Lubuntu or Mint support for old hardware

[sedrosken]

I recently got a hold of a Dell Optiplex GX270, and although it is running XP quite happily, XP doesn't have a whole lot of life in it. Do Lubuntu or Mint support an Intel 82865G onboard gfx chipset and SoundMAX integrated audio? I want to dual boot, running XP for my games while running Lubuntu or Mint for internet capability. Currently I can browse the web quite satisfactorily, but I want to switch off of XP for such things before it's support dries up, and I don't believe Windows 7 is an option here.

Also, would it be worth my time to install Mate on Lubuntu to replace LXDE? I like Mate a lot better, being a clone of the classic GNOME desktop, but isn't LXDE what makes Lubuntu, well, Lubuntu? Isn't there a way I can remove all the crap to make Lubuntu into a bare-bones configuration of Ubuntu? Data is tight, money is tight, buying things is not an option here. I can't afford to spend even $20 on a better graphics card for it, that's how broke I am. I have my x86 Lubuntu CD that I played hell to justify to my mother downloading over our mobile Wi-Fi unit (where we're at, it's that or 56k, in case you didn't know from a previous post)

Slightly off-topic: said Optiplex came to me with Hyperthreading disabled, which is probably why it ran so slow for it's previous owner. Hyperthreading doesn't make THAT much of a difference, but at the same time, it does.

 

[Chewy509]

Do Lubuntu or Mint support an Intel 82865G onboard gfx chipset and SoundMAX integrated audio?

IIRC, Yes. The Intel graphics drivers support everything from the i810e chipset and above. IIRC, The SoundMax integrated audio was first supported in IIRC Ubuntu 10.04...

I want to dual boot, running XP for my games while running Lubuntu or Mint for internet capability. Currently I can browse the web quite satisfactorily, but I want to switch off of XP for such things before it's support dries up, and I don't believe Windows 7 is an option here.

Windows 7 will work, but will be very slow due to only having 1GB of RAM. (I've personally seen many GX270's running Win7, but they all had 2GB RAM installed).

Also, would it be worth my time to install Mate on Lubuntu to replace LXDE? I like Mate a lot better, being a clone of the classic GNOME desktop, but isn't LXDE what makes Lubuntu, well, Lubuntu? Isn't there a way I can remove all the crap to make Lubuntu into a bare-bones configuration of Ubuntu?

How much is your time worth? (and bring in MATE is about a 400MB download).
Yes, you can remove LXDE and install MATE. The instructions are here: http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/download
Once MATE is installed, you can them remove LXDE by removing the LXDE-desktop metapackage. (eth apt-get remove, or synaptics)
Alternatively, If you want to start bare-bones and add, install Ubuntu from the Server media, which will bring in the base system, and from there you can install whatever you like.
Alternatively, you can install Debian 7.3 (The default CD1 comes with GNOME 3.4, but since you only have a i865G chipset, I highly except it to use fallback mode which will give you more of a classic GNOME feel).

Data is tight, money is tight, buying things is not an option here. I can't afford to spend even $20 on a better graphics card for it, that's how broke I am. I have my x86 Lubuntu CD that I played hell to justify to my mother downloading over our mobile Wi-Fi unit (where we're at, it's that or 56k, in case you didn't know from a previous post)

Slightly off-topic: said Optiplex came to me with Hyperthreading disabled, which is probably why it ran so slow for it's previous owner. Hyperthreading doesn't make THAT much of a difference, but at the same time, it does.

Hyperthreading on the P4 (netburst based) will give anywhere between -15% to 10% performance increase. (Yes, that negative is correct, as some early applications saw a reduction in performance with HT enabled, but this has largely been worked around in modern Linux kernels and you will see at least some performance increase).

 

[CityK]

IIRC, Yes. The Intel graphics drivers support everything from the i810e chipset and above. IIRC

810 and 815 chipsets lost their (DRI1) Mesa driver a couple of years ago, so the experience with such hardware would be craptacular. Fortunately for sedrosken, the 865 part is indeed covered under the umbrella provided by the classic i915 Mesa driver. The intel X and drm/kernel drivers should also work without issue.

(just don't be expecting much in the way of desktop bling or the likes of fps out of that old part)

 

[Chewy509]

810 and 815 chipsets lost their (DRI1) Mesa driver a couple of years ago, so the experience with such hardware would be craptacular.

Also looks like the driver was never updated for KMS as well... Which means it'll be essentially unsupported very soon as well... (eg no Wayland/Mir support, and IIRC recent XOrg versions have pretty much dropped anything that can't do KMS as well).
On that note, let me rephrase what I said: The Intel graphics drivers support everything from the i830 chipset and above... (The i830 is the oldest supported GPU that has KMS support and DRI2/SNA/UXA support).

