29 April 2010

Linux hates me

I've been trying on and off for almost 11 years to install Linux on my computer, but still haven't succeeded.

The first version I tried, in October 1999, was Mandrake v 6.0.

It installed OK, and I could run it, load the shell, and play with shell scripts and the like. But it would not recognise my graphics card or monitor, and so would not run a GUI.

Now I have new hard disks, and a new graphics card and a new monitor.

I installed Fedora 12. It doesn't boot to the shell, but loads a GUI, but still doesn't recognise my monitor, and won't display at any higher resolution than 800x600.

I tried booting from a "live" CD of Ubuntu 9.10. Same thing.

Mandriva. Same thing.

Even though the hardware is completely changed, Linux still doesn't recognise my monitor, and still won't tun a GUI properly. And I can't even boot to the shell -- it loads the GUI (badly) and I have to go to a terminal to play with shells scripts etc.

My monitor is an LG Flatron W1542S

The graphics card (output of "lspel|grep VGA") shows: 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller nVidia Corporation NVCrvxnII [GeForce 2 MX Integrated Graphics] (rev b1).

Am I the only one who has this problem?

Why does Linux hate me?

4 comments:

Chris Hall said...

My laptop would never work with Suse until 11.0. I never seem to have much luck with Ubuntu either.

I'd suggest a slack or debian based distro - zenwalk or dreamlinux.

Adam Gonnerman said...

I use Ubuntu on both our laptops, our desktop and one of my office computers. Never a problem installing.

Aquila ka Hecate said...

I'm running Suse on the desktop at home, but I'm dual booting. Can't go cold turkey just yet.
Besides, lovely as it is(and for playing DVDs the VLC player is great), Suse doesn't accommodate my ancient printer.
If Linux hates you Steve, it's probably an equal-opportunity hater. It's taken me months to get to the point where I work more off Linux than Windows!
Try the Linux forums, for answers to questions.
Love,
Terri in Joburg

Anonymous said...

I played around with Linux back in the 1990's but kind of gave up once I left university. My husband has a computer here running linux, but it's taken him forever to get things going right.

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