Breezy amd64

[Jimmie Houchin]

Hi Andy,

Andy Choens wrote:
> Wow.  I really like Ubuntu, so this had all better be worth the
> trouble!  :-)  This hasn't been the easiest set-up in history.  I've
> read a bunch on the internet and read past posts here, but I've got a
> few unresolved niggles.  If anyone knows anything about any of these,
> feel free to tell me / everyone else know since many of these won't be
> specific to just my system.
> 
> SETUP
> HP Pavilion zv6000.  It's an AMD64 machine.  512 ram, dreaded ATI Radeon
> Xpress 200M, Broadcom Wireless, etc.

Me too!

You can read about my entry to Ubuntu on my laptop here.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=273498

I tried the latest Preview release and unfortunately had to repeat every
step. None of my processes were incorporated. :(
That leaves Ubuntu still a pretty high entry for these machines.

I love Ubuntu and don't want to use anything else.
So I endure, the many, many, many, lockups, freezes and crashes hoping
for a bright future.

> XSERVER
> It boots, it even looks OK, but if I do something boring like
> ctrl-alt-F2, my screen goes all screwy.  TIP:  I have figured out that
> sometimes returning to tty7 and making it think I closed the monitor for
> a few seconds fixes the problem...but that's one hell of a "hack"
> workaround...and I still can't use my over ttys.  If I start totem....I
> kill X completely.  Ditto with Xine.  Mplayer seems alright.  I think my
> computer is trying really hard to have a splash screen, but I haven't
> seen it.  I actually, don't see anything when it boots until it gets to
> GDM.  There's a whole lot of black in between GRUB and GDM. 
>  
> To log in from GDM I have to include Option    "NpAccel" in my xrg.conf
> in the video card section.
> 
> I instaled the fglrx stuff I found in synaptic, but it doesn't include
> my video card, so I may go download the latest and greatest and see if
> that breaks m system.  But, ATI warns about having the 32-bit libs for
> several things like mesa installed (Yes, on a 64 bit system) and they
> don't seem to exist.  Do I have to go do the chroot deal in order to use
> these?  It's quite a waste of hard-drive space....and time/effort.

X has been a very disruptive force on Breezy. I believe it is probably
the culprit of most all of the instability I speak of above.

Yes, Totem kills (restarts) X everytime. Xine I have had success off and
on. I've pretty much relied on MPlayer.

If you have an updated Breezy you should have the uSplash screen. I do.
I don't know what is different and why you wouldn't. Its pretty classy
looking.

> If anyone has any wisdom, I'm all about some advice.
> 
> JAVA

I haven't installed Java yet. :(

[snip]

> APT
> At some point I hope they stabiliz the packages.  For instance.  I can't
> install VLC or K-3d because of dependency issues (wrong versions in the
> repositories of necessary libs).  But, if anyone wants an amd64 deb of
> libdvdcss, I'll email it you.  I think it's working.  It's hard to tell
> with X and Totem not liking each other, but it didn't do anything weird
> in the compilation/installation.
> 
> Any advice, sympatheti shoulders, etc are much appreciated.  This has
> been quite the bear.

I'm sorry my advice isn't more. But you do have a friend with
sympathetic shoulder sharing your pain.

Jimmie