[Tfug] video tool

[Kramer Lee]

Yes, it is "My investigations indicate this isn't a distribution
problem but a general Xorg PITA."

It is similar for Grub2 (should we call it Grilo, as you do have to
run update-grub after making changes to the configuration files like
you have to run lilo to incorporate changes in the lilo config files,
and now there are more configuration files to change too).

As Fedora is the proving ground for RHEL and it has the new
not-so-god-working bleeding edge software, and that way RH gets some
value out of providing the "free" Fedora, so also Ubuntu is not
completely free.  They choose to make it very difficult to install the
newer versions to use grub 1 and Xorg previous versions, but Debian
knows they still have bugs and are not production proven, so their
default installs don't include the latest.  This computer I am using
right now is using Debian 5.0.4.

Debian has gotten as easy to install as Ubuntu, and it feels like
installing Ubuntu, looks almost like it in the netinstall.  And it
still supports my older hardware better than the newest Ubuntus with
their Xorg versions that know better than I do about how to handle the
old video cards in the old laptops so you only get 800x600 instead of
1024x768.  That is the kind of thing that usually results in getting a
newer laptop, and probably that is a supported result by companies
that sell hardware and is good for the whole electronics economy, just
not good for the old still functioning laptop.

So, just how vulnerable are we if we run the last version or earlier
of Ubuntu or other distro?  How much do we need the security updates?
Or, is Puppy Linux or DSL acceptable for use on the old laptops?  My
old Latitude CPiR died or else I would be trying to figure that out
now.  The power button went out.

There is another great invention.  Make a power button for laptops
that if someone presses too hard, it kills the switch and needs a new
motherboard, so forget it for a CPiR.  If I was more worried about
that I woudl take it apart and solder a momentary contact switch on to
the switch solder points and let it hang out the side of the laptop.
But the battery is no good, and it only takes 128 MB of ram ( would
take 256 MB if the second slot didn't have gunk on the contacts and
wasn't different than the main memory connector in pressure on the
contacts), but still, the only thing that ran it with the old wireless
card (PCMCIA) was Knoppix 3.4.  So actually in its last years it only
ran win2K anyway.  Then it could run newer PCMCIA wireless cards with
the provided windows drivers.  So, for about 3 years I could run
Knoppix (install of debian) on it with suspend working and with it
able to support the 16 bit PCMCIA wireless card, with just 128 MB
memory and it worked.  Then even Debian no longer supported that
version of its software with repositories, and no newer versions
supported the plain old APM, so it wouldn't sleep and never would
hibernate, and wireless wouldn't work either.  I suppose if I really
was a Debian nerd I would know how to recompile the kernel with all
the ACPI stuff removed, and be able to find the support package for
APM, and hibernate/suspend support for older laptops.  But in 2000 it
would hibernate and suspend.  Well now 2000 is stopping its support
for anything.  It would also work and run fine with XP, just slower so
if I resurrected it I would get updates until 2013 I believe.

That is something that bothers me about Linux a little.  XP came out
about the beginning of 2002, and will be supported apparently 11
years, and the longest Linux version support seems to be 7 years for
RHEL.  5 years for the server version of Ubuntu LTS.  I do run a
couple computers on CentOS and Scientific Linux, another RHEL clone.
Those are stable.  Well, anything bad in RHEL that they recompile as
CentOS gives the same problems as RHEL has, so some new updates kill
some systems.  The one that happened to me was one involving Xorg,
which left me with a black screen.   I just installed another distro.
Some day that won't work as the hardware will be too old and not
supported, and I will only be able to run an older version of windows
on it that is also not supported by security updates.





On 6/17/10, earljviolet at deserthowler.com <earljviolet at deserthowler.com> wrote:
> I haven't had a chance to try these options yet but ...
>
> I found a driver for vesa in the repository for Ubuntu 9.10 by searching
> for vesa in synaptic.
>
> I also came across this link for 10.04:
> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/video-resolution-issue-for-ubuntu-10-04-a-809681/
>
> My investigations indicate this isn't a distribution problem but a general
> Xorg PITA.
>
> Earl
> --
> If you play a Windows install CD backwards it has satanic verses.
>
>
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