Graphics card issues can be hard to fix. Distro hopping *may* be necessary, but it isn't the first thing that you should do. You need a fairly recent kernel with the proprietary binary blobs. Debian strips them out which is why I mentioned it. Besides Debian 5 has a very old kernel. Then you need the proprietary driver. You get better performance out of them and laptops are notorious for have lots of proprietary parts, so living without them is going to be painful in the long run. If it seems that Debian is not going to work for you then you should look at Mint or one of the *buntus. Don't expect it to work OTB, though. You need to install the right drivers. Many distributions default to a plain open driver for various reasons and you will experience the same issue.
Ubuntu makes it easy, by having a tool that installs proprietary drivers. However, the same driver is in the repositories and you can manually install it. This should be the same in other distributions. In Synaptic search (not quick search) for the name of your graphics card, just the manufacturer will do, ATI, Nvidia, Intel etc. The description will list what cards or chipsets it supports. Then you install it. It will need to match the driver to the kernel and headers and install it as a module. Synaptic should take care of that. You will have to re-boot for it to take effect. I have had some distros go back to the old driver on re-boot. in Fedora I had to put a line in grub to make it not use the nouveau driver, for example. In Ubuntu, I have had it sometimes not use the compositing, so I go to the settings and have to turn it back on. It does this by switching the window manager from Compiz back to Metacity. It is a pain. It happens on this system with GNOME, but not KDE, on the same base. The driver is working, but not the way I want it. By switching window manager it fixes the problem. Distro hopping is a lot of work and it won't resolve the issue unless you get lucky. Not all distros are created equal. Some are better than others at detecting the hardware and matching it with a proprietary driver. Mandriva and openSuSE do this well. Fedora and Debian don't. They are more hands on distros. Some people like this, others don't. Ubuntu is better than most. It will default to a plain driver, but make it easy to get the correct one. However, sometimes it gets it right the first time which is nice. These issues go in cycles. Different OEMs release new drivers at different times, new kernels will offer better detection, distros will include them as they become available or in their next release. It is often just happenstance that you will have a good experience with one release and a bad one with the next. It is best not to read too much into them. A better picture is formed over a period of time. Roy Using Kubuntu 10.10, 64-bit Location: Canada On 8 February 2011 12:55, Tony Mitchell <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Ah! I seem to have started a war! Not my intention, I am sure. I now > know my monitor and graphics details, but am still darned if I know how > to increase the resolution on my laptop, as the dropdown, as originally > described, contains no choices. Roy has shed some light on this, but to > date I don't have a fix. > Now, to me, debian looks very pretty, but am prepared to try other > versions if that's what it takes. Trouble is, I have found the same > monitor res issue with Puppy, macpup, mint, dream, lubuntu, and am weary > of burning CD's. It's a pity if these don't work with an old laptop, as > this appears to be partly their purpose. Antix does seem to set up the > res, although to date I can't get the desktop background to show. It's > just black, with all the icons etc clear. I've not installed it. Guess I > need to spend time fiddling to see what's happening here and if it all > works! > Don't fight each other, folks, not for my benefit. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this list, please email [email protected] & you will be removed.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LINUX_Newbies/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
