I've been asked to review Bodhilinux, it looks pretty cool so I will be working on that once installed on a spare PC this week. has anyone tried this distro at all?
Mark
Haven't tried that particular one, but have had a play with the following after deciding i wasn't going to be using Gnome 3
He's the guy involved in Bodhilinux and asked me to look at and review it. Gonna give it a good blast, the website is done well and makes it look like a great distro. Very impressed at the interest and feedback of my blog at the moment. I'm getting some great feedback.
well i've just had my usual battle of wills with a distro over my nvidia card - bodhi linux to be precise - and guess what ?
same thing happened .. it didn't work.
but, that said, i've never used the enlightenment desktop before and quite liked it so i'm going to dig out another distro that has it so i can spend the next 3 hours trying to get my nvidia card working on that as well
well i've just had my usual battle of wills with a distro over my nvidia card - bodhi linux to be precise - and guess what ?
same thing happened .. it didn't work.
but, that said, i've never used the enlightenment desktop before and quite liked it so i'm going to dig out another distro that has it so i can spend the next 3 hours trying to get my nvidia card working on that as well
You know what I'd recommend? Rather than trying to run the proprietary Nvidia driver, the next time you try Ubuntu, select "Experimental 3D support" in Additional Drivers. In fact if you grab the newest Ubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 it only comes with this driver. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's called the Nouveau driver and it's a totally open source and free Nvidia driver. It could be worth a shot if the proprietary one is failing you, provided your card is supported. A quick Google suggests it is.
FWIW, I've been running Ubuntu 11.10 off the Live DVD using it on my Nvidia 9800GT and had no problems running Unity at all. I didn't try any gaming, but the general consensus is that it's getting there.
You know what I'd recommend? Rather than trying to run the proprietary Nvidia driver, the next time you try Ubuntu, select "Experimental 3D support" in Additional Drivers.
ubuntu itself isn't actually a problem. I can use the 'additional drivers' wizard perfectly fine and then use my saved xorg.conf file to get the driver fully working with 1440x900 resolution. it's just other distros that hate me
If i use the wizard in bodhi, it crashes with an error - even after doing 'apt-get update' and 'apt-get upgrade'.
i'm just going to try a different angle and download the latest driver from the nvidia site, shut down the x server and try and install it like that.
Quick - install something else. You're on a roll!!
Let us know what BodhiLinux is like. I tried to install it on our Eee PC a while ago but it wouldn't play nicely with Unetbootin, and I couldn't get it onto a USB stick.
I installed the other drivers wizard, as i had been doing, and this time i just picked the 'recommended' driver, rather than the 173 driver.
it actually installed. rebooted, replaced the xorg.conf file and it's bloody working
it did crash beforehand when i tried the recommended driver but it didn't now.
WOOHOO!
:):D:cool:
Nice one Jason.
Just for others who may have been following your issues and may have driver problems.
Whats this other driver wizard you are referring to?
Also what Linux OS did it work on?
And does that mean to satisfy you're curiosity (and ours:D ) you will be formatting and trying all the other versions you had trouble with, or is it a case of it works leave it
I also have a vague memory from a couple of months ago of editing cfg files on a multiboot stick to change the path up or down a level or move something else to get a particularly truculent iso or two to work.
Can't remember what I did now.
I'd been using Kubuntu for years and I'm pleasantly surprised how fast Chakra is on the same machine.
It's based on Arch - but has a half-rolling release so your not quite on the bleeding edge like you are with arch.
Pacman is going to take a bit of getting used to after years of using debian based distros but I'm sue I'll get there. The GUI package manager is nice enough anyway.
Well worth a look if you're looking for a fast KDE based distro
:):D:cool:
Whats this other driver wizard you are referring to?
It's the jockey-gtk wizard that appears on most ubuntu installations after your first boot. It detects the nvidia card and offers you the drivers to automatically install.
