My experiences with ATI graphic card drivers on Ubuntu

From the very beginning of Linux, users had problems with its device drivers. Why is this problem so common? Because Linux is Open Source and hardware manufacturers usually have to invest their own funds in developing drivers that are compatible with it. On the other hand: Microsoft (Windows) and Apple (MacOS) usually pay big bucks to produce drivers and to keep them updated. That practically means that OS vendors finance hardware vendors themselves to develop drivers. Logical assumption is: Why to finance driver development for OS (Linux) that is not widely used (yet), when other OSs with more market share gives you money for driver development.

In graphic card driver world for Linux, this problem is so evident that most computer experts advice beginners to stay away from 3D and