NecroScumBag Posted March 21, 2004 Report Share Posted March 21, 2004 This is quick question. Is any one aware of a issues with MDK 9.2 with latop that video cards share memory with the system. Just woundering befor I pick up the unit for a sweet deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted March 21, 2004 Report Share Posted March 21, 2004 Yes, at least with Dell laptops where this is true. The bug is that XFree is unable to properly communicate the amount of ram that the video card needs. This results in the BIOS only allocating about 640k - 1meg for the video card. This results in either XFree not working, or the monitor being run at either a decreased resolution or a decreased colour depth. With all that said. There is a very easy fix for this problem. Check this website out and some of the links off of it. http://geocities.com/randomnumbergenerator2001/ This problem seems to be limited to BIOS changes that Dell has made and should not affect other computers though. But since you do not list the model or brand of the notebook that you are getting, I thought I would list the problem anyway. In addition, this problem is not particular to Mandrake 9.2, it affects every kind of Linux you would wish to install on the computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NecroScumBag Posted March 21, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2004 OK the unit I would be probly getting is a compaq 2195us or 2190us. The video card that it comes with is:Video Graphics ATI® MOBILITY™ RADEON™ 4X AGP and 3D architecture Video Memory 64MB DDR SDRAM (shared1) This is all the specific info I can find out on the video card. I sent an email to compaq to find out which specifc chip set it is using but no responce yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted March 21, 2004 Report Share Posted March 21, 2004 Your best bet is to pay a visit to http://www.linux-laptop.net and look for the model that you are planning on buying. See what people's experience has been like installing Linux onto that notebook. If you can't find the exact notebook, there will probably be ones that are similar there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NecroScumBag Posted March 21, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2004 Thanks alot for the helpfull info! You guy here rock! Have a good one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
energymedia Posted March 30, 2004 Report Share Posted March 30, 2004 I have the Presario 2170CA which has the same video card. I am currently running Mandrake 9.2 on it with no issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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