[Mars]

I'm running a brand new system with an AMD Athlon 64 and ATI Radeon X1300 on Ubuntu. 2D games work great, but Freespace 2, and all the other 3D games I've tried: Scorched 3D, and Warzone 2100 mostly... have run at unplayabley slow speeds but reported normal framerates. Did I miss some sort of vital driver or something?

[Nalin]

Did you install ATI's Linux drivers from their webpage?  If not, good luck.  I hear installing ATI's drivers require a lot of praying.

[taylor]

There may be easier ways, but here is a wiki link to installing ATI's closed drivers in Ubuntu: http://wiki.serios.net/wiki/Ubuntu_ATI_proprietary_display_driver_installation

(NOTE: I run Fedora Core, and always use NVIDIA cards, so I haven't tried any of that myself)

[Kamikaze]

http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/ <-- That's probably your best bet.

You should be able to get hardware acceleration on the open-source drivers working with some configuration too (if your card is supported; newer cards aren't supported IIRC).

[Mars]

Damn, I think X1300 count as newer (ATI's newer low end card). It occured to me that I'm not using the AMD 64 version of Ubuntu, I'm downloading it now, thanks for your help all. Kamikaze, that is the nicest thing ever, I'm getting so tired of typing "sudo apt-get install" all the time, and I'll be reinstalling Ubuntu now, maybe EasyUbuntu should make things easier.

[Nalin]

Well, according to ATI's webpage, the X1300 series card is supported.  It was unsupported at one point and it still might not work properly.  I don't have an ATI graphics card so I wouldn't be able to help you out.  I would recommend to install the latest driver and hope it works.

[Fury]

There may be easier ways, but here is a wiki link to installing ATI's closed drivers in Ubuntu: http://wiki.serios.net/wiki/Ubuntu_ATI_proprietary_display_driver_installation

Ubuntu's own wiki always has up-to-date instructions on installing drivers and whatnot.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto

It occured to me that I'm not using the AMD 64 version of Ubuntu

You don't have to use AMD64 version of Ubuntu on 64-bit CPU's. 32-bit Ubuntu works just fine and in fact better because not all software are 64-bit compatible yet.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=191205

http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/ <-- That's probably your best bet.

Personally I don't recommend EasyUbuntu or Automatix. It's so much cleaner way to installing the stuff you need by yourself. The Ubuntu Wiki has almost everything documented you ever need. Besides, you'll never learn the important things if you go where the fence is lowest.


Edit: Some of the most useful Ubuntu links:
- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu
- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto
- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommonProblemsGraphics
- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FileCompression
- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wine
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=4456
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=85917

[Mars]

Thanks Fury, I think you just saved me from a lot of greif.

[S-99]

I'd stick with the 64bit amd release of ubuntu. The ubuntu operating system with the 64amd release is built to take advantage of 64bit processing which is faster than 32bit. Plus the athlon 64 can do 64bit and 32bit processing at the same time. Meaning you should be able to run 32bit programs inside of 64bit ubuntu. Presumably the 64bit ubuntu release will take advantage of the 64bit, but other programs you use will probably be 32bit obviously.
On another note, ubuntu sucks, it's not really easy to use. I know something's up when installing graphics drivers for ubuntu was a pain in the ass along with learning how to configure fstab to make your hard drives work after install(i messed around with hoary hedgehog and the warty release).
Something much better is mepis linux. That distribution is a livecd which i consider much better than knoppix, easier to use, and can be installed on the computer and comes with absolutely all the software you could need. Also mepis takes care of the graphics card issue without any other pain, same with the hard drive pain i had with ubuntu. Mepis is also built around debian. www.mepis.org
Ubuntu really is a good linux os, but the installer on it could be a lot better, it's autodetection of drives still leaves you needing to configure fstab, and it doesn't take care of installing the drivers for your graphics card(but it will install the sound card drivers and nic...etc.). Not to mention the last time i've seen the live cd for ubuntu...you can't install that to the hard drive...there's almost no point in downloading the ubuntu livecd.
But yeah, check out mepis, it's freaking amazing, and you can try it out since it's a livecd, and if you like it, you can install to the hard drive and get dual booting with grub from it of course.
Also, is there a working binary of fs2 for linux, something along the lines of similarity with windows where you put the launcher and the cvs or whatever build of fs2 in the fs2 root directory(that's the small reason i can't play fs2 in linux)?

[Fury]

S-99, read this link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=191205
You have to be prepared for that if you go with any Debian based AMD64 distro. We'll see with Debian Etch (4.0) if Debian's multiarch support is finally finished by December. I hope so.

Installing proprietary binary drivers is hardly a pain. Even in Ubuntu installing the proprietary ATI drivers is often easier than in Windows. And if you didn't know it, Mepis 6 is based on Ubuntu 6.06. From your livecd statement I have to assume that you haven't tried Ubuntu 6.06 aka Dapper Drake. Also, it may not necessarily be a good thing to include non-free software out-of-the-box. Linux is about open-source by heart anyway.

And please, use proper paragraphs for easier reading.

Thanks Fury, I think you just saved me from a lot of greif.

No problem. I updated my useful Ubuntu links collection.

