Attempted to install/run Mint 15 Cinnamon with Mate shell. Doesnt work with the Via graphic chip. My EasyNote has the chip directly on the mother board. Want to keep my Windows XP on a dual boot version, so dont want to upgrade to 64bits. Tried Mint 13 which works fine. The Mint 15 works fine on my stationary Dell with Intel Graphics. Does any one out there know if my assumption about the VIA/Mate incompatability is correct? Have tried all the workarounds I found none of which worked. Could not create an xorg.conf (lock file could not be created). Would really like to have the same Mint on both PCs but in worse case will install 13 on the laptop.

Hi:

Welcome to Linux questions!

I'm not sure if there is a Mint comparability issue with your Easy Note or not.

Knowing more about your machine will help us.

Using your Mint DVD or CD run this command :
Looking in the Linux Mint Documentation may mention known graphics issues.
Main page....www.linuxmint.com

If you want to dual boot Win's XP and Linux Mint you will most likely have to shrink your Windows partition.
To determine that you can run this command to view the partitions:
Small letter L.

Have installed Mint 13, works fine, already repartioned disks. May be new to Unix/Linux but have programmed under many other OS for 40 years. Have found nothing relevant when I searched forums. lspci lists the VIA VGA compatible controller:CN400/PM800/PM880/PN800/PN880 [S3 Unichrome Pro] rev 02.

The newest version of Mint is 16 "Petra"
Maybe the newer version of the kernel in Mint 16 will provide support for your Via graphic chip--

Sometimes installing a newer version of the kernel if one is having hardware or performance issue's helps.

Here's the link to your graphics card if other members would like to chime in.
http://h-node.org/videocards/view/en...ef/undef/undef


I could be mistaken but these kernels should have the module/driver for that graphics chip.
Found in Linux kernels: 2.6.28–2.6.39, 3.0–3.13, 3.14-rc+HEAD
http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/FB_VIA.html

This was the only Easy Note that I could find. Is this your computer?
http://www.bestnotebookspecs.com/201...ification.html

My Packard Bell is an Easy Note R (32bit). Know its ancient but I need to do a sector copy if I replace it (have a program that cant be reinstalled - dont ask) and its not easy to get a laptop with not only 32 bits but good old bios. The kernel version is 3.2.0-23-generic. So maybe the driver was removed. Ive seen an open source driver for the chip, but I have been too lazy to compile it. Right now I'll live with Mint 13, which is no problem. Am about to move the laptop out to my summer island so wont have time to do much with the computers. Its not the right place, but my biggest problem now is that there is no info on how much charge is left on the battery.

@Ztcoracat I don't think kernel support is the issue, it's really more Xorg, its ever moving ABI and driver support that is the issue. You can probably run these cards with the vesa driver, but the VIA drivers seem to be out of date. See http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action I would definitely stick with Mint 13.

Thanks-

Would building a driver from source help mostlyharmless?

It would if you can do it, however I couldn't actually find any source code on the via site I posted, and the binary drivers are way out of date.
Unfortunately I think that even if you got the source code, it would be difficult to build a driver compatible with all the changes in X. Certainly even for AMD/ATI and the older Nvidia cards, at some point, it becomes pointless to try to use the proprietary drivers. Of course for those you have the actively maintained radeon and nouveau drivers.

For VIA there's OpenChrome:

It looks like OpenChrome (the Via opensource project) is umm, inactive. Still you can go to http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Open.../Installation/ or http://community.linuxmint.com/softw...deo-openchrome and have a go at it. Or if you're a talented programmer or have a lot of money you could restart the project. Of course if you were a talented programmer (and I'm not implying that you aren't!!) or had a lot of money you'd probably have more important priorities.

I clicked "install" xserver-xorg-video-openchrome display driver which is 178 kb is requesting that I open it with an application. Here's the screenshot--

http://s1052.photobucket.com/user/Ul...hrome.png.html

Anyway I see that once the tarball is downloaded one would have to decompress, build and than install the driver.

I found it in the Debian repo-
https://packages.debian.org/search?k...zy&section=all

Well, there you have it. Bear in mind "wheezy" roughly corresponds to Mint 13 in terms of xorg.

seenab-

You can give the xserver-xorg-video-openchrome display driver a try on the Debian page that I linked.
The 'Read Me'file and the 'Install'file should provide you with insturctions on how to install it.
--It should work for you as Linux Mint is Debian based--

IF there are any known issues I would imagine they would be listed in the release notes that pertain to Linux Mint 13.
http://linuxmint.com/rel_maya.php

Thanx, will try the open chrome driver, but its going to have to wait.

Your Welcome :-