Resolution problem on laptop + some questions
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Hey! I'm kinda new to GNU/Linux, I tried around 20 distros, to see which will fit best for me. But Trisquel is the only one where I have a resolution problem... The max I can get was something like 1024x768. My display is 1280x800 and my GPU is ATI Mobility Radeon X2300.
Could it be because of the proprietary "blops" (or how it was called) removed from the kernel? What can I do to fix this? "glxinfo" commands says I have Gallium driver and 3D acceleration enabled. How USB / gamepads etc works in Trisquel? I don't have any GNU/Linux installed right now, but I'm preparing to. Switch forever from crappy Windows, from crappy Microsoft.
Also is 100% free software always open source? How can I know if software is 100% free and open source? I guess it must have GNU license?
I saw SMplayer in software center. It's 100% free? It contains build in codecs.
I miss mednafen emulator in it, is it 100% free?
I suppose your software center contains only 100% free stuff.
Wish you had XFCE version of Trisquel. I like light distros, but LXDE is too lite in features and settings.
I tried both GNOME and LXDE versions. LXDE won't let me enter monitor settings at all... It says display / monitor not found / detected. :/
So is it because of the blops removed from the kernel? I thought the blops were here only to offer install of proprietary drivers (like NVIDIA driver), in the non 100% free GNU/Linux distros. Guess I'm wrong though.
Guess I will dual boot Trisquel for now.
Btw, what's the best way to determine how much swap do I need in swap partition?
Sadly ATI GPUs are the ones that actually require binary blobs - not in the form of drivers, but firmware (it's along story and I hope someone here with a better understanding of it can explain).
Anything that's present in Trisquel's software centre is fully free, and if you find anything there that isn't then it's a mistake that should be reported.
"Also is 100% free software always open source? How can I know if software is 100% free and open source? I guess it must have GNU license?" No, any of what is called free https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html should do.
"So is it because of the blops removed from the kernel? I thought the blops were here only to offer install of proprietary drivers (like NVIDIA driver), in the non 100% free GNU/Linux distros. Guess I'm wrong though." That's not what blobs are (it doesn't "offer" anything), maybe this page has a better explanation: http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html
AMD graphic cards are the worse. Without proprietary firmware, you get reduced functionalities. More and more code goes into such firmware. It is a real problem. Next time you buy a computer, go for an integrated Intel graphical chipset. Those perfectly work with Linux-libre, hence with any 100% free GNU/Linux distribution such as Trisquel.
"Open source" and "free software" mainly differ on their values. It is an important difference though and I invite you to read https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
Almost all licenses considered "free" by the FSF are considered "open source" by the OSI. The Trisquel project sticks to the FSF definition and everything in its repositories should be free (if not, it is considered a critical bug). It is the best thing about Trisquel: you can enjoy your operating system without fearing to install software that does not respect your freedom. This is true as long as you do not install software from other sources (PPA for instance). You can do so of course. But you then need to check by yourself that the software is free and trust the source (no malware added, no automatic update to proprietary software). SMplayer and mednafen are in Trisquel's repositories. Go ahead and install them without fear!
Xfce is in the repository too. There is bug that prevents its install... but there is a fix too: https://trisquel.info/issues/12680
The swap is an extension of the RAM. It is used when the RAM is full (and because the disk is much slower than the RAM, you feel it badly). It is used as well when you hibernate (the content of the RAM is dumped to the disk so that it can be restored at reboot). If you use that functionality, setting as much swap as you have RAM is a good idea. Otherwise, you may need no swap at all. You can take a look at the current RAM consumption from the second tab of the "System monitor" (in the "System settings"). Try to run many applications (LibreOffice + Abrowser with a lot of Web pages opened, an HD movie in Totem, etc.) to get an idea of whether you are close to swapping.
> I miss mednafen emulator in it, is it 100% free?
Looks like mednafen itself is free software but not all of the emulators it uses are.
EDIT:Looks like the version in Trisquel doesn't contain the non-free emulator mentioned on the Wikipedia page.
I hope it contains a Playstation emulator. (At least I think you said that some non-free emulator was removed from Mednafen in Trisquel.)
Unfortunately looks like it doesn't. See the package description in the Synaptic package manager or easier from the command line with
apt-cache show mednafen
However looks like there is a package pcsxr - Sony PlayStation emulator
Thank you both for the answers. I have already read some of the GNU.ORG links, that's how I found about Trisquel, "blobs" in kernel etc...
