[ubuntu-uk] 9.10 with ATI Radeon
I've got a PC with an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 video - I know I've seen comments in the past ATI isn't very well supported. Looking at the forums and the hardware pages, though it seems some people use them OK, and I've read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver But when I try the LiveCD (9.10) all I get is a flashing cursor on a black screen, so I can't try enabling the restricted drivers or checking the compatibility anyway. Is there a way round this? And is this an on board chip, rather than an actual card which can be changed? (I get that impression from looking at it, and from reading stuff on line.) TIA Dianne -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] 9.10 with ATI Radeon
Dianne Reuby wrote: I've got a PC with an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 video - I know I've seen comments in the past ATI isn't very well supported. Looking at the forums and the hardware pages, though it seems some people use them OK, and I've read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver But when I try the LiveCD (9.10) all I get is a flashing cursor on a black screen, so I can't try enabling the restricted drivers or checking the compatibility anyway. Is there a way round this? And is this an on board chip, rather than an actual card which can be changed? (I get that impression from looking at it, and from reading stuff on line.) TIA Dianne Dianne, My wifes laptop is a Toshiba with builtin ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics. When I installed Ubuntu in the past (8.04, 8.10 and 9.04) I found with the first two that I could use the Alternate install cd but with 9.04, even that wouldn't work. The livecd wouldn't work at all. I got round the problem by attaching a second monitor to the laptop during installation with the alternate cd and found that it worked fine doing that, everything that you'd expect on the laptop screen came up on the external monitor. Once it was installed and restarted, there were no problems, it just seemed to be the installer that was having problems. I've not tried upgrading to 9.10 yet, that was something I was waiting for a while to see how other people got on with it. Hope that helps anyway. Regards Dave -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] 9.10 with ATI Radeon
Dianne Reuby wrote: I've got a PC with an ATI Radeon Xpress 200 video - I know I've seen comments in the past ATI isn't very well supported. Looking at the forums and the hardware pages, though it seems some people use them OK, and I've read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver I've found some ATI cards work better than others, I have an ATI Radeon All In Wonder X800 which has a funny turn with Ubuntu when it's attached to both the PC monitor and our LCD TV. Although I have found some ATI cards work great. It's not just ATI I've had problems with too, I've had real problems with NVidia cards too. But when I try the LiveCD (9.10) all I get is a flashing cursor on a black screen, so I can't try enabling the restricted drivers or checking the compatibility anyway. Is there a way round this? When you boot the Live CD, you should be able to choose the option for Safe Graphics Mode (I think), it's one of the F keys, you should see something at the bottom of the screen where you can select to try Ubuntu or run the installation program. And is this an on board chip, rather than an actual card which can be changed? (I get that impression from looking at it, and from reading stuff on line.) Yes, I have a feeling it is. However it may be possible to fit a graphics card. I don't suppose you know the make and model number of your motherboard do you, or if it's a branded PC (say a Dell, HP etc), what the make and model number is? It is possible that your motherboard may have an AGP slot for an external graphics card, or a PCI Express slot (or two). As a minimum it should have a PCI slot (assuming it's a desktop PC and not a laptop). Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] 9.10 with ATI Radeon
David Jones wrote: Once it was installed and restarted, there were no problems, it just seemed to be the installer that was having problems. My original plan was to remove the HDD and replace it with the HDD from my machine (with 9.04 on) - I just thought I'd run the LiveCD to check for hardware problems before doing it. I might as well go ahead and see what happens then! Dianne -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] 9.10 with ATI Radeon
Rob Beard wrote: However it may be possible to fit a graphics card. I don't suppose you know the make and model number of your motherboard do you, or if it's a branded PC (say a Dell, HP etc), what the make and model number is? It is possible that your motherboard may have an AGP slot for an external graphics card, or a PCI Express slot (or two). As a minimum it should have a PCI slot (assuming it's a desktop PC and not a laptop). It's a Packard Bell m/board RC410-M, specs from the site: Form Factor * µATX Form Factor. * 24.4 x 24.4 cm. CPU Support * Intel Pentium D Dual Core Technology. * Intel® Pentium® 4 processor in an LGA775 socket with an 800 MHz system bus. * Intel® Celeron® D processor in an LGA775 socket with an 800 MHz system bus. Chipset * ATI Radeon XPress 200 Northbridge. * ATI SB450 Southbridge. System Memory * 2 banks. * DDR2 400 / DDR2 533 / DDR2 667 DIMMs. * Supports up to 4 GB system memory. * Single Channel support. Video * ATI XPRESS 200M GPU. * Maximum video memory in BIOS is 256 MB. * Total maximum video memory 512 MB using TurboCache. Audio * Realtek ALC 655 audio codec. * High Definition Audio subsystem. * 5.1 channel support. Network * Realtek RTL8100C. * 10/100 Mbit. Expansion Slots * 1x PCI Express 16X. * 3x PCI. Drive Support * 4 x SATA connectors. * 2 x Ultra ATA-133 connector. Apologies for two replies - for some odd reason my original email and Dave's reply didn't come through to my email program! Dianne -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] 9.10 with ATI Radeon
Dianne Reuby wrote: Rob Beard wrote: However it may be possible to fit a graphics card. I don't suppose you know the make and model number of your motherboard do you, or if it's a branded PC (say a Dell, HP etc), what the make and model number is? It is possible that your motherboard may have an AGP slot for an external graphics card, or a PCI Express slot (or two). As a minimum it should have a PCI slot (assuming it's a desktop PC and not a laptop). It's a Packard Bell m/board RC410-M, specs from the site: snip Expansion Slots * 1x PCI Express 16X. * 3x PCI Ahh yeah you have a 16x PCI Express slot so you should be able to add another card. As suggested elsewhere, the NVidia cards are pretty good and reasonably priced. As much as I like the fact ATI have released information for their graphics cards so an open source driver can be written, I was a bit miffed to find they have stopped supporting some older cards with their latest proprietary driver. I'll say one thing for NVidia, although they don't release the information to create a 3D open source driver, they do tend to support their previous graphics cards in newer drivers. So if you decide to try a different graphics card, I would maybe suggest something like this from eBuyer.com at £22. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173699 Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
