Ubuntu 8.10 query

[x213a]

My 'experimental' old knackered laptop is a HP Easyone silver combo and I have installed Ubuntu 8.10 on it. I cannot set the desktop to normal viewing (eye candy) and can only have it set to basic. I presume this is because I have no Graphics card drivers installed. When I go to Hardware drivers>search it says there are no proprietary drivers in use. I believe my graphics card in it is an SiS 630s and I| have downloaded the driver for it. I now have a tdz file on my desktop from which I have extracted the driver icon. I dont know how to actually install it though - Doh!

Can anybody help please?

[bnt]

1) If you have X-Windows (the graphical interface) working at all, then you have a graphics driver loaded - that's what gives you graphics in the first place. Are you asking about the "Compiz" stuff that appears under Preferences - Appearance, the Visual Effects tab? That is not going to work on all hardware, especially old hardware, since it requires 3D graphics support in hardware. It's a luxury, not a requirement, and on a slow laptop you're probably better off without it.

2) That driver you downloaded - is that in a TGZ file rather than TDZ? If so, that's like a ZIP file: just a container for files. Extract the whole thing to a directory have a look inside for instructions, such as a README or INSTALL file. You'd probably need run scripts on the command line as root, which you'd use the sudo command for.

But is it definitely a current 3D driver for that hardware? I don't know that chipset specifically, and I'm struggling to find any details on it, even from SiS (http://www.sis.com/) themselves. (There was a SiS 340, but no 430). X-Windows has undergone some major changes over the last couple of years, and there's a real risk that X-Windows could just stop working if it's not the right driver, or too old. (Linux is not as friendly as Windows in that area.) If that was my system, I would want to know that installing a new graphics driver would make a real difference, before I risked it.

[x213a]

Yes it's the visual effects I'm after. The laptop is nearly 10 years old though so it's probably incapable of running anything gucci.

Yes, the file is a tgz file. I'm not yet familiar with console commands though. It is extracted onto the desktop but there is no readme file or anything included.

[bnt]

OK, so can you pass me the link to that driver you downloaded, so I can take a look myself? Until I do, I'll have no idea what you have actually downloaded there. Like I said, TGZ is just the package: like ZIP, that tells me nothing about what's inside.

[x213a]

Here is the link

http://www.sis.com/download/download_step1.php

The driver is the SiS 630s
The icon now displayed on desktop is labelled XSiS_SVGA

Thankyou

Apologies, I originally posted SiS 430 instead of 630s

[bnt]

Well, it's some kind of binary installer program that you would just run, like an EXE file, as root. However, it dates from 2002, and has who-knows-what requirements. If you want to chance it, run sudo ~/Desktop/XSiS_SVGA - but I think that would fail, or worse. I would just drop the idea.

[x213a]

Thanks, whats the worst case scenario if it goes tits up?

[bnt]

A typical result you get from futzing around with X-Windows graphics drivers is no graphics at all. Cryptic message on boot such as "viewport not found", and a text login prompt. You can fix it if you know what you're doing, otherwise the best fix is a total reinstall. The more likely result, if you run that program, is that it looks for some other bit, can't find it, and says "no can do".

[x213a]

Ooer...think i'll give it a miss then. Thanks for the help anway:ok: