Computer upgrades [1 of 3]

[vakkotaur]

I'd been using an old laptop in the kitchen wanted something newer. A while ago I saw that the Toshiba Satellite L755D-S5104 (15.6 inch 1366x768 screen, Quad core, AMD/ATI HD6520 graphics from the A6 processor, 4 GB RAM expandable to 8 GB, 500 GB HDD) could be had for a low price, but was just above Best Buy's 18-month no-interest threshold. I went for it, planning to make it the new caspian. And then ran into trouble as I couldn't get a Linux distribution that filled my requirements to run on it.

Each distribution had some issue and with many I simply didn't get any video at all. I wound up going to PCLinuxOS's 32 bit version for a while as that at least gave me video. Then I tried Pardus when a DistroWatch comment said that worked for someone with similar problems. Alas, Pardus gave me other headaches, mainly dealing with audio and rather random behavior. More researched revealed the problem many distributions had: The HD6520 video system was too new and the 3.0 Linux kernel did not handle it well. The 3.2 kernel could supposedly deal with the HD6520. Looking around, there was something that had that and looked like it would solve my audio problems: Xubuntu 12.04, which is still in alpha.

Xubuntu 12.04 (alpha 2) is better than I expected an alpha to be. Sure, it has a couple bugs but so far none that cause me real trouble. They were minor setbacks at worst and either had almost trivial work-arounds or simply didn't matter to me. The result? I have what I set out to have: a 64-bit Linux that gives me video and audio properly and can run Firestorm.

The old laptop? I'm not sure if I'll do anything with it. It is 10+ years old after all. However it does run, if slowly, and nothing is actually wrong with it. I have this feeling it should be doing something, but I've no idea what. There is a name available for it on the network: shan.

Comments

[yakko.livejournal.com]

Wow... a recurrent theme here: Toshiba with AMD video, poorly-performing Linux distros in the video department, xubuntu to the rescue...

I had to do Linux distro roulette on a Tecra R840 at work. I'd either get horrible video, or it'd be slow, or it would flicker (although the R840 does that even with the Windows it shipped with). The latest xubuntu at least got me a mostly-working system (and none of this Unity junk). This will probably be what I reinstall my main machine at home with when they finally release 12.04 a couple months from now.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I'd love to have a latop with nVidia video, but that seems only to happen on "gaming" (expen$ive) laptops. At affordable prices the choice is AMD or Intel video, and I have yet to hear anything good about Intel video.

I'd also love to be able to run a proper 64-bit PCLinuxOS (32-bit plus PAE kernel is not the same...) but I am getting less and less hopeful about it. The 64-bit version is still in testing, the 32-bit libraries for it are only just enough to run Skype (Firestorm is much more demanding of things) and recently the head dev. took a leave of absence again. I really don't like having to use *buntu as I know it can be done better, but of what I can run it's most likely to have the parts needed and enough users that chances are the problems I run into have been solved if Google can just find them.

Other than the Update Manager wanting to remove the 32-bit libraries, the 12.04 alpha 2 has been pretty good. Some stuff I really don't care about (why is it even there & running at all?) crashes at times, but so far nothing essential. I suspect when more distribution uses the 3.3 kernel, I might be able to try again and see if I like something better. Though I have been running Xubuntu on all the machines that can run it at all, so there is a sort of standardization.