____/ William Poaster on Sunday 30 September 2007 13:20 : \____
> Ron House wrote:
>
>> I have a Toshiba laptop on which I had installed last year's kubuntu. It
>> never allowed me to change the screen brightness, and the version of
>> nvidia driver available didn't either. I decided to upgrade all the
>> packages. It said: "A package needed by a package cannot be upgraded.
>> Upgrade cancelled."
>>
>> Which package? By which package? Who wrote that error message?
>>
>> So I decided to do a complete distro upgrade.
>>
>> Half way through, it said: "Problem in doing upgrade. Upgrade cancelled.
>> Warning: if you do not complete the upgrade, your computer will be
>> unstable". Only a cancel button on the popup, no continue button.
>>
>> It was unstable and the machine wouldn't boot. So much for user-friendly.
>>
>> I loaded PCLinuxOS. No screen brightness controls, sound was off (as if
>> spoken by a dalek), no wireless.
>>
>> I wiped it and did a fresh installation of the latest kubuntu. Still no
>> brightness controls, no sound, no wireless (and these last two worked
>> with last year's version!).
>>
>> Okay, wipe again, install the latest debian.
>>
>> Sound works, wireless works, screen horrible.
>>
>> Install nvidia proprietary drivers. Screen now okay, a utility is there
>> to control brightness (although there is still no way to get at the bios
>> brightness controls directly).
>>
>> Success with everything, including the commercial drivers - and from
>> Debian, not Ubuntu, not PCLinuxOS.
>
> Funny. I can adjust anything in "nvidia-settings" in my Kubuntu & PCLinuxOS
> installations. Admittedly they're on desktop machines & not laptops, but
> after using "nvidia-settings" the screen resolutions, brightness & refresh
> rates are fine.
>
>> And another thing, seeing that I mentioned ubuntu upgrade woes: Earlier
>> I had upgraded my debian desktop, and forgot to upgrade the kernel when
>> instructed, and then deleted over 1,000 packages (chosen at random) by
>> mistake. But I plugged on, upgraded the kernel, reloaded packages, and
>> turned sarge into etch without a hitch. There's a lot to be said for
>> boring old debian!
>
> <shrug>
The laptops with certifications (if not preinstallations) will hopefully
becomes more widespread. Some Thinkpads, for examples, are certified for
(guaranteed to work with and supported) Fedora, Ubuntu, and MSUSE.
--
~~ Best of wishes
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