Ubuntu 8.10 - help me install the ATI driver

[lxskllr]

I already have it off of torrent, I'm currently seeding :^)

I love Ubuntu's stock theme and colors. On my bedroom machine, I switched to some kind of extra dark theme(forget the name). Everything's deep brown, except I put the orange bar back on the windows tops :^D

I don't have too many issues with Ubuntu. One big one, is if I boot up with a USB hid installed, I can't log in... The gui is frozen :^/ I haven't looked for a solution yet, as I don't reboot that often, but it's kind of irritating. I've tried Ubuntu on and off since 5.10, but this is the first time it's worked with my wireless. I used to spend long weekends trying to get a driver working without success. It worked out of the box in 8.10 :^)

I'll give Mint a shot, but I don't anticipate it's going to replace Ubuntu for me :^)

 

[lxskllr]

Did you check the Ubuntu disc for errors?

It may be coincidence, but this 8.10 release has seemed a little flaky to me. I've had issues getting it to install also, but it works after a couple of attempts. Might just be bad luck, but I've never had as much trouble with Ubuntu as I have with 8.10.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
Did you check the Ubuntu disc for errors?

It may be coincidence, but this 8.10 release has seemed a little flaky to me. I've had issues getting it to install also, but it works after a couple of attempts. Might just be bad luck, but I've never had as much trouble with Ubuntu as I have with 8.10.

Yep, I did check it for errors. I even burned the .iso again even though it said no errors. I even ran MEMTEST off the CD...nothing.

I came back to this thread to say this. I don't believe this crap.

As of my last post, I left the box sitting at the "Partitioner Error Screen" been that way for an hour or so.

I posted, went back to the box, click "BACK" then "Forward" and guess what? It's installing system files now. :shocked: currently at 44%. 8.11 is definitely flaky on the install. W/O a doubt, IMO. I'll post back to LYK if it installs fine.

I swear I'm not making any of this crap up...it's too nutty to make up.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I'll give Mint a shot, but I don't anticipate it's going to replace Ubuntu for me :^)

Heh!

Dude, if you like 'dark themes' you'll l-o-v-e Mint 6! I don't know why they call it Mint...

I'm the original 'man in black'. Black is my favorite color. Hell, go look at my production site (in my sig).

Usually, 'dark themes' stink, but Mint pulled it off successfully, IMHO. Kudos to them!

I just don't care for dirt...

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
I swear I'm not making any of this crap up...it's too nutty to make up.

Have you tried running System Rescue CD?

http://www.sysresccd.org/

It's kind of a kludge, but it does a nice job at foraging your HD for clues...

Has a great GParted interface too!

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: MichaelD
I swear I'm not making any of this crap up...it's too nutty to make up.

Have you tried running System Rescue CD?

http://www.sysresccd.org/

It's kind of a kludge, but it does a nice job at foraging your HD for clues...

Has a great GParted interface too!

Thank you, VinDSL. I will try that. The install just crapped out at 88%. I got an "IO ERROR." "This error may be due to bad CD/bad CD drive/bad hd/blahblah. Try burning CD again."

I only use TY CDs and my main PC is new. The DVD/RW's are new Samsungs and burn perfect CD/DVDs.

However I will admit this; the DVD/RW in the Linux box is 2 years old but has seen little use. BUT, it's a crappy Sony/Optiarc (Optiarc being the culprit here) model and it sounds like a vacuum cleaner all the time. Maybe that's bad? But typically when CD drives go bad, they don't read anything.

I will try the util at your link.

 

[MichaelD]

Know what? I guess the DVD drive in that box is either bad or getting picky. I have a USB HD and I used that for the install. Not only did it go w/o a hitch, it did in half the time. :frown:

Talk about time wasted. I just assumed since the drive was spinning and spinning that all was well. In all the years mucking w/this hobby (and that would be quite a few years) if the CD drive is bad, it just doesn't read anything or the light "flickers a lot" and you get tons of popups and such.

You learn something new every day I guess.

 

[lxskllr]

Well, I'm posting from Mint running in a vm. All in all it isn't bad. I have a sweet theme setup(wildmint I think, with a olive window frame), and I've been playing around a bit. I think ultimately I prefer Ubuntu do to the menu system, but if Ubuntu turned into Mint on the next release I wouldn't be heartbroken... I like it well enough :^)

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
Well, I'm posting from Mint running in a vm. All in all it isn't bad...

