Traygon

As you well know, I am still on my laptop, still with SiS 671 Integrated Graphics Controller, still with no driver from either Canonical or SiS. It is becoming such a strain to know that I have been searching and hoping for a year to try and shed light on a potential 3D graphics driver for Linux. I think it has now bypassed the ridiculous stage, the fact that SiS 671 graphics cannot support standard desktop effects or external displays is just awful. The fact that SiS can’t be arsed to get one developed… oh wait, they have one already created for older versions of Ubuntu, they could release that to Canonical or the community for development! Nope, they say no as they are tied to Microsoft.

It can handle Windows 7 eye candy.

Having 2D drivers is enough for a workable machine in day to day life, but what about pushing the machine to it’s potential? Not needing to un-install and re-install different drivers per release?

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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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