In Bodhi you have to install it manually - the wiki entry for it is here.
:And does that mean to satisfy you're curiosity (and ours:D ) you will be formatting and trying all the other versions you had trouble with, or is it a case of it works leave it
Hehe, I doubt i'll be going back to the other versions any time soon as they were mainly all Gnome 3 based, and I know my nvidia card just doesn't like Gnome 3 at the moment.
I've got a couple of spare blank dvd's left so I may well give PC Linux OS a spin.
Hehe, I doubt i'll be going back to the other versions any time soon as they were mainly all Gnome 3 based, and I know my nvidia card just doesn't like Gnome 3 at the moment.
You mean Gnome 2.x, only Fedora is Gnome 3. Can't understand the problems you've bee having as I have Nividea Graphics cards too and not really had any problems to even a bit of the extent you have.
Let me know what you think of Bodhi as I'm about to start writing a review for it. If its anything like other Enlightenment based OS's it should be not bad.
Bodhi is quite nice. Having been used to installing fully loaded systems, it's quite a different experience having next to nothing installed from the get-go.
The main menu is accessed with a left click of the mouse and everything is fairly easy to find, although some of the configuration screens are a bit difficult to work out.
I might go back to it shortly. I tried PCLinuxOS only to get "missing operating system" when I rebooted
I managed to get around to writing a Bodhi Linux Review As you can see by the review, it worked on all my PCs but I had a strange problem on my laptop for some reason.
In other news, its getting closer to Ubuntu 11.10 now, and I am really excited about this, there have been some interesting changes and developments and the whole OS is looking more professional than ever.
Couldn't find a definitive answer either way as to it's compatibility with Gnome 3, but the guy in the shop said it was considerably better than the 7300LE so for £25 quid I thought it was worth a go
Just about to burn me some Ubuntu and then reformat.
You'd think i'd keep all these distros rather than throw the disks away wouldn't you ?
Food for thought, it was 25th August 1991 when Linus let the cat out of the bag about developing his OS kernel, so Linux will be 20 years old later this month. The kernel finally reached version 1.0 in March 1994.
Couldn't find a definitive answer either way as to it's compatibility with Gnome 3, but the guy in the shop said it was considerably better than the 7300LE so for £25 quid I thought it was worth a go
Just about to burn me some Ubuntu and then reformat.
You'd think i'd keep all these distros rather than throw the disks away wouldn't you ?
I think you'll have a much better experience with that card. The ATI/AMD driver is open source now, and the general consensus is that it's really coming into it's own now. I'll be getting AMD myself when I eventually replace my Nvidia card. Though hopefully the Nouveau driver will mean I won't have to.
Let us know how you get on with Ubuntu. I have to say I agree with Scoob above. I think the next Ubuntu will be much better, and I'm really looking forward to it. The nice thing is that I'll be able to use both Unity and Gnome 3 on it.
installed ubuntu about half a dozen times with no luck, mint once with no luck. fedora worked but once i installed the driver for the card it just went straight to fallback mode .. GRRR !!
Yes, it is 5:15am. Yes, I am still trying to get this to work. Yes, I am very, very close to never again attempting to install Linux in any form.
I'm currently running Fedora 15 which has resorted to fallback mode because Gnome 3 wouldn't load. It ran 100% perfectly fine without any drivers installed.
I used this guide to install the drivers for my new card. When I rebooted, I had a large, glitchy triangular shape on the screen and it was clearly the wrong resolution.
Ubuntu and Linux Mint would both install but when I rebooted, the machine froze on the "Verifying DMI Status" or whatever it was, so I couldn't even attempt anything because it wouldn't even boot into the system. So I re-installed Windows just to re-install one of the other ones. Again.
I think i've re-installed Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora at least 3 times each tonight.
So clearly i'm massively stupid because it really shouldn't be this hard, should it ?
Yes, it is 5:15am. Yes, I am still trying to get this to work. Yes, I am very, very close to never again attempting to install Linux in any form.
