8800GTX and Compiz Fusion

I'm currently looking to dual boot Vista and either Ubuntu or Kubuntu.

Once installed I want to get Compiz Fusion running, but I have read some reports of it not getting on well with the 8800GTX.

Are there any peeps on the forum running a similiar setup to mine.

Just wondering as I would like my first steps into Linux to be as pain free as possible.
Then I can get learning.

Thanks in advance....

just download envy it will do everything for you and install ubuntu its very user friendly kde is so bloated with stuff you'll probably never use

http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

Cant even get the live CD to boot.

Its just going to a blank screen and hanging there.

Looks like its time to scour the web for a solution.

Since you have the IP35Pro (as do I), then you are going to have to find a livecd with a kernel version above 2.6.21 I believe. I suggest trying out Sabayon, as they ship with a kernel that allows you to utilize the ICH9 on the board.

You can do a search on google, or go to distrowatch to find out what kernels the distro's are using now.

I know there is a bug in the Nvidia driver right now that is causing some people to have issues with Compiz-Fusion and drop shadows. My 8400M in my notebook is having issues w/ the drop shadows not working correctly. YMMV.

To get the livecd to boot, instead of pressing enter when you get to the first menu (where you choose to go into the live environment and install ubuntu), you press F6 for extra options. There you change splash into nosplash, and press enter. You could also remove quiet.

Hope that helps.

As for the drivers, installing nvidia drivers is no problem on linux. On ubuntu, just activate the restricted drivers module, reboot, and you're done.

Tried to run the install with the various commands suggested but no joy.
Had a go with the Hardy Heron alpha 6 and installed from within windows.

Long story short, I borked my Vista install.

Just got it all back up and running.

If people are going to try Linux there shouldn't be this many issues.

Have to say its put me off slightly but I am glutton for punishment so I'll give the 32bit disc a try.

It was easier to install Hackintosh Leopard than this.

You should always use 32-bit installs! 64-bits is nothing but asking for trouble and you won't get any benefit from running 64-bit especially if you have less than 4 gigs of ram and use the computer for desktop use.

OpenSUSE has a far better compatibility so try that if you get fed up with Ubuntu. Despite of what linux people say, GNU/Linux install is still a walk on thin ice and the truly compatable hardware is a selected few. Unless you're ready to do some command line configuring that is.

scamartist said:

Tried to run the install with the various commands suggested but no joy.
Had a go with the Hardy Heron alpha 6 and installed from within windows.

Long story short, I borked my Vista install.

Just got it all back up and running.

If people are going to try Linux there shouldn't be this many issues.

Have to say its put me off slightly but I am glutton for punishment so I'll give the 32bit disc a try.

It was easier to install Hackintosh Leopard than this.

Click to expand...

Nothing is perfect. Also installing from within windows isn't very advisable, imo.

Glad you haven't given up, though

disturbed said:

Since you have the IP35Pro (as do I), then you are going to have to find a livecd with a kernel version above 2.6.21 I believe. I suggest trying out Sabayon, as they ship with a kernel that allows you to utilize the ICH9 on the board.

You can do a search on google, or go to distrowatch to find out what kernels the distro's are using now.

Click to expand...

sabayon distributes with drivers on the disc as well... crazy italians don't care for GPL rules and regulations

Verge said:

sabayon distributes with drivers on the disc as well... crazy italians don't care for GPL rules and regulations

Click to expand...

But the 8800GT requires the 169.* drivers and up for it to even work (it will work with the "vesa" driver, but no 3-D). The last release of Sabayon I tried didn't have those drivers.

OP, the only problem you are having is that you are trying to use bleeding edge hardware with linux, and not expecting to have to do anything to make it work. Anyone familiar with linux will tell you, to get it to work on bleeding edge hardware you are going to have to work at it. Most hardware companies don't make drivers for Linux, so they have to be reverse engineered and that takes time.

scamartist said:

Tried to run the install with the various commands suggested but no joy.
Had a go with the Hardy Heron alpha 6 and installed from within windows.

Long story short, I borked my Vista install.

Just got it all back up and running.

If people are going to try Linux there shouldn't be this many issues.

Have to say its put me off slightly but I am glutton for punishment so I'll give the 32bit disc a try.

