Folks,
A test-run the Debian Jessie live DVD (64-bit AMD Deaktop)
produced a message "Cinamon currently running without
hardware acceleration". Otherwise the live distro distro
seemed to work OK during the 20 minutes I tried it.

QUESTIONS
1. How serious is this message??
Is it sufficient reason not to install Jessie on my
machine, or is it simply an annoyance one can live with?
2. If necessary what for extra hardware should I install
and where can I get the drivers?

Motherboard here is an Asus A88XM-A (64 bit AMD) which, I
understand, doesn't have hardware graphics acceleration on-
board. System unit is about two weeks new.
Monitor has VGA interface and is rather old (ca 2007 or so)
Current platform is Ubuntu 14.04.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give

Dynosaw
--

The ASUS A88XM-A is mainboard for FM2+ CPUs, which have inbuilt graphics. To get that video device working properly you need to install the necessary firmware or the proprietary AMD driver, both are likely is not preinstalled on Debian's Live-CD/DVD. This is easy, since firmware and AMD's driver are available in Debian's non-free repository.
More info on both drivers in Debian: https://wiki.debian.org/GraphicsCard#AMD.2FATI

Thankyou very much for your help.

Dynosaw

It's probably due to your graphics card which is currently unsupported (non-free). You may have to add 'contrib' and 'non-free' to /etc/apt/sources list and then do an apt-get update to have non-free firmware installed. This may return hardware acceleration to your OS.

You'll need to dig a bit deeper to find out why your cinnamon desktop isn't using hardware acceleration.

Well, it means some hardware isn't running optimally but it shouldn't be an issue for normal use. With your 'live' dvd, you can use it to remotely access your partitions if you have problems booting from an OS on your hard drive.
You can boot from the dvd on someone else's computer and stay in a linux environment. However, if your live version doesn't have persistence, then you won't be able to store files or settings on the dvd.
Also, you can use the dvd to familiarise yourself with debian and if you like it, you can install a 'full' debian system on your hard derive.

You don't need extra hardware. You just need to make your hardware compatible with the debian OS so you can enable hardware acceleration again. All the drivers for your hardware will be in the debian repos. You simply use 'apt-get install' from a terminal or you can use the 'Synaptic' gui to do the same thing.
If you have a radeon graphics card for example, you can open up Synaptic and do a search on 'radeon'. You can look through the list of drivers and packages available and see if you need to change your debian system to include 'contrib' and 'non-free'. The live dvd will only have the 'main' packages by default.

Gentlemen,
Thank you for your help. I have now installed Debian Jessie.

The file /etc/apt/sources.list has been edited following the procedure outlined in wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo specifically "AMD/ATI Open Source Drivers (radeon, r128, mach64).

apt-get update seems to have run well, but the attempt to apt-get install the firmware failed, yielding as message "Unable to locate package libg11-mesa-dri".
What have I done wrong / how do I proceed further?

For complete I have attaced a current listing of /etc/apt/sources.list that I used.

------------
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 8 _Jessie_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20160124-16:08]/ jessie main

deb http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free

# jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free
------------

Thanks in advance for help

Dynosaw
--

1 != l

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for your reply.
I read my own printout of the How2 again
with a magnifying glass in addition to
my +3 eye glasses. The l (ell) and the
1 (one) were very very similar.

apt-get install tried again again
Installation seems to be successful
despite warning messages about possible
missing firmware; nevertheless the
warning about missing graphics divers
no longer appears on (re-) boot.

Thank you for your help.

Dynosaw
--

You could try installing 'linux-firmware-non-free'. This got rid of the hardware acceleration message on my system.
Can you stream video and do you have sound?

Thanks for your reaction.
It seems that the cause of the problem
was a " spelling mistake" (1!=l) caused
by ambiguity in the font with which the
How2 was printed out. (see previous
reaction). The install works now.
Thanks for your reply.
Regards
Dynosaw
--