Linux Mint. I want to like it, I really do... (general impressions)

[English Invader]

That said, some people have gotten their AMD to work okay.

I guess that's me - except I didn't have to do anything to my AMD rig to work OK. Just installed LM and it worked out of the box. RAID was a bit tricky but that hardly had anything to with having an AMD CPU.

Same deal here. I've had no problems with an AMD processor or graphics. The only thing I can't vouch for is the APU (Accelerated Processing Unit - CPU and graphics all on the one chip).

[amethyst_igor]

That said, some people have gotten their AMD to work okay.

I guess that's me - except I didn't have to do anything to my AMD rig to work OK. Just installed LM and it worked out of the box. RAID was a bit tricky but that hardly had anything to with having an AMD CPU.

Same deal here. I've had no problems with an AMD processor or graphics. The only thing I can't vouch for is the APU (Accelerated Processing Unit - CPU and graphics all on the one chip).

If you google Catalyst and Linux you will see what I mean. AMD works fine, until you want graphic performance in a game, and you start messing around with Catalyst. On lower spec AMD apu's, even your 1080p video playback can be a problem. Yes, the problem is the graphics, although I would not buy anything AMD has a hand in, because they don't care about Linux. They market to Windows gamers and the budget crowd. But the high-end gamers prefer Intel, so they lose there too. Intel makes cooler, lower wattage, faster chips, and their graphics, although not quite the thing for games, are perfectly adequate to handle 1080p even at the $50 Celeron level of Haswell G1820. I've yet to see 1080p my little Celeron can't handle with ease in Linux Mint 17.3 Xfce.

[avidan2006]

I completely understand where the OP is coming from, but to be honest I think that falls on us as Windows power users. I know Windows like the back of my hand, and my reaction to a crashed system was "oh, we'll just tweak this and add that, and type this, and we'll be good to go," and sure enough, everything was back together and running smoothly without my breaking a sweat.

My current reaction to Linux Mint crashing is something along the lines of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'M DOOMED! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! WHY WON'T THE THINGY LISTEN TO THE THINGS I'M TELLING IT TO DO?! WHAT'S A XORG?!"

So for us there's a learning curve to which we need adjusting. It's like learning another language, which I'm also doing. I speak English, but am learning French, and while there are some strong connections between the two languages, and sometimes I can fake it really well, the only way I'm going to speak fluently in French is hard study and frequent practice. I think that would go a long way towards making things run more smoothly. We do it as power users in Windows every day, but we're so used to it we don't realize it. I believe the same applies here.

Just my two bits.

[English Invader]

My current reaction to Linux Mint crashing is something along the lines of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'M DOOMED! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! WHY WON'T THE THINGY LISTEN TO THE THINGS I'M TELLING IT TO DO?! WHAT'S A XORG?!"

My reaction to Linux Mint crashing is to press the reset button on my desktop and wait for the system to reboot. Some programs are prone to intermittent crashing through Wine (usually between loads) and, as long as the program is still usable (i.e. doesn't crash 4 times out of 5), I'll carry on using it as is.

[BigEasy]

My current reaction to Linux Mint crashing is something along the lines of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'M DOOMED! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! WHY WON'T THE THINGY LISTEN TO THE THINGS I'M TELLING IT TO DO?! WHAT'S A XORG?!"

I guess you got black screen of death? But somebody believe that black is better than blue!
But I never seen Mint crashed. I even have no idea what I should to do to crash it. Probably delete something from /

[phd21]

Hi "mrx3750",

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux Mint and its excellent forum !

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

I just read your post and some of the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

Re: Linux Mint. I want to like it, I really do... But it keeps giving me reasons not to.

Perhaps you do not have enough experience yet with Linux Mint to come to the "premature" conclusions you are making. But, the good people here in this forum will try to help you out.

