Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

lmellen · 2005-03-09 00:27:32

:twisted: I've had Arch on my ibm t-23 for a couple of weeks now. Excellent linux system. I have that other G thing on my desktop, and I'm about as fed up as I can get! Everytime I try to up grade I have to download or change something. The forums look like you need a engineering degree to understand them. Ask for help and you get flamed!
Sick of spending all my time trying to keep the thing running right.
Arch on the other hand is easy to use and maintain, the forums are friendly, and I had no trouble using pacman to get what I need.
One quick question -- I would like to install Arch on my desktop, but I have ATI Radeon for a video card. Should I change it for a Nivdia(Sp?) card?? Is there a way to get ATI drivers for Arch? Seen a lot of Archers complaining about ATI. Could use some feedback -- Thanks, Larry

babyigor37 · 2005-03-09 00:41:08

A Nvidia card would be easier to use, but there's no sense in changing video cards unless you absolutely have to use 3D acceleration for something. I have an Nvidia card in one desktop and ATI cards in another desktop and my laptop, all running Arch. With the ATI cards, I haven't even bothered to try installing the ATI drivers. The radeon driver that X.org uses is just fine for me. I can play DVDs and video files and use the GL screensavers from Xscreensaver with no problems at all. If you don't play games or use any of those silly 3D visualizations while playing music, you should be just fine with ATI and the basic drivers provided by X.org. If you do want to play games or get full 3D acceleration, then a cheap Nvidia card would probably be the easiest solution.

kill · 2005-03-09 01:54:27

lmellen wrote:

Sick of spending all my time trying to keep the thing running right.

Now what's the fun in a working system?

In all seriousness like babyigor37 said unless you want 3D acceleration Nvidia is easier to get going than ati. Not to say you can't do 3d accereration with ati. Its just a little more envolved. There is a How-to on how to get the ati drivers installed right here on the forum. Link has the drivers make into packages in his repo, just add

[link]
Server = ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/tur/link

to /etc/pacman.conf then just pacman -Sy ati-drivers.

Hope that helps.

vacant · 2005-03-09 09:05:57

babyigor37 wrote:

The radeon driver that X.org uses is just fine for me. I can play DVDs and video files and use the GL screensavers from Xscreensaver with no problems at all. If you don't play games or use any of those silly 3D visualizations while playing music, you should be just fine with ATI and the basic drivers provided by X.org

I'm also using xorgs radeon driver for my 9200SE on a duron 900. I can play DVDs and Quake 2 runs just fine. Here's the section from xorg.conf (I have an old Abit motherboard, hence AGP 4, remember DefaultDepth in the screen section is 16):

Section "Device" 
   Identifier "rad" 
   VendorName "ATI" 
   Driver     "radeon" 
#   VideoRam   131072 
   Option     "DPMS" 
   Option     "AGPMode" "4" 
#   Option       "AGPFastWrite" "On" # locks up
   Option     "EnablePageFlip" "On" 
EndSection

lmellen · 2005-03-09 13:50:23

Thanks for the replys everybody, but still a few questions.
Will hwd detect the ATI 9200 card and list the correct drivers?
I assume that hwd will also load the correct modules in the Xorg conf. file?
If not and I need to download with pacman, will pacman load them into the right files?
Thanks for the ATI how to section!
Last quick question -- I have a NEC MultiSync LCD 1720M flat panel monitor, if that is not listed, what is the proper choice in Xorg conf. setup--generic monitor, generic VESA?? Thanks again -- Larry

kill · 2005-03-09 20:34:29

lmellen wrote:

Will hwd detect the ATI 9200 card and list the correct drivers?

No idea, but there is no reason to run hwd since you already know what kind of card it is, just use the generic radeon driver that is part of xorg.

lmellen wrote:

I assume that hwd will also load the correct modules in the Xorg conf. file?

Hwd does not load anything it only shows you what hardware you have and what modules you would need to load.

lmellen wrote:

If not and I need to download with pacman, will pacman load them into the right files?

Pacman is part of the default installation of arch. If you are using arch it is installed. Pacman will NOT load the modules for you YOU must do that yourself.

Arch is intended for advanced users who don't want any extras doing things for them. At most basic configuration files will be installed with any given application other than that you have to set everything up yourself for your system.

Once you get get xorg installed (pacman -S xorg) run xorgconfig as root to generate a configuration file. When you get to the video driver section select the generic radeon option (#6 I think...). For your monitor unless you see something that says LCD pick generic vesa.

qwerty · 2005-03-09 21:21:51

Hey, the last ati drivers works fine, all u have to do is to edit the PKGBUILDs from Link's repository ( http://xentac.net/tur/tags/link/ati-drivers/ http://xentac.net/tur/tags/link/ati-dri … -kernel26/ ), removing all the patches and changing the driver version number

Arch Linux

#1 2005-03-09 00:27:32

Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

#2 2005-03-09 00:41:08

Re: Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

#3 2005-03-09 01:54:27

Re: Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

#4 2005-03-09 09:05:57

Re: Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

#5 2005-03-09 13:50:23

Re: Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

#6 2005-03-09 20:34:29

Re: Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

#7 2005-03-09 21:21:51

Re: Pi$$ed off at that other system -- the G cr@p

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