PS. Source: http://www.x.org/wiki/IntelGraphicsDriver/

 

[sedrosken]

Okay, so I have Lubuntu 13.10 on a CD right here. MATE is a 400 MB download? Dammit, looks like I'm heading to Mickey D's after this damnable snow clears. I'll stick with LXDE till then, I guess.

Thanks for doing my dirty work guys! Dirty work here being looking up hardware support. Man, that always took forever and even then I'd never find anything definite, it was always "it MIGHT work okay" or "trial and error."

Seriously guys, thanks. You've brightened my day a bit from it's current pitch-blackness.

You guys don't want to hear this probably, but... I have to vent a little bit.

Dad got our only 4WD vehicle stuck trying to make a path between houses (we live right next door to our grandparents wayy out in the sticks). We think he broke the alternator, too. I found a metal piece this morning next to where he normally parks... he said "I hope that isn't a part of my transfer case." I don't know cars, so I may not be 100% accurate. Then, today, on our way to town for groceries and kerosene (how our house is heated at the moment), the transmission blows out on our grandparents Trailblazer. Dad got the van stuck in our driveway on his way to go pick us up (we were literally on the side of the road). Mom called AAA, we were put on hold for an entire hour and a half (good thing the Trailblazer still had a good battery... otherwise we'd have been freezing) to get it towed back home. I had to listen to LOOPING HOLD MUSIC for an hour and a half, just sitting in the car, with nothing to do. I had a nagging feeling that I should've taken my tablet or something to keep me sane.

That reminds me, I have an analogy for people who understand cars to understand my position on processors. In my mind, an i7 is like a V12 or something, i5 is a V8, i3 is a V6, and the Pentium/Celeron is a crappy stock 4-cylinder or whatever. Is this more or less accurate? Like I said, I don't know cars.

 

[sedrosken]

Okay, so I have Lubuntu 13.10 on a CD right here. MATE is a 400 MB download? Dammit, looks like I'm heading to Mickey D's after this damnable snow clears. I'll stick with LXDE till then, I guess.

Thanks for doing my dirty work guys! Dirty work here being looking up hardware support. Man, that always took forever and even then I'd never find anything definite, it was always "it MIGHT work okay" or "trial and error."

Seriously guys, thanks.

That reminds me, I have an analogy for people who understand cars to understand my position on processors. In my mind, an i7 is like a V12 or something, i5 is a V8, i3 is a V6, and the Pentium/Celeron is a crappy stock 4-cylinder or whatever. Is this more or less accurate? Like I said, I don't know cars.

 

[sedrosken]

Installing now, but Jesus H. Christ is it slow... might just be my optical drive, it is a bit ... er, SHIT. Error copying files to the hard disk. God dammit. Looks like I'll be trying again later. Here's hoping it didn't trash my hard drive.

 

[Mercutio]

If it makes you feel any better, the first time I installed Linux, I did it over a 9600bps serial link and the first time I recompiled my own kernel I had to involve an ftape device because I didn't have enough local storage for all the dev tools AND code.

How fast is 9600bps for you young'uns? Well, it's SLIGHTLY faster than I can read.

 

[sedrosken]

If it makes you feel any better, the first time I installed Linux, I did it over a 9600bps serial link and the first time I recompiled my own kernel I had to involve an ftape device because I didn't have enough local storage for all the dev tools AND code.

How fast is 9600bps for you young'uns? Well, it's SLIGHTLY faster than I can read.

Wow, you had to recompile your own kernel? I'd have backed out.... that's too advanced for me.

I'm still trying to get lubuntu installed... Jesus it's slow loading off a CD...

Some good news, though... it successfully shrunk my xp partition and made its own, didn't trash my HDD - -

SHIT! Internal Error! Looks like my drive is going shonky.

 

[sedrosken]

replaced the optical drive, trying again
might end up taking the iso image and forcing it onto my dads 2G thumb drive

it can boot from usb

 

[sedrosken]

it is looking really hopeful right now
The new drive is really noisy, but it's working

and much faster than it was off the old drive too

I'm wondering how I ever got XP installed properly off the old drive

 

[sedrosken]

This new drive is the original CD-ROM drive that came with it, is 10+ years old

works like a charm, copying files right now

 

[sedrosken]

Haha, and Lubuntu is installed.

It's alive! IIIT'S ALIIIIIIVE!!!

 

[sedrosken]

Now, not only do I have Lubuntu as a secondary on my GX270, but I also have it as my main OS on my laptop! I had to update my wifi hardware's firmware to get it working.

 

[Chewy509]

Wow, you had to recompile your own kernel? .