Since Linux Mint has 4 wonderful main editions based on "Ubuntu" (Cinnamon, Mate, KDE, & Xfce), and two more based on "Debian", you might consider creating Live Test Drive installation versions of each one of the main four editions, and trying them first. I usually tell all new users this, try each one out for an hour or two, to see which one works best for your hardware and that you like the most. It could very well be that one of the other editions works much better for your hardware. If you have large enough USB flash drive sticks (16gb or greater), you can install full versions of each Linux Mint Edition and try those, which would be even better because you can install various things, including drivers, which will be retained on rebooting. Cinnamon is great, but it does require more computer power and resources than Mate or Xfce, and I have never had any luck with it and AMD video, but for some reason "Mate" does not seem to have a problem with AMD video cards. Perhaps there are better AMD video drivers for Cinnamon you can try out as well. You have checked the "Driver Manager"?

I chose Linux Mint for a media center PC that I built. The computer isn't super powerful... Socket FM1 motherboard with an AMD a3400 APU and 2 GB of RAM. It was built on a $50 budget, and its purpose is to watch YouTube, play videos, and run a few Old Skool console emulators. (Sega Genesis, N64, Playstation) All stuff the hardware is easily capable of.

Your specifications for this computer tells us that this is by no mean a "powerful" computer with only 2gb of system memory (RAM) and a dual core processor. Today's multi-media is high definition with larger files, so your multi-media computer (server), should reflect that. I use the most excellent Linux Mint KDE on an older 11 year old computer with a single core, single thread, 32-bit P4 processor, lousy AMD video card with practically no video ram (vram), and only two gb of System Memory (Ram), old IDE/Pata bus (PCI) (not even Sata), and I can install and run the superb "Kodi (xbmc)" media server player, or the excellent "Plex" Home Theater", and they work. Of course, I cannot do anything else while they are running, nor are they very fast or responsive, because I do not have enough system memory or a multi-core processor. For just streaming multi-media, the awesome "PS3 Media Server" works great on practically any system, including mine or yours, and I can still do everything else I need to do without it slowing down. The Kodi and Plex Multimedia server players are much more feature rich, and can do much more, though.

PS3 Media Server Is Now Available For All Supported Ubuntu/Linux Mint Versions Via PPA
http://www.noobslab.com/2015/01/ps3-med ... e-for.html
To install "PS3 Media Server" using the PPA method, open a console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one: (Do not forget to add a Firewall rule for "Allow Incoming" on TCP Port 5001).

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/apps
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ps3mediaserver

For specific tasks, Linux is great. However the sandbox is still pretty small and pretty restrictive. Try to venture outside of it or have something doesn't work right out of the box, and you are in for a nightmare.

Not very explicit, just an inaccurate generalization. What does this mean?

There are over 45,000 software applications and utility programs available in the Mint Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), and that does not include the many others that are available from other outside sources most of which are in easy to install ".deb" files, or using a PPA.

I have found that Linux Mint can do everything that I used to do for years in MS Windows as well or better, and certainly more securely. Granted, it did take me some time to find the equivalent Linux applications for some things, but I did, and they are as good or better than their MS Windows counterparts; some are the same as they are "cross-platform" and work on both. The good people in this forum can certainly help with recommendations, if you ask nicely. I try to stay away from using the excellent "Wine" system for running Ms windows programs, because you really do not need it with all the Linux applications that are available, unless you have to. "Gaming" is the only category, that is a little behind, and that is changing drastically for the better every week.

And of course, there is the incredible Virtualbox or VMware programs where you can run any edition of MS Windows and any MS Windows application in that, all while still running in Linux Mint without dual booting; of course you still have to have the system resources and memory to do so, and 2gb of system memory today is not much, 4gb or more of Ram would be so much better and faster.

So theoretically Linux Mint should handle this easily, what with its built in video player, and software packages like WINE which allows for Windows compatibility. Good for running Project 64 which far as I know was only written for Windows. Yet it has failed on its ass and I am debating just installing Windows 7 on it so it will do what I want it to do. It has been one issue after another, after another.

I built the machine to be small and portible which means hooking it to various displays. I have an old Sony Trinitron (Early HDTV with a DVI port), a projector that does SVGA, and various PC monitors. The Trinitron picture is ridiculously overscanned with no easy way to fix it. The projector works but videos and the Sega Genesis emulator have appalling framerates, while Project 64 inexplicably works fine. Even more inexplicably, The PC monitor I used to initially set up the system works fine, no issues there.

