@Reaper
I don't perform any sort of benchmarking on my rigs (doesn't translate to real-world performance, imho) and have never used any model of ATI card on Linux, so I have absolutely ZERO knowledge on this matter....

.... BUT .....

I'm pretty darn sure this is either an issue with your Catalyst driver or the Unigen Benchmark app.

I remember reading somewhere (Phoronix or Slashdot, iirc) that there were bugs in the ATI Catalyst Linux driver in regards to OpenGL tessellation, so much that ATI released Catalyst drivers with tesselation support disabled. That was some time ago though, so I have no idea if anything has changed since.

Your best bet for info would be forums related to ATI or Unigen, me thinks.

Sorry for being useless. >_<

Just a thought. Could it be due to some sort of conflict or process scheduling differentiation with Compiz (if you have it enabled)?? ... or possibly due to your kernel needing some patch (probably not, since Catalyst isn't a KMS, as far as I know) ??

ttyload shows average load across all cores, so I can't really tell from that screenshot. It could just seem half-loaded due to your cpufreq scaling down. Run htop or conky and start a cpu intensive app (like Gimp filters/effects on a large image) and study the load output for 30 seconds to a minute ... or install hardinfo (repos) and do a blowfish test while staring at htop, and tell me if all your cores experience full load or not.

As for the Fn keys on your toshiba, yes I've experienced that on an old Tecra notebook once (very old, 2002 model, I think). Have you tried FnFX?
http://fnfx.sourceforge.net/

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Added on March 11, 2011, 8:38 pmLiquorix kernels work fine on Debian systems, not too sure about Ubuntu since I've never tried.
Zen kernels work fine on any system as long as compiled correctly.

It also depends on your hardware. Some hardware works better than others. For example, Liquorix 2.6.36 runs great on an old ThinkPad of mine, giving be slightly more response (less latency) and around 8 - 10% more battery life under "ondemand" scaling (even more for "powersave"), but refuses to even boot under 2.6.35 kernels due to some issue. On the other hand, I have a netbook that runs great with Liquorix kernels (2.6.34 - 2.6.37) when plugged in, but battery life takes a massive drop when unplugged, which forced me to resort to either using the vanilla kernel or a custom recompiled-from-vanilla kernel when I'm on battery power.

You mileage may vary, obviously.

This post has been edited by G-17: Mar 11 2011, 08:41 PM

In that case, you'll most probably have to recompile your kernel, as I've google and checked around, and there seems to be the same issue with various Toshiba Satelite and Tecra models. Those models seem to seem to be a generic OEM make (maybe Quallcom or something) that companies like Toshiba and Acer take and rebrand. I've heard quite a few Toshiba Satelite models have this issue, mainly die to a crappy BIOS (funnily enough, my Japanese market Tosh is 100% Linux friendly O_O).

Check this:
http://memebeam.org/toys/ToshibaAcpiDriver

As I said, a kernel recompile is probably the best option. Unfortunately, I don't have confidence in recompiling mass-market kernels. I'm more comfortable compiling kernels for hardware that's in front of me, so that I can bench the specs in a chroot environment and whatnot.

You can google on recompiling kernels, or you can read up on kernelcheck, which is supposed to make things easier with a GUI (I've never used it, so I can't vouch) http://www.webupd8.org/search/label/kernel...?max-results=10

Regarding your load problem, did you install hardinfo and run blowfish while staring at htop load?... That's the best way to know.

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Added on March 12, 2011, 9:03 pmHell no, man. It's still a Window Manager, however you look at it.
Real men don't use DEs.... Just sayin.



This post has been edited by G-17: Mar 12 2011, 09:04 PM

Uhm, friend ... it's the other way round.
Openbox can stand alone without LXDE (which was created years after Openbox, FYI), Compiz can stand alone without Gnome (using Emerald), and most tiling WMs can work by themselves, though you can still use them in any DE if you want (I can even run Xmonad or ScrotWM inside OSX).

The only WMs which can't work without their related DE as far as I know are XFWM and Metacity.

This post has been edited by G-17: Mar 13 2011, 11:04 AM

In that case, everything is fine.
The reason you might have seen what looked like half load in ttyload is because of how your cpu scales between full and mid speeds under the ondemand governor in cpufreqd. in ttyload, 1.00 doesn't actually mean 1 core, because sometimes you'll see the scale go up to 3.00 or even 4.00 even if you have only 2 cores.

Oh, regarding ttyload, ever notice a bug in the time display where it only shows the first digit for the hours (Ex: if the time is 12:34:56 it will only display 2:34:56). There's actually a fixed version but Debian hasn't incorporated it yet, not even in Unstable. Remove ttyload (apt-get remove), then go here = http://www.daveltd.com/src/util/ttyload/ and grab the ttyload-0.5.2.tar.bz2 source tarball. (Note: depending on your system's $PATH, you maybe need to edit the Makefile and change /usr/local/bin to /usr/bin)

Cheers.

@scorps
Both are similar, but from what I know, powernowd only controls the CPU frequency, without any reference to power or battery loads. hence it doesn't require ACPI or APM to function, which is beneficial to those people who still run older kernels. It supposedly works best with AMD PowerNow capable processors. Cpufeqd/cpufreq-utils are more complete, in that they interface with ACPI and also maybe other sensor daemons (like lm-sensors).

@FlameReaper.
Only tried E17 a long time ago. Was impressed by it's ability to render effects without the need for a compositing manager or acceleration, but wasn't too impressed by the instability. I personally think E17 is beautiful, but the problem is the lack of documentation, so I've never tried theming for it (if I can't make my own themes, I won't use it). Another problem is that many app GUIs are designed for GTK or QT, with no concession given to E17, so sometimes seamless aesthetic integration is lacking. I've seen a couple of Bodhi Linux on the #! forums, and it seems to be decently regarded among its users. I think it uses the Git/dev version of E17, which, apparently, offers a bit more than the version offered in Ubuntu repos. Lastly, maybe Hzu was referring to Unity Linux, not the Unity interface.

