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I have just installed Linux Mint 17.3 on my Acer Aspire laptop (two days ago) and it is still running in the rendering mode. I found a couple of suggested fixes that are not working for me.The included caution regarding using it (troubleshooting only) imply that it may be damaging is a serious concern to me. It appears that the problem with it (SIS M760GX) have been ongoing for 2 or 3 years. Is there a solution I have not yet discovered.
Are you running the Cinnamon DE? The situation you are describing arises when running Cinnamon on a system, like my ancient HP s3707c, with (by today's standards) graphically-challenged hardware. If you find that situation unacceptable, you should switch to a less-demanding GUI. I recommend Mate.
Thanks for the replies.
Rock: I prefer finding a solution allowing me to continue using Cinn. I am on an Acer Aspire (2006). When I installed Linux everything on the hard drive was erased in the formatting. My hard drive had been set by Acer to have two partitions on the drive. The D contained the Acer data, etc. I do not know how removing the Acer specifics would affect the computer and its hardware, etc. What do you think about that?
Beach Boy: I would like to change the user name but did not see the option when I looked in My Profile.
Both: I am and will continue to seek a solution, and also think about whether to move to Mate.
Your Acer recovery partition is probably gone. I've got an Acer Aspire One ZG5 netbook from 2008 (Atom N270, 1GB RAM) on which I run currently a Mate DE. LXDE and XFCE work well, as did Gnome2 in it's day.
If you really want to try to get XP back (that second partition was probably a recovery partition), I have an "Unofficial Aspire_One_XP_Recovery_Disc.iso" sitting on the HDD of my desktop PC. No guarantees it'll work on your Aspire, but I'd be happy to send you a copy
No, I don't want xp back. My question was asked because I was wandering if, by the removal of AcerD, The Linux program installation failed to detect certain needs for the machine. Such as the WIFI system, or the SIS m760GX graphics driver. Also, I have the original setup CD's if I were to roll back. Thanks for the offer though.
Is it feasible to have my Windows 10 desktop and my Acer Linux on the same network?
Thanks for your time and effort to assist in these matters.
Happy to see you don't want XP back Thought I'd offer just in case. The Acer partition (or lack thereof) would not negatively affect the installation of Linux.
Having a diverse set of OSs on your network should be no problem. My network includes multibooting machines that run (or have run) the following OSs: XP, Vista, Win 7, Win 8, Win 10, various versions of Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Puppy Linux, PCLinuxOS, and a few others.
To see which video driver your system is using, open a terminal window and type
Code:
lsmod | grep video\
(there's a space after the backslash). Even with a proper driver, Cinnamon really wants a graphics card with hardware acceleration; otherwise it reverts to software rendering, which is slower, and more demanding of the CPU, but should work. It's sometimes possible to use ndiswrapper with a Windows wifi driver. However, I don't believe it's possible to use a Windows graphics driver in Linux.
What are the dangers of running in software rendering mode? It is working but slow thus far.
The video card is SIS M760GX.
I had the wifi working until this afternoon. First it would not allow me to switch between the connection to the internet and the connection direct to my printer. Now I do not have wifi at all. I used Software Manager to install bcmwl-kernel-source and that is when I lost wifi.
I have tried to find a way to uninstall that without success.
Thanks for helping.
The video card is SIS M760GX.
I had the wifi working until this afternoon. First it would not allow me to switch between the connection to the internet and the connection direct to my printer. Now I do not have wifi at all. I used Software Manager to install bcmwl-kernel-source and that is when I lost wifi.
I have tried to find a way to uninstall that without success.
Hello and welcome to the forum
Just as a suggestion, you might want to change your username using the instructions at the top of the page here, lest your email inbox ends up with a boatload of SPAM in the very near future.
Unfortunately, SiS and Broadcom chips can be very difficult to get working correctly in Linux. SiS is not well supported at all. In addition to what beachboy2 has requested, please attach an ethernet cord from your modem or router to your laptop, if you haven't already, and then open a terminal and post the entire results of these commands...
Code:
lspci -nnk
Code:
lsmod
Code:
iwconfig
Code:
rfkill list
Simply copy and paste the commands into the terminal and press "Enter." Then copy and paste the results into your next post. This should give folks a better understand of your hardware.
There's no "driver in use" mentioned here or in your lsmod report. You're probably using just the basic VESA driver. I can poke around a bit and see if there is a solution available for your particular chip.
EDIT: If you would, please install "inxi" using this command...
Code:
sudo apt-get install inxi
And then post the graphics information from these commands...
Code:
inxi -Fxz
Code:
sudo lshw -C video
Disclaimer: Be careful with commands including "su" or "sudo" especially, as it will essentially allow root access to your system. Mistakes could possibly damage or even destroy your OS.
Here is the data. I have not done the other yet. Thanks
cusfo@Aspire-3000 ~ $ sudo apt-get install inxi
[sudo] password for cusfo:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
inxi is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
cusfo@Aspire-3000 ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System: Host: Aspire-3000 Kernel: 3.19.0-32-generic i686 (32 bit gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Cinnamon 2.8.8 (Gtk 3.10.8~8+qiana)
Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
Machine: System: Acer product: Aspire 3000
Mobo: Acer model: Lugano M Bios: Acer v: 3A27 date: 08/24/05
CPU: Single core Mobile AMD Sempron 3100+ (-UP-) cache: 256 KB
flags: (nx pae sse sse2 sse3) bmips: 1600 speed/max: 800/1800 MHz
Graphics: Card: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.17.1 drivers: fbdev (unloaded: vesa)
Resolution: 1024x768@76.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.6, 128 bits)
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.5.9 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7012 AC'97 Sound Controller
driver: snd_intel8x0 ports: 1400 1c80 bus-ID: 00:02.7
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.19.0-32-generic
Network: Card-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet
driver: sis900 port: 1800 bus-ID: 00:04.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Card-2: Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller
driver: wl bus-ID: 00:0b.0
IF: N/A state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives: HDD Total Size: 60.0GB (11.9% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: HTS421260H9AT00 size: 60.0GB temp: 33C
Partition: ID-1: / size: 53G used: 4.8G (10%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
ID-2: /boot size: 236M used: 46M (21%) fs: ext2 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-3: swap-1 size: 2.08GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-2
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 61.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 146 Uptime: 4:14 Memory: 719.4/1950.2MB
Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.28
cusfo@Aspire-3000 ~ $ sudo lshw -C video
*-display UNCLAIMED
description: VGA compatible controller
product: 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
vendor: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm agp agp-3.0 vga_controller cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:e8000000-efffffff memory:e2100000-e211ffff ioport:a000(size=128)
cusfo@Aspire-3000 ~ $
I did the wifi solution and it is now working as before.
The link regarding the rendering problem was informative, amd prompts me to say that according to the Acer User Guide my SIS m760GX has integrated 3D graphics. Thanks again.
And He is risen indeed!
Last edited by jspnow; 06-09-2016 at 07:04 PM.
Reason: to add results from other items
The strange thing is that, from your report, you're using the "fbdev" driver, not the "sis," as shown in the thread I linked to. The only difference I see is that your xorg version is 1.17.1 and his was 1.15.1. I wonder if that would make a difference? It might be worth experimenting by trying the version of Mint that uses the 1.15.1 Xorg version. Otherwise, I'm not sure what to suggest at this point.
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