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Need a driver for Mint

  • 31-05-2010 3:32pm
    #1
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭


    I installed Mint on me laptop (compaq Presario 2715EA) but it hasn't gone to well so far.

    The Laptop had starting running slow under XP and I lost the disk so thought I'd give Mint a go.

    The graphics are fuzy, it's like the kind of interference you'd get on old teles. Video playback is slow and jerky so I just figured I needed a driver for the chip, but the one ATI driver I found for Linux doesn't support my chip, Radeon mobility M6.

    I'll be running memtest when I get home just to rule that out as it was already slow but other than being slow at drawing stuff on screen it seems ok.

    Is there a driver I should be using?


Comments

  • #2
    loldog
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 634 ✭✭✭loldog


    Hi, what version of Mint are you using? Make sure it's the very latest (9) which is based on Ubuntu 10.04.

    The problem you described with your graphics card seems to be a very common one, at least in Ubuntu 9.10.

    It looks like this fix here solved the problem for a lot of people - but bear in mind that was Ubuntu 9.10, I don't know if it will be the same in Ubuntu 10.04.

    .


  • #3
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    How would I find that out?

    The only details I could fins where in System information that said
    Kernal 2.6.32-21
    Release 9 (isadora)

    They seem to saying one specific window looks corrupted but on my laptop it's the entire screen.

    I notice as well the resolution is pretty high at 1400 x 1200 but when I try to change it the screen becomes completely unusable.

    I tried going into the driver control as some said switching the display driver can fix it but no drivers show up it just says no proprietary drivers installed.

    Is it really necessary to go writing out configuration files? I'm coming from windows so I'm used to easily installed patches.


  • #4
    loldog
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 634 ✭✭✭loldog


    ScumLord wrote: »
    How would I find that out?

    It looks like you have the latest alright.
    ScumLord wrote: »
    Is it really necessary to go writing out configuration files? I'm coming from windows so I'm used to easily installed patches.

    It may be, but it's just a matter of copying and pasting stuff usually. You're installing different software on a machine that was designed to run with Windows software and drivers.

    Does your screen look more like this?

    Let' see what driver you're using now. Run
    sudo lshw -C display
    and paste the result here.

    Just been looking through forum posts and this guy says that your graphics card is old so it cannot use the newer fglrx driver, you will have to use the older driver called "radeon" or "ati". This is already installed for you.

    So if the "lshw" command up there shows that you're already using the ati or radeon driver, then I would suggest you try that fix of editing the xorg.conf file.

    That's easy to do and it's not likely to break anything (!) so if you're willing to tinker a little and try it, this is how you can do it:
    gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
    Copy and paste this into the empty document:
    # To avoid unreadable windows.
Section "Device"
    Identifier    "Radeon7500"
    Driver    "ati"
    BusID    "PCI:1:0:0"
    Option    "RenderAccel" "false"
EndSection
    Save and close. Restart the X server by doing Ctrl+Alt+F1 and logging in.

    Then do
    sudo service gdm stop
    and
    sudo service gdm start
    .


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