[conspire] supported graphics cards?

[Ken Bernard]

Thanks Rick, everything you mentioned is of course TRUE. I knew that I
was probably going to have issues with Linux support something when I
bought the HP box.

The video display problem is:
The PC displays the Knoppix penguin and boot options screen(s), but then
Knoppix does not display, I get a pink and grey display that looks like old
time TV static but is not flickering.
Excuse me for not mentioning that before.

Cabal suggests an older 1GB NVidia video card, and/or checking the distro
wiki for how to get fgirx / Catalyst to support the above mentioned
integrated graphics.

I may have to get myself and the PC to the next Cabal (July 27)

Thanks, Ken  Bernard


On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Quoting Ken Bernard (kenbernard at gmail.com):
>
> > Hi to everyone at CABAL. I haven't been able to attend the meetings at
> > Rick's for quite a while. Anyway, I just went to Fry's and bought a new
> PC
> > since my current desktop is years old and much of the newer software
> > updates will no longer "just install" or "just work."
> >
> > I have tried to load Knoppix in the new box and have serious graphic
> > display problems. Since the new box is using integrated graphics ( AMD,
> ATI
> > Vision) I think that I can just pop in a supported graphics card and I
> > should be good. I guess that I would need a card with native Linux
> support
> > or there would be no way to install a new OS.
>
> Ken --
>
> 1.  Just buying a low-end recently introduced box and worrying about
> driver compatibility later is asking for trouble.  Really, why didn't
> you bring a Knopping disc to Fry's and test-boot it _before_ buying?
>
> (Also, I don't want to seem like I'm beating you up for going with the
> low-end home-user-focussed HP Pavillion line, but that's exactly the
> sort of model line that has the greatest incidence of driver problems on
> newly introduced models, because they use the cheapest stuff they can
> source, and the most recent, and those chips inevitably are difficult
> driver problems from manufacturers who seldom cooperate with open source
> or do so only very slowly.)
>
> 2.  'ATI Vision' is a marketing term only, and does not properly
> identify the video chipset.  I'm guessing you're quoting HP's so-called
> specifications.  If you want better information, one way to get it is
> using lspci.
>
> > HP P&-1414
>
> HP Pavillion P7-1414
>
> (Watch that shift key.)
>
> In fact, your HPP7-1414 with AMD Trinity Quad-Core A8 APU has an
> accompanying integrated AMD Radeon HD7560D GPU.  You'll want to bear in
> mind that information rather than the meaningless term 'ATI Vision'.
> (In fact, does my memory fail me, or doesn't 'ATI Vision' actually refer
> to software they provide for managing the video?)
>
> I'm pretty sure the proprietary[1] AMD Catalyst driver set, aka fglrx,
> will support this problematically recent cheap video GPU.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Catalyst
>
> > I suppose I will want to install CentOS 6 on the new box.
>
> CentOS 6 with fglrx retrofit will definitely do it.  No new video card
> required.
>
> If you want to use a video card, damn near anything that wasn't
> introduced in the last six months will be fine.  You got into trouble
> because you bought recently introduced low-end hardware and just punted
> on the driver issue until after your money was spent.
>
> In the future, you might want to Not Do That, Then.
>
> (BTW, as a corollary to that, you probably won't need fglrx for very
> long either.  New CentOS releases roll in new X.org releases that
> introduce open source support for newish video chips all the time.  If
> the current release doesn't support your spanking-new low-end video chip
> already, the next one will.)
>
>
> [1] This driver set is said to now include both open-source and
> proprietary drivers, which it didn't use to.  No idea what distros
> bundle the open source portion, if any.  And by the way, check your
> distro docs/wiki/etc. about preferred ways of retrofitting fglrx /
> Catalyst, as such may exist.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> conspire mailing list
> conspire at linuxmafia.com
> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/attachments/20130627/2b865744/attachment.html>