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I just thought I would share some info about my MEPIS install. The version I installed was 3.3.1-1
I have had a bit of trouble finding a distro that worked on this machine. I had tried Mandriva, but it would freeze on shutdown or restart, and there was no fix for it - the only effective fix for those kinds of errors that I found was "choose another distro". So this post is mainly to say that MEPIS will work with this brand of laptop.
Only one of point of concern though - and maybe it's because I've only been using Linux for 2 days, but it seemed worth documenting to me:
During the install, when you get to Display Driver, if you click the ATI drivers option instead of the default drivers, you may be forced into a text-only mode. This happened to me, and I could find no way to get the GUI to start up. It may actually be better to start with the 'default drivers' and handle this issue seperately. I used defaults, booted in via GUI, and finished the configuration (set up net connection, email, etc.) Then, I used the instructions below for installing the ATI drivers:
1. Open Mepis OS Center.
2. Go to Mouse and Display section.
3. Go to ATI tab.
4. Select Official ATI fglrx driver and click Apply (you need internet connection).
5. Wait till the driver is downloaded, on slow connection be prepared to wait about 1 hour.
6. Restart computer when done.
How to repair, in case KDE refuses to start (computer boots to text prompt):
1. Boot CD
2. Log in as root
3. Click on "Install Me"
4. Select from "Repair" category: "Reinstall X config file"
Aside from this extra step, which may or may not be necessary for you, the entire install was flawless.
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): None indicated | Rating: 10
Kernel (uname -r):
2.6.10
Distribution:
MEPIS 3.3.1-1
During the install, when you get to Display Driver, if you click the ATI drivers option instead of the default drivers, you may be forced into a text-only mode. This happened to me, and I could find no way to get the GUI to start up. It may actually be better to start with the 'default drivers' and handle this issue seperately. I used defaults, booted in via GUI, and finished the configuration (set up net connection, email, etc.) Then, I used the instructions below for installing the ATI drivers:
1. Open Mepis OS Center.
2. Go to Mouse and Display section.
3. Go to ATI tab.
4. Select Official ATI fglrx driver and click Apply (you need internet connection).
5. Wait till the driver is downloaded, on slow connection be prepared to wait about 1 hour.
6. Restart computer when done.
How to repair, in case KDE refuses to start (computer boots to text prompt):
1. Boot CD
2. Log in as root
3. Click on "Install Me"
4. Select from "Repair" category: "Reinstall X config file"
Aside from this extra step, which may or may not be necessary for you, the entire install was flawless.
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