First, the question regarding the 'rendering' problem. When I query the 'display' app. it only sees one monitor. I have two, the laptop monitor and a Sanyo TV/PC. When I first installed the OS I was connected to the laptop only. Later I hooked up the Sanyo and it used and uses it without a problem. When checking 'display' the only difference in the info is to show 1024/768, as opposed to 640/?(I am not sure). For either 4:3 as well. It still only shows the one monitor and identifies it as Laptop.

Second, Should I be able to switch from one WIFI connection to another as needed. I am connected to the Netgear router for the internet, and I have a connection set up to connect directly to my Epson WF 3640 printer also. The initial connection was made when I set it from the printer. But I do not get an option to connect to it in "network connections' Thanks for your assistance.
What(oops) is involved in going to the earlier version of Linux?

Not sure, it would be an experiment.

Yes. So the connection to the printer doesn't show up in "Network Connections?" If so, I'm not sure why that would be if you were able to connect to it initially.

Regards...

I'm wondering if your system is booting up with nomodeset (or another parameter that forces use of the vesa driver, something like vga=xxx) being passed to the kernel. To check, take a look at the output from

I appreciate all the help you have been. The situation gets worse by the day and I decided yesterday to leave Linux and reinstall Windows XP on the Acer. That is proving as difficult as everything else has been. I have ordered 'gparted' and will try that.
With best regards, respect and appreciation for your testimony.

Ardvark71
RockDoctor
beachboy

Hi...

You're welcome, although I'm curious how things are getting worse. I do understand, as Linux is probably not the best substitute for this particular system, considering the graphics chip. One thing you should be aware of is that is won't be too much longer before Windows XP is no longer supported by any software company. That will mean no antivirus or anti-malware programs as an example, leaving you vulnerable to the malware that's out there. This is not including the fact that Microsoft has not been issuing security updates for the OS for over two years now, so there will be additional vulnerabilities to exploits. You might be better off buying a new or newer used computer running at least Windows 7. If you want to try something that's exclusively Linux, you can purchase a system through an outfit like ZaReason, EmperorLinux, or System76.

How do you mean "ordered?" Gparted is just a free disk partitioning utility that is available for free here. It's not an operating system, if that's what you were thinking.

If you want to stick with Windows XP and you're having difficulties getting it reinstalled, another option is to have a local computer repair shop or technician perform this for you.

God bless...

Greetings,

By worse I mean that the wireless problem resurfaced within hours. When the wireless option has functioned it does not allow for switching between wireless for the internet and wireless for the printer. The shut down problem did not go away as I had hoped and has become more of a problem. It would shut down except for turning off the computer, but now does not exit completely from the Linux software.
The gparted utility did not work for me after I had downloaded it and burned it to a cd. So I ordered a copy from OSDisk.com. I had ordered the cd's for the Linux Mint installation from them as well. Very inexpensive and the charge is for the service, not for the utilities themselves.
I was using Panda antivirus free, but I do not know how much longer they may protect XP. I have considered buying a new laptop and will check out the links you suggest as well.

Blessed be the name of the Lord

I just realized I did not deal with yours from yesterday.
I ran the command now and I am not getting it to properly respond. When I enter the command it requests my password. I then enter the password and it responds by giving me a new command line. This is the first time for this bug.

Sorry it's not working for you. If you're willing to continue experimenting with Linux, I strongly recommend running your distro of choice from a live USB flash drive or DVD prior to installing, to ensure that graphics and wifi are working as they should. I also think any of Mate, XFCE, or LXDE would be a better choice for a desktop environment given your hardware. I'll even make a couple of distro recommendations: Ubuntu 16.04, and Fedora 24 (when it comes out, which should be in the next few weeks). In the past, I've found that sometimes Fedora works when Ubuntu doesn't, and vice-versa. Whatever you decide, good luck.

RockDoctor, I tried that command again and it ran. nomode...shows up at the end. Here is what I got:
cusfo@Aspire-3000 ~ $ sudo cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg | grep vmlin
[sudo] password for cusfo:
linux /vmlinuz-3.19.0-32-generic root=/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root ro quiet splash $vt_handoff
linux /vmlinuz-3.19.0-32-generic root=/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root ro quiet splash $vt_handoff
linux /vmlinuz-3.19.0-32-generic root=/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root ro recovery nomodeset
cusfo@Aspire-3000 ~ $
After a brief respite, I am trying to get this working. I got the wifi back up, though it still does not allow me to move from a direct connect to the internet to a direct connect to my printer.

Is there a list of definitions of Linux lingo (i.e.a distro is ...)?
I would like a clearer understanding of the results of switching to a Mate desktop or other alternative.

The only kernel hits I'm getting for a gpu like that is sisfb.ko and sis_drm.ko. Both of which are missing from your lsmod output. So I googled and it seems there is (or was) a sis671_drv.so driver for xorg, but it seems 32 bit ONLY??? I'm not finding it at all in debian stable (jessie), but it's a 64 bit install. There appears to be a github for that driver, kind of, more of a repo of old .deb's and scripts and probably not what you need.

Modinfo on sisfb lists 76x, so perhaps. It probably got merged in and generic-ized.

# modinfo sisfb

maybe adding sisfb to /etc/modules will get the X environment you need. Or modprobing it before starting X. In addition to having the xserver-xorg-video-fbdev package equivalent for your distro installed. If you don't get the resolution you want when X starts, try using xrandr to adjust it. There's also a scalelcd parm for sisfb that might yield the desired results. Easier said than done.

Doesn't look like the kernel is booting with nomodeset, so that's not what's causing your system to run in software rendering mode.

In the Microsoft world, you have lots of versions, (Win 8, Win 8.1, Win 10, Win 10 Pro, etc...) but just one vendor, and one desktop environment per major version. Think of each as a distribution (distro). In the Linux world, we have multiple vendors, multiple versions, and multiple desktop environments (default apps and overall look and feel). I don't know of a definitive resource that will truly explain the differences between the different desktop environments. However, I will say that the appearance and operation of my desktop under Mate is very close to what it was under Cinnamon, but the demand on my CPU and graphics hardware is much less.

My WIFI continues to work for my internet connection only. I need to get it to work for my printer as well. The printer connection appears in the 'network connections' window, but there is no connect button to it.
Solution number 2 in the link you sent me to had me do a purge first Then it said to do this:

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

That did not work and I then tried: sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

That is when I got back to connecting to the internet, but still no connecting to the printer.

As to the different version of Mint, I have no idea how to do that. I tried to get and install the Mate DE but it did not happen, and said something had gone wrong and to try later. I have not at this point. I was using the 'software manager' for that

Thanks

Last night I decided to pursue linking my printer to a network via the Netgear router. That worked and I now have access to the internet and the printer using the same connection. I am living and learning.

Cool, I'm glad you got that working.

Regards...