Jump to content

DOWNLOAD MODS

Are you looking for something shiny for your load order? We have many exclusive mods and resources you won't find anywhere else. Start your search now...

LEARN MODDING

Ready to try your hand at making your own mod creations? Visit the Enclave, the original ES/FO modding school, and learn the tricks of the trade from veteran modders...

JOIN THE ALLIANCE

Membership is free and registering unlocks image galleries, project hosting, live chat, unlimited downloads, & more...

I eventually switched to Linux! (ex: [Abandoned] Switching to Linux)


Recommended Posts

Within three years from now, support for Windows 7 will be dropped by Microsoft. It doesn't mean that Windows 7 will no longer be worth using but security issues will plague it in time. Since I cannot stand Windows 10, I've decided to switch to Linux. This thread is about Linux distributions, not Windows 10; please remember this. :)

I've installed Linux Mint 18 Sarah Cinnamon; it installed well but I cannot boot it other than by using the recovery mode; apparently, there is a compatibility problem between the distribution and my hardware, especially the graphics drivers.

I cannot install Ubuntu for the same reasons, so I'm opened to any suggestions.

Thank you! :)

My hardware:

  • CPU: Quad core AMD A10-5750M APU with Radeon HD Graphics,
  • Graphics card 1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Richland [Radeon HD 8650G],
  • Graphics card 2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Wimbledon XT [Radeon HD 7970M].

 

Edited by ladyonthemoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As you said in the shoutbox, it does look like the official AMD drivers don't work with the recent versions of Linux Mint and Ubuntu. I don't know if this will change any time soon. Linux Mint comes with open source drivers, though, that should at least get the card to work.

I assume by your hardware that this is for a laptop. I'm not sure about the specifics of AMD laptops but it's probably similar to what I've had to deal with on mine (Intel/NVidia). Laptop graphics cards work a little differently to desktops. They use hybrid graphics where the dedicated graphics card is only switched on when it is needed, so it doesn't waste power. Unfortunately, this feature is not well implemented for either Nvidia or AMD official drivers in Linux, but it can be accomplished with third party software.

Linux Mint Cinnamon uses the Cinnamon desktop which I think needs hardware acceleration. I'm *assuming* that the radeon card isn't being turned on, and that could be the reason why Cinnamon won't work properly. The open source drivers that Mint comes with should at least be enough to run Cinnamon.

I recommend using Linux Mint Mate which uses the Mate desktop. It doesn't use hardware acceleration, so it doesn't need the dedicated card turned on just to run the desktop environment. It's also more lightweight so it will run a bit better than Cinnamon. If that works then you need to find software that lets you run the dedicated card when you need it. For NVidia cards there's Bumblebee. I don't know for sure if there's an AMD equivalent but there must be. I'll have a dig around to see if I can find anything.

 

Edited by RabidGears
.
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, RabidGears said:

I don't know for sure if there's an AMD equivalent but there must be. I'll have a dig around to see if I can find anything.

Thank you for your input and help! :)

I need acceleration to be able to run Unity (the game engine), so I'm going to downgrade to Linux Mint 17.1; apparently that distribution having an older kernel might work for my machine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, JayCrane said:

I recently purchased Elementary for $5 from their site: https://elementary.io/

I haven't switched over to it yet as I still am enjoying Win 10 Home and more recently, Win 10 Professional which allows me a bit more control over my system. But, I got Elementary as an alternative to Win 10. It's just your basic OS. I've been meaning to install it on my other laptop but I didn't get around to it. It may be what you're looking for. 

I'd rather not pay for anything if I can't find the proper drivers for my graphics cards. Even 5$. Thanks anyway! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh my!  My sentiments exactly.  I hate Winblows 10 with such resentment and anger.  After all, Microsloth publicly announced they are trying to kill the P.C.

I have a powerful, beautiful computer and I don't like it being minimalized to romper room, sesame street xbox, billboard advertising. 

Anyways, I asked a friend of mine who knows Linux like the back of her hand, and she says use:

1. Ubuntu if you like the "hold your hand AOL mentality ".   If so start with K'ubuntu.

2.  Debian (Jessie Flavor) using GNOME.

Like any other O.S / hardware platform, use whatever makes more sense to you.

This is just recommendations for starters.

You can also run windows 7 in a virtual environment inside of  Linux or inside of Windows 10 to run software not compatible with WinX or Linux.

Sigh, I finally found an O.S (Win 7 Ultmitate), that I actually, for once, liked.

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you have Win 7 then it's best to dual boot. Using a VM for stuff like games isn't a good solution in my experience. Anyway, if the drivers don't work in Linux then they still won't work in a VM run on Linux.

I also don't think it's a great idea to use old distros. Kernel updates are needed to fix exploits that crop up from time to time. Recently, there was a TCP exploit that has just been fixed in a recent kernel update.

