Linux Ubuntu 14.4 System build advice please

tagbartok

tagbartok

tagbartok

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Good morning.
Let me start from the beginning; I'm a complete Linux noob. I dug out an old system I built for the kids back in 2007 running Wndows XP that had been unused for years. I decided to do something with it last week rather than scrap it. Having discovered the MS have stopped all support for XP and Vista both of which I have genuine copies of I decided to look at Ubuntu.
I installed Ubuntu 14.4 64 bit and had a bit of a play but this morning I have messed something up and I'm about to do a full reinstall but before I do I want a more informed approach based on the spec of the machine I'm using which is here:
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe motherboard BIOS v0701
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.5 GHz @2.76
4Gb Elixir PC-3200 DDR 400
300Gb SATA HD.

It was originally fitted with an ATi Radeon 2900XT but I then fitted a Radeon AX4870 1Gb but couldn't find drivers for it. I also have an old Radeon X1900XT.

So I have three choices of graphics card to fit in the machine so I'd like some advice on which would be the most compatible.

I know this is a really low spec machine by current standards and it's not intended to replace my current system which I know is also getting long in the tooth but it's sufficient for my needs at the moment. This is a project and my way of discovering the refreshing change Ubuntu offers.

Thank you.
 
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Not to up on Ubuntu use Mageia myself, however there all pretty much the same underneath bar package management.

Should work out of the box with the Radeon AX4870 with the Radeon driver(open source driver) + the fact it's the best one out of them.

If you want to use the Cat driver I think you will need to use the 13.1 iirc. AMD dropped support for for anything lower than the 5xxx series after that.
 
Some one correct me if I'm wrong, but right now the open source drivers for ATI cards are better than official ones, so just pick the most powerfull card and install the drivers through Ubuntu's Software and Updates>Additional drivers app.
 
Hi and thank you for the replies. I have just completely reinstalled Ubuntu with the ATi
AX4870 installed and it's installed the latest Gallium drivers.
Strangely though the OS only reports 2.9GiB of RAM present when there is 4GiB installed.
 
tagbartok said:
Hi and thank you for the replies. I have just completely reinstalled Ubuntu with the ATi
AX4870 installed and it's installed the latest Gallium drivers.
Strangely though the OS only reports 2.9GiB of RAM present when there is 4GiB installed.
Click to expand...

Linux ISOs come in 32bit and 64bit flavours, just like Windows does and 32bit will not address all the RAM, just like Windows. So that may be the issue. When looking for ISOs to burn, you want ones labeled "amd64". Take the below link for example;

http://mirrorservice.org/sites/cdimage.ubuntu.com/cdimage/xubuntu/releases/14.04.1/release/

Those are the latest Xubuntu releases. You want: xubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

Drivers wise for the cards, I can't remember the specific details, but AMD only support cards so far back with their latest drivers. There was a **** storm (to put it politely) quite a while back when AMD announced they were going to do this and a lot of people with 4 and the 5 series cards lost support, which was relegated to another driver package. I don't know the specific details or the names of the packages as I try and use and only pay attention to Intel and NVIDIA which have better drivers.

If you're coming from Windows, instead of Ubuntu I would recommend Xubuntu. It's a Ubuntu "spin off". It just uses a different DE (desktop environment). While Ubuntu uses a mash up of Gnome and Unity, Xubuntu uses XFCE. I've been using Linux for well over a decade now and I use Xubuntu for my daily driver because it is in my opinion, the most sane DE out of them all.
 
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Hi.
I've installed the 64bit version but it only reports 2.9GiB of memory. The BIOS show 4GiB.
I have to say though that this install is far quicker than my first attempt when I was swapping memory and graphics cards. I messed it all up when I installed the PAE Kernel patch.This is for 32bit systems with more than 3GiB of memory.
I think it may be a BIOS issue but I have the latest release installed on the board so I think I'll have to live with it. I'm starting to really like Ubuntu though. It's somehow unadulterated if you get my meaning.
 
Are you sure it's not the system reporting how much RAM is free or being used, as opposed to how much it can see?

Type; free -m into a terminal window and it'll spit out how much RAM is installed, how much is in use and how much is free.
 
Hi.
All sorted now. Got 3.9GiB showing in System Details.
I had a dig around and play with some of the settings in the BIOS "Memory Configuration" and enabled "Hardware Memory Hole" which did the trick.

Cheers.
 
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