Obviously, connections to monitor screens, TV's, etc... is a physical issue of the computer's video card and those devices, not the operating system. I have DVI out on my video card, that I use an inexpensive DVI-HDMI adapter (Amazon.com) to play directly to my HDMI TV and it works perfectly.

There are numerous "emulators" in the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), just search for "emulator", or "Nintendo", etc... and try them.

Now I am sure there are ways to fix these issues, and not all these issues are the fault of Linux. I am also sure that fixing these issues involve typing in some stupidly long command or set of commands in the terminal, praying to God that you got the syntax right, and hoping it does what you want it to do with no sure way of knowing until you hit the ENTER key. Were this Windows, I could solve the issue with a few mouse clicks and maybe adjusting a slider to resize the desktop. But this is Linux, and under the veneer of the desktop environment, Linux Mint is still very user unfriendly.

Most of the issues you are talking about are from your own lack of experience with Linux Mint.

It is very rare that anyone has to use the console terminal prompt, except to install software that is not available in the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), and the very rare maintenance routine, and in these circumstances, someone like me, or another forum user, will usually give you the exact command, which you can usually copy and paste into the console terminal prompt. And there are numerous online resources, that also provide the same type of instructions.

You have got to be joking when you say this, "Were this Windows, I could solve the issue with a few mouse clicks and maybe adjusting a slider to resize the desktop."

That is Total B.S. Most of the people here, are here because of issues with MS Windows. I was a software developer using MS Windows for a long time, and supported their operating systems, all types of hardware and networking, and various software from everywhere and everyone, and I can tell you I had to use the Command prompt a fair bit, and everything took forever to do.

- Microsoft Updates could take hours, where as mint updates only take a few minutes usually.
- All the various software you have installed in MS Windows had their own updates from wherever, all over the place. Updates for 99% of all installed applications in your Linux Mint box occur using the Update Manager from one place.
- Just to install the AMD catalyst video drivers in Ms Windows, could take well over half an hour on this machine.
- Installing Microsoft software products, like MS developer stuff, could take hours.
- Like most responsible MS Windows users, I had a good anti-virus program, firewall, and numerous anti-malware programs, defragmenting programs, registry cleaners, all of which required numerous weekly or daily updates, not to mention having to run them all weekly or more which took forever! You do not need to do any of this in your Linux Mint system. I spent more time doing that crap than using the computer productively. And Lord help you if you did not keep up with this MS Windows maintenance stuff, and you got a nasty virus or malware, or your registry got corrupted, or whatever, because then you had to re-install windows which could take all day or longer with updates! Of course, if you had a current complete image back up then restoring that would take less time. Anyone can install Linux Mint in around 16 minutes or less.

I just wanted a portable PC with a robust media player and a little bit of gaming capability. What I've gotten so far is hours of frustration, disappointment, and weird issues that don't make sense. I may try to sort these issues out with the help of this forum. I'm not sure yet.

It is very well known to most computer people, that if you want a Robust Media Server Player, and Gaming system, that this would require more computer power and resources not less, certainly more then the minimum that you got.

But, with a little patience and some effort, you should be able to get all this working even on this machine you have.

Hope this helps ...

[avidan2006]

My current reaction to Linux Mint crashing is something along the lines of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'M DOOMED! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! WHY WON'T THE THINGY LISTEN TO THE THINGS I'M TELLING IT TO DO?! WHAT'S A XORG?!"

My reaction to Linux Mint crashing is to press the reset button on my desktop and wait for the system to reboot. Some programs are prone to intermittent crashing through Wine (usually between loads) and, as long as the program is still usable (i.e. doesn't crash 4 times out of 5), I'll carry on using it as is.

Well, yeah, sure, be rational.

Seriously, though, I'm still adjusting to Linux, and I'm in that phase where I'm afraid everything I touch will cause the system to explode. I haven't felt this way since 1993, when I installed Windows 3.11 with networking.

