TinyCore linux...i'm a bloody linux n00b.

[Evildead666]

Trying to get a better ATi HD3200 video/chipset driver installed for TinyCore, and haven't a clue what/how to do it ?

Tried installing the official Catalyst driver, but one of the dependencies is missing, and apparently has to be compiled before it can be used due to licencing/distribution issues.

Anyone using the official Catalyst driver for AMD/ATi products who can give me a hand?
Not even sure exactly what distribution TinyCore is based on, but it uses wget to get things.

I am so ashamed, but google isn't giving me too much help yet.

any suggestions accepted.

Running it off a 300Mb partition on a 512Mb SD card, so I can install apps permanently, not looking to have a livedisk or anything.

feel free to laugh

[Haig]

Have you tried these?

http://driverscollection.com/?H=Radeon%20HD%203200&By=ATI&SS=Linux%20x86

[Evildead666]

Cheers
I'll give it a go and tell you how I get on.

[Evildead666]

This is the same file you can download from AMD which i tried yesterday.
I get an error.

"Error: ./default_policy.sh does not support version
default:v2:i686:lib::none:2.6.33.3-tinycore:;make sure that the version is being correctly set by --iscurrentdistro

When I do --iscurrentdistro i get
"sh: --iscurrentdistro: not found

Tinycore is a 10.5Mb supersmall version of linux, and i think it comes without a lot of the stuff in the 700Mb+ distros.

The main reason for installing this is for power management (fan is on pretty high all the time) and to get 1280*800 res instead of 1024*768

This is running on my lappy, which is an RS780M chipset.
Its for web, email, and maybe video watching if i get that to work. I was hoping to get the power consumption down to better than Win7 (2hrs max) if thats at all possible.
I was hoping (wishing) that AMD would have better control over the chipset and its ancillaries.
It also boots really fast and is probably more secure whilst browsing (not sure).

Any ideas ?

[Evildead666]

http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

This is the distro i'm using.
I've tried DamnSmallLinux, but that seems to be dead in the water atm.

i am running the latest 3.5.1 version.

[Evildead666]

i've just run Powertop, and its saying " ENABLE CONFIG_NO_HZ kernel configuration option.
Where would I do that ? In the Grub startup line ?
Its also saying to enable the CONFIG_HPET_TIMER, and CONFIG_TIMER_STATS which is CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL=y in the config file. I don't know what config file they're talking about (n00b alert).

edit : and CONFIG_USB_SUSPEND too.

I'm not using any USB devices externally (may be some internally) and will connect to the STOR via a shared folder (will find out how to do that later).

[Evildead666]

trying this, but the usual "Install xorg" without explanation is a bit harsh for the n00b in me.
trying to install it with the appmanager.

http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:using_xorg_over_xvesa

[Evildead666]

F*ck me it actually worked
(does a jig)

the screen looks better, and all the icons have gone small.

getting somewhere at least

[Evildead666]

To configure Xorg, i have to drop out to text mode, and that gives me a bad screen, with like 4 colours, and no text.
startx gets me back again.
hmmm. I've read about this in the TinyCore forums and elsewhere, but there was no concrete reply.
If only I could stop this fan (next priority )

[Haig]

Good to hear. The 4 color thing might have something to do with what frame buffer you are using in console mode.

In console mode, run fbset and it should display the current settings. You can check out the fbset man page for more options. Not sure but I think that the color depth is a kernel parameter that may be specified in your /boot/grub/grub.conf file or in your /etc/modprobe.conf file. Depending on your video card, it will look something like:

video=radeonfb:1024x768-24@85

[Evildead666]

I can't just do that in a console ? I have to be in text mode ?
The problem I have is in text mode, logging out of Xorg, i don't see any text, just a 4 colour rendition of what the desktop looked like.
If i type startx blindly, i get back in to Xorg, and can use the gui again.

[cjolley]

Have you looked at Puppy Linux?
It might do what you want and has a pretty large (for a small distro) user base and lots of support
It's what I used for portable linux back when usb keys were much smaller than they are now.

[Marshmallowman]

I like to stick with non framebugger modes during boot, since invariable when things go wrong you can't see anything.
However text modes aren't quite the rock solid fallback they used to be on modern hardware and Distros, But still worth trying , even is you just have it as extra fallback entry in your bootloader.

I think you just remove the vga=xxx but or maybe add nofb, I don't like the trend of using fb stuff exclusively, even for "safe mode".. non fb mode has saved my ass a lot in the past

[Evildead666]

I don't have a vga= set up, but i'll try the nofb and see what happens.

[Evildead666]

Right. "nofb" didn't change anything, i'm still effectively 'blind' if i exit to prompt.

Not all bad though: through a somewhat haphazard method (i'll be buggered if I remember exactly how I did it) I got the ATi Fglrx drivers working properly, and the catalyst also. my acpi temps dropped 20C just with that. The cpu was controlled with the 'modprobe powernow-k8' and setting it to ondemand for both the cores.
edit : as i thought, the ATi proprietary driver seems to controls the thermals much better.

got conky set up, many times, since my conf file would invariably vanish, just to p*ss me off. finally got it to stay in one place (yes i had set it up in .filetool.lst properly, but once or twice even the file listed there got either overwrittenm or emptied lol).
Conky is fun though.
got opera and flash 10 working.

still have to get the wifi (broadcom) connected to my AP, but its closer, i can actually see a card in iwconfig
also have to get sound working.
and one very annoying point, the 'click on tap' touchpad that i despise, have not worked out how to stop that yet.

after that, it should be pretty much very workable. I;m actually getting to like the awkwardness of linux