Heh! Welcome to the club!

I was sooo... tempted to install Mint on my desktop box last night.

I used Mint (on my lappy) for about 16 hours yesterday. Then, I switched over to my desktop box around Midnight - and openSuSE just isn't 'doing it' for me any more. The excitement is gone!

I think I'll download Fedora today and give it a go (on my P4EE box).

Ubuntu 8.10 is working fine on the LAN machine, so I'll leave it alone for now.

Mint 6 is a keeper (for now) on the lappy, but...

I want more!

Mint 6 x.64 sneaks up on you. The more I use Mint 6, the more I appreciate how well it works.

If you wonder about the method to my madness...

I'm going down the "Page Hit Ranking" on DistroWatch and trying them one at a time:

http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity (I use the 6 month category)

Experience is the best teacher, no?

The funny thing is, I can't believe how different the 'experience' is, depending on the distro AND the machine!

BTW, now that you've had a chance to try it...

Do you still hold the opinion that Linux Mint 6 is just Ubuntu 8.10 with different clothes?

LoL! I don't see hardly any similarities, except for the fact that they use the same repositories.

 

[lxskllr]

Well, without having it on a real machine, and not doing a real install it's hard to tell. It does seem to be a lot like Ubuntu though. It's kind of like a XP/Ubuntu love child :^D

Nothing struck me as being terribly different. I'd consider it the same as a Windows incremental upgrade. A few things moved around, some subtle differences in the way things are done, but generally the same O/S

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Holy crap, that worked!!! Now...if you would PLEASE tell me what the hell I just entered/did that MADE it work, that'd be great.

Wow...I'm totally impressed with something I completely don't understand. I don't know whether to laugh or beat myself.

The reason that worked is you elevated the file manager (Nautilus) to super user status by evoking the command gksudo nautilus. Ubuntu does not have a Root account by default so the initial user created can elevate to SU credentials using sudo. Gksudo is a similar command to gksu, except it uses sudo instead of root to elevate to SU status. Once Nautilus was elevated, it had permission to run the executable fully and that is why it worked. You could have achieved the same thing at the terminal by placing the executable in your /home folder and running a command similar to this.

sudo ./ati_driver_example_filename_101

In other words, when using Ubuntu you will want to use the sudo command in place of using su in most other distros.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
Well, I'm posting from Mint running in a vm. All in all it isn't bad. I have a sweet theme setup(wildmint I think, with a olive window frame), and I've been playing around a bit. I think ultimately I prefer Ubuntu do to the menu system, but if Ubuntu turned into Mint on the next release I wouldn't be heartbroken... I like it well enough :^)

Just to make it really clear, Mint is a modified Ubuntu, not an entirely new distro. All the changes made to make Mint, well Mint can be done by the end user pretty easily on a default Ubuntu install within a couple of hours of work if you wanted to learn how to configure this stuff yourself. I suggest people that actually want to learn Linux, configure this stuff from scratch themselves instead of relying on the hacks of others.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
It's kind of like a XP/Ubuntu love child...

Funny you should mention that!

Someone walked past me yesterday, while I was on the Toshy - an Ubuntu user, actually.

I said, "Hey! Check this out. It's an Ubuntu fork called Mint 6. Pretty nice, huh?"

He stopped, bent over my shoulder and squinted at the screen...

"Cool! Looks like a Windows clone." And, he walked off, unimpressed.

Bwahaha! Oh, well. It's like fishing... you can't catch them all!

Hrm... I hadn't really thought about it that way but... I think you guys are right!

LoL! I would hate to *think* that's why I like Mint so much... and hate Ubuntu, e.g. Mint looks like Windows and Ubuntu doesn't.

I don't know who is copying whom, but I've noticed Linux (on the desktop) is generally looking more like Windows XP all the time - and Windows 7 is looking more like Linux.

Given enough time, I suppose all desktop OSs will look and function the same! Bad news for MS, I'm afraid...

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
The reason that worked is you elevated the file manager (Nautilus) to super user status by evoking the command gksudo nautilus. Ubuntu does not have a Root account by default so the initial user created can elevate to SU credentials using sudo.