My current reaction to Linux Mint crashing is something along the lines of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'M DOOMED! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! WHY WON'T THE THINGY LISTEN TO THE THINGS I'M TELLING IT TO DO?! WHAT'S A XORG?!"

I guess you got black screen of death? But somebody believe that black is better than blue!
But I never seen Mint crashed. I even have no idea what I should to do to crash it. Probably delete something from /

Yeah, I got the black screen of death a couple of times. Then there was software rendering mode, which I managed to fix, though I think it was more luck and realizing the autoremove command works for a reason. This is almost completely new territory for me, and while I'm doing my best to learn, I have 24 years of Microsoft Windows experience to muddle it all up.

I haven't had so many crashes, as I have freezes. The system will freeze, and just sit there without bringing up an option to do anything about it. Keyboard commands don't work, the mouse will move but you can't click on anything, things like that. I'm still learning Linux's behavior, too. It clearly approaches some things differently than others, so some of it is very unfamiliar. What would be second nature to most of you is unknown to me, at this point. I did find a basic guide to Linux, and I'm going to start reading it. I don't like being in a position where I don't know something.

[Arch_Enemy]

Yep. Like I said the issues aren't all Linux's fault. That said I believe the default driver is open source, and while it can be forgiven for not having the performance of AMD's proprietary drivers, not having easy to access settings is just frustrating.

Also weirdly the default driver renders Cinnamon in software mode when on my projector, but hooked to an LCD monitor, it works perfectly fine. It shouldn't even be able to tell the difference much less behave in such a way.

I gave up on AMD a while ago. Ever since ATi got sold to AMD the drivers have gone downhill. I used to be a real ATi fanboi but recently even the Window drivers stink, the cards aren't as robust, just all around UGH. I used to be an AMD fanboi as well, but since they locked the multipliers (from people setting ridiculous clock speeds and then wondering why it fried) I've gone Intel/nVidia. When I got my first nVidia card 9 years ago I was shuddering at the thought of installing it on...er...PCLinuxOS I think it was...I plugged the card in, booted, got a big NVIDIA logo and that was that. Install the nVidia utility, tweak to perfection..done.

It is the ONE thing not so easily done in Mint. You still have to take a couple extra steps, but it runs rings around ATi.

[English Invader]

I try to stay away from using the excellent "Wine" system for running Ms windows programs, because you really do not need it with all the Linux applications that are available, unless you have to. "Gaming" is the only category, that is a little behind, and that is changing drastically for the better every week.

Wine can actually be a very potent tool for running older PC games (anything from 1995-2005) and is a lot more configurable in that regard than a post-XP Windows OS. A while back, I thought of getting an old XP tin for the express purpose of playing old games but, in the end, I decided it would be a lot more fun to see how far I could go with Linux and I haven't been disappointed. Between Wine and DOSBox, there isn't much that can't be run and, in a lot of cases, the games that don't work pose the same problems on Windows anyway.

[mrx3750]

I completely understand where the OP is coming from, but to be honest I think that falls on us as Windows power users. I know Windows like the back of my hand, and my reaction to a crashed system was "oh, we'll just tweak this and add that, and type this, and we'll be good to go," and sure enough, everything was back together and running smoothly without my breaking a sweat.

My current reaction to Linux Mint crashing is something along the lines of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! I'M DOOMED! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! WHY WON'T THE THINGY LISTEN TO THE THINGS I'M TELLING IT TO DO?! WHAT'S A XORG?!"

So for us there's a learning curve to which we need adjusting. It's like learning another language, which I'm also doing. I speak English, but am learning French, and while there are some strong connections between the two languages, and sometimes I can fake it really well, the only way I'm going to speak fluently in French is hard study and frequent practice. I think that would go a long way towards making things run more smoothly. We do it as power users in Windows every day, but we're so used to it we don't realize it. I believe the same applies here.

Just my two bits.

Nice to know someone else gets it. Been with Windows since the days of Win 95. Cut my teeth on win 98. Back then flatten and reinstall was almost always the best way to fix a Win 98 system.