I'm currently running Fedora 15 which has resorted to fallback mode because Gnome 3 wouldn't load. It ran 100% perfectly fine without any drivers installed.
I used this guide to install the drivers for my new card. When I rebooted, I had a large, glitchy triangular shape on the screen and it was clearly the wrong resolution.
Ubuntu and Linux Mint would both install but when I rebooted, the machine froze on the "Verifying DMI Status" or whatever it was, so I couldn't even attempt anything because it wouldn't even boot into the system. So I re-installed Windows just to re-install one of the other ones. Again.
I think i've re-installed Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora at least 3 times each tonight.
So clearly i'm massively stupid because it really shouldn't be this hard, should it ?
Why do you have to keep doing it manually?
As you have said in you're previous post the wizard just does it all for you, and it works?
And why did you have to re install windows to try another linux version, after you're system locked up? Can't you just reboot from the live cd\dvd and re install from that?
Comments
What's it like with nvidia cards ?
I haven't though - had a look at the website and I love this theme for it.
http://www.bodhilinux.com/images/big/week12.png
It should be ok with nvidia, I believe its an Enlightenment based Ubuntu distro.
Haven't tried that particular one, but have had a play with the following after deciding i wasn't going to be using Gnome 3
http://www.pclinuxos.com/?p=1046
I Thought it was a better version of E17
have a look at
http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2010/12/ten-linux-distros-that-use.html
Plenty of decent distros ......
I wouldnt even use windows if I could nowadays, only use it because I work in IT supporting it!
He's the guy involved in Bodhilinux and asked me to look at and review it. Gonna give it a good blast, the website is done well and makes it look like a great distro. Very impressed at the interest and feedback of my blog at the moment. I'm getting some great feedback.
Thanks for the HU.
same thing happened .. it didn't work.
but, that said, i've never used the enlightenment desktop before and quite liked it so i'm going to dig out another distro that has it so i can spend the next 3 hours trying to get my nvidia card working on that as well
You know what I'd recommend? Rather than trying to run the proprietary Nvidia driver, the next time you try Ubuntu, select "Experimental 3D support" in Additional Drivers. In fact if you grab the newest Ubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 it only comes with this driver. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's called the Nouveau driver and it's a totally open source and free Nvidia driver. It could be worth a shot if the proprietary one is failing you, provided your card is supported. A quick Google suggests it is.
FWIW, I've been running Ubuntu 11.10 off the Live DVD using it on my Nvidia 9800GT and had no problems running Unity at all. I didn't try any gaming, but the general consensus is that it's getting there.
ubuntu itself isn't actually a problem. I can use the 'additional drivers' wizard perfectly fine and then use my saved xorg.conf file to get the driver fully working with 1440x900 resolution. it's just other distros that hate me
If i use the wizard in bodhi, it crashes with an error - even after doing 'apt-get update' and 'apt-get upgrade'.
i'm just going to try a different angle and download the latest driver from the nvidia site, shut down the x server and try and install it like that.
if it still doesn't work then balls to it
I installed the other drivers wizard, as i had been doing, and this time i just picked the 'recommended' driver, rather than the 173 driver.
it actually installed. rebooted, replaced the xorg.conf file and it's bloody working
it did crash beforehand when i tried the recommended driver but it didn't now.
WOOHOO!
/dances
Quick - install something else. You're on a roll!!
Let us know what BodhiLinux is like. I tried to install it on our Eee PC a while ago but it wouldn't play nicely with Unetbootin, and I couldn't get it onto a USB stick.
Nice one Jason.
Just for others who may have been following your issues and may have driver problems.
Whats this other driver wizard you are referring to?
Also what Linux OS did it work on?
And does that mean to satisfy you're curiosity (and ours:D ) you will be formatting and trying all the other versions you had trouble with, or is it a case of it works leave it
Where unetbootin sometimes fails, I found that the links provided at the bottom of the pendrivelinux page may work.
ie Universal USB Installer/XBOOT/Yumi and maybe Sardu/Lili, but I haven't played with those much.
Multi boot apps mean a single iso on the stick is OK of course.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/xboot-multiboot-iso-usb-creator/
I also have a vague memory from a couple of months ago of editing cfg files on a multiboot stick to change the path up or down a level or move something else to get a particularly truculent iso or two to work.
Can't remember what I did now.
I'd been using Kubuntu for years and I'm pleasantly surprised how fast Chakra is on the same machine.
It's based on Arch - but has a half-rolling release so your not quite on the bleeding edge like you are with arch.
Pacman is going to take a bit of getting used to after years of using debian based distros but I'm sue I'll get there. The GUI package manager is nice enough anyway.
Well worth a look if you're looking for a fast KDE based distro
It's the jockey-gtk wizard that appears on most ubuntu installations after your first boot. It detects the nvidia card and offers you the drivers to automatically install.
In Bodhi you have to install it manually - the wiki entry for it is here.
http://www.bodhilinux.com/wiki/doku.php?id=nvidia&s[]=nvidia
Hehe, I doubt i'll be going back to the other versions any time soon as they were mainly all Gnome 3 based, and I know my nvidia card just doesn't like Gnome 3 at the moment.
I've got a couple of spare blank dvd's left so I may well give PC Linux OS a spin.
You mean Gnome 2.x, only Fedora is Gnome 3. Can't understand the problems you've bee having as I have Nividea Graphics cards too and not really had any problems to even a bit of the extent you have.
Let me know what you think of Bodhi as I'm about to start writing a review for it. If its anything like other Enlightenment based OS's it should be not bad.
The main menu is accessed with a left click of the mouse and everything is fairly easy to find, although some of the configuration screens are a bit difficult to work out.
I might go back to it shortly. I tried PCLinuxOS only to get "missing operating system" when I rebooted
In other news, its getting closer to Ubuntu 11.10 now, and I am really excited about this, there have been some interesting changes and developments and the whole OS is looking more professional than ever.
Got this one for £25 quid brand new in Maplins today
http://www.amazon.com/Powercolor-Radeon-512MB-Video-Graphics/dp/B0018H4J4W
Couldn't find a definitive answer either way as to it's compatibility with Gnome 3, but the guy in the shop said it was considerably better than the 7300LE so for £25 quid I thought it was worth a go
Just about to burn me some Ubuntu and then reformat.
You'd think i'd keep all these distros rather than throw the disks away wouldn't you ?
I think you'll have a much better experience with that card. The ATI/AMD driver is open source now, and the general consensus is that it's really coming into it's own now.
Let us know how you get on with Ubuntu.
installed ubuntu about half a dozen times with no luck, mint once with no luck. fedora worked but once i installed the driver for the card it just went straight to fallback mode .. GRRR !!
I'm currently running Fedora 15 which has resorted to fallback mode because Gnome 3 wouldn't load. It ran 100% perfectly fine without any drivers installed.
I used this guide to install the drivers for my new card. When I rebooted, I had a large, glitchy triangular shape on the screen and it was clearly the wrong resolution.
http://gofedora.com/how-to-install-ati-catalyst-fglrx-98-drivers-fedora-11/comment-page-1/
That's when it went into fallback mode.
Ubuntu and Linux Mint would both install but when I rebooted, the machine froze on the "Verifying DMI Status" or whatever it was, so I couldn't even attempt anything because it wouldn't even boot into the system. So I re-installed Windows just to re-install one of the other ones. Again.
I think i've re-installed Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora at least 3 times each tonight.
So clearly i'm massively stupid because it really shouldn't be this hard, should it ?
As you have said in you're previous post the wizard just does it all for you, and it works?
And why did you have to re install windows to try another linux version, after you're system locked up?