Fedora 13 on old P4 with intel graphics

[BobNutfield]

Hello Everyone,

I have an old P4 laptop with 1GB mem and Intel 82845 graphics. I wanted to install Slackware on it because the six-year-old Windows installation had finally become unusable. Slackware installed fine and is very fast on it, almost like a new machine. But sadly, I was never able to get the wireless to work with my WPA encrypted home network. So, after two days of pulling my hair out with it (what little I have left), I have decided to admit defeat and try something else.

Fedora is the first Linux distro I used, and I still use it on my main laptop (a lot beefier than this old dinosaur.) So, I downloaded the live cd of F13 to try it out this old girl. Well, it took a long time to load, but once loaded, it was somewhat sluggish but usable. But the encrypted wireless was set up in two clicks (no configuration necessary). But, I had to set the video to 1024X768 with only 8bit color for it to be get a screen (default boot was to a black screen.)

My question is this: Does anyone else have similar aged gear running F13 and if so, what is your experience? If I install it, is there any way to get better graphics from this Intel chip? I have read in many places that Intel graphics are troublesome on a lot of distros. The whole reason I replaced the drive to install Linux was that Windows had become so slow it was useless. I don't want to experience the same with a heavy duty distro like Fedora.

I love Fedora, and if I can't use Slack on this machine, it is my first choice if it will work with some measure of speed.

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

Bob

[hephasteus]

That controller has 64mb graphics memory built in and ability to use 64mb of system ram. It's probably got some frame buffer problems as I don't know if intel frame buffer is able to handle shared ram like that. Have you tried disabling shared ram in setup if it will let you?
What's the screens native resolution?

[CSchwangler]

I have a Dell D400 with Intel 82852/855GM and F13 running on it. F13 actually runs pretty good on it and my impression is that there has been going a lot of work into the Intel driver. I've disabled some of the auto-started applications and also some services and that makes it a lot snappier.

[BobNutfield]

That controller has 64mb graphics memory built in and ability to use 64mb of system ram. It's probably got some frame buffer problems as I don't know if intel frame buffer is able to handle shared ram like that. Have you tried disabling shared ram in setup if it will let you?
What's the screens native resolution?

Thank you for your comments. I did not know that it had that much graphics memory. I was under the impression that it only had 8mb. In any case, when I installed Slackware onto it I could only use the vesa driver as the i915 driver that it installed automatically just gave me a black screen. The overall system was very fast, but as you might expect graphics were pretty poor. I would have continued using Slack but the wireless proved to be impossible to set up.

Thank you for your help. I really am trying to find something that my wife will use. She stopped using that laptop a long time ago because it had become so slow with the six year old Windows (which was getting slower with every MS update.) She is very impatient and I could have set up Slackware to be a very fast "point and click" desktop.
At the time it was purchased in 2003, this laptop was state of the art and loaded with goodies (it came with 1GB and a 1394 port, kind of unusual in those days).

If running from the CD is any indication (which I know is considerably slower than a HD install) Fedora may be to heavy for it.

Thanks again

Bob

---------- Post added at 01:52 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 07:55 AM CDT ----------

Well, got F13 installed, initial updates to current status installed, and well, there is no performance increase over Windows that was previously on this dinosaur. Apps open very sluggishly, even the terminal is slow to respond. I do not know driver is being used for graphics but it is extremely slow.

I guess I have answered my question. F13 is too much for the old machine.

Thanks for your comments.

Bob

[sulley]

I think you can try install one of these drivers, http://intellinuxgraphics.org/, supported graphics list: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/documentation.html

[forkbomb]

If running from the CD is any indication (which I know is considerably slower than a HD install) Fedora may be to heavy for it.
It's not an indication. Running from a LiveCD is always slow and the only real point of LiveCDs is to check if hardware works and then start the installer (that's excepting specialty/utility LiveCDs like, say, SystemRescueCD). Even a LiveUSB can give better indication of performance, but that's a stretch too.

[BobNutfield]

I think you can try install one of these drivers, http://intellinuxgraphics.org/, supported graphics list: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/documentation.html

Thank you. I have the driver from the repo installed. I have a chipset that is supported. Still ver slow.

---------- Post added at 04:04 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 03:58 PM CDT ----------

It's not an indication. Running from a LiveCD is always slow and the only real point of LiveCDs is to check if hardware works and then start the installer (that's excepting specialty/utility LiveCDs like, say, SystemRescueCD). Even a LiveUSB can give better indication of performance, but that's a stretch too.

Thank you. Now that it is installed, it is actually slower overall than it was with the live cd. I think it is just too heavy duty for this old computer

Bob

[CSchwangler]

Try disabling some services, e.g.:
- avahi-daemon
- bluetooth
- firstboot
- livesys
- livesys-late
- sendmail

Also, look into System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications and deactivate everything you don't need.

