Hi all,

I made the decision to switch to linux last week, after installing various distros and giving up on numerous occasions due to little problems, which inevitably made me continue to use XP. I really like linux, its faster, I can tweak everything I want and it should be good for programming (I'm hoping to study comp sci sometime soon). I'm sick of Windows and feel it is time to make the move.

So I downloaded and installed ubuntu 7.10 as I had heard good things. However, I couldn't get it to do 1440x900 resolution and the monitor would just turn off with any other graphics driver than "vesa" selected. I posted on the forums, members went through my xorg config but it was to no avail, so thought maybe I should try another distro?

I do not want to waste my time downloading/repartitioning/installing other distros if I'm going to hit the same brick wall. I have an ATI Radeon 9000 graphics card, and do not want to change/upgrade it. I appreciate that it is the manufacturers fault for not releasing drivers, but it is frustrating when it "just works" in windows.

I might as well put some "must haves" in a distro if it helps recommend a distro that I might not have thought of:

- Decent community so that if I encounter problems I can find answers.
- Good driver support, so I don't have to spend hours sorting things out (not that I don't want to get my hands dirty so to speak, its more a question of time).
- Some command line is fine, but too much I would find tedious.
- Be great if I can upgrade the distro without burning a cd and reinstalling.
- Installation of software simple & logical (command line is fine, basically if there is something I want to install it shouldn't be problematic).
- Not "bloated" and runs well.
- Would be good if it looked nice! (Although I will more than likely edit everything and create my own desktop so not that important).

Appreciate any help - really dont want to be stuck with XP

You may get infinite different answers here, but I would recommend OpenSuse. Good hardware support (ATI Radeon 9000 was perfectly supported since version 10.0) and a very good tool (Yast) to tweak your system without too much command lines.

I've said to a lot of people that it's wasting their time asking for the perfect distribution for them, because it's up to them to try and find out - you might imagine how impossible it is for another person, let alone a "stranger" who doesn't know you, to know what is a good distribution for you, your hardware and so on. But I'll post something anyway (let's make it "an exception proves the rule" sort of thing).

I would definitely still recommend Ubuntu (or Kubuntu for KDE desktop), if you're not into Slackware. Slackware would be great, but if you're having trouble setting your graphics up, working with Slackware for the first days could make you feel a bit down after XP Not that it's bad nor difficult, but different. Ubuntu has great driver support - you should be able have it install the proprietary ATI driver for your card and have it do all the blazing 3d things you've wanted, if ATI just provides a driver still for Radeon 9000. I'm not sure if this is the case, but after installing Ubuntu and running Synaptic to update the system, you should just open the Restricted Drivers Manager (present in the latest two versions of Ubuntu at least) and I'm fairly sure it ought to detect your Radeon card. Then all you needed to do was check the device to be dealt with and have it install the ATI driver for it, and after rebooting things should look better. If it's the sort of card I think it is, you could probably enable the 3d desktop effects too without trouble (though I don't recommend it: most of the effects just slow down your working and don't make it faster nor easier).

Then Ubuntu has a pretty nice community; you will get help at their IRC channels if you just ask and be patient about idlers. Software installation is one of the easiest in Ubuntu - based on my experiences - and at least on my computer the various Ubuntu versions have all been stable and nice. Even this Beta version I'm right now using. SuSE should have good driver support too, but due to the commercial decicions the company behind SuSE (commercial versions) has done I don't like it too much.

As the last note: all parts that you can install on one distribution you can install on anotherone, so the desktop outlooks don't really depend on what you choose - not if you're ready take a moment or two to customize and change the outlooks (only the "out of the package" outlooks differ, all the rest is available anyway). Also the distributions all use the Linux kernel - some may have applied different patches to it, and the configurations might vary a little, but in the end it's the same kernel and mostly the same modules that are inside, so you won't get anything shiny there by selecting a certain distribution. Mainly it just comes down to two things: community support and the amount of work (and maybe custom software, scripts, ...) put into the project to make it smooth. In that aspect Ubuntu is great (note the Restricted Drivers Manager that can install the notorious ATI and nVidia drivers, some wireless drivers and winmodem drivers that you otherwise would have to deal with manually), and though most of the major distributions aren't bad, it's not any worse either.

Though: if you feel like all of the distributions you've tried (how many? 2? 5? 10?) just don't work for you, then you'll never find one that is good. You would just have to adapt to the way Linux operating systems work and rather solve the minor problems than try to circulate them by trying out another distribution.

