Linux Mint Forums

Hi, I really wanted to get away from Microsoft and everyone talks about how Great Linux is. But I've been trying to install Linux Mint 13 for days now and can't because of a video driver issue. Seems Linux just like Microsoft is forcing people to upgrade there systems which is called Control.

rickinfl wrote:...I really wanted ...Seems Linux just like Microsoft is forcing people to upgrade there systems which is called Control.

No one forced you to boot the Linux CD.
Linux gives you the control, MS takes it. The choice YOU made is not the fault of any OS.

hum... It's your opinion and no one can blame you if you didn't like
On the other hand, I saw that Crypto is trying to help you on that problem, may be he'll eventually find you a solution (him or any other member that can help )
We're all here to help, just give us some time

Even if what you said made any sense, it would be the video card companies not releasing open source drivers trying to get you to upgrade hardware, not Microsoft or Linux.
Linux runs on far more devices (or certainly a variety of devices) than Microsoft will ever run on, the fact that it's tricky running on something you have just means someone hasn't written a driver for it yet probably!

Edited to make sense! :p

rickinfl wrote:Hi, I really wanted to get away from Microsoft and everyone talks about how Great Linux is. But I've been trying to install Linux Mint 13 for days now and can't because of a video driver issue. Seems Linux just like Microsoft is forcing people to upgrade there systems which is called Control.

Dude you are trying to run a ATI Radeon 9550 that came out in 2004. Perhaps its time to look at alternatives. As to being "forced" just let us know who kicked in your front door and forced you to run Linux or Microsoft OSs and we will be right there to cover your back. Enjoy

You are misunderstanding me. Microsoft released Vista and Windows 7. They made it so difficult on everyone because the OS needed NEW Hardware to run it so basically they forced people to upgrade their hardware. That was my point. Everyone has been trying to get me to switch to Linux. I've ran Mint 10 for a while a while back on this video card with no issues. Now I want out of Microsoft's Grip and switch to Linux Mint full time.

Crypto has been Great at helping me he really has went out of his way to help and I Thanked him for all the Help.

"Dude you are trying to run a ATI Radeon 9550 that came out in 2004"
"it would be the video card companies not releasing open source drivers " ---

BUT Linux Mint works GREAT in Compatible Mode! I can run it off LiveCD all day long and do whatever. It's when I boot into Normal Mode I get colored Blocks all over the screen and can't see anything. So you said it's "Old" or "Video card companies don't release drivers" But why does it work in 1 mode and not the other?? Why is the driver in Mint, but only in 1 mode? This is what's aggravating! The dang driver is there and I can't get to it to run in normal mode.

I totally understand ATI hasn't released updated drivers, but Why does it run in compatible mode but not normal mode. I'm just so frustrated and my computer has been down for days and I need it back up and running ASAP and don't want to reload windows on it. I just want an answer without having to upgrade my equipment that's all.

I'm NOT bashing Linux! I'm bashing Microsoft. I support Open Source. What I said came out wrong.

rickinfl, just a suggestion but if you need your computer back up and running soon, you might give PCLinuxOS or Mepis a try. Those two distros are regarded as having extremely good hardware support out of the box.

I always seem to have problematic hardware and when nothing else works, these are the first distros I go to. PCLinuxOS has saved my bacon more than once. It's just a suggestion and I understand your frustration. I just want you to have your computer back up and running smooth.

Weather you get Mint working or try one of my suggestions I wish you luck and I hope you let us know how it turns out.

Edit: I am not trying to discourage you from running Mint but that is a pretty old graphics card ATI's support is poor even on their recent cards. I spent weeks getting my ATI graphics working on my 6 month old HP DV6. My graphics worked perfect on PCLinuxOS but the ralink WiFi was not yet supported.

@rickinfl: Compatible mode runs as fallback a generic vesa driver which offers very poor performances and takes absolutely no advantage of your GPU. It is aimed to work at all cost. Indeed this not really a "driver": it is basically the same as the one used in Windows "safe mode"... But when you boot in normal mode, the open-source driver is then loaded and tried first because it should work and take your real hardware in consideration. One option is to uninstall the xserver-xorg-radeon-video driver in order to force the use of the vesa "driver". The other option is to tweak your xorg.conf file to force the use of the vesa driver instead of the automagically started open-source ati/radeon specific driver.

I have this problem too. My computer is less than 1 year old but I cannot get Mint 13 Maya to run unless I use recovery. I posted here
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=105451 'Xorg problem in Maya 13 Lts' ...but have been unable to rectify the xorg problem. I read all the X.Org foundation stuff and it is beyond my understanding.
I do not know enough about how to delete or change this xorg file or even exactly how to find it with terminal coding and wouldn't know a vesa driver if I saw one, if indeed you can actually see them!
Many people like me (none tech) have happily used Mint and indeed supported it for years and to find that one cannot use the system anymore is ...well... disheartening... to say the least.
Is there any chance of some helping hand please before I go Ubuntu 12.04 mad which works OK. So what is the difference between these two systems that my desktop computer cannot deal with? Grumpy George.

I think part of it is you're trying to use Mint 13 Cinnamon with an old ATI card. Cinnamon uses Gnome 3 tech, and Gnome 3 is not compatible or has major issues with many ATI cards. Try using the Mint 13 MATE edition. Might work better for you.

x2 Mate

Mate isn't just a boring stable DE. It's the fastest and most compatible.

rickinfl wrote:I totally understand ATI hasn't released updated drivers, but Why does it run in compatible mode but not normal mode. I'm just so frustrated and my computer has been down for days and I need it back up and running ASAP and don't want to reload windows on it. I just want an answer without having to upgrade my equipment that's all.

If you consider your time to have any value, you might want to consider buying an Nvidia based card for your machine. Heck, you can find a zillion of them on eBay for $20-$30 that should run decent on your old rig. It is a 2004 vintage, right? Do you have PCIe or an AGP based motherboard? This is important to know, because 2004 was the switchover year when PCIe replaced AGP. I suspect you ATI Radeon 9550 is AGP. Try an Nvidia GeForce 6800 AGP. They're cheap and work good.

No sense in struggling to get that Radeon to work acceptably. I think it's an exercise in futility.

rickinfl wrote:Hi, I really wanted to get away from Microsoft and everyone talks about how Great Linux is. But I've been trying to install Linux Mint 13 for days now and can't because of a video driver issue. Seems Linux just like Microsoft is forcing people to upgrade there systems which is called Control.

There are hundreds of Linux distros, all different. Please don't give up on the Linux platform because one distro didn't work for you.
I've used around 17 distros since 2001, and out of all 17, two had issues that made me switch to another distro.