Setting up Celena

[T J Tulley]

Here's an odd one!

For a long time a screen has appeared during boot with a line saying something like "See usr/share/doc/915resolution/readme" - it goes on to say that it will use a default, which has been quite satisfactory.

I've just got around to that Readme, which advises a command beginning with # which needs to be interpreted as sudo. The command then produces a set of alternatives identical to those quoted in the readme screen. This goes on to suggest an example of a setting where the resolutions quoted are different from those shown in the list above for that option.
[Specifically: MODE=3c XRESO=1400 YRESO=1050, while in the list above it is:
Mode 3c : 1280x768, 8 bits/pixel]

I find this quite confusing. How do I know which option to choose?

[Husse]

If you are not using an intel 915 (or something using that driver) remove it....
It's just that a bunch of drivers are in there by default and the 915 one advertises itself during boot.
So if you know which driver you are using feel free to remove the others - just open up Synaptic and search for xorg - you'll find a lot of drivers you don't use
Be careful though and only remove unused drivers - nothing else

[T J Tulley]

Thanks Husse:

My printer is Epson Stylus Photo 915 - is that relevant?
Below the highlighted Model number, in the Driver line of its properties it says:
High Quality Image (Gutenprint CUPS) (expert)

Monitor is Flatron Model No: M1917TM-SD but I can't find any mention of it in Device manager. That, I think, is the only other item for which resolution is relevant?

[Husse]

A new one - could be, but this "mysterious" message makes people wonder and it is generally the intel driver that is installed but not used - if it remains if you uninstall the unnecessary video drivers we'll know that your printer leaves messages at boot
I would not bother - it's just a message and if everything works.....

[T J Tulley]

Thanks again Husse: Good advice - don't bother! Explicit in your sig file.

As usual, if I looked carefully enough I would have found it - clear explanation at foot of page in Synaptic when 915resolution is selected.

Device Manager tells me I have an Intel 82865G graphics controller but it's working very well. I seem to have lost sounds while booting but I was looking at settings yesterday and may have tweaked one for that. Can't find it at present.

[Husse]

If you have an Intel video card you could remove all video drivers that are not Intel, but leave even the 915resolution as there may be dependencies from (to?) the other Intel drivers

[T J Tulley]

Thanks again Husse:

I'll bear that in mind when I next upgrade - at present everything immediate is working and for the time being I must get on with actually using the machine.

Some time I shall have to tackle remaining problems with non-working hardware lacking Linux drivers - webcam, scanner, & slide scanner - I briefly tried wine and virtualbox but haven't time to spare at present. I also have some currently unusable software, but the same applies - it will have to wait.

One final question for now - I have tried to find a definition of "desktop configuration files" which appear as icons on my desktop screen representing partitions. These belong to me, are quite small (194 bytes) and act effectively as dynamic links.

Others. representing the same set of partitions, are folders, belong to root, and act in exactly the same way but give me read-only access. They all regularly appear now - previously it appeared to be a matter of chance. Can I safely delete the icons for folders belonging to root? The others give me read/write access to the same partitions.

Strangely, if I open the icon "Computer", it lists them all showing "Type" as "desktop configuration file" but if I click on them and select Properties, half of them are described as folders belonging to root.

Apologies - this really ought to be a separate topic - but I've raised it before and it was ignored.

[Husse]

Any links (that are not used by the system itself) can always be safely removed
I'm in Gusty now and it seems to be a bit different.
But I don't really understand what you have.....
Anyway - both mintDesktop and mintDisk can put (links to) your hard disks on the desktop
Think you have both active, mintDesktop only gives read not write to FAT and ntfs partitions mintDisk gives r/w