Traygon

I had a fantastic run with Ubuntu 9.10 on my Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo v5535 laptop, I think it lasted around about 8 months, which is fantastic considering I was re-installing operating systems on this machine nearly weekly. The problems started to occur though, not all down to Ubuntu itself, but mainly for the lack of support for the model I purchased just over a year ago.

Graphics

So the SiS Mirage 3+ IGP works to an extent, I have full 2D support and can have my display extended to the native 1280×800. I’m a happy bunny, but you always want your hardware to perform as well as it can. Having fully enabled Aero on Windows 7 and not being able to even enable moderate effects in Ubuntu is just wrong, of course this is the fault of SiS and their pathetic contract with Microsoft. Did I mention that they have actually made a 3D graphics driver for Linux? Will they release the source code? No. Pointless? Absolutely.

Networking

Wireless works out-the-box, along with the ethernet port. Things go fine until you wish to switch between the ethernet cable and your wireless a few times, or maybe change wired networks to perform multiple tasks. After around 10-20 changes, the ethernet stops working altogether, it can’t establish a connection at all. I have tried reseting the network, tried different cables and networks but it just doesn’t want to play along. Therefore a complete system restart is required, waste of both time and energy.

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I have done it! For those of you that already know me and my laptop’s somewhat ’separate’ relationship over the word ‘Linux’ due to the wireless, Ethernet and graphics being a right pain in the ass. I was trying Ubuntu, one of the more popular distributions on offer for users, it did recognize hardware successfully and the laptop performed well. However, no wireless or Ethernet availability, nor any resolution higher then 800×600 is painful in itself. On my old blog, I did post an update for fix on the graphics card, which allowed the full resolution of 1280×800, fantastic news. But still no wireless or Ethernet, until I was forced to use ndiswrapper and the windows drivers. This worked for a while but then the inevitable came when the Internet access on my laptop failed, no matter what I tried it just wouldn’t work on Linux (the wireless drivers were enabled under ndiswrapper and everything).

So I deleted the partition of ubuntu and never returned, using Vista again for almost 2 months, I then came across a few articles of help and tips saying they have got their Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo v5355 working on ubuntu, I couldn’t believe my luck! I followed the steps for the guide on making the wireless work (I don’t really care for the Ethernet port for now). Upon a million attempts at the guides, wouldn’t work.

I remember thinking then “How can my laptop not work on the same guides other laptops of the exact same model are?!”, a compromise had to be made, what if it was ubuntu? What if I tried mint Linux? It is based off ubuntu and shares same applications etc. so it must be a possibility that this could work. I have never been more correct in my life Followed the guide on getting the wireless work here, it works like a charm! I am now blogging off my mint Linux laptop, smiling away with Thunderbird integrated Lightning, Firefox, Pidgin, my dear friend Terminal and many more! It’s just insane how being away from the mighty Windows can be so incredible.

Let’s see what Linux brings me round this new year of 2009.

Rich.

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