Appreciate the replies.

b0uncer I think you are quite right in all of your points, I understand that a linux distro is a very personal thing, but given the hardware issues faced with the graphics card (which is the main problem I have had with linux) I wondered if anybody could recommend a distro that has good drivers support.

Dont get me wrong my experience with ubuntu has so far been great, the community are fantastic and I really liked the distro. My problem with it wasn't that it wasn't identifying the graphics card, or providing a driver for the graphics card - it did this no problem. The problem was the driver didn't work, and caused the monitor to turn off, so only the "vesa" driver worked. Furthermore, the new version coming out (I tried the beta) didn't allow me to specify which driver I wanted to use, therefore meant it was unusable. It was this that has caused me to look elsewhere, because I can't really see a solution (and neither can the ubuntu forum).

I cant remember why I have stopped using linux in the past, have tried mandrake and fedora core 4. I think it was annoying hardware problems that I couldn't solve and slowly began using XP again rather than a problem with how linux works. I'm more keen to try it again.

colucix: I'm not sure I like the look of the opensuse distro, looks a bit like a windows "wannabe" and I want to use linux because its different. Having said that I might download it now and give it a try - if it supports my drivers I would be happy to use it as a starting point.

Was also thinking about debian, but if the ATI driver doesn't work in ubuntu then it would be logical to assume it wouldn't work in debian?

Have you looked here?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto


I had a lot of issues w/ an ATI 9550. Gave me enough headaches, and I wanted away from MS badly enough, I bought a Nvidia FX5500 256mb on clearance from TigerDirect. Worked perfectly out of the box. Now I use a 7300 GT to run my dual screens, and its easy as can be.

I'm in agreement you should stick with Ubuntu, which version did you download? Unfortunately there's way to many variables to say, "yeah, this will work for you". Find a distribution you like, and work out its minor issues. It only "just works" in Windows, because there's Windows drivers for the device. If there's a Linux driver for it, like Nvidia, they generally "just work" just like they do in Windows.

IGF

After reading your post carefully,
I suggest that you use Mandriva. Latest version is just out. Here.

It has a decent community. Good driver support, proprietary drivers are loaded in default installation. URPMI is one of the easiest package manager. Mandriva control center is awesome, almost everything can be done using GUI settings. Not bloated, runs fast on a machine that can handle ubuntu/openSUSE. Apart from compiz-fusion, Matisse GUI effect is also present in mandriva which is cool.

I don't know why Mandriva doesn't get its due applause, but to me its a really awesome distro to have it.

To be honest ATI has a long record of ignoring anything but Microsoft and offering no driver support for their cards in Linux. I've had Nvidia for a few years and have had no issues, because Nvidia is committed to supporting Linux users. I can't be sure there is going to be a Linux solution that "just works" for your card, since changing cards is out of the question.

If you don't like the command line, don't want to truly tweak the system (not just the gui), and aren't into experimenting and installing a bunch of different discs, I'm not sure Linux (at least as a desktop) is for you. The desktop environment, to me, is much more difficult to maintain and set up, because there are things like audio and video, etc. to reconcile. I have installed a few dozen in my time and they all have issues that change per version, plus it utterly depends on the hardware you have. Ubuntu Feisty runs pretty well on my laptop but Ubuntu Gusty is a mess. A friend has an HP laptop running Fedora 8 with issues I couldn't live with, but he's fine without these features. My HP laptop in a slightly different line than his has different issues, with the audio not working correctly and wifi not accessible (no Fedora for me).

I would suggest, for a beginner, Ubuntu or Mandriva. I used to suggest Suse, but Novell has signed with the Devil themselves and are not acceptable anymore (when you install Suse, you are beholden to MS). Some other easy ones are Xandros (XP-like, but costs some money), Arch, gOS, and Linspire (costs as well). You should really install as many as you can and see what is missing and what you can live with. Half the fun is trying to get things to work. The ones that cost money are probably your best bet to have larger driver support and have it working out of the box. Since you said not much command line, I do NOT suggest Slackware. Slackware is what I run, but you have to start from scratch, and it's pretty unforgiving for those with little patience for the hardcore.

