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    #21
    Re: Laptop upgrade advice

    Nah, this project was just a test for ratdude, I use KDE on my primary Desktop... I'll fiddle with it some more.
    "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

    -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

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      #22
      Re: Laptop upgrade advice

      the driver issue stems from intel changing driver archotectures for the 3rd time in 5 years. they tried to make it work for all chips, but the i8xx and i915 chips didn't like the drivers... and rather than splitting the driver (using old for i8xx and i915 and using the new for th new ones), Intel said "f**k it" and left the i8xx to rot and die.

      if you could get gnome 3 and the old drivers to play nice in the same distro, this would not be an issue. but, the driver bug began 1 year ago and the packages are so far apart in age to make it a straight forward affair,
      sigpic

      (Insert witty quote here)

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        #23
        Re: Laptop upgrade advice

        I did surmise that it can indeed handle Gnome 3 hardware-wise -- you're right, it's a driver issue. I haven't seen many users writing about it with Ubuntu, but when 11.10 comes out, there will be more complaints and hopefully somebody will come up with something.
        "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

        -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

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          #24
          Re: Laptop upgrade advice

          That was what I was thinking. Intel wants to sell more hardware, and the old drivers would not work in the new version of Linux.

          Linux is just a pain. I tried it and it took too much work to set up and configure.

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            #25
            Re: Laptop upgrade advice

            Originally posted by lti View Post
            That was what I was thinking. Intel wants to sell more hardware, and the old drivers would not work in the new version of Linux.

            Linux is just a pain. I tried it and it took too much work to set up and configure.
            I disagree. The 855GM platform is well past its prime... This has more to do with the Linux developers than Intel. If there is sufficient demand to get 855gm working with Gnome 3, I'm sure they'll collaborate on it. I'm pretty sure Intel devs and Linux devs are pretty close development-wise.

            With that said, I managed to stuff an internal DVD into this old laptop so I'm installing Ubuntu with the graphical install. I had to use text mode install with the USB DVD because whenever I tried a graphical install, it would just hang.

            They really polished the graphical install, and the installation is just different both in appearance and in function to the text install, which is old and stagnant. Hopefully, this will help me to troubleshoot better they Gnome3 totally malfunctioned in native mode.
            "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

            -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

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              #26
              Re: Laptop upgrade advice

              when you are talking about business grade laptops, 6 years is not that old (mine was a 2005 manufacture). the i810 and i815 are past their prime for sure. the i855GM? I hope not as I don't have the $ free to buy a newer unit nor do i wish to drink the m$ kool-aid.

              MKB- keep in mind your unit doesn't have the power to really do this well. you have low-end 1.3ghz banias and 512mb ram (not going to work well), while I have a 1.8ghz Donthan and 2gb ram. last i checked, they recommend 1gb of ram for a well running graphical install (says linux mint, the ubuntu specs are out of date and not really true).
              Last edited by ratdude747; 06-03-2011, 05:12 PM.
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                #27
                Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                855GM is 2005!? I know 915 started at that time but 855 was already reaching its EOL at that time. I also have a laptop with the 855PM chipset (read: dedicated video) that's got a Mobile Radeon 9700 and it's kind of old (Maybe because 1 computer year is a decade in terms of product longevity - or at least it used to be this way).

                You have to understand something... 855/865 integrated graphics is Intel Extreme Graphics 2 basically... If it doesn't work with 855 I'm sure it won't work with 865G either... Extreme Graphics (or Extreme Graphics 1) was kind of DX7 compatible and 855/865G was really bottom of the barrel DirectX 8 compatible (With no hardware pixel shader).

                Intel never expected (And keep in mind that the *design* for the 855/865G graphics is probably a year or two older than 2005) that people would be using this product with GUIs that rely heavily on a thoroughly developed and tested OpenGL ICD. Heck, Matrox, back in the day, when they were a major player in the videocard market took years to release a good OpenGL ICD. Notwithstanding that this chip wasn't even designed for OpenGL, you're asking kind of a lot.