Ubuntu wiki links:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommonProblemsGraphics
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/?action=fullsearch&context=180&value=mouse&titlesearch=Titles
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FileCompression
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wine
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

Ubuntu forums links:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=4456
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=85917
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1069593&postcount=5

Other links:
http://ubuntuguide.org/

[S-99]

Like i said, i messed around with hoary hedgehog and warty warthog releases. During then ubuntu was a *****, and mepis is still better, as long as linux is going to install hardware and make it work, at least mepis installs all of the drivers for the graphics card right off the bat so no further grabbing of other packages and installation is not required for getting 3d acceleration off the ground. Thanks for reminding me about mepis, indeed a version 6 is out. Well if mepis is based off of ubuntu, mepis would be the better choice, ubuntu last i remember doesn't come with a firewall either.

[Cyker]

If you can get 32/64-bit to co-exist without chroot'ed Linux-in-Linux weirdness or installing ****-loads of 32-bit support libraries please tell me!

So far I've left my Gentoo install 32-bit because I figure unless I recompile everything for 64-bit (And find 64-bit versions of close-source things like Opera!) then there's no point - 64-bits is about 1/4 larger and not significantly faster than 32-bits (Well, except for stuff like SQL and Crypto/High-precision math stuff where it *is* a lot faster )

[Mars]

Like i said, i messed around with hoary hedgehog and warty warthog releases. During then ubuntu was a *****, and mepis is still better, as long as linux is going to install hardware and make it work, at least mepis installs all of the drivers for the graphics card right off the bat so no further grabbing of other packages and installation is not required for getting 3d acceleration off the ground. Thanks for reminding me about mepis, indeed a version 6 is out. Well if mepis is based off of ubuntu, mepis would be the better choice, ubuntu last i remember doesn't come with a firewall either.

I think I'll try Mepis, based on your description

[Kamikaze]

I'm getting so tired of typing "sudo apt-get install" all the time, and I'll be reinstalling Ubuntu now

I suggest you install synaptic and try using that (actually, I suspect it's installed by default). It's a GUI for the apt-get system. Screenshots here: http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/action.html

Also see: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto

[S-99]

Last i remember ubuntu does come with synaptic

[Fury]

Now this topic is devolving into a linux flamewar... But I have to say that while Mepis and Ubuntu are both good distros, saying one is better than the other based on personal preference is wrong. Different distros have different philosophies, it's about choice.

1. Mepis has a different philosopy regarding proprietary drivers than Ubuntu. It is not necessarily a good or bad thing to or not to include proprietary drivers by default. It's about choice and installing proprietary drivers is not difficult either way. Personally I prefer the way Ubuntu does it and install proprietary drivers only if really needed. I hope this won't change in the future Ubuntu releases. We might yet see open-source drivers released by AMD/ATI and nVidia, but they won't change unless they are pressured on the issue.

2. AFAIK Mepis only focus on KDE, more than likely you can also download Gnome but since the focus is on KDE, Gnome integration more than likely is not up to the bar. And some people prefer Gnome over KDE. I really don't know about Mepis' Gnome integration since I have not used Mepis.

3. What do you need a firewall for if all of your ports are closed? By default linux distros should not have any open ports and thus firewall is not required by default. In this regard having a firewall installed by default is false sense of security, I'd be more concerned why Mepis has a firewall by default.

4. Because Mepis is not as popular as Ubuntu is, it might be more difficult to get support for Mepis. A big community around a distro is an advantage in its own right. Maybe someday Mepis is much more popular but I find it hard to recommend to new users right now.

What I was trying to point out was that even though at the moment I greatly prefer Ubuntu over any other distro, I don't go all over saying that it's better than X because it necessarily isn't even though I personally prefer it. Mepis is based on Ubuntu, Ubuntu is based on Debian. Is Debian the best of the three? Yes and no, they all have their advantages and disadvantages of which most are formed based on personal preferences, not around definite facts.


Mars, if you have the time and patience for it, try both and make your decision then.

[Kamikaze]

Is Debian the best of the three?

Yes.

[Mars]

At the rate I'm going I'll probably try them all... 

First though I'lll try synaptic.

The thing that bugs me is that I know I installed the drivers, so I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong, I'll try Mepis and maybe Debian and see if either does better, if they don't I'll choose one, and finally stick with it.

[S-99]

Those familiar with the window interface may like the kde interface. On the pro side mepis and ubuntu are both debian based, and both do have synaptic. The fact that mepis has a firewall really does help as that is more active at keeping ports closed and open, and which specific programs get to use the net, and who gains access to your computer. Ubuntu coming without a firewall can't be just sort of takes away a really powerful capability, anyway at least i will make active use of a firewall in any OS. The real answer to why should you need a firewall in linux? The answer is that eventually you will need one, keeping all the ports closed just like that is not supposed to be interpretted as if it were just as good or supposed to be a firewall replacement...better safe than sorry without a firewall. On the plus side you can install a firewall on ubuntu. Having a firewall makes things a lot easier.
On the other hand, i was saying check out mepis. It's definitely worth your time. The reason i recommend is it comes with a good software combo. It's like knoppix, only can be installed to the hard drive. Hard drives truly and actually get autodetected and utilized without fstab modification. Also with being similar to knoppix, it's a lot friendlier than so, in my opinion i find it nicer than ubuntu. Graphics drivers are easier to deal with in mepis. Also the mepis installer is much better than ubuntu's. On the last detail mepis support does exist, it exists pretty good. Then again if people have to keep making pit stops at support, they should look into snooping out other linux distros. But yeah, try out "the point and click linux" that is all i urge.

[Fury]

The thing that bugs me is that I know I installed the drivers, so I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong,

So what exactly is the problem?

Go to terminal and type fglrxinfo, what does it say?