@cocooh
What package are you using? My mom's house back in J.B uses the $RM88 package, which gives double the speed of your speedtest results under Ubuntu. I'm not sure about the modem you're using (was it given by TM?), but maybe it's a driver problem under windows? It could also be some app in the background that's downloading something in Windows. It could also be a DNS issue. How do you set up your DNS, in teh router or independently for each OS? Honestly, there are too many variables for me to give a decisive opinion. Try this page. It should be easy enough to understand if you don't know any networking lingo. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1086691&page=2 the problem is the opposite of yours (fast in windows but slow in Ubuntu), but you should be able to reverse-engineer the situation and the commands listed there.

^Looks like almost every other music player out there for Linux. Any special/standout features?

I sense something badly broken here.
Before jumping to unnecessary conclusions, just try reinstalling all the relevant libraries for FAT-related file transfer/mounting first.

This post has been edited by G-17: Mar 26 2011, 07:31 PM

That's quite impressive, especially considering that Ubuntu is not even 10 years old yet.

This post has been edited by G-17: Apr 5 2011, 11:17 PM

^I don't think there's a way to get it to boot from the external drive unless you specify USB booting in your BIOS..... either that or I didn't quite understand your question (sorry, it's been a tiring day for me)

^I'm curious on how you got the ext.HDD to boot (without specifying in BIOS/EFI)

Also, you might want to read up on Apt pinning if you're thinking of mixing Testing/Unstable sources. That way you (in theory) keep your system a tad more well-behaved.

I can give you a run-down on pinning if you want, though reading Debian's wiki will be infinitely more informative.

Hi guys.
I haven't been around for the last couple of weeks, so I apologize if I missed any questions addressed to me. Just let me know if I missed anything.


Also, I have a question.
Any of you guys run Linux on new Sandy Bridge chipsets? I'm building a rig, and am wondering if I should bother adding an Nvidia card. I don't play games, and the only use for a gfx card would be VDPAU acceleration for HD videos, but seeing as the new Core i5/7 chipsets already have very decent acceleration, I'm thinking a separate GPU isn't needed.

I know early Sandy Bridge performance was buggy, but I'll be getting a mobo with an updated BIOS/UEFI (after the recent recall) and will also be running a new kernel.

Can someone kindly point me to some Sandy Bridge reviews for Linux that are NOT from Phoronix? (I don't hate Phoronix, but I'm more interested in daily real world usage, not isolated benchmarks)

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the info, PowerMan~!!
Didn't notice your sig before this. Have to say, that's a mighty nice Power Supply Unit you have there.
I'm probably getting a Seasonic X-560W for this new rig I'm building. Seasonic FTW!!

@scorps
What packages did you install?
For pulseaudio on Debian (and possibly Ubuntu and other Debian stepchildren), this is the absolute minimum you need, as far as I know (just pulse and basic libs .... no plugins, bluetooth, etc). For ArchLinux or Gentoo, you find the current libsdl via pacman/portage. Not sure about other distros yet.

As root (or sudo);


You should also have something like this added to your /etc/asound.conf (ref: Debian Wiki)


If you still can't get it to work, I suspect a permissions problem, or maybe false detection of your sound hardware. If so, do this in terminal and paste output here;


Some further reading: (credit: #! forums)
http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=12497

Edit:
...and if you still get permission errors (ie: Access Denied), try reading this (it's a 3 yr old article, though)
http://tuxicity.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/d...nd-pulse-audio/

This post has been edited by G-17: May 13 2011, 04:23 PM

You either phrased it wrong, or I've misunderstood something. Are you saying X-server uses 40~50% CPU when your comp is idle (as in, doing nothing). Most X related processes take up very little CPU (1.0 - 3.0% in htop on this 7 yr old Pentium Dual Core I'm typing on .... even less on my newer hardware) .... you sure it's X that you're monitoring or some KDE or Compiz process? cos that much load while idle is totally not normal for anything usr/bin/X -related, unless there's some leak or scheduling problem .

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Added on May 26, 2011, 8:45 pmSorry man, but I have almost zero experience with ATI or switchable graphics on Linux.


This post has been edited by G-17: May 26 2011, 08:45 PM

Interesting, but I'll stick to LesBian, thank you very much.

How about Fedobear or Pedora?



Yes, we can all blame farkinid for this thread going so badly off-topic.

This post has been edited by G-17: Jun 2 2011, 09:00 PM

Too little info to help you, my friend.

-What command?
-What distro?
-What DE/WM?
-Do you launch X via GDM or .xinitrc?


This post has been edited by G-17: Jun 3 2011, 10:21 PM

Hmm .. strange.
I thought Crunchbang had the proprietary Broadcom included by default.

Here's one possible solution. Worked for me (my netbook has a BCM4312, iirc) when I used CrunchBang in the past. At the time, I changed all my sources to point to Sid/Unstable, and my wireless broke as a result.

Make sure you're connected to a working internet connection (a wired one, obviously, since wireless doesn't work yet);

What I did was first purge (apt-get remove) firmware-b43-installer and firmware-b43-legacy-installer, then reboot...
Then I installed install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer. (apt-get install). The Lipphy driver will proceed to download some drivers from an external site (broadcom's servers, probably). Then reboot again....
If it works, you should have working wireless after this.

One downside to this;
For some unknown reason, my wireless signal strength in Conky maxed out at 70%, despite my wireless client (I used wicd-curses) telling me it was 100%. ... weird, but it still worked fine.

This post has been edited by G-17: Jun 15 2011, 11:52 AM