On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:15:16 -0800, es330td******.com wrote:

> Recently I was given 15 circa 2001 Compaq iPaq desktop computers. The
> specs are PIII/733, 256MB, 10GB, CD or DVD. Integrated 10BaseT, video,
> etc. I decided that I would use them to try out several different
> OSes so I could compare them side by side.
>
> XP? No problem.
> Win 2K3? No problem.
>
> Ubuntu 7.1? Install went smoothly. Wait a second, how come my screen
> choices only go as high as 800x600? XP is running at 1024x768 so I
> *know* the card supports that resolution. I start doing a little
> research and find out that I have the i810 chipset and out of the box
> Linux won't support this. Hmm, why not? Windows does. I go find the
> necessary files to add the driver to my OS. I open up nano and
> edit .config files as instructed. No joy. Even after a reboot I
> still can't go higher than 800x600. F*ck it.

There is no Ubuntu 7.1. All you need to do is open synaptic, search for
'intel' and install the xserver-xorg-video-intel package and it will all
be taken care of.


>
> A couple weeks later read about Fedora 8. I think "Maybe, being more
> polished RH will support the i810." I go through the install. Nope,
> I still can't go higher than 800x600. I open up google and search for
> i810 Fedora and find the name of an RPM I'm supposed to install. I
> get it and open it and it tells me a dependency failed. Ok, I go get
> that rpm and that one tells me a dependency failed. I go get that
> one, and I when I run it it tells me that a dependency failed. I go
> try to find that one (libcrypto.so.7) and it doesn't exist!
> http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/se...libcrypto.so.7
> (Okay, I know where to get it but a search engine should be a little
> smarter.)
>
> At least gentoo knows how to get additional dependencies. I'll pop in
> my 2007 Live CD tonight.
>
> I've been using Linux since Slackware .99b14 (you haven't lived until
> you download 26 1.44 MB floppy images at 2400 baud) so I am far from
> incompetent, I just wanted to see how ready for prime time various
> distros of Linux are at this point. I realize I may be being a little
> critical but my goal was to see how far I could get before I ran into
> major hurdles. I am sad to say "not very long." "People" expect
> their computers to just work. This clearly doesn't.
>
> I have yet to go the BSD route on one. We'll see how these go.