Yep, back in those days, you had to recompile your own kernel to get things like networking and sound to work... And heaven forbid, you had to bring down custom patches to get sound (OSS patches, this was before ALSA even existed) and 3D working (eg 3Dfx Voodoo2's needed a patch for a while in order to get OpenGL to work, later kernels included those patches).

The great thing was waiting 3-4 hours for the compile, only to find out you stuffed up the kernel build configuration by missing a dependency for one of the drivers you enabled...

 

[sedrosken]

I just grabbed a Mint x64 w/ MATE ISO while I was at school. Gonna set up setup probably on my dad's old 2 GB flash drive (the ISO was a little over 1.2 GB). From there I'll put it on my laptop.

 

[sedrosken]

Mint 16 Petra is installed! Honestly, I'm shocked, as far as Linux goes for me, it installed without a hitch!

I even configured MATE to look (exactly) like GNOME 2.xx! Much easier to navigate, at least for me. I will get a screengrab when I get home, if you guys care.

I will say that while Linux is free and stuff, and bear in mind that I do like it (a lot), that it is a hassle getting things working. Take my wifi card for example - - i had to connect my external card that had built in drivers to grab drivers for the built in card. Also, flash and java - - I am still working on this one, and I have java mostly worked out - - install the OpenJDK, then IcedTea. But flash player in chromium is a different story - - I just found a guide on how to install the pepper version of it (so I have a current version instead of 11.2). Hoping it will work, but I'm not home yet so I can't test it.

On that note, anyone know of a good, free defragging utility for Mint? I know EXT4 doesn't get fragmented as easily as, say, NTFS, but I would like to be able to defrag.

 

[timwhit]

You could install Chrome instead of Chromium and then you won't need to worry about Flash, as Chrome comes bundled with it.

 

[Chewy509]

On that note, anyone know of a good, free defragging utility for Mint? I know EXT4 doesn't get fragmented as easily as, say, NTFS, but I would like to be able to defrag.

IIRC, it's "e4defrag" and it comes with the system...

Now, unless you are doing a lot of torrenting, from experience, the most likely time you'll see fragmented files a ext4 filesystem, is when it's over 80% full... Keep it under 70% full, and you should see less than 0.01% of files have any fragmentation...

 

[Chewy509]

I will say that while Linux is free and stuff, and bear in mind that I do like it (a lot), that it is a hassle getting things working. Take my wifi card for example - - i had to connect my external card that had built in drivers to grab drivers for the built in card. Also, flash and java - - I am still working on this one, and I have java mostly worked out - - install the OpenJDK, then IcedTea. But flash player in chromium is a different story - - I just found a guide on how to install the pepper version of it (so I have a current version instead of 11.2). Hoping it will work, but I'm not home yet so I can't test it.

Umm, I could rephrase this as:

I will say that while Windows came with the computer and stuff, and bear in mind that I do like it (a lot), that it is a hassle getting things working. Take my wifi card for example - - i had to connect my external card that had built in drivers to grab drivers for the built in card. Also, flash and java - - I am still working on this one, and I have java mostly worked out - - goto java.com website, look for the download link, download it, tick the option to not install a toolbar in IE, and let it install. ....

Just saying...

 

[sedrosken]

Linux is a bit difficult. I've finally found something that can challenge me. This is a good thing. There, happy now? :-D

Also, broke down and installed Chrome. I originally didn't want to (didn't like the prospect of Google acting like Big Brother...) but, you were right, it does have built in flash. Even on Linux. Wheeee!

Still haven't installed Java yet. I have to go to McDonalds to do that (data is tight, as I said. 40 MB downloads I can do, but anything over that is pushing it).

 

[timwhit]

When you graduate high school and go to college it will be like a different world.

 

[sedrosken]

What do you mean by that, aside from the obvious "being on my own" thing?

 

[Mercutio]

The skills you'll want and need will be vastly different, as will the interests and demands of employers. To put that in to perspective: 18 years ago, something like a quarter of my CS classmates were actively headhunted to go work for booming .com startups because they could write HTML, something that they teach to grade school kids (and perhaps more tellingly, elementary ed majors).

 

[timwhit]

I was mainly thinking about how you would get a fast unlimited internet connection.

 

[sedrosken]

I used to have one, so being on a limit now hits harder than it would for others. I'm still used to not having a limit, which, unsurprisingly, sends the used data skyrocketing. As such, I am limited to downloading large files (100 MB+, or somewhere thereabouts) when I am at school on my GTab, which works surprisingly well. Being that I can't exactly pack up a tower and carry it with me, a laptop seemed very attractive, but Mom won't let me take it. It's probably for the best, as it's battery life is terrible because it spent most of its time tethered to an AC adapter. Oh well, at least I can lurk storageforum while laying on my bed, a much more comfortable place than at my desk.