Comments on: Ubuntu 9.10 Works Well (and So Does the Microsoft Propaganda Machine) http://boycottnovell.com/2009/11/07/ubuntu-9-10-works-well/ Exploring the reality behind exclusionary deals with Microsoft and their subtle (yet severe) implications Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:39:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: David Gerard http://boycottnovell.com/2009/11/07/ubuntu-9-10-works-well/comment-page-1/#comment-75296 David Gerard Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:33:58 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/?p=21303#comment-75296 Yeah, I have the same sort of thing with a Toshiba Satellite 6050 with a Trident S3 chip. If you set up an xorg.conf it's fine, so it can be worked around at least. Thankfully that sort of thing is fixable - it's not the problem I mean, where the driver has bitrotted and *just doesn't work any more* - but it requires the person with the crusty old driver to be a coder. Yeah, I have the same sort of thing with a Toshiba Satellite 6050 with a Trident S3 chip. If you set up an xorg.conf it’s fine, so it can be worked around at least.

Thankfully that sort of thing is fixable – it’s not the problem I mean, where the driver has bitrotted and *just doesn’t work any more* – but it requires the person with the crusty old driver to be a coder.

]]> By: Yuhong Bao http://boycottnovell.com/2009/11/07/ubuntu-9-10-works-well/comment-page-1/#comment-75294 Yuhong Bao Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:47:10 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/?p=21303#comment-75294 A common problem area seems to be the screen resolution detection that was introduced with the xorg.conf file going away. For example, one of my old laptops from 2001 with a ALi/Trident CyberALADDIN-T chipset with integrated graphics with a native resolution of 1024x768 can't seem to go beyond 800x600 with the automatic detection. A common problem area seems to be the screen resolution detection that was introduced with the xorg.conf file going away. For example, one of my old laptops from 2001 with a ALi/Trident CyberALADDIN-T chipset with integrated graphics with a native resolution of 1024×768 can’t seem to go beyond 800×600 with the automatic detection.

]]> By: David Gerard http://boycottnovell.com/2009/11/07/ubuntu-9-10-works-well/comment-page-1/#comment-75288 David Gerard Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:57:04 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/?p=21303#comment-75288 Well, uh, yeah. FWIW, there's one real area where Ubuntu (and every distro) is going to have problems, and that's running newer versions of Xorg on ancient chips. There's a lot of ancient code falling off the edge as the Xorg developers desperately try to drag X into the 21st century, meaning (a) old chipsets break (b) the people with those chipsets don't find out until their distro uses that version of the Xorg Xserver, maybe a year later (c) there's about no-one who can actually fix it. This is less than ideal ... That said, there's an Ubuntu PPA for Xorg daily builds, so you can catch breakage to your favourite chipset! https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers "We don't need to know what we're doing, except that we will break our X and put our computers on fire." Well, uh, yeah.

FWIW, there’s one real area where Ubuntu (and every distro) is going to have problems, and that’s running newer versions of Xorg on ancient chips. There’s a lot of ancient code falling off the edge as the Xorg developers desperately try to drag X into the 21st century, meaning (a) old chipsets break (b) the people with those chipsets don’t find out until their distro uses that version of the Xorg Xserver, maybe a year later (c) there’s about no-one who can actually fix it. This is less than ideal …

That said, there’s an Ubuntu PPA for Xorg daily builds, so you can catch breakage to your favourite chipset! https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers “We don’t need to know what we’re doing, except that we will break our X and put our computers on fire.”

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