Then XP came along and that's when I started distrusting Windows. Because how do you strip computer users of their independence and move them over to a subscription service? You do it gradually over a period of years or decades. Step one: Product activation. Fairly innocuous by itself but it sets the precedent. Add in a lifecycle policy, followed by restricting things like Direct X updates to the newest versions of Windows, and now mandatory telemetry that you cannot turn off unless you get under the hood.

But I'm getting off track.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this particular install. I may scrap the system and throw in an Intel board if AMD's linux support is really so bad that I can't even make things display right. I just went with it because I already had the APU from a scrapped machine and the RAM. So all I needed was a motherboard to make a working system.

[mrx3750]

Hi "mrx3750",

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux Mint and its excellent forum !

It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

Okay I'm on the linux system right now so lets take a stab at this:

System: Host: mrx-MS-7786 Kernel: 3.19.0-32-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Cinnamon 2.8.8 (Gtk 3.10.8~8+qiana)
Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
Machine: Mobo: MSI model: A55M-P33 (MS-7786) v: 1.0
Bios: American Megatrends v: V2.0 date: 02/04/2013
CPU: Dual core AMD A4-3400 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB
flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 10779
clock speeds: max: 2694 MHz 1: 2694 MHz 2: 2694 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Sumo [Radeon HD 6410D]
bus-ID: 00:01.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.17.1 driver: fglrx
Resolution: 1280x1024@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 6410D
GLX Version: 4.5.13399 - CPC 15.201.1151 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] BeaverCreek HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6500D and 6400G-6600G series]
driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.19.0-32-generic
Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Card-2: Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
driver: rt61pci v: 2.3.0 bus-ID: 02:05.0
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 120.0GB (12.1% used)
ID-1: /dev/sda model: SanDisk_SDSSDA12 size: 120.0GB
Optical: /dev/sr0 model: hp DVD RW AD-7290HR
rev: 1HR5 dev-links: cdrom
Features: speed: 40x multisession: yes
audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running
Partition: ID-1: / size: 109G used: 13G (12%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1 size: 1.59GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 7.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 13.00C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 161 Uptime: 8 min Memory: 758.4/1478.0MB
Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4
Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.28


Something else to add. I said before that Kega Fusion had a slideshow framerate that started when I hooked it to my projector. This it turns out is not true. It does the same thing on this monitor now, and it's not the framerate I think. The window updates when I hover over an icon on the desktop. So if I wiggle the arrow over an icon on the desktop, I get a faster framerate.

But right now it's the horrible overscan that I'd like to solve. I mean on the Trinitron. This monitor displays fine.

[The Old Timer]

Are you using the graphics that is integrated in the AMD APU that you are using.
If so that could be the source of some issues you are having as I don't believe driver support is up to par with AMD APUs as you are using.

A discrete graphics card may be a better alternative and may solve your problems you have as driver support is better.

I have AMD processors in some of my Linux computers and have no problems but using a discrete graphics card.

[phd21]

Hi "mrx3750",

Ok, your results from the "inxi -Fxzd" command do not show any problems that I can see. It is only showing 1.5gb of system memory (Ram) not 2 gb, and you are using the proprietary AMD/ATI (fglrx) drivers versus the open source drivers. I still think you should try another edition of Linux Mint with your current hardware configuration, like "Mate", or "Xfce", or "KDE".

If you have not already installed "ubuntu-restricted-extras", do that too.

Are you sharing 500mb of system memory with this video card, if so, you might want to reduce that to 250mb, to increase available system memory, or even better get more system memory (ram is cheap nowadays)? From what I have been reading, the open source video drivers for most of the AMD/ATI video cards are better than their proprietary fglrx drivers, but you can test that for yourself. Below I will provide some video driver PPA's for the most current open source video drivers that might provide better results, but you would first have to go into your "Driver Manager" and switch from the proprietary "fglrx" drivers to the open source video drivers. If you do not see any improvements, then remove the PPA's, reboot, and re-install the recommended proprietary "fglrx" drivers.

Speed up your Mint! Great website = "Easy Linux tips project"
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/3

Is this a Sony Trinitron "tube" TV that you are referring to? What are the available video connection options, and how are you connected to it? If it has HDMI, that would be best, then DVI, then S-VGA, then VGA and RCA composite (RGB). Also, a power cable near, or draped over a video cable, will cause interference, as will fluorescent lights.