On the driver front: it looks like the Catalyst driver is now dead. AMD are now concentrating their new driver, AMDGPU, which only supports newer cards (not yours, unfortunately). They are, however, contributing to the open source driver. I've read some claims that this has good performance now, and even matches the catalyst drivers. I can't say if that's true, but I think you should give it a try.

On the GPU switching issue: You need PRIME to implement GPU switching for AMD cards. How you set this up will depend on the distro you choose. Here's the Arch Linux wiki article:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PRIME

I still recommend going with Linux Mint Mate edition and trying the open source drivers. Whatever you decide, though, I hope this helps.

 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree dual boot is better.  I have 2 drives for alternate boot, myself.  I figure most people don't have extra hard drives or the 'will' to do that kind

of maintenance.

Didn't see Ubuntu as an old distro, but maybe I misunderstood.   A bit of the distros are all Devian sourced, anyways.  Shouldn't be hard to update, I'm

guessing.

 

Guess I'm in trouble.  I have been trying to get all projects done.  I don't want to switch over to any flaver of Linux, only to have to study it for 6 months.

Then to find out (my luck) ,  dual core/3.2 Ghz  8Gb machine can't handle them anyways!

Shy. :ninja:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ashenfire said:

..., I asked a friend of mine who knows Linux like the back of her hand, and she says use:

1. Ubuntu if you like the "hold your hand AOL mentality ".   ...

I don't like that mentality but I eventually managed to install Ubuntu 16.04.1 lts. Unfortunately I must start it each time in "recovery mode". My feelings are that it's because of the AMD APU that I have in my computer; drivers not supported, radeon incompatible and so forth. I might give a go at Unity (the game engine) anyway, just to see how it behaves in this environment.

Forward my thanks to your friend! ;)

 

42 minutes ago, RabidGears said:

If you have Win 7 then it's best to dual boot.

Yep, I always dual boot (on the same hard drive). ;)

 

20 minutes ago, Ashenfire said:

I agree dual boot is better.  I have 2 drives for alternate boot, myself.  I figure most people don't have extra hard drives or the 'will' to do that kind

of maintenance.

Didn't see Ubuntu as an old distro, but maybe I misunderstood.  

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems that Ubuntu, due to its popularity, is the most supported of all the distros; that's why I eventually switched to it. I hate Unity though (the user interface, not the game engine ;) ) but I don't want to install Gnome for now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Ashenfire said:

Didn't see Ubuntu as an old distro, but maybe I misunderstood.   A bit of the distros are all Devian sourced, anyways.  Shouldn't be hard to update, I'm

guessing.

I wasn't talking about that. ladyonthemoon mentioned that she was going to use an older distro with an older kernel that worked with the Catalyst drivers. Sorry about that. I should use quotes more. XD

17 minutes ago, Ashenfire said:

Guess I'm in trouble.  I have been trying to get all projects done.  I don't want to switch over to any flaver of Linux, only to have to study it for 6 months.

Then to find out (my luck) ,  dual core/3.2 Ghz  8Gb machine can't handle them anyways!

Shy. :ninja:

Ubuntu is fine. I don't personally like it, but it should run easily on that hardware. As should Mint. It's just this particular case of drivers for an AMD laptop. If you have an Intel/Nvidia setup then things are a bit better. Also desktops have less problems than laptops.

 

3 minutes ago, ladyonthemoon said:

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems that Ubuntu, due to its popularity, is the most supported of all the distros; that's why I eventually switched to it. I hate Unity though (the user interface, not the game engine ;) ) but I don't want to install Gnome for now.

It is well supported. I used Ubuntu when I was starting off too. If you don't like how the UI looks, then there are other flavours of Ubuntu available with different UIs. These are still the same Ubuntu underneath, though, so they will work exactly the same.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can probably theme Unity to look differently too. I stopped using Ubuntu before Unity came along so I don't know that much about it, but I've themed GTK+ desktops (like GNOME, LXDE,...) quite a bit. It's surprising how much you can do with a good theme.

If you're that worried about how it looks then learn how to use a build-it-yourself distro like Arch. You can install whatever you like then and make it look and function exactly how you like it. It's probably best to start with something like Ubuntu, though, so that you can learn what bits you like and don't like first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ashenfire said:

I am thinking about REACT O.S.  Somheow it does not use WINE interpretations, maintains all that is UNIX (open source, etc) and can still run windows program and UNIX.  Food for thought.

Thanks for the tip! :) I had never heard about that one:  http://www.reactos.org/

It seems rather limited though; I'll have to try the live cd before installing but I don't hope too much.

 

Edited by ladyonthemoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

Thanks for the tip! :) I had never heard about that one:  http://www.reactos.org/

It seems rather limited though; I'll have to try the live cd before installing but I don't hope too much.

Well, I just tried they live cd: doesn't boot... Getting a bunch of error messages about missing files.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...