This might *seem* like a trivial matter - and Ubuntu might already have this feature (I'm too lazy to go look) but...

When you run Nautilus in Mint 6, it gives you the option of opening files in root mode - kinda like running Vista in admin mode.

For instance, I wanted to edit the menu.lst file in GRUB yesterday, tweaking my triple-boot setup.

No problem! I opened Nautilus, navigated to the GRUB folder, clicked on menu.list, and clicked 'Run as Root' (or whatever) in the Nautilus pull-down menu. It asked me for the root password, the Nautilus background turned red, and boom! I was about to edit and save my menu.lst file without having to go through a bunch of nonsense.

LoL! Forgive me if you can do this with Ubuntu, and I've overlooked it all this time. It's a steep learning curve sometimes, running multiple distros, and I'm likely to have overlooked a LOT of things, visible and invisible.

If you'll pardon the pun, it's kind of hard to see the forest for the trees, you know?

Anyway, I tried this with openSuSE last night, and Nautilus didn't give me that option...

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Holy crap, that worked!!! Now...if you would PLEASE tell me what the hell I just entered/did that MADE it work, that'd be great.

Wow...I'm totally impressed with something I completely don't understand. I don't know whether to laugh or beat myself.

The reason that worked is you elevated the file manager (Nautilus) to super user status by evoking the command gksudo nautilus. Ubuntu does not have a Root account by default so the initial user created can elevate to SU credentials using sudo. Gksudo is a similar command to gksu, except it uses sudo instead of root to elevate to SU status. Once Nautilus was elevated, it had permission to run the executable fully and that is why it worked. You could have achieved the same thing at the terminal by placing the executable in your /home folder and running a command similar to this.

sudo ./ati_driver_example_filename_101

In other words, when using Ubuntu you will want to use the sudo command in place of using su in most other distros.

Thank you, soonerproud. I appreciate the detailed explanation as Linux as a whole is pretty much unexplored territory for me. Before getting help, I even tried right-clicking/shift-rightclicking in hopes of seeing a "Run As" command. Windows, I know. Linux, not so much.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
This might *seem* like a trivial matter - and Ubuntu might already have this feature (I'm too lazy to go look) but...

When you run Nautilus in Mint 6, it gives you the option of opening files in root mode - kinda like running Vista in admin mode.

For instance, I wanted to edit the menu.lst file in GRUB yesterday, tweaking my triple-boot setup.

No problem! I opened Nautilus, navigated to the GRUB folder, clicked on menu.list, and clicked 'Run as Root' (or whatever) in the Nautilus pull-down menu. It asked me for the root password, the Nautilus background turned red, and boom! I was about to edit and save my menu.lst file without having to go through a bunch of nonsense.

LoL! Forgive me if you can do this with Ubuntu, and I've overlooked it all this time. It's a steep learning curve sometimes, running multiple distros, and I'm likely to have overlooked a LOT of things, visible and invisible.

If you'll pardon the pun, it's kind of hard to see the forest for the trees, you know?

Anyway, I tried this with openSuSE last night, and Nautilus didn't give me that option...

That is simply a Nautilus configuration that is easily fixed in Ubuntu for those that want the run as root command. Like I said in a previous post, Mint is Ubuntu and all the changes are easily done by any end user that wants to learn a little something about Gnome in particular, but Linux in general. None of it is hard to do in Ubuntu at all in just a few hours for those willing to learn more.

I don't recommend Linux for those that are not willing to learn more of the nuts and bolts. You will eventually run in to issues, even on the so called easy distros that will try your patience without learning some of the nuts and bolts. Support on forums, IRC chat and other methods like mailing list will let you down a lot more than help as your issues become more complex.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
That is simply a Nautilus configuration that is easily fixed...

Great!

Can you explain how I can "easily fix" this in Nautilus? I'll patch my Ubuntu and openSuSE installs and make them work like Mint.

Thanks!


EDIT: BTW, I just ran across my first SNAFU.

I couldn't connect to SSH (OpenSSH) servers using Nautilus - kept timing out. Evidently it's a Debian/Ubuntu/Mint thing.

What I had to do is go into:

• ~/.ssh/config

And uncomment:

• # GSSAPIAuthentication no

Heh! That was an 'easy fix' too...