[John the train]

Presumably you're running Gnome or KDE desktop? As F13 will install and run you might consider one of the re-spins with LXDE or XFCE. They're only available in F12 at the moment, but no doubt will be updated to F13 once that is official. I installed the current Xubuntu on my laptop ( see sig. ) and it ran, albeit slowly, though it blotted it's copybook after updating, I could log in but the desktop wouldn't load!

[CSchwangler]

If you did a default installation with default partitioning, then you probably installed with lvm. This seems to be a problem in F13 currently:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F13_bugs#Installation_using_LVM_requires_a_ large_amount_of_RAM_.28over_512MB.29

[BobNutfield]

Try disabling some services, e.g.:
- avahi-daemon
- bluetooth
- firstboot
- livesys
- livesys-late
- sendmail

Also, look into System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications and deactivate everything you don't need.

Thank you I will try that now. I could not run Gnome (way too slow), but with LXDE it is usable. xfce4 was slightly better than Gnome but it kept freezing. So far, no problems with LXDE. Where does one get flash pluins and such until RPM fusion goes online for F13? Does the .rpm version from Adobe's site work?

Thanks for your help

Bob

---------- Post added at 06:47 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 06:15 PM CDT ----------

If you did a default installation with default partitioning, then you probably installed with lvm. This seems to be a problem in F13 currently:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F13_bugs#Installation_using_LVM_requires_a_ large_amount_of_RAM_.28over_512MB.29

Wow! I read the release notes and missed that one. Since I was not going be dual booting on this laptop I let it go ahead install LVM . That could explain a lot of the performance issues.

But checking available memory (only 1GB in this machine), I may not have that problem:

[bob@Bob-Laptop1 ~]$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1010748 853340 157408 0 43452 564708
-/+ buffers/cache: 245180 765568
Swap: 2031608 0 2031608


If that is going to be an issue, I will have to re-install with a custom partitioning scheme. I don't like LVM and would much prefer my usual /home and / partitions.

Bob

[hephasteus]

[/COLOR]Well, got F13 installed, initial updates to current status installed, and well, there is no performance increase over Windows that was previously on this dinosaur. Apps open very sluggishly, even the terminal is slow to respond. I do not know driver is being used for graphics but it is extremely slow.

I guess I have answered my question. F13 is too much for the old machine.

Thanks for your comments.

Bob

I don't think you can say that just yet. It sounds like it's trying to run the vesa video driver and that's probably pretty slow. The hard drive and cpu are plenty fast in that thing it's only downside is the bad graphics. Since intel doesn't have good binary blob driver, I'd work on getting the intel driver working and it will likely get much better to use as 13 matures. I'd start with forum searches on intel video laptop. The only thing that should be slow on that is open source version of microsoft office which is a bit piggy for 1 gb of ram.
Have you installed the log file viewer and looked at the xorg.log files?

[BobNutfield]

I don't think you can say that just yet. It sounds like it's trying to run the vesa video driver and that's probably pretty slow. The hard drive and cpu are plenty fast in that thing it's only downside is the bad graphics. Since intel doesn't have good binary blob driver, I'd work on getting the intel driver working and it will likely get much better to use as 13 matures. I'd start with forum searches on intel video laptop. The only thing that should be slow on that is open source version of microsoft office which is a bit piggy for 1 gb of ram.
Have you installed the log file viewer and looked at the xorg.log files?

Thank you for your reply. You are probably right, but the intel graphics situation just kept getting worse. I was finding that I was booting into a black screen with no way out. I was having to do hard reboot (power switch), which I know is not good for the hard drive. I also did not like the fact that when I installed I was not given the opportunity to do custom partition. It created an LVM whether I wanted it or not, and I do not like using LVM.

I finally gave up and installed Ubuntu. Runs fine and snappy, but I am having the same issues with the intel graphics. Both Fedora and Ubuntu loaded the i915 driver, which does not work. At lease in Ubuntu I am able to pass "i915.modeset=0" to the kernel and the boot up sequence is very unstable, but once I reach a desktop it runs well.

Thank you for your help.

Bob

[andrewthomas]

I also did not like the fact that when I installed I was not given the opportunity to do custom partition. It created an LVM whether I wanted it or not

I beg to differ.

[dartdog]

I too have an older laptop which is now running quite well with Fedora13b2 but I came here from a week of trying to run Ubuntu 10.01rc.. when it ran,, it seemed quicker and sharper.. but I did read about the video issues,, I'd like to look into this further. Athis moment my system dumps when I attempt to activate compiz..
How do I find 1) what video I have? and 2) what driver is in use.. and
3) how do I muck with the driver? (if I choose to?

---------- Post added at 12:18 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 12:15 PM CDT ----------

I have a Gateway mx6028 laptop with a 1.4ghz celeron and 1g memory and 160gb HD (new)

[CSchwangler]

This should show you what hardware you have

lspci | grep VGA

Additionally, look into /var/log/Xorg.0.log about information what driver Xorg decided to use and how it has been configured.