                With that said, I've also got a Dell Dothan 855GM laptop that I have not tested, I don't think Banias or Dothan is relevant to the problem, the Banias laptop works fast enough, it just doesn't work with Gnome3 well.
                "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

                -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

                Comment


                  #28
                  Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                  the model was introduced in 03 with a banias but they at some point put in the newer chips with i855 support.

                  the basic point is I got screwed on the laptop... bad luck on things i guess... so i get to pick having a car int he future or having a laptop that fits my needs...
                  sigpic

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                    #29
                    Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                    Save your money and get a car. When you get the car, you'll realize actually how well XP fits your needs, and how it wasn't worth bothering with Linux.

                    Next time you pick a laptop and want to install Linux, first look it up. Take a good few days in looking it up, because laptops have a habit to not play nice with Linux. The devs say it's all that proprietary sh**. I say it's laziness. Linux is a system built by devs, for devs, NOT for the end user. No matter what they say, when it comes to hardware support on a new platform they will get the basics running, and if they don't need anything else at that point, stop there and move on to the next one. For example, if the devs didn't need to use the card reader in their laptop, you can bet your ass it ain't gonna work in yours either.
                    Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                    Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                    A working TV? How boring!

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                      #30
                      Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                      I agree. Just save your money and get a car. If your laptop works now, who cares what the interface looks like, learn to use it. When you go to college your just going to use it to take notes and doing research. If you want to do more than that, don't you have a decently fast desktop? Not to mention you will always want to have a nice little reserve of money once you get a car in case you need to fix it...(or as I do, spend it on the ever-so-necessary stereo)

                      After I got my truck I kinda lost some of my interest in my computers. Now it's about "ooo, do these wheels and tires look good?" or "I need to get some spring spacers to level it out in the front end"... and lets not forget the burnout contests...oh yes, those are fun.
                      Last edited by 370forlife; 06-03-2011, 07:00 PM.

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                        #31
                        Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                        I might have found a fix... this is the last i will say for now.
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                          #32
                          Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                          Ratdude474,

                          Either Thinkpad R52 or Dell D610. Both uses ATi mobile chipset for video (watch out that you know which R52 models that use ATi video not intel GMA. Both take late pentium m 533fsb with 2MB cache up to 2GHz. And not to mention, they're very quick. Remember if your D400 have 2GB memory sticks DDR2 533- DDR2 667 then you are golden for stepping over to these either models.

                          Be shewd shopper and take two from ebay, one mostly complete (especially with good LCD and any bits) and another one with working mainboard but missing things. Remember to carefully look at photos so you can see if the drive caddy with cover is installed on thinkpads with own screw(s). Dell caddy is similar but it uses adapter and bracket with cover attached (and screws).

                          This way if done right, you can be around 120 dollars range in the end. Honestly, I like R52 better for 15" LCD and I have link for fixing 2010 error using not whitelisted ATA HDs in R52. Also Thinkpads is little cheaper than Dell go figure.

                          Then you can do gnome 3.x on these.

                          Cheers, Wizard
                          Last edited by Wizard; 06-03-2011, 09:26 PM.

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                            #33
                            Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                            d400= 2x 1gb ddr 333 (run as 2660

                            I did not want to completely scrap the d400... I'd keep it as a spare.

                            all i saw for $120 was either every part scrapped or fried mainboard.

                            if i were to get another, anythign newer would be ddr2/3 and sata... my d400 is DDR and pata. so there would not be much to scrap anyway. I have a dead hp nc6000.... but my brick for it is jimmy rigged and it is missing the keyboard. I have no way to see if the cpu in it (donthan 1.6ghz) is still good (d400 uses a BGA cpu, no socket). i still have my d400's stock 2x 256mb so i could move the ram and i'd find a bigger hard drive... but it is $70 for anything working with a cpu... i might try auctions...
                            sigpic

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                              #34
                              Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                              The R52 tends to have the same video chip problem as the T41, T42 series from what I've seen. The ATI chip needs to be reballed as it gets older.

                              AS a BTB/FWIW Windows XP will be getting critical security updates and extended support until April 8, 2014. There is some life left in it.

                              Microsoft would have ticked off some of the companies selling computers if they stopped support now. Toshiba and Dell were still selling select business models with XP up to two years ago more or less.