How NVIDIA works with 100% free GNU/Linux? Guess something similiar to AMD. Now I have read about some laptops called MIPS laptops, with free BIOS. Heard Stallman use them? I guess they work with free GNU/Linux well too then.
I know the differences between free and open-source, I was just curious if all free software has a open-source, so people can look at its code, and find what shouldn't be there. Some backdoors etc... Who knows, maybe Ubuntu and other distros have a backdoors in their proprietary blops. :/
I know what is SWAP too, but there are many recommendations. And also that SWAP is used even if your RAM isn't full. I have a 2GB RAM now, some people would recommend 2GB, some 3GB, some 4GB, some even 6GB... I think if you have 8GB of RAM, it useless to have 8GB of SWAP...
Well, I guess no Trisquel for me now, until I get a proper hardware for it. Then I will definitely come back to Trisquel. Like this distro, simple, classic look, easy to use, and 100% free and open source.
Thanks again for all the info. :)
(Wondered why people say LINUX, since Linux is only the kernel... Now everybody use that... Maybe they just wanted 1 simple name, and Linux sounds better to them than GNU...) But wouldn't calling it only GNU be more precise than calling it Linux?
> But wouldn't calling it only GNU be more precise than calling it Linux?
Here's the GNU project's stand on the subject https://gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#justgnu
You obviously do not know the definition of free software: https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Four freedoms must be given to the user for the software to be called "free".
Freedom 1 is:
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Freedom 3 is:
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
As a consequence, if the user cannot "look at the code", it is *not* free software.
Nvidia cooperates even less than AMD, but paradoxically, their GPUs tend to work a lot better than AMD GPUs because there's a successful reverse-engineering project for Nvidia GPUs, Nouveau.
If you have an AMD CPU or some other CPU that doesn't have Intel integrated graphics, an Nvidia card is your best bet (preferably something that isn't one of the oldest, and isn't one of the newest).
I am a translator!
Calling it GNU would be 99% accurate..
As for the binary blobs and backdoors - no one knows what proprietary code hides.. It is always better to not having any on your pc.. Can you trust canonical? can you trust micro$$oft? No and again no!
Yeah I know, but more precise than calling it Linux, in my opinion.
I don't trust anyone. :D And like I said, I'm done forever with Micro$oft, greedy and stupid company that destroys everything, and their crappy backdoored OS. And they wanna money for it??? When there are free, better, non-profit GNU/Linux systems... I don't get why the most crappy stuff is most of the times more popular (like Windows vs GNU/Linux). Advertising I guess... And most of laptops / PCs come with Windows in it.
Microsoft should go bankrupt, but people still buy their systems etc... Oh well...
Maybe I can trust Xubuntu more than Ubuntu. It's community driven, but still trademark of Canonical. I don't like Ubuntu's Unity anyway.
IT still comes with blobs, so.......
I don't have a choice, so... Unless I wanna work with low resolution.
You can,theoratically, replace Trisquel's kernel with Debian's, then add non-free blobs......(OK, I concede that's not the world's easiest thing to do)
Please respect the community guidelines and do not provide "fixes" that involve installing proprietary software. Proprietary software is not the solution. It is the problem.
Sorry! (I didn't flat out call it a solution but I very much implied it, didn't I?)
I am a member!
Try Trisquel 6. I had resolution problems in Trisquel 7, too, but not in Trisquel 6, so I switched back [1]. It is supported until 2017. [2]
[1]: https://trisquel.info/en/forum/cannot-get-widescreen-resolution-and-use-multiple-monitors-trisquel-7-i-could-trisquel-6
[2]: https://trisquel.info/en/trisquel-60-lts-toutatis-has-arrived
I am a translator!
>Proprietary software is not the solution. It is the problem.
word bro!!
Abraham, Trisquel's repository contains some free console emulators, including psx. I let you check this out by yourself.
If you like retro gaming, i suggest you to give a try to puppy arcade 11 wich contains many preconfigured emulators, including some recent consoles.
The Puppy Arcade distribution has a Linux kernel with blobs in it- that should be avoided.
It looks that the kernel is the only non-free part of that distro (But perhaps some of the emulators...), so replacing it with Linux-Libre may help, if not solve the problem.
I'll try it and post on the forum if I succeed.
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