Hope this helps ...

Recommend installing these two PPA's below regarding the most current Open Source video drivers, afterwards, reboot, check your System Settings, Driver Manager, to see if any recommended open source video drivers show up, if it shows any, install the recommended one, and reboot; even if none show up, you would still be using the most recent video drivers available.

Solve display problems in Ubuntu and Linux Mint
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... ct/display


X.org-Edgers PPA
you can also add the X.org-Edgers PPA if you're concerned about your graphics performance. This PPA will give you the absolute latest version of the X.org X display server, which is a part of the entire graphics stack. If you want better graphics performance, its important to keep the entire stack updated. You should not use this PPA if you use the proprietary graphics drivers.

Type in at the console terminal prompt each line one by one, or copy and paste each line:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update


Oibaf is a PPA that includes the very latest graphics drivers, and is updated virtually every day. This PPA is only helpful if youre using the open source drivers rather than the proprietary nVidia or AMD drivers proprietary drivers are not included.

Type in at the console terminal prompt each line one by one, or copy and paste each line:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
sudo apt-get update

[mrx3750]

Okay I'll try some of these options out.

And yes the TV is a tube TV. A very heavy tube TV. Well it would be... it's a freakin' Trinitron. It's connected via DVI.

All right. I am back to the open source drivers, and they are running in software mode. I should note that this was not the case when I first installed Mint.

So I tried that olbaf PPA with the latest open source drivers (thank god one can just paste commands into the terminal). Made no difference. Still running in software mode.

[phd21]

Hi "mrx3750",

You have to use both open source PPA's "Xorg" and "Oibaf" at the same time, then type in at the console terminal prompt each line one by one, or copy and paste each line:

sudo apt-get update
sudo-apt-get upgrade


then, reboot again.

When you are in software rendering mode, the system is not happy with the video drivers. I could never get the Linux Mint Cinnamon edition to work with my AMD/ATI video cards with or without proprietary drivers. Yet, "Mate" and "KDE" worked well with open source drivers.

Are you running a regular computer monitor, and the TV, on the same video card at the same time for a dual monitor setup?

Hope this helps ...

[thom_A]

Didn't read the hardware issues in this thread. My brain hurts just reading a few lines.

I myself have issues with my Nvidia card and I've given up looking for solutions. Its HDMI part is not producing the right resolution in a dual monitor setup. It has zero issues in Win7 and 10. It's a Gtx 750 ti. And I've been tempted to use open source drivers, the downside is the Cuda feature would become useless. I also read somewhere that open source drivers use a lot of CPU power.

Moral lesson for me is buy a graphics card with DVI/RGB, DVI/DVI ports or any of these combinations. They have no issues in Linux Mint.

[amethyst_igor]

Yep. Like I said the issues aren't all Linux's fault. That said I believe the default driver is open source, and while it can be forgiven for not having the performance of AMD's proprietary drivers, not having easy to access settings is just frustrating.

Also weirdly the default driver renders Cinnamon in software mode when on my projector, but hooked to an LCD monitor, it works perfectly fine. It shouldn't even be able to tell the difference much less behave in such a way.

I gave up on AMD a while ago. Ever since ATi got sold to AMD the drivers have gone downhill. I used to be a real ATi fanboi but recently even the Window drivers stink, the cards aren't as robust, just all around UGH. I used to be an AMD fanboi as well, but since they locked the multipliers (from people setting ridiculous clock speeds and then wondering why it fried) I've gone Intel/nVidia. When I got my first nVidia card 9 years ago I was shuddering at the thought of installing it on...er...PCLinuxOS I think it was...I plugged the card in, booted, got a big NVIDIA logo and that was that. Install the nVidia utility, tweak to perfection..done.

It is the ONE thing not so easily done in Mint. You still have to take a couple extra steps, but it runs rings around ATi.