                              Example: Satellite Pro® S300-EZ1512, • Genuine Windows Vista® Business 32/64-bit, SP1 with downgrade media for Windows® XP Professional. I took this from a word document I created back in april 2009 when were selling them new at work.

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                                #35
                                Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                                Ratdude, I'm still not understanding why you don't just run the older Linux version that does work with your hardware? Then, Done.

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                                  #36
                                  Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                                  Originally posted by TBoneit View Post
                                  Ratdude, I'm still not understanding why you don't just run the older Linux version that does work with your hardware? Then, Done.
                                  OK. like saying "oh, you have no xp driver. go back to 98. "

                                  If it was just a bunch of extra efects then it would be one thing. but it is a new interface that suits my needs better. the fallback for gnome 3 sucks. the shell rocks. Its what I like and want.

                                  as for windows, I want a free sytem that is not bogged with DRM sh!t or as secure as piggy bank. avast AV helps but it still is a crappy system. Not to mention that I do not like using a system that is so common; I like being different (but i am too poor for an intel based mac laptop). I like being able to say that "hey, I did THIS.", not "hey, I am a sheep who uses windows." I know windows can be customized but until i see a multiple workspace system on par with gnome shell (all i have seen was pure crap) and a linux like repository software system (like what will be in mac OS Lion), ther is little chance i will ever use windows full time. Sorry that a am not a windows guy, but i know what i want and like. And windows sure as hell
                                  Last edited by ratdude747; 06-09-2011, 04:56 PM.
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                                    #37
                                    Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                                    Originally posted by ratdude747 View Post
                                    ...as for windows, I want a free sytem that is not bogged with DRM sh!t or as secure as piggy bank. avast AV helps but it still is a crappy system.
                                    I honestly have never had a virus on any of my own windows XP (or vista or 7) systems and I never run a AV, just have malwarebytes and superantispyware installed but disabled from startup...as long as your not indiscriminately surfing through porn periodically or clicking on every ad and banner on every webpage, you'll be fine.

                                    Originally posted by ratdude747
                                    Not to mention that I do not like using a system that is so common; I like being different (but i am too poor for an intel based mac laptop). I like being able to say that "hey, I did THIS.", not "hey, I am a sheep who uses windows."
                                    Last edited by 370forlife; 06-09-2011, 05:15 PM. Reason: Oh wait, thats much better

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                                      #38
                                      Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                                      Originally posted by 370forlife View Post
                                      as long as your not indiscriminately surfing through porn periodically or clicking on every ad and banner on every webpage, you'll be fine.
                                      What if the page had been hacked so malware was downloaded to the computer by simply viewing the page? I've seen ads that do that as well. Without antivirus software, you wouldn't know that anything had happened until it was too late.

                                      I don't have a problem with antivirus software or other security measures. The only antivirus programs that had an effect on my computer's performance were McAfee and Microsoft Security Essentials, and I'm running an Athlon XP-M 1400+ (equivalent to a 1.4GHz P4), 768MB of RAM, and XP SP3 on a failing hard drive.

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                                        #39
                                        Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                                        Originally posted by 370forlife View Post
                                        I honestly have never had a virus on any of my own windows XP (or vista or 7) systems and I never run a AV, just have malwarebytes and superantispyware installed but disabled from startup...as long as your not indiscriminately surfing through porn periodically or clicking on every ad and banner on every webpage, you'll be fine.


                                        I am sure there are people who swear stop leak, fix a flat and STP fix cars as well...

                                        hard learned advice: NEVER use past luck as a reason to do anything... if you cannot find any other reason why what is working has worked, then you are on a path to failure.
                                        sigpic

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                                          #40
                                          Re: Laptop upgrade advice

                                          Originally posted by lti View Post
                                          What if the page had been hacked so malware was downloaded to the computer by simply viewing the page? I've seen ads that do that as well. Without antivirus software, you wouldn't know that anything had happened until it was too late.
                                          There's ad blockers. And there are other browsers except Internet Explorer. This isn't about luck. It's about knowing your s***. If all alternative paths lead to failure then maybe the "usual" path was the good one from the get go.
                                          Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                                          Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                                          A working TV? How boring!

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