It was easier to install Hackintosh Leopard than this.

Click to expand...

You installed the alpha version of an already bleeding edge distribution, and you're blaming Linux for screwing up your Vista install?

PEBKAC, my friend.

I wouldn't exactly say the hardware I am using is bleeding edge.

The problems I have encountered are the reason why Linux will always be a niche operating system.

The average computer user like myself, and not some sort of Linux guru may find it difficult to get up and running.

Might have found a possible fix at the following link post #3

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=651872&highlight=ip35+pro

Seems its an issue with the motherboard so I am screwed as I need the SATA ports the fix mentions

Linux was not designed with the average user in mind.

The people who want to present this fallacy are those who have some invested interest in doing so (like, you know, money)

There are a lot of people out there working very hard to make Linux easier and better, every single day. And they don't even ask for you to pay for it.

Statements like "The problems I have encountered are the reason why Linux will always be a niche operating system" do have some truth to them, but it has less to do with the operating system or the people constantly improving on it, and more to do with the end user not understanding what they're getting into.

You wouldn't take a used car that was given to you for free, sight unseen, that you knew was held together with bubblegum and a prayer, and expect it to be reliable enough to commute 2 hrs to work each way, would you? When it fell apart, would you write off all cars by that manufacturer as junk?

Same analogy here. You installed the Alpha version of a bleeding edge distribution and had problems, and based on that, you assume Linux in general is somehow worse off for it.

Instead of spreading around falsehoods based upon your own limited experiences, why don't you take a look into another distribution. If you look hard enough, there is probably a fix for your issue, if not in Ubuntu, then in another distribution. You might even learn something in the process.

Edit: And since you've installed Hackintosh Leopard, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you'd probably do fine installing Arch Linux, which will solve your issues since the install disc has the 2.6.24.3-3 kernel. Added bonus is you won't have the cute Ubuntu GUI dumbing everything down for you, so you'll actually learn how to get a system up and running and dig around in configuration files.

for linux to become mainstream all they have to do is make debs rpm ect depending on the distro for all software like apple has done with dmg and microsoft with exe because for some reason people are afraid of the terminal

scamartist said:

I wouldn't exactly say the hardware I am using is bleeding edge.

The problems I have encountered are the reason why Linux will always be a niche operating system.

The average computer user like myself, and not some sort of Linux guru may find it difficult to get up and running.

Might have found a possible fix at the following link post #3

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=651872&highlight=ip35+pro

Seems its an issue with the motherboard so I am screwed as I need the SATA ports the fix mentions

Click to expand...

I am using the Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard with NO issues whatsoever. The SATA works fine, and I am using it in AHCI mode (I have used it in regular/ide mode too, and it works great that way too). You have to get a distro with an upgraded kernel (Version 2.6.21 and up) for it to be supported. I stated this earlier and I suggested a distro. For the record, I never had the problem that the post in the ubuntu forums is having. All of the livecd's that I booted into with a kernel of at least 2.6.21 recognized my hard drives. I have 1 plugged into SATA 1, 1 plugged into SATA 3, and my SATA dvd-rw plugged into SATA 2. I have installed gentoo on here without a hitch.

If you think that is too much trouble, try installing Vista or XP with AHCI turned on with this motherboard, or activating AHCI after installation.

You have to remember, that most people don't really care if other people use Linux. Those people use Linux because it works best for what they need. Linux doesn't have to become mainstream because it does exactly what it was designed to do. I use Linux because I like to learn about new things, and it works best on my computer. If you have issues with Linux, just remember how much you paid for it

My hardware for your reference:
Core 2 Quad Q6600
Abit IP35Pro Motherboard
XFX GeForce 8800GT
Seagate 500GB SATA 3.0 HDD
8 GB G.Skill DDR2
Gentoo Linux 64-Bit

Will give Gentoo 64bit a try this afternoon.
Your help is much appreciated.

The thing is I knew this wouldn't be easy or I wouldn't even have attempted it.

Could have just ran it in VMware, but I will persist.

At the end of the day if all I wanted to do was run Windows I could have been doing that all along.

so u go from Ubuntu Alpha to Gentoo 64-bit and expect things to work better?
"Hmm that hot plate burned me.. But ill try putting my hand on the stove"

Gl my friend .