Yep, that. I had it up to here with Linux not booting because of some Catalyst glitch. And then, if you go without Catalyst, you get stuttering and freezes on 1080p video. Bah. Intel, baby. Intel all the way. Nvidia is dope too. AMD is for Ebay. Let the Windows fan boys have at it. Half-price. Anything to get rid of it.

[mrx3750]

Right. I think I'm just going to have to admit defeat and throw a copy of Windows 7 onto it.

I could spend the time and frustration trying to wrestle with the intricacies of linux and AMD support, spend money to throw in an nVidia card, sudo this and sudo that... but then it becomes the antithesis of what I'm trying to do.

Let me explain where I'm coming from with this:

I mentioned that hardware wise the computer is where I want it to be. Yes it is, even with only 2 GB of RAM and a crappy AMD APU. I know this because for what I want it to do, I was doing with a 10 year old Pentium 4 class system with 1.5 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon X1300 video card. The only thing it struggled with was YouTube in HD. This system's hardware is better equipped to deal with YouTube it just needs the right software to run it. It's a cheap secondary system made partly from stuff I had lying around, that I have no serious time or money invested in. This is key here because it means I'll do things with this system that I wouldn't do on my main rig or even a slightly more important machine in case it messed something up.

But that's just this system. The time will come where I get some new hardware to play with, and I'll give Mint another try then.

So thank you for trying to help, but for this specific system, Linux is a lost cause.

[Arch_Enemy]

Yep. Like I said the issues aren't all Linux's fault. That said I believe the default driver is open source, and while it can be forgiven for not having the performance of AMD's proprietary drivers, not having easy to access settings is just frustrating.

Also weirdly the default driver renders Cinnamon in software mode when on my projector, but hooked to an LCD monitor, it works perfectly fine. It shouldn't even be able to tell the difference much less behave in such a way.

I gave up on AMD a while ago. Ever since ATi got sold to AMD the drivers have gone downhill. I used to be a real ATi fanboi but recently even the Window drivers stink, the cards aren't as robust, just all around UGH. I used to be an AMD fanboi as well, but since they locked the multipliers (from people setting ridiculous clock speeds and then wondering why it fried) I've gone Intel/nVidia. When I got my first nVidia card 9 years ago I was shuddering at the thought of installing it on...er...PCLinuxOS I think it was...I plugged the card in, booted, got a big NVIDIA logo and that was that. Install the nVidia utility, tweak to perfection..done.

It is the ONE thing not so easily done in Mint. You still have to take a couple extra steps, but it runs rings around ATi.

Yep, that. I had it up to here with Linux not booting because of some Catalyst glitch. And then, if you go without Catalyst, you get stuttering and freezes on 1080p video. Bah. Intel, baby. Intel all the way. Nvidia is dope too. AMD is for Ebay. Let the Windows fan boys have at it. Half-price. Anything to get rid of it.

Hee hee...well, working for Dell, and having one of my clients ask me, "Hey, we're decommissioning a server, you want a quad-core Xeon ('certified' i960 equiv...)?" didn't hurt changing my mind... But I had switched before that, when I went to 64 bit multi-core computing. I got a dual core 3.6G cpu on eBay for ~$50 and snapped it into my Gigabyte system I retired when I got the quad core. It runs Mint 17.1 and is now a test mule.

I went to the nVidia cards long before that because the Catalyst drivers just started to suck so bad, that and having two GPUs fry on me for no good reason (I clock the CPU's but never the video), and the problems with getting the ATi Linux drivers to go into accelerated graphics by facing the east and chanting "OWA TAGU SIAM" 12 times while waving a live chicken over my head...

[English Invader]

I've been getting along just fine with the open source graphics driver for AMD. My card is an HD 5450 and I've had no problems running games through emulators, Wine, Steam or GOG. I can't play the latest and greatest but the older the game, the less space it takes on the hard drive and the less need there is for advanced graphics.

Personally, I would rather trust open source than rely on half-hearted support from a company than can be, and often is, dropped at a moment's notice.

I think the OP would get much better results from a dedicated graphics card. AMD's APU is an impressive technology but Linux hasn't quite caught up with it yet. An HD 5450 can be bought for in and around £20.