Abstract for those who don't want to read the article.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| kikinovak Jan 10, 2016 8:07 AM EDT |
User struggles with unsupported cr@ppy video card, decides to switch to Debian and struggles some more. |
| seatex Jan 10, 2016 10:04 AM EDT |
I love running hardware beyond it's "useful life" as much as anyone. But, there always comes a time when it's just not supported anymore and limits your software options. That's when I replace it with something more modern. |
| flufferbeer Jan 10, 2016 1:20 PM EDT |
@kikinovak, @seatex Some of us can still remember trying to desperately search for linux kernel 2.x drivers for those PCI WINmodem cards we got at bargain prices over a decade ago, for getting ppp dialup. These winmodems always managed to work (well below their 34 kbps or 56 kbps max of course)..... IN WINDO$E 9X! Seems to me that the current types of "winmodems" are something like those bargain-priced wireless cards designed forWindo$e XP on up, where we haveto use NDISWRAPPER to get these to work using modern linux distros (including distros like RH/centos/fedora and baboont2, besides just debian!) 2c |
| caitlynm Jan 10, 2016 3:40 PM EDT |
kikinovak: The video chipset I run is fully supported by Debian. None of my problems with Debian were related to video.The video worked perfectly well. Clearly you wrote your summary without reading the article as well, or at least without comprehending it. Look, I get it. You hate my guts. I dared diss your favorite distro years and years ago so you attack absolutely everything and anything I write years and years later. Get a life! seatex: Clearly the hardware is not beyond its useful life if it works perfectly in another distro. Actually, none of the problems I had with Debian in any way relate to old hardware. The fact that Firefox works well on this machine and Iceweasel does not says plainly that Iceweasel is not what it claims to be: a clone of Firefox with the branding stripped out. Also, the most serious issue I wrote about, the repository management issues, aren't hardware related at all. If you do a little searching you'll find that a bug in nouveau with certain 3.x kernels caused video problems with the chipset I used. I did a little testing with Vector Linux 7.2 alpha. It's not ready for prime time yet, but with it's 4.1.14 kernel and the latest nouveau my video chipset is entirely happy. So it seems my hardware hasn't reached the end of its useful life at all. BTW, I'm also not sure how any of the issues are related to winmodems. |
| cybertao Jan 10, 2016 3:52 PM EDT |
Winmodems make another interesting example of the perils of buying hardware limited by proprietary support. |
| kikinovak Jan 10, 2016 6:21 PM EDT |
@seatex: you'll be surprised, but in my line of work, I'm regularly confronted with legacy hardware that modern installers choke upon. Which explains my choice of distribution. http://www.microlinux.eu/ |
| thenixedreport Jan 10, 2016 9:43 PM EDT |
@caitlynm, this isn't about your issues with Slackware from the past. The fact remains that older hardware will be more challenging to get working on newer OS'es. Furthermore you were using the stable branch, which doesn't have the latest packages (I'm no fan of Iceweasel myself). Long story short, disagreement and other comments does not mean a person hates you. They may disagree with you, or they may simply summarize what happened. Indeed you had an issue with an old GPU, tried another distro, and struggled (albeit with software as opposed to hardware). The results of posting the article here have rekindled memories of getting other forms of hardware to work (I am glad I never had to deal with modems). |
| caitlynm Jan 10, 2016 9:47 PM EDT |
thenixedreport: Respectfully, for one person in this thread, it is all about Slackware. I may as well have shot his puppy. For everyone else, of course not, and I have never claimed as much. FWIW, I've communicated with CentOS developer Johnny Hughes and it turns out elrepo now has an .srpm for the drivers I need. As I also noted above the nouveau problems have been fixed. I have yet to find out if that fix has been backported to RHEL 7.2 but it would not surprise me if it was. So... CentOS gets another try. I have a strong preference for running what I support for work, which is SLES 11/12 and RHEL 6/7. It keeps me in the head space to do things the way those distros demand :) Again, Debian supports that nVidia chipset extremely well. That was not the problem at all. |
| thenixedreport Jan 10, 2016 10:14 PM EDT |
Nobody claimed that your integrated GPU was the issue. They simply commented on how challenging it can be to get it up and running on modern OS'es today (try running Ubuntu MATE 14.04 on an old HP notebook with a Pentium 4 processor.... shutting it down doesn't work properly and the wireless adapter doesn't function for some reason). To be fair, the Nvidia 6150SE is not the greatest GPU out there (not horrible, but not the greatest), hence the comment. Could they have clarified by saying, "struggle with new issues?" Probably. Does it mean they have it out for you? No. |
| seatex Jan 10, 2016 11:49 PM EDT |
> caitlynm I wasn't even addressing your issues specifically. I was just giving my own personal experience with older hardware support. I will replace hardware. if needed. for a favored distribution though. In fact, I just did that. My wife uses Linux Mint with Cinnamon, and there was a screen tearing bug with Cinnamon and the Intel driver on her E8400 Core 2 Duo Lenovo box. I found a deal on a Core i5-3470 box with 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory and a 1TB drive with Intel 2500 video for $200 and replaced it. The new box has 3x faster CPU, 2x the memory (and faster - 1600MHz DDR3 vs 1333MHz DDR2, and no tearing on the screen with the newer gen Intel graphics on Cinnamon. The system I bought is already 3-4 years old, but is super fast and should run Linux for another decade at least. So, I like to run cheap yet adequate hardware that plays nice with Linux. I definitely look at all components in the systems I purchase considering Linux support. But even with that, you never know for certain how many years you will be able to continue using any component as the software evolves and marches on. As for software modems, those were another gift from the OEM cost-cutters. I always hated them too. |
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