I wouldn't advise Gentoo for a first time user either, Then I would rather try arch, which is (in my opinion) easier because it doesn't rely on compiling, and pacman is excellent.

Managed to boot into the Ubuntu 64 bit live cd environment and am typing from there now.

This is on a P35 based board as per my sig, may be of some interest to other P35 based mobo owners.

What I did:

1 Press F6 at boot menu then down arrow to select safe graphics option
2 Remove the word quiet from the command line
3 Change splash to nosplash
4 Added the commands irqpoll and acpi=off

This is what worked for me, although I had tried multiple combos of bios settings and various commands to reach this point.

Will need to look into getting it installed on the hard drive now.

Thanks for all the advice. Will no doubt require lots more assistance.

****** Also just tried it again without the safe graphics option and it still worked. This method also worked to boot into the Kubuntu 64 bit live cd environment.

I really don't think your issue is P35 related. Countless other people, including myself, have installed Ubuntu on their P35 based systems without issue.

I do agree with what you are saying about the P35 systems it may just be down to the different bios in the ABIT implementation.

There are definitely peeps with P35 systems on other forums having issues not just me.

Its possible that I may have been fine with the text based installer but I wanted to try before installing.

Without the IRQPOLL setting my system would just constantly throw out SATA errors about XFER mode and would hang.

Without the ACPI=OFF setting I would get kernel errors about Machine not syncing.

This was with multiple different bios settings.

All in all I'm quite happy now and looking forward to getting it installed properly on the hard drive.

I have been using a Turion X2 laptop for a while. The power supply on my main box died, and i figured it was time to relegate it to server land & buy something with more power.

Old Desktop: H8Dci dual, dual opteron 275, 10G ram, 3 * 36G 15k scsi.
New box: Gigabyte P35 board, Q6600 @ 3.2, 8G ram (4 * 2GB - $34 ea!!), 300G sata.

The install worked out of the box! No problems at all, really.

Only problem was getting everything installed on my desktop that I was used to having on my laptop.

A shell script + 1 hour of time installed the 800 packages I had. Total time to working desktop was 3 hours.

Oh, and FWIW: I always use the alternate ubuntu cd w/ text based installer. It's faster & gives you software raid/lvm options.

Doing the same thing with windows used to take 1-2 days, 8 reboots, downloading and installing packages individually, going to windows update multiple times, etc etc etc and was a royal pain. I dreaded it.

Then again, I have been using Free Unixes for 11 years now...

scamartist said:

The problems I have encountered are the reason why Linux will always be a niche operating system.

Click to expand...

Dude, seriously? Do you understand the meaning of Alpha when it's applied to code? It's code that hasn't even reached the quality required of a Beta test yet - Ubuntu Hardy is just that - if you want to dick around with your machine for days on end, then go for the alpha software (as I have, as it happens...and I've had zero problems beyond Compiz going a bit screwy from time to time). If you want shit that works, then install a version that's reached the full release stage.

In short: the problems you've encountered are entirely of your own making, and you should think about it a little more before you hose your box and start installing stuff.

As for Compiz Fusion and NVidia 8x00 series cards....be careful. I've got the Quadro NVS 140M in my laptop, and when it runs out of physical graphics memory I start getting corruption in all of the subsequently opened windows whenever I scroll. I suspect it's a Compiz thing, since XFCE (with its built-in compositor) doesn't exhibit these problems at all. I have yet to try it with Hardy (with Compiz 0.7.1 as opposed to the 0.6.1 in Gutsy), but I definitely have not had the problem on my desktop ever, and that's running a 7950GT.

I do understand the meaning of alpha in regards to software.
Only reason I decided to have a go was that someone suggested it might fix the problems I was having.

I did eventually get Ubuntu 7.10 up and running with full hardware acceleration using my 8800 GTX, as I said I am persistent.

To me its strange that with 7.10 being the final release that I should have to add commands to my /boot/grub/menu.lst just to get it to boot up.
Took me approximately 3 days of faffing about trying to get the correct combination of commands to get it to complete an almost normal boot.

At this stage most people would just give up and whinge that it didn't work.
They will then stick with windows which is understandable to me anyway.

But thanks for your helpful comments, who said the Linux community wasn't helpful.