Dude, Where's my video drivers? -- and -- Home Swaps get foreclosures

[Dark Rider]

Posting this here cus well, i feel like newbie all over again. After using Vector for several months last year I had to give it up and share the PC with my wife cus her's broke.. she needed XP installed so i removed Vector. I seem to have forgot most of what i learned during that time.

So now I'm here with a new PC and just got Vector installed triple booting with Linux Mint and Windows 8. I'd like to install the proper AMD Radeon 7640G Mobile video drivers for my card. Cant find FGLRX in the repo, searched Google.. not shre whats the right info. This is a hybrid CPU and GPU called APU. Perhaps i need new drivers for my CPU also? How do APU drivers work in Linux should be the question I'm asking.

Also, I had to install both Mint and Vector with no Home or no Swap partition ( otherwise i would not have enough primary partitions for them.) I'm not too worried about the swap because I have 8 gigabytes of ram.  Will not having a Home partition cause me any problems?

[hata_ph]

check this out about installing ATI proprietary drivers on VL 7.0

http://www.opensourcebistro.com/blog1/opensource_video/01_installing_vectorlinux/06-installing_ati_nvidia_graphics_drivers/

[overthere]

Regarding the home partitions, I would think that a good back up for your personal files would alleviate any concerns. The advantage may be that a reinstall would not effect your home partitions content to any serious degree.

[retired1af]

So now I'm here with a new PC and just got Vector installed triple booting with Linux Mint and Windows 8. I'd like to install the proper AMD Radeon 7640G Mobile video drivers for my card. Cant find FGLRX in the repo, searched Google.. not shre whats the right info. This is a hybrid CPU and GPU called APU. Perhaps i need new drivers for my CPU also? How do APU drivers work in Linux should be the question I'm asking.

Also, I had to install both Mint and Vector with no Home or no Swap partition ( otherwise i would not have enough primary partitions for them.) I'm not too worried about the swap because I have 8 gigabytes of ram.  Will not having a Home partition cause me any problems?

No drivers needed for the CPU and the normal AMD drivers will work for the graphics side of the APU. You an snag them directly from AMD and the installation process is fairly straight forward.

There's no need to stick with primary partitions. Ensure you have the machine backed up, and then use the free space available to create an extended partition. Once that is done, the sky is the limit and you can create as many logical partitions as you need.

[Dark Rider]

Thanks for the answers folks. The OpenSourceBistro video from that page says I need to download my kernel sources to install the drivers on 64 bit. How do i do that?

[hata_ph]

Thanks for the answers folks. The OpenSourceBistro video from that page says I need to download my kernel sources to install the drivers on 64 bit. How do i do that?

you can download the kernel-src from below links...download based on your current version of kernel...

VectorLinux 7.0 32bit

http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-7.0/kernels/

VectorLinux 7.0 64bit

http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/VL64-7.0/kernels/

PS: Run uname -rv to know your current kernel version

[Dark Rider]

Thanks hata_ph. I take it I need the one at the very bottom, the latest. Do i need everything in that directory of just the " kernel-modules-3.7.3-x86_64-1vl70.txz  " file?

[hata_ph]

Thanks hata_ph. I take it I need the one at the very bottom, the latest. Do i need everything in that directory of just the " kernel-modules-3.7.3-x86_64-1vl70.txz  " file?

download kernel-src...not kernel-modules...
what version of kernel you are using now?

[Dark Rider]

I'm running 3.2.22  ( 64 bit of course) and i did install the source then the video drivers and all is well. Good thing you suggested using that command because i assumed incorrectly we had the latest kernel.  Thanks.

But now, since there are newer kernels.. can this version of VLocity (7.0) use them? Should I upgrade my kernel?

[retired1af]

But now, since there are newer kernels.. can this version of VLocity (7.0) use them? Should I upgrade my kernel?

Again, latest and greatest isn't always the best. As my grandpappy always used to say, if it ain't broke, leave it alone! Unless there's a specific reason to update something, don't.