FL90 + Linux Experiences?

Who's running Linux on the FL90? What distros have you installed? What's worked and not worked?

I guess I'm specifically concerned with which distros work well with the Intel wireless card, the sound card and the 8600 GT. My hope is that hardware detection catches up with the next round of releases here in 2008 but so far I've been having bad luck with some or all of these three things.

 

I am using ubuntu atm, it's fast and everything, and look nice( nicer than vista and still is zippy ), wifi works out of the box, 8600 works OTB but you need to install the proprietary drivers to take advantage of the 3d acceleration, webcam works, sounds need some elbow brease(fixed in 5 minutes), fingerprint reader and card reader don't seem to work but everything else is working great.

That site gives plenty of info about running linux(ubuntu) on the fl90: http://lddubeau.com/avaktavyam/linux-on-a-compal-ifl90/

 

Didn't you have a problem with GRUB ?
Damn is it always me who has some problem on installing something ?

When i first installed opensuse everything went ok, then i installed ubuntu and every time i reboot from ubuntu everything was ok, everything i would reboot or shutdown after using vista on the next boot grub would hang. Kinda weird ...

 

I am currently running SuSe 10.3, and everything works except sound. I had the same problem with Ubuntu; it's a known bug that the ALC268 doesn't work well with ALSA. There are lots of sites that tell you how to fix it though.

 

Yeah, I tried to fix the sound in 7.10 with that guide and it didn't work.

I did get the 3d acceleration working, although not that great with the drivers provided and wifi worked fine with Ubuntu.

 

Ok, so the sound problem is there with the new Suse release too. Hrm.

Do you have a link to a particular page that was helpful or should I just search the forums for ALC268 and ALSA?

 

what drivers? What did you exactly do to fix the sound? I know that I had to get the module assistant as it wasn't installed...

 

Here is the page confirming the bug.
This is how you can fix it, but everytime I try to make and install, it makes a locked folder....

 

You want to clear GRUB any time you install a new distro that is dependent upon GRUB. For example, if you install Mint and then install Ubuntu without clearing GRUB, GRUB is going to be messed up.

In general I've found that Ubuntu's GRUB will autodetect all of your OS's, so plan to install Ubuntu and/or its derivatives last.

FWIW, I use GAG to clear GRUB.

 

No, i was talking about the video drivers.

I only remember trying to follow the instructions provided by that guide you had linked to (this was back in January)...it didn't work for me for some reason.

I've been shopping around for new distros but I don't see anything that looks like it will be as nice or as easy to set up as Ubuntu.

 

You can try mint, but as it is based on ubuntu, I doubt the sound problem will be solved...

 

I have Suse and Ubuntu dual-booted (no Windows at all) in a cheap desktop. I won't tell you how many times I had to try to get both to work right! LOL

You're right, too. Each worked fine installed alone, or with XP. When I finally realized that Ubuntu should go in last - end of problems.

Where the hell were you when I needed you??

 

Making the same mistake.

 

With the live cd, X will start but nautilus hangs in Mint. No idea what is going on there as Ubuntu 7.10 runs well 'cept for the video being slow and the audio not working.

I never really saw the advantage of Mint anyway. In some ways it is easier for noobs, but not really.

I like Mepis and PCLinuxOS, but hate KDE. I'd really like to see a fully-featured slackware-based distro emerge to compete. Wolvix would be great if it were more up to date!

 

The Video is slow even with the restricted drivers? Weird. Anyway Slackware is the first distro I tried like 8yrs ago And it gave me nightmares about Linux ...

 

Well try out Wolvix if you get a chance. Slackware is super efficient if someone could just make it easy to install and use.

 

Sound works fine with new ALSA driver, it is just not included in recent distros yet, but should be this year. You can install it manually if you folow instructions carefully:

#

I recommend that you add this repository because it is more secure than downloading the file manually. The repository is signed with private OpenPGP key. Execute:

$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list


Add the two following lines at the end of the file:

deb http://lddubeau.com/downloads/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://lddubeau.com/downloads/ubuntu gutsy main


Save and exit. Execute:

$ sudo apt-get update


apt-get should execute normally except that it will complain that it does not have the GPG key for my repository. Execute the following commands to get my key:

# The next 3 commands import my public key to your
# apt keyring.
# (Note: if you don't have gpg installed already you should execute
# "apt-get install gnupg" and continue after that is done.)
$ gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys F70DFA47
$ gpg --export --armor F70DFA47 > /tmp/key.asc
$ sudo apt-key add /tmp/key.asc

# apt-get should not complain about a missing GPG key now.
$ sudo apt-get update

# This installs the required package
$ sudo apt-get install alsa-source

#

This is what you need to do once the package is installed:

$ cd /usr/src
$ sudo module-assistant a-i alsa-source


#

Module-assistant will end with:

You should now stop all applications using sound devices and reload all ALSA sound modules.


Although it would be possible to just stop those applications, I suggest a reboot but DON’T REBOOT JUST NOW.
#

Execute the following:

$ sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base


Go to the end of the file and add the following lines. The first line is just a reminder to yourself as to what the next line is about. Such reminders are useful when packages are upgraded. You might want to change “LDD” to your own initials.

# LDD: I added this line for supporting the ALC268 audio chipset.
options snd-hda-intel model=toshiba


Press Control-X to exit and save.
#

Now you should reboot. The advantage of rebooting instead of just trying to fiddle with modules is that by rebooting you can make sure that everything is going to work right after a reboot. If you just fiddle with the modules, you may be setting up something which will be undone next time you reboot. So rebooting is better to make sure to trap possible problems early.

BIG THANKS to avaktavyam for this guide. http://lddubeau.com/avaktavyam/linux-on-a-compal-ifl90/

 

I think you should do:
sudo apt-get install module-assistant
before starting because on my computer it wasn't installed...

 

^^^ maybe that is what I was doing wrong I can't remember now.

I'm going to fire up pclinuxos 2008 and Mepis 7 to see what they look like on my Compal. The new Ubuntu beta is released some time next week I believe.

 

Is Ubuntu reliable and user friendly?

 

Is Ubuntu reliable and user friendly?

 

Yes, pretty much. Try it, you'll like it.

 

Where can I DL this OS?

 

www.ubuntu.com

 

Hi RePa... are you using ubuntu too? My concern with Unix based OS's, is that you have to mount by yourself all the drivers, plus you may not be able to run windows based appplications, unless you mount a windows emulator, which is no sense.

 

You probably won't have to chase down many drivers, Wirelessman. On my desktop, wireless, sound and graphics all worked fine without my having to do anything other than turn on my machine. lol

On a separate machine which has an ATI card, installing an adapter the first time took me forever, but it really isn't hard - I'm clueless.

It's true that you may have trouble with apps designed for Windows, but you can probably find open source apps which will accomplish the same task, or, if that's not an appealing idea, just dual boot Ubuntu with Windows.

 

That's what I'm planning to do as soon as I see the value of it, do you see any? What motivate people to install Ubuntu?

 

Well, it's free, fun to use/get to know, different than Windows. There are far fewer malware issues = no AV, antispyware blah, blah, blah = not much to worry about and nothing to buy. It's solid and stable, looks great, and is easy to learn.

Ubuntu fans: how'd I do? forget anything important? If so, please add to this.

 

This have been the fix that always got my sound working in Ubuntu 7.10

sudo rm /lib/modules/`uname -r`/ubuntu/media/snd-hda-intel/snd-hda-intel.ko
sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev
sudo cd /usr/src
sudo mkdir alsa
sudo cd alsa
sudo wget ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/driver/alsa-driver-1.0.16.tar.bz2
sudo tar -xf alsa-driver-1.0.16.tar.bz2
sudo cd alsa-driver-1.0.16.tar.bz2
sudo ./configure --with-cards=hda-intel
sudo make
sudo make install
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

Then add "options snd-hda-intel model=toshiba" without the quotes to the document, save it, reboot and cringe in horror as you get to hear the horrible start up sound in Ubuntu.

Yes it's sudo on all, last time I had ubuntu it wouldn't let me do **** in /usr/src without sudo, not even wget or cd in the folders. (Fedora 8 ftw anyway if you ask me )

 

This is was I was referring to , too much pain for just installing a driver fix.

 

Not really, it's not that much if you want to get it working, doing that have been my bible for fixing sound in Ubuntu on my FL90, it have yet to fail me, installing NVIDIA drivers are something similar to this, I could write a little bible for that too if anyone wants

 

Soon you will be called the Unbuntu prophet

 

Mhhh it seems like every fl90 are built different, I got the gfx drivers through the restricted driver manager, and I got the sound fixed with the usual method with the exception of having to install the module-assistant first. Btw did they fix the audio in Hardy? I run out of blank cd...

 

Yeah hardy uses alsa 0.15 which is included with with the new kernel. The issues were related to a bug in alsa 0.14. The beta is out now and its quite stable ( kubuntu is for me anyways so ubuntu shoul be even more so)

 

BETA is out!!!! Yay!

 

You can always dual boot, where you partition your drive so that you can install windows and linux. That way you can try out linux without much risk.

 

I've just installed the 8.04 beta right now. So far so good...meaning I have sound and it looks like most of my hardware has been detected. Have to see if any bugs show up after the system is done updating itself and I can run a few things.

Got to play around with Mepis 7.0 and PCLinuxOS 2008 in live cd. I couldn't get X to start in Mepis so not good. PCLOS looked like it might be nice after an install (no wireless in live cd) but to be honest I simply can't get into KDE. After taking the live cd for a spin...no thanks.

Fwiw, Suse 11 is coming out soon too. I've never been a big fan of Suse but it was pretty easy to set up on my last laptop.

 

8.04

 

Downloaded both ubuntu and kubuntu. Well kde4 is nice but was too unstable to be used: crashes and rendering errors... Ubuntu 8.4 is nice but firefox 3 don't work with mplayer-plugin... I hope that'll be fixed. I tried virtualbox with win2k and Oh boy how could I forgett that there was a time when Windows was lightning fast now if only I could use my gfx card in it and usb was working I would ditch vista altogether...

 

I am going to wait for the Ubuntu updates to roll in over the next month or so.

I've been shopping for distros on and off for the last few months. I always end up back with Ubuntu.

 

Can you explain all the nice features of Ubuntu that you cannot find on other OSs?

 

Wohoo! mplayer-plugin has been updated now it works with ff3 ^^

 

For me it's about the repos/pkg management, community, hardware detection, ease of installation...with an emphasis on gnome.

 

price for the OS is great and all the nice stuff you have in Windows is in linux so.

 

Not everything, there are much less applications for Linux.

 

That's not Linux's fault, the most commonly used apps have equivalents, some can be ran with Wine and the rest(as long as it is not 3d intensive) can be used with a virtual machine.

 

I didn't say it was Linux fault, but is a reality. And I know Wind can do a nice job, but still it doesn't cover all.

Again, what it really bothers me is that you have to mount the drivers as you were a programer, and not everyone is a code writter.

 

If you want to use it on your ifl90, download the ubuntu 8.04 beta, you won't have to use the console as the most annoying driver problem(audio) has been fixed.

 

yeah, 8.04 beta is solid...much easier to install than windows actually

 

I will dl and I'll share my experience.