Info about graphics, wireless and printers.

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riiki_1611
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Iscritto: 05/15/2010

Hi, yesterday i've been to a Richard Stallman conference in Italy, and his interesting speeches about free software and free-OS gained my attention.
Now i'm running a GNU/linux Ubuntu (updated to 10.4 version recently) and i want to pass to Trisquel (because i've read that it's similar to Ubuntu and run on my 64bit pc).

Now:

1)Reading among the websites, many users said that is not possible to run with efficiency 3D graphics with nVidia.
In my machine runs a nVidia GeForce 8600 GT and now i'd like to know in what way i can have the same efficiency of my graphic card after trisquel-installation (i mean if there are free-licensed driver for nVidia graphic card).

2)The second problem i've read among the websites is that "Intel wireless card" does not wok in Trisquel for the same reason of nVidia graphic card (i mean that Intel card is not released under a free license).
Also in this case i'd like to know if i'll have any problem with wireless connection and if there are free-licensed drivers which i can use.

3)The last problem i've read is the configuration of the printer.
I've two Samsung printers (ML-1610 and SCX4521F) and since i haven't found any free driver on the web, i'd like to know if is possible and how to configure them after Trisquel installation.

Thanks previously for the info i'll receive, hoping to switch to Trisquel-OS soon as possible with the same efficiency i've now.

Michał Masłowski

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Iscritto: 05/15/2010

> 1)Reading among the websites, many users said that is not possible to run
> with efficiency 3D graphics with nVidia.
> In my machine runs a nVidia GeForce 8600 GT and now i'd like to know in what
> way i can have the same efficiency of my graphic card after
> trisquel-installation (i mean if there are free-licensed driver for nVidia
> graphic card).
2D should work with the nv driver, probably also with nouveau (I'm not
sure if it already supports such cards without nonfree firmware; I use a
Radeon with only unaccelerated 2D since anything more on it requires
nonfree firmware). I don't know which is used by Trisquel. I have read
that newest Ubuntu still does not have nouveau 3d support, so Trisquel
probably also doesn't.
> 2)The second problem i've read among the websites is that "Intel wireless
> card" does not wok in Trisquel for the same reason of nVidia graphic card (i
> mean that Intel card is not released under a free license).
> Also in this case i'd like to know if i'll have any problem with wireless
> connection and if there are free-licensed drivers which i can use.
The driver consists of two parts -- one runs on the CPU, the other one,
called firmware, on the network card. Unlike graphics drivers where the
second part only improves performance, network cards require both parts
to work. The first part is free while the second is nonfree in case of
Intel drivers. A solution is to use a card with completely free drivers,
like some made by Atheros or Realtek.
> 3)The last problem i've read is the configuration of the printer.
> I've two Samsung printers (ML-1610 and SCX4521F) and since i haven't found
> any free driver on the web, i'd like to know if is possible and how to
> configure them after Trisquel installation.
ML-1610 is listed as supported by Splix (http://splix.ap2c.org/) which
has a package in Trisquel, so it probably will work.

riiki_1611
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Iscritto: 05/15/2010

thanks for your first help :)

flop

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Iscritto: 02/16/2009

As it was mentioned earlier on this forum, next releases of Trisquel will not include the "Nouveau" driver since it is not fully free. The standard "nv" driver included in Trisquel should give 2D support for your card. You may perhaps experience some difficulties with "nv" if you need dualhead support, but otherwise it should work.

riiki_1611
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Iscritto: 05/15/2010

ok thanks, for what i've to do i think it can be sufficient.
:D

akirashinigami

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Iscritto: 02/25/2010

So, in what way is the nouveau driver not fully free? Is there any chance of that being fixed?

AndrewT

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Iscritto: 12/28/2009

The only way the noveau problem will get fixed is if NVIDIA decides to release the source code of the blob in question.

quidam

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Iscritto: 12/22/2004

> So, in what way is the nouveau driver not fully free? Is there any
> chance of that being fixed?

We have a deblobbed nouveau driver in the 4.0 release. You can test it
in our beta images: http://trisquel.info/en/wiki/taranis-development

akirashinigami

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Iscritto: 02/25/2010

I have the beta for Taranis installed on a separate hard drive. Apparently, both xserver-xorg-video-nouveau and xserver-xorg-video-nv are installed by default. However, I don't know how to find out which driver I'm currently using, or how to switch from one to the other. How would I switch to using the nouveau driver, assuming I'm not already?

AndrewT

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Iscritto: 12/28/2009

Install the noveau driver using Synaptic.

Then open your xorg.conf file and change "nv" to "noveau". Reset.

That should work.

akirashinigami

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Iscritto: 02/25/2010

Doing that gave me the following error message:

Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode

The following error was encountered. You may need
to update your configuration to solve this.

(EE)[drm] failed to open device
(EE) No devices detected

AndrewT

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Iscritto: 12/28/2009

Someone reported this problem on the noveau mailing list here: http://www.ur1.ca/02t29

I'm surprised we still have so many branding artifacts left over from Ubuntu, btw.

AndrewT

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Iscritto: 12/28/2009

To replace the wireless card in your computer, you should find something on this list (http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/index_html/net/wireless/index_html/cards.html) and order it online. The one I purchased for my laptop is a D-Link DWA-643 ExpressCard. It works wonderfully. Buy one here: http://cgi.ebay.com/D-Link-DWA-643-802-11n-Wireless-LAN-ExpressCard-34-Adap-/370381283688?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item563c71e168

With 3D graphics, the problem is that neither AMD/ATI or NVidia want to release the source code for the low-level firmware that all the 3D functions depend on. They're afraid that it will reveal some aspect of their hardware to the competition, so they key motive for their refusal to release fully free drivers is risk avoidance. Of the two companies, AMD has been more willing to work with the free software community. Intel cards, though not optimized for gaming, have fully free drivers.

Your printer will almost certainly work in Trisquel the same as in Ubuntu.

filologen
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Iscritto: 04/07/2010

I also use the D-Link DWA-643 ExpressCard on my Thinkpad and can absolutely recommend it.

riiki_1611
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Iscritto: 05/15/2010

Thanks a lot for your denotations, i'll certainly make an attempt installing Trisquel, although i don't want to buy a new wireless card, this works very well!!!