let's convert me

6 respostas [Última entrada]
SAM73
Desconectado
Joined: 07/17/2015

Hi all.

I won't beat around the bush. I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 on an Acer Aspire V5-122P, and once I wiped Windows, out of the box Ubuntu works. Wifi, brightness, suspend/hibernate, the lot. It's great. Even getting this far from where I've come from was a learning experience.
However...I'm not happy. It isn't free, and freedom means an awful lot to me. I'm ready to make a stand, whatever the inconvenience. It may not be pretty, but it will be free.
I can install unetbootin and then install Trisquel, but from previous experiments I know I am going to have some issues. I can only tell you I'm very new to all this coming from a Mac and Windows background, so I will need walking through the issues to make my setup (more) usable, but I'm willing to make some sacrifices in the name of freedom. I'm not expecting perfection. In future I will make sure my hardware is more conducive to running free software, but in the meantime maybe this will help somebody else with the same gear. I can post my findings on h-node.
Can you help me do this? I'm ready to work with a free software distro, and then when my current laptop expires, to move to a fully free system. I'd do that now, but to be honest, I just can't afford to swap right now. I need make the most of what I've got, and that means getting more mileage from my current device without hurting either myself or others.

SAM.

tomlukeywood
Desconectado
Joined: 12/05/2014

if you have worry’s about trisquel not working with your machine you can try it before installing. by creating a live cd/usb

also if you have certain parts of your computer that dont work with free software the chances are you can get
replacement components from a site like Thinkpenguin

SAM73
Desconectado
Joined: 07/17/2015

I have tried Trisquel 7 in a full installation, and this is the only Free distro that works with my wifi card. I will still have issues with brightness, and suspend/hibernate. These don't work at all except in Ubuntu.
I went back to Ubuntu because of these issues, but doing so makes me feel like a quitter when I know there are ways forward. What kind of freedom advocate would I be if I stopped at the first issue? It would be pathetic and wrong.

I must continue to work with Trisquel, but I will ned support.

SAM

cooloutac
Desconectado
Joined: 06/27/2015

I had those issues until updated my kernel. I"m using 4.1.1 kernel to fix my suspend issues.

kyamashita (non verificado)
kyamashita

For me, updating the kernel got rid of the brightness issues. There are two ways to do so.

You can update your kernel to the most recent version using jxself's repository. The Trisquel wiki walks through the process here. If that process seems difficult or unsafe, you can try Trisquel's official hardware enablement stack. The required information is on the same page.

BCG
BCG
Desconectado
Joined: 07/07/2015

Can you describe the issues that you had with these things?

For brightness... is the problem that there are special keys or buttons that don't work for these functions, or is the problem that it shows that you are adjusting the brightness but it is not actually changing? If it is just a problem with keys or buttons not working, you may be able to map some key combination to adjust the brightness... more research may be necessary however

Also please elaborate on the issues with 'suspend/hibernate' ... I often have problems with 'hibernate' functionality (ie, not properly restoring previous after turning off) using various distributions of GNU/Linux... to the point where I just do without that feature :) It is probably my own fault and not a problem with the distros, and admittedly it is a feature that I am not very motivated to spend time getting to work for myself. In any case though, one thing that you may want to make sure of is that you have created a swap partition that is large enough to fit the contents of your RAM... I'm not sure if that is still how they do things, but IIRC when the OS hibernates it serializes the contents of RAM to a swap partition and restores from there when it boots up. If true, it would stand to reason that you may need at least as much swap space as you have physical RAM. I could be totally wrong about how that mechanism works though.

Suspend seems like another story... I almost never have problems with suspend... I would have the same question as about the brightness though... is it a problem with the power button on your laptop, or does it not properly suspend even if you initiate it from the 'Power Off' menu? And what is the nature of the problematic behavior that you see?

Don't give up BTW, and don't feel like a quitter. You need to work with the resources that you have. At work for instance I have to use non-free software that I hate, but at the same time I also need to buy food and other things to live. You can bet though that unless I am getting paid to do otherwise, I use free software for all of my computing. You may wish to take a similar approach... dual boot with Trisquel and Ubuntu if necessary... but use Trisquel for everything unless there is some task that you simply can't get done without Ubuntu or whatever.

strypey
Desconectado
Joined: 05/14/2015

Kia ora SAM73, welcome to Trisquel! You are wise to seek help in these forums. I soldiered on alone for nearly two years before I started posting here, and I wish I'd come straight away. The Trisquel forums are well moderated, and full of friendly, helpful, and passionate software freedom warriors.

I am also user Acer hardware. I have an Acer Aspire One "netbook" (small laptop). I realise our models are very different, and may contain very different hardware, but there may be certain things I can help with. I am happy to try.

With any GNU/Linux problem, the first thing I always do is a web search. Commons problems will tend to have been reported on user forums, Stack Exchange etc, and potential solutions can be found there. If that doesn't work, I tend to search the problem in these forums.

If I can't find anything, here, I start a new thread describing the problem in as much detail as I can, including my hardware, what version of Trisquel I'm running, and what version of any applications involved in the problem. Either the more experienced Trisquelers can give me advice on how to fix the problem, or if its a bug, the maintainers can work on a patch, or pass the bug report upstream to the maintainers of the specific software the bug is affecting.

This is the power of free software. As a global community, we can achieve so much more than as isolated individuals or small groups.