Driver Manager Broken?

[wrighch]

I've been using Mint for several years now, starting with Sarah/Cinnamon, then Sylvia/xfce, now trying Tara/xfce (all 64-bit). I've installed both on a Dell Inspiron laptop and on a Winbook TW700 (Baytrail). But I've never been able to get the Driver Manager to do anything for me at all using any version of Mint on any platform. After updating its cache, the Driver Manager just displays a completely blank window with no buttons or menus of any kind. Anyone have any ideas?

[Pierre]

it may be, as LM19 aka Tara is still in Beta stage:
- so report your issue over on the xfce Blog:
viewtopic.php?f=143&t=270552

if you can't get Driver Manager to work on any other version of LinuxMint,
then what is the Graphics Card in that machine ?

type this into Terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

and copy the result back here, on your next reply.

[wrighch]

Several replies here:
1) Don't believe the issue is specific to Tara/Mint-19, since I see the same behavior on both Dell laptop and TW700 tablet running 18, 18.3 and 19.
2) The TW700 (the device I'm currently trying to get working properly) uses a Baytrail cpu and a BUNCH of other hardware devices that are problematic. Right now I'm working on the video. For the record, I'm currently running Tara-beta-xfce, but behavior was essentially the same while I was running Sylvia-18.3-xfce. inxi reports:

CPU~Quad core Intel Atom Z3735G (-MCP-) mspeed/max~499/1832 MHz Kernel~4.15.0-23-generic x86_64 Up~29 min Mem~412.8/922.1MB HDD~NA(-) Procs~192 Client~Shell inxi~2.3.56


By the way, booting has always been problematic on the TW700. Even using the "nomodeset" boot flag, the device boots successfully only one out of five times. The boot problem appears to be related to the kernel switching from BIOS video driver to the kernel's embedded inteldrmfb code during the boot sequence. Until I can be sure I'm using the best driver for my video, I'm searching for alternatives to use of nomodeset, since that option seems to rule out a lot of features after the device actually boots up, such as screen rotation. Right now I'm using "acpi_osi=" (i.e. no value prvided for the flag) rather than nomodeset which, at least allows me to use xrandr to rotate the screen.

[Hoser Rob]

You were asked to provide output of inxi -Fxz. You didn't post it. Most people who have been using Mint for any length of time know you can't get decent support without meaningful system info. And Bay Trail hardware isn't particularly troublesome in Linux. Most users aren't having these problems.

One of the main things Linux users need to know is that you have to actually read instructions, not sort of read them. Please post proper system info and move on from there.

[wrighch]

I'm confused. The entire output of "inxi -Fxz" is explicitly included in my initial response:

CPU~Quad core Intel Atom Z3735G (-MCP-) mspeed/max~499/1832 MHz Kernel~4.15.0-23-generic x86_64 Up~29 min Mem~412.8/922.1MB HDD~NA(-) Procs~192 Client~Shell inxi~2.3.56

What more do I need to post?

[wrighch]

oops! My bad. I forgot the "-" preceeding the "Fxz" give me a minute and I'll post the full output.

[wrighch]

Code: Select all

charlie@WINBOOK:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: WINBOOK Kernel: 4.15.0-23-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.31) Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: portable System: WinBook product: TW700 v: 0.1 serial: N/A
           Mobo: WinBook. model: TW700 v: FAB1 serial: N/A
           UEFI: Phoenix v: 1.00 IA32 date: 11/04/2014
CPU:       Quad core Intel Atom Z3735G (-MCP-) 
           arch: Silvermont rev.8 cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 10662
           clock speeds: max: 1832 MHz 1: 955 MHz 2: 823 MHz 3: 499 MHz
           4: 499 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 800x1280@60.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Bay Trail
           version: 4.2 Mesa 18.0.0-rc5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio driver: HdmiLpeAudio
           Card-2 bytcr-rt5640 driver: bytcr-rt5640
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-23-generic
Network:   Card: Ralink RT5370 Wireless Adapter
           driver: rt2800usb v: 2.3.0 usb-ID: 001-003
           IF: wlxc83a35cca8b7 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: NA (-)
           ID-1: /dev/mmcblk1 model: N/A size: 15.6GB
           ID-2: /dev/mmcblk2 model: N/A size: 62.7GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 13G used: 6.0G (49%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/mmcblk1p2
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 1.01GB used: 0.06GB (6%)
           fs: swap dev: /dev/mmcblk1p3
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 190 Uptime: 2:15 Memory: 372.9/922.1MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56