As an aspiring comp sci student you should really break out the cli and get very comfortable with it, as well as get used to tinkering around with and fixing hardware issues. There really is not much of a way around using the cli, unless you want to cripple yourself by working with wizards on Windows servers - even then, you will not get half the critical information you need to effectively run a system/network without the command line. Tab completion RULEZ for the cli neophyte and guru alike. Embrace it.

I could give you a whole bunch of reasons why I don't, the main two being, One, its buggy as hell(frequent lock ups, application crashes, etc). 2. when it does work, it does so at about the pace of Windows Vista on a 486.

Really sad, One of the distros I really liked when I started this journey, was Mandrake 10.0 Official. Then after that, I bought the new version, and was very disappointed.

IGF

Try the "mini-me" edition of PCLinuxOS. It will run from the CD live with a default resolution, probably 1024x768, but on the desktop you will find a Utilities folder. In there, you can first set up your internet connection, and then install the ATi driver. If this is successful, you can run the PCLinuxOS Control Centre, and click on the hardware tab, then Graphics Server and correct the resolution.

This can all be done from the Live CD. So once you know it works, then, and only then, install!

As this is a cut-down version, once installed, run Synaptic first to update the software then to add the programs you need.

The other stuff you asked for like good forum help, etc, good driver support, hardly any command-line stuff unless you choose to, etc, is all there too.

Get it here: http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/l...glish/preview/

Ubuntu is pretty "dumbed down" and has a great support forum. Stick with it.............

xpoz- I understand the frustration. I've taken the better part of the last couple of weeks trying to revive an old Gateway PII 233 laptop. I tried:

Knoppix - gorgeous gui but my cd-rom drive is way too slow to run it well, and it's not made for an install.

Ubantu, Mandriva, Mandrake 10 all were too big for what I wanted

Damn small Linux - couldn't get the video driver working.

which brought me to Puppy - I tried 3.01 and with my hardware configuration couldn't get my Edmiax wireless card going unless I dropped all encryption even when I used the command line. So I tried Puppy 2.17 and I got it working with WEP - not my first choice but better than none.

This was a lot of trial and error and looking for answers here and on the puppy forums. It was a matter of finding the Linux distro that worked best with my hardware. I can't tell you how many ISO's I burned - but I now have a stockpile for my next Linux project. If you've got the inclination, hang in there.

I've already had a look at that but it only supports ATI 9500+ and mine is an ATI 9000 cards. I would look at buying another graphics card, but would ideally like the leave this as a last resort since I'm not a gamer or anything like that.

Rumbo: Sorry if I implied that I disliked the command line, I don't have a problem with it at all - I quite like using it actually. What I meant by "tedious" is that if I have to use the command line for lots of things I would get annoyed (which I believe to be the case with some distros/window managers, e.g. command line to start an application). My opinion is that if the GUI is around then why not make life easy? I'm not scared of getting stuck in with an advanced distro, but the hardware support has to be there.

I think it is going to be a case of installing and trying different distros until one works well for the system. I can live with some "faults" but unfortunately the resolution isn't one of them. If it appears that I need a new graphics card then I will just have to look out on ebay, and will at least have had a feel for different distros.

Appreciate the replies!

Have you tried Envy for Ubuntu?

I second the recommendation of Mandriva (use One if you have ATI). ATI is difficult due to their past hatred of Linux users. That may be improving now, but they are stuck, for now, with the code they wrote when they hated us.

Mepis, Mint, PCLinuxOS are all worth checking out.

The thing to keep in mind is that these distros work good on average: most things will work fine, but every so often someone will have a system or component that doesn't play well with a given distro. The only real choice is to play with other distros or (my preference) bother people on forums until you get an answer for your distro.

Bit of an update...

Gave mepis a go, and after a few problems got it installed but had the same problem in that the system wouldn't work unless the vesa driver was selected.

I noticed mint is reporting similar problems with this card on their forum, so I'll avoid that.

When I installed them they could only be installed in safe graphics mode or equivalent.

Will maybe try another couple of distros but I think I'm going to have to concede that if I want linux to work I will need to buy a new graphics card, because I cannot get the drivers to work and nobody seems to know what to do.

1st... If you end up w/ Ubuntu or one of its variants, STAY AWAY FROM ENVY... You've been warned.

Mint/Ubuntu are pretty much the same OS.. If you're having a problem w/ Ubuntu, you're very likely to have it with Mint also. I don't know if you're a Gamer, or what, but getting Nvidia cards on clearance from TD is pretty easy.

IGF