.

Thats sounds like a messed up partition table on one of your hard drive, not fedora's problem. In fact i would try to fix that error before i installed any distro, because you could end up making other partitions unreadable

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QuarterSwede

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Thats sounds like a messed up partition table on one of your hard drive, not fedora's problem.? In fact i would try to fix that error before i installed any distro, because you could end up making other partitions unreadable

That's what I thought but I've tried physically unhooking my XP hard drive and installing Fedora Core 2 on the other, blank, hard drive and it still gives me the same error. How can there be a problem with the partition table if it is a blank and unformatted hard drive. Just a note: I have already tried formatting it and that didn't work.

Also, it isn't that I told it where to put it or Fedora did, the error shows up when I have just clicked on what keyboard language (English) I am using and that's the second step in!

Edited by Jstphish
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markwolfe Veteran

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That's what I thought but I've tried unhooking my XP hard drive and installing it on my blank hard drive and it still gives me the same error. How can there be a problem with the partition table if it is a blank and unformatted hard drive. Just a note: I have already tried formatting it and that didn't work.

Also, it isn't that I told it where to put it or Fedora did, the error shows up when I have just clicked on what keyboard language (English) I am using and that's the second step in!

Odd... :unsure:

Perhaps if you go into BIOS and set your drive's access mode away from "Auto" or "CHS", and make sure it is in "LBA" mode, it will make things work.

I know that FC2 (and other 2.6 kernel distros that use anaconda) will have problems (or generate problems) on large drives not in LBA mode.

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vertigosity

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I don't think you can use the ATi drivers with FC2 - it uses the X.org 6.7 X Server distribution, and ATi's drivers only support Xfree86's version 4.3. I could be wrong.

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