On Fri, 2011-06-10 at 15:50 -0500, Brent Busby wrote:
On Thu, 9 Jun 2011, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
I experienced the same issues regarding to the
resolution and the 60
Hz stroboscope (and a non working mouse wheel for my PS/2 mouse, slow
down Internet for PPPoE etc.) with current debianoid Linux. They drop
old hardware, even if they claim not to do.
I don't know if it's related to your problem, but since I run Gentoo, I
see a lot of the changes that happen as they come down from upstream.
Some things that have changed recently regarding the kernel and X11, or
at least probably since the last time you upgraded:
* KMS is now becoming normal. KMS is Kernel Mode Setting, which means
the kernel now has control of your video resolution rather than the X
server. This is apparently more efficient at the machine level, but
because it is now just debuting, it is still somewhat buggy on some
video chipsets. (I have an older Radeon card at home that it doesn't
work on without all sorts of video problems, but a newer Radeon at
work that KMS works flawlessly on.) Because KMS is now in charge of
setting your screen resolution, your problem may be related. It is
possible to disable it, either with a kernel parameter passed from
Grub ("nomodeset"), or by recompiling your kernel with the KMS option
set to default to off. I had to do this with my home machine.
* Individual device drivers for X11 input devices (keyboard, mouse,
trackpad, etc.) have become obsolete. No longer does X use a keyboard
driver, a mouse driver, and so on. One driver called 'evdev' now
handles all input.
* Also, this isn't the actual upstream Linux kernel, but is Debian --
they have now decided to drop non-OpenSource firmware blobs from their
packaged kernel. This has the effect of making some peripherals that
once worked fine now unusable on the packaged Debian kernel. In some
cases, it even makes Debian uninstallable on machines which need such
firmware blobs to run their disk controllers.
Your problem could be something else entirely though...Linux is a
rolling stone.
Thank you for the explanation :)
I had a stressful week with setting up Linux and I'm not ready yet, but
the only thing I didn't get working is the mouse. I replaced it with an
USB mouse, anything else does work. Now I only need to set up
nonessentials.
Most things seems to work better, than they have ever worked before.
Regarding to the Internet it could be issues caused by my provider, I
don't know.
The computer now seems to be in a good shape and my systolic blood
pressure was at 154 in the morning and is at 142 now ;), if I reach 139
Linux and I are ok again. Oh, this is for the imaginary OT blog.
I did expect trouble with audio, but not with anything else.
Still euphoric, but not pissed of.
My impression is that audio reached a very high quality state, but that
the environment, desktop, X etc. might do a small step in the wrong
direction, but at the moment I'm unable to see it dispassionate.
Hm, ok, time to stop writing OT, but I liked to reply.
Should do a backup now.
Best,
Ralf