Is it soup yet?

[GreyGeek]

GreyGeek,

Would you suggest the daily build or Beta 1?

I downloaded the 3/11/14 daily build and installed it on my 12 year old grandon's Acer computer. It installed perfectly on the Acer laptop, even showing battery charges that Precise couldn't! Trusty Tahr is, IMO, faster than any previous version of Kubuntu I've used.

My 12 yr old grandson was complaining about Minecraft playing so slow on his Win7 side, and it wasn't any faster on his Kubuntu 12.04 side. He wanted me to buy him a new computer. Now, Mincraft gives 20-40 fps and when I installed optifine Minecraft 1.7.4 cracks out up to 70 fps He's a happy camper now, and I don't have to worry about him getting infections running Win7, or buying a new computer. (I gave him and my 8yr old grandson the computers they are using now.)

[GreyGeek]

Frank, did you try it in LiveCD or LiveUSB mode to see how it runs BEFORE you attempted to install it? If so, what were the results?
Remember what I wrote:

Keep in mind that my Acer V3-771G is only 3 years old. If your machine is in the 2nd or 3rd previous generation, or earlier, your mileage may vary. Regardless, burn a LiveCD or LiveUSB and give it a test run to see how it likes your wireless chip, your video chip, your USB ports, printer, etc. If everything is ok then do "sudo lsmod > lsmod_listing.txt" and print the listing in order to compare it after the install.

Here is why I wrote that: The 3/11/14 daily build was a 1GB download, but even then the "window" of compatibility may have shifted away from your older computer because there is only so much room on a CD/DVD. As developers add drivers for newer hardware they drop drivers for older hardware. Thus, there is a window of usability which includes driver for the most common/current hardware. Very new hardware, with new devices requiring new drivers may not run properly, and neither will older hardware with devices whose drivers have been removed.

[Frank616]

Grey Geek:

Well, this is getting curiouser and curiouser....

I downloaded and tried installing 13.10 - 64 bit. I got the same video artifacts as I did in 14.04.

So, I gave up and I am installing 12.04 - 64 bit. It works just fine with my machine, video card and the monitor. No artifacts. AND, the installer let me choose ext2 for the disk. Hopefully I'll be able to do an LTS to LTS upgrade once 14.04 is out and stable.

I have been using this machine successfully with 12.04 - 32 bit for some time now, and 10.04 before that, and maybe even 8.04 before that. I don't remember anymore. It is 2006 vintage, or thereabouts. It has an nVidia Quadro card in it with digital output only. It may be that it has done its time, and I should go buy another used box.

Anyway, Mint is gone, and 12.04 is up and running. Took me a few hours to get it all set up, but it works.

Frank.

[Frank616]

dequire:

The video card is an old Quadro FX-1500/PCIe/SSE2. It is supported with the nVidia drivers, and works reasonably well with the Nouveau drivers as well. Not sure why it won't work in 14.04 (nor in 13.10) with the base driver.

Frank.

[GreyGeek]

Grey Geek:

Well, this is getting curiouser and curiouser....

I downloaded and tried installing 13.10 - 64 bit. I got the same video artifacts as I did in 14.04.

So, I gave up and I am installing 12.04 - 64 bit. It works just fine with my machine, video card and the monitor. No artifacts. AND, the installer let me choose ext2 for the disk. Hopefully I'll be able to do an LTS to LTS upgrade once 14.04 is out and stable.
....

2006. In computer generations that is almost 3. It appears to be slipping out of the back end of the compatibility zone of the newer releases. Precise is an LTS release and should continue to work for you till April of 2017, or longer if you can live without app updates and security patches.

It's my observation that most mainline Linux distros are compatible with 95% of all the current hardware in common use. The 5% edge cases are problematic and may require special configuration to get them to work properly, it that is possible at all. The more out of the mainstream the less likely Linux will load. Besides the older computers, the very latest, brand new hardware can be problematic as well. Think of a bell curve with the peak shifted slightly to the right about 1/2 sigma, and with a long tail.

With my previous Acer laptop I had problems getting 3D video to work with the i815 driver on Mandriva. In January of 2009 I saw a story about KUBUNTU adopting KDE 4 in their next release, which would be 9.04. So, I installed the alpha and was surprised to see that 3D worked beautifully! On examination I noticed that during the install it had selected the i915 driver instead of the i815. I've been with Kubuntu every since.

[lcorken]

I have a 10 year old laptop that works great with Lubuntu (LXDE). This one is way too old for KDE. XFCE is OK too by I prefer LXDE. Most KDE apps can be used with LXDE also if you miss those.

Old time Ken.

[GreyGeek]

Yup. The "Lite" Linux distros specialize in running on older, smaller or weaker hardware.
DSL, Puppy, etc...

One could run Kubuntu without KDE and install some of the lite windows managers and desktops, like you've mentioned, IF the drivers drive their wifi, video, sound and printers.

[Frank616]

Grey Geek:

2006. In computer generations that is almost 3. It appears to be slipping out of the back end of the compatibility zone of the newer releases.

Yeah, I am not surprised. However, I am sure that it can be made to work, and probably WILL work once we get into June or July. I do want the updated apps.

If not, well, I just to to the recycler, and buy another, slightly newer one.

Easiest may be to upgrade the video card.

Frank.

[dequire]

Grey Geek:Easiest may be to upgrade the video card.

Frank.

Most likely. If your card is PCIe (and not AGP) you're OK. Otherwise...decisions have to be made.

[GreyGeek]

Most likely. If your card is PCIe (and not AGP) you're OK. Otherwise...decisions have to be made.

For sure. Sinking more money into ageing hardware often does not pay off. Components like resistors and capacitors have organic binders or pastes in them that, due to heating, eventually began to dry. This causes their performance to change. Resistors increase in resistance until the organics carbonize, then they drop drastically in resistance. With drying electrolyte capacitors loose their ability to hold charge, or they short out. Most circuits are designed to take into account a change of values within the range of precision for those components. Usually it is around 10%. Cheaper computers offer less leeway. If a new card is plugged in the ageing components on the circuit board may not be able to take the sudden changes in input or output voltages and currents the new component uses, the mobo begans to age faster under the new load.