W3J Running Unbuntu

Need some help getting everything to work includng the Wireless and I want to run Beryl desktop interface and KDE anyone had success running Unbuntu 6.10 (edgy eft)? Can you please post directions on how to get sound working, Wireless with WPA TKIP encryption working with static IP, ATI Express X1600 with Beryl interface, and any other packages and codecs to watch movies etc.

 

i actually set up my notebook yesterday to run kubuntu 6.10 so i'll try to help when i get back from work (skiving off atm browsing message boards lol)

one thing you will need is a wired internet connection to start off with


i'll write more when i get home (about half hour)

 

I have gotten the wired gigabit connection to work with my notebook via static IP Woot I have got something to work with it. But as for the rest....

 

Do you have aim/icq/etc? i have a w3j (no core 2 duo), and i run Ubuntu so i should probably be able to help you with anything

 

I will pm you with my aim and I will try to install Gaim on my unbuntu W3J laptop and mby you can help me get everything working..Thanks

Also though I'd really like as much information on this thread as possible so users like me do not have to suffer searching all diffrent forums to get everything working for them I'd like links and descriptions of everything needed to get the W3J configured fully so I will do my best to put links and instructions as well.

 

I have it working, on both my desktop machine and my laptop (see specs below.) Just follow these directions and you should be fine

 

I imagine that those instructions worked well for you but the W3J has ATI Radeon Express X1600 so special instructions need to be used I will post some tonight I have a few links for it.

 

I'm keeping an eye on this thread. I've ran into the same problems with Ubuntu 6.10 on my W3J...darn ATI drivers!

It's a shame really, ATI makes great hardware but their drivers(for the most part) have always been substandard, even on windows. Hopefully AMD will make some changes at ATI concerning driver development.

Not to side track you to much contro, but you might want to try out the latest Sabayon live cd...if you want to play with xgl.

 

can anyone confirm if this guide works for installing the graphics drivers and the really cool beryl desktop interface.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=342812&highlight=ati+X1600

if this works for anyone let me know.


This link is for the wireless chipset

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=348123&highlight=intel+3945

confirmation please from anyone.

 

as mentioned before, use the wiki from beryl instead

http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Main_Page

The wireless chipset works out of the box, You just need network manager to manage your wireless connections.

 

You can install Beryl from the repos as Pita mentioned. Download the network-manager via Automatix 2. That will get wi-fi security to work well.

 

Just search wiki.ubuntu.com for "ati driver" it will tell you how to install the fglrx drivers for the X1600 from the repos. I can confirm it works on a W3J.

 

I made the last post on this side if anyone here can help as well.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2164705

I installed network manager but the problem now is the static IP issue. Anyone know how to resolve this?

 

Good stuff. I'll try to get Ubuntu on my w3J when my 160gb HDD comes in.

 

It seems like it's taking too much time to get the answers I need, gonna wait for the next release of unbuntu to come out then i will be heavy into getting my notebook up to speed with wine and nix .

 

Sorry you feel that we answer too slowly! I thought Pitabred has answered your question pretty succinctly.

The next version of Ubuntu won't have Beryl as a default option. However, Feisty will be out early next month.

 

Download the latest (3.26 I believe) version of Sabayon Linux LiveDVD. It comes with Beryl and both ATI/Nvidia drivers configured. It's the best way to mess with Beryl/XGL/AIGLX without touching your harddrive.

You can install it as well but it's not necessary.

 

well, if you don't decide to wait, you could simply set your router to give a particular MAC address a static IP. Unfortunately, manually entering IP info and using WPA security is still complicated.

 

http://hivltg.co.uk/?p=6

this may help with the graphics drivers
I plan on trying this tonight "I plan" so it could mean no....

 

When I'm at the partitions part of the installation, it asks me to designate a swap partition and a root "/" partition.

I have 3 partitions on a 160gb hdd:
15gb - for linux
50gb - share partition for access from both operating systems
87gb - windows.


I set the 15gb partition as "/", and the 50GB as swap, and I leave the 87gb one blank. When I click on next, it says that I need a ROOT drive, and I can't move forward with the install. What should i do?
I can't remember right now, but i think the options were /, /boot, /svc, /etc.

 

Dude. No. The swap partition wants to be about 1GB, and that is all it can be. It can't be shared between Windows and Linux, you'd have to configure a swap FILE for Linux otherwise. The root drive whatever partition / is mounted at. You haven't set a swap partition because you don't have a partition formatted as swap.

 

I'm trying to install the ATI proprietary drivers for the x1600, and the instructions say:

The following packages must be installed in order for the Catalyst™ Linux driver to install and work properly:

* XFree86-Mesa-libGL
* libstdc++
* libgcc
* XFree86-libs
* fontconfig
* expat
* freetype
* zlib
* gcc


I went to the synaptic package manager, none of those are there. How do I install those components first?

 

I really like linux and all but because of the above post and the problems I am encountering setting linux up gives me reason to say that linux is far from becoming ready to take over windows...windows works right out of the box, linux does to but not everything works right out of the box for nix

 

You using Ubuntu?

Code:

sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx

Then follow the instructions here.

 

Thanks, I'll read it

 

Windows works right out of the box only because it was already set up for you. If I set up the machine for you with Linux on it, you'd think it was pretty easy, too. If you've ever tried to install Windows from the install disc (not recovery), you'd see. Not to mention it just nukes everything without asking. At least Linux will let you specify that you want to keep other operating systems on the hard drive.

 

QFT.

A lot of people have the misconception that Windows works "out of the box" because their computer works when it comes to them from the factory. This is in no way indicative of the Windows "out of the box" experience. Anyone who has installed Windows from scratch as well as installed Ubuntu from scratch would realize the glaring differences immediately.

About the driver issues, I have to say that this isn't completely the fault of Linux/Ubuntu. ATi doesn't really spend a whole lot of time on their Linux drivers from what I've seen, because like all other hardware manufacturers, they know that Windows is the money system. nVidia drivers really aren't terribly hard to install to be honest. The good news is that with Ubuntu 7.04, installing graphics drivers is as easy as clicking a check box and copy/pasting a few commands into a terminal.

 

Maybe this is true with XP but not with Vista. I've been an Ubuntu user (Dapper then Edgy) for 6+ months and installing Vista clean on both my Sony SZ laptop and a 2-year old desktop went much smoother with Vista than Ubuntu 6.10.

You guys are smoking crack if you think the reason Windows "works out of the box" is because it's setup for you. Reality is it's the most popular operating system in the world - like it or not - so most hardware manufacturers ensure their products are supported by it (who wouldn't) which leads to Microsoft's ability to have drivers built into the build.

Also installing drivers in Windows is still 100x easier than in Linux. NO COMMANDLINE BS and dependency on the restricted modules which require the drivers to be recompiled after every kernel update.

Linux has its place as a hobbyist OS and it's great to play around with but please don't lie to yourself and compare it to Windows (at least Vista).

 

Vista is easy right now because it's new. It's designed around current hardware, using current hardware, therefore current hardware is well supported. You think the same will be true in three years? Microsoft doesn't add stuff to the original DVDs until they release Service Packs. If you have a pre-SP1 Vista DVD in three years, there's not suddenly going to be drivers on the disc for the hardware that's available then. It's the same thing with any OS, including Ubuntu. A fresh install of Dapper back in June was easy and there were minimal updates because it was brand new. Almost a year later, and a fresh install of Dapper will leave me with over 200 updates to install. The difference is that Microsoft releases a new OS every 3-5 years, if that (Vista took 6). A new version of Ubuntu is released every 6 months, with major milestones every year.

But besides that, Ubuntu 7.04 is set to change the way you think about Linux and ease of use. After only one day's use with an alpha build, I can confidently say this. The setup was the easiest install I've ever done after I figured out the graphics thing (see my thread). And that's an alpha build. The only piece of hardware I had that wasn't recognized was my graphics card, which required me to search synaptic for the drivers, click a check box, and copy and paste two commands into a terminal (I didn't even have to type them or even know what they did). On top of the that, the drivers were stable, which is more than I can say for Vista at this point. I'm not trying to argue that Linux has better hardware compatibility than Windows, because that's not true. What I'm arguing is that Linux (at least Ubuntu) does a better job with what it has available than Windows. Just imagine if it had the support of hardware manufacturers that Windows does.

EDIT: I just read your "SZ Vista Clean Install Thread" and noticed that you had to install drivers for everything except Bluetooth. How is that a "smooth install" compared to what I mentioned above?

 

Yes I had to install those because those are due to Sony propreitary hardware...same would be the case if I installed Ubuntu (even the latest Feisty Herd release) or are you going to try and tell me that Feisty would automatically detect my Sony webcam, fingerprint reader, my function buttons, my brightness and volume controls, my harddrive protection, etc.???

Doesn't look so good for Linux when you think about it that way. And sure I have to install the drivers but that involves double-clicking an .exe not compiling binary drivers, modprobing and editing textual config files to set things up.

Sorry you won't win this argument, I've used Linux for a while and I'm a techy person...as much as I love OSS and Ubuntu it still has a long way to go to compete with Windows for most people.

P.S. The critical drivers such as display, sound, chipset, wireless, bt,etc. all worked OUT OF THE BOX with Vista. I just updated them to Sony's versions for the heck of it.

 

I don't know about you, but when I installed 6.10 on my laptop, all my brightness and volume control buttons and such just worked without any driver installation or anything. I only had to install one package from synaptic to get the wireless configuration working easily. Overall, Linux was installed and configured in less than half the time it took me to get Windows running correctly with all the right drivers, and it required MANY fewer reboots (Ubuntu: 1, XP: I stopped counting at 5)

Part of the difference is that companies actively support Vista, rather than having to reverse engineer everything in Linux to make it work. Some of your problem (especially with Sony hardware) is that they screw everything up, using a non-standard ACPI table, and all kinds of proprietary hardware that has no documentation outside of Sony. Do you expect to be able to work on a car's valve timing without having documentation? Sure, the basics of the car are the same, which is why Linux even runs at all, but if they hide stuff, there's very little you can do.

If you want to see Linux competing with Windows, run it on hardware that supports it. Would you buy an HDTV card from these guys and ***** because it doesn't run under Windows? You may be a "techy" person, but I'd say it's more of an advanced user, not a professional.

I'm sure Vista works better for you, and it works better on your SZ, but put the blame where it belongs, not on Linux not support the hardware, but on your hardware company not supporting Linux. Supported hardware (like mine) runs circles around Windows on the same machine.

 

Did you even read my post all the way through? I never argued that Vista had bad hardware support. In fact, I acknowledged it, and then said that the reasons are that it's a brand new OS as well as the fact that it's Windows (thus supported by hardware manufacturers). Again, I challenged you to have the same experience with XP. The only time I mentioned Vista problems was after I read your article, which mentioned nothing of having stuff work "out of the box" and you just decided to upgrade.

In addition to that, I would not expect your Sony proprietary hardware to work in Linux. But how can you attribute it's Windows functionality to Windows? Microsoft isn't making the drivers; Sony is. If they made drivers for Linux, it would work just as well and possibly even "out of the box." As I said before, the problem here is not Linux, it's the hardware manufacturers. Therefore, wildly claiming Windows to be better or easier to use/setup is a bit misleading, because if (as I said earlier) hardware manufacturers supported Linux as well as they support Windows, we would have a very different world.

Couldn't agree more.

 

I don't mean to hijack the thread or anything, but could someone shed some light on getting ALSA to work with my W3J? I read that someone checked some things in the synaptic package manager - Do I need to check and recheck for reinstall?

Also, have any of you W3J users gotten Ubuntu to recognize the 2nd HDD kit?

 

this thread was supposed to be a guide for installing W3J with detailed instructions GRrrrrrrr!!!!

 

continued here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1926669#post1926669