G50V + Ubuntu Intrepid = Piece of Cake

(The best cake you can think of.)

I recently just installed the latest beta version of Ubuntu Intrepid. Wireless works immediately after installing. I've connected to several different networks successfully, and as a matter of fact, I'm connected to a wireless network right now and typing this message.

The nvidia graphics driver will download automatically whenever you try to enable compiz effects. I will say that it is very usable, but a few of the animations in compiz, such as the burn effect is a little sloppy, due to the driver. I hope in time the driver will get better, but for now it works fine.

I have not been able to test the wired NIC, yet, since I don't have any use for that here on campus, but feel free to post your results.

Cons:
Unfortunately, RAID and "Enhanced" mode is still unsupported. I doubt that this will ever work out of the box, but I hope that someone eventually figures this out. Nevertheless, the speed of Linux is perfectly fine without RAID.

I for some reason get a strange beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep whenever I boot up, sometimes. I think this started showing up after the video driver was installed, but I'm not 100% certain on that. However, if you just let it annoy you for a little bit, it will finally shut up and proceed to boot.

Coming October 30, this Ubuntu Intrepid is going to be the best release of Ubuntu, yet. If you want to migrate over to Linux, now is a good time. If you want to go ahead and download the beta, I would like to confirm that the beta has so far been really stable for me and a few other people. If you're currently running Hardy, I bet you would have a lot better experience with the Intrepid beta.

Cheers,

Evan

 

There seems to be a video error when using devilspie. If you try to set geometry of a window using devilspie, it may corrupt the video to the point you have to restart X. I'm still trying to figure out why it does this. Pretty sure it's the puny video driver.

EDIT: Nevermind, it appears I had a configuration script setup incorrectly that was moving ALL windows, panels, cubes, dialogs, etc to a specific location on the screen. I was able to fix the issue by changing part of my script.

 

Just curious why would you want Linux on a device with a powerful video card? Are there advanced linux games that require such hardware that I do not know of ? or is it "just because"? Not knocking linux, just curious how it fits into the equation. I have run linux on smaller notebooks, like the EEE and it's great.

 

I've grown very much fond of Linux. The keyboard shortcuts have grown on me, the powerful command-line, the applications, everything. It's just a personal preference. I don't do much gaming on the laptop, anyway. This graphics card, however, allows me to run compiz effects, and with time, hopefully have a fully animated desktop.

I still have not grown accustomed to Windows Vista's "static-ness". I used it for a few months on my desktop, but I don't like it as well. Linux allows you to customize everything. Also, the shortcuts (for example, ctrl+l highlights the addressbar) in Ubuntu make performing tasks easier. Linux is also more of a developer's OS, and I am in a JAVA programming class. I also like doing C++ and other programming language work.

Linux is also better for servers and networks, which is precisely the type of things I will be dealing with soon. I need to learn as much as possible to give me a competitive edge

In my opinion, Linux will soon start becoming more and more mainstream and if nVidia and ATI ever started releasing better drivers, they might actually start developing some games for Linux.

And, finally, synching my iPhone doesn't require iTunes, either.

 

Hrrrmm... good to know! I was planning on throwing on an ubuntu or suse dual boot and I may wait it out until this is released.

 

I know this is an old post, but I thought I would open it back up in case anyone needs help installing the latest nVidia drivers (177.80) on the Intrepid Release.

After you install the Released Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex and enable desktop effects, Intrepid installs a 174* driver. This driver works stably, but suffers from performance issues. You can install the latest 177.80 driver available from nVidia's website, even though it does not list 9700 GT specifically in the compatibility list.

For 64 bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_177.80.html
For 32 bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_177.80.html

In order to get it to install, you have to stop GDM. If you try to install while running GDM, the installer will spit out an error and leave you unhappy.

To prevent GDM from running, I decided modify runlevel 3 so that it would not start GDM (since Ubuntu starts GDM on all runlevels by default):

Code:

sudo mv /etc/rc3.d/S30gdm /etc/rc3.d/K30gdm

This KILLS (as denoted by the K character) the GDM process when this runlevel is entered. This also gives you the future ability for an easily accessible CLI only interface in case you ever need it.

Next, you need to start this run level. This will basically close down everything you are currently running, so save your documents before running this command.

Code:

sudo telinit 3

This should shut down your xwindows/GDM environment and bring you to a command line interface. If you were using run level 3 when you first issued this command, then you may need to telinit 2, then telinit 3 so that it will take effect. I believe runlevel 2 is the default in Ubuntu, though, so you shouldn't have to do this.

At the CLI, just navigate to the driver you downloaded, then:

Code:

sudo sh NVIDIA*.run

This should direct you through the process of installing. It will have to compile a custom package, but it requires little intervention and is straight forward.
NOTE: I recommend that you select YES when it asks if you would like the installer to generate an x configuration file if you don't want to have to do any manual editing.

After the driver has been successfully installed, you can perform the following command to start back up your GDM environment:

Code:

sudo telinit 2

Assuming you have the default runlevel 2 settings, this will start back up your GUI environment using the new nVidia driver.

Compiz animations will work much better after you install this driver. I'm very pleased with the extra performance I received.

In addition to a better graphics driver, you can now enable enhanced mode for your drives in this Ubuntu release.

 

How do you enable enhanced mode for your drives?
Thanks for the info............

 

Sorry, I realized it was in the bios right after I posted

 

Awesome stuff here. I've considered getting Linux for a while, but hesitated because I'm not sure how to configure it and all. If you could compile all your advice into a single post, that would be very very handy and appreciated.

 

Does Linux recognize the raid0 as one drive? I have Vista already installed but I'd like to install Ubuntu on a new partition to tinker with

 

Eneerge, is it possible to have Vista installed on one driver and use the second driver for Ubuntu?

 

Yes, RAID0 == one hard drive, at least from the point of view of the operating system. At least assuming that the G50 uses a hardware RAID implementation, which I strongly believe is the case.

As long as you do not use the HDDs in RAID mode, yes, it should be possible. You would need to select the HDD with the OS you need most often, to boot by default; and then when you want to boot the other one you press ESC during POST and select the boot device manually.