Mint 9 Isadora - graphics issues from Mint 8 fixed? (No..)

[Norway Pad]

I just got a hold of another T30 that was supposed to be defective, but turned out to be good after a minor repair. (Reseating a connector)

Since it's only COA'ed for Win2000, and I don't have any XP license around, I have decided to put Linux on that one too. After all I have had a really good experience with Linux on the other T30, and I am getting more and more happy with it, particularly with all the nice freeware that is included. The only bad experience was to actually get it to work in the first place, and that's what my question is about.

Does anyone know if the issues I had with the screen drivers in the Helena version ( http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=85771 ) are fixed in the Isadora version? I could be tempted to stay with the Helena version, since I know it, but if I can use Isadora and avoid the initial downgrades I had to do, I might chose to try that instead.

I could of course just go ahead and try, and I might also do just that. But I was interested in hearing if anyone knew anything for sure first.

Thanks for any answers.

[Harryc]

Don't know the answer to your question, but it is easy enough to find out...just boot up a Mint Isadora Live CD to test.

[Norway Pad]

I think I tried to run Mint from a live cd on the other T30 too before I installed it as well, but the performance was so poor when it read the OS from the cd, that it really didn't tell much about how it behaved. I just got an initial feeling for how it looked and what applications I had. The real problems occurred after Mint was installed, and I ended up with a really slow system that hung up all the time and started throwing me disk errors.

But I can sure try it just to check. And if I try to install Isadora, and run into the same issues, it's not that big of a deal to reinstall Helena. I would also think the steps for getting it sorted might be the same in Isadora as it was in Helena.

I will let you guys know how it turns out, I guess the T30 is not the only older system that's affected by this.

[Neil]

I had issues on my A31P also. Haven't tried the newer release though, but I don't expect there to be much improvement for the older hardware because the default graphics acceleration technique has moved on passed our old hardware. But like you said, it's not that hard to change back to the old method after install. But, I'm going with Debian edition next time I install Mint.

[Norway Pad]

I don't expect there to be much improvement for the older hardware because the default graphics acceleration technique has moved on passed our old hardware.

I guess you are right about that, it's not very likely that support for older graphics will be put back into a distro once it's taken away. But if the files I need and steps I need to go through are the same as they were in Helena, this is a 15 min job. I made sure to write it all down. So I will try Isadora to see what's changed.

And that triggers the next question: If I find out that it's worthwhile to upgrade my current Helena 8 version to the Isadora 9 version (or even Julia 10, which is expected next month), is there something in Linux that takes care of that automatically so I can keep my documents, settings etc? Or is the best way to simply copy off all my files and do a clean install?

[Norway Pad]

Ok I just installed Isadora 9 on my new T30, and thing seems to be working just fine without the mentioned modification of the graphics drivers. I have only used it for a day yet, so I want to try it out longer before I use my jump to a conclusion-mat. It's a little slower all around than the other T30, but I guess that is due to the lousy 15GB/4500rpm drive I use and only one working memory slot. If the laptop works, and I get the slot repaired, I will buy a bigger and faster drive for it.

Anyway, it strikes me that something is changed when it comes to the graphics drivers in this version. The first thing I did after the install was to go ahead and set Visual Effects to "None". The other T30, with Helena 8, was practically unusable before that was done. This one was a little less responsive, but worked even before I changed the level of VE. And now, when I try to set Visual Effects back to "Normal", it starts searching for drivers, and then tells me that can't be done. I will see how the other T30 responds if I try to do that there.

I am not sure if this is of any interest at all, so let me know if you guys want another update when I see more how this works out.

[ThinkRob]

What's the GPU in your T30?

[Norway Pad]

I didn't pay notice to it when I opened up the two T30s, but if I'm not wrong, the T30 had only one GPU option, which was the ATI Radeon 7500 / 16MB. Had it been several GPU options, I would have needed to find out if there was a difference between the two T30s before I did anything else.

The hardware information doesn't say anything about it. It just lists the resolution, and the Open GL Renderer, which is listed as: Mesa DRI100 (RV200 4C57) 20090101 x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL DRI2

[ThinkRob]

So I take it you're using the 'radeon' driver?

[Norway Pad]

To be honest, I don't know. The install didn't require any manual intervention or driver selecting. And I don't know Linux good enough to know how to actually find out which driver is used.. (Tell me if there is a way) But if you go back in the old thread, you can see the drivers I was advised by Adda to install to make Helena 8 work on the other T30.

Btw. I did a lot of updates and work on the new T30 today, and I think I can say for sure now that Isadora 9 works much better than Helena. These should be 100% similar computers, so there must be something that has changed. And there is probably no point in spedning a lot of time trying to figure this out. During the next weeks, I will back up my files and do a clean install of Isadora on the other T30 as well. Then I get the definite answer.

[Norway Pad]

I seem to be out of luck when it comes to installing new Mint releases on this specific T30. I installed Isadora today, and it ran fine without the modifications... for a while.. But after I rebooted it a couple of times, the screen just got garbled as soon as I typed my password and clicked Log in. The same happened on an external monitor. By toggling between terminal windows (Ctrl-Alt-F1) then back to F7, the desktop sometimes came back fine, but it was impossible to use the computer like that. So there are apparently still issues that affects how Mint behaves on this specific T30.

I tried to do all the correcting steps I did with Mint 8, but no improvement. One of the packages, xserver-xorg-video-radeon_6.12.1-0ubuntu2_i386.deb couldn't be installed, (Due to conflict with xerver-xorg-video-5) but I am not sure if this could be the reason for the problems, and what could be done to make it install. So at this point I am reinstalling Mint 8, just to get the laptop working again. Luckily I have the other T30 where I can play around with the Isadora install, so if anyone has any experiences with Isadora, I am still interested in hearing from you. I will also try to post on the Linux Mint Forum.

(Typing from the T60 this time..)

Edit: Back on the T30 with Mint 8. The whole install was different this time. The network cable was plugged in during the installation, so there was some downloading going during the install. It apparently did some automatic updates, and this time Mint 8 worked without the random freezing and slowness/file corruption issues I had the last time. A little menu corruption at first, but after the etc/X11/xorg.conf file was created, it was fine. I did the manual downgrades anyway, just to be sure. The whole thing is very confusing. Installing Mint seems to work out differently from time to time, from computer to computer, and there is no pattern, except that something seems to be wrong with the graphics.. But all in all I am happy with Mint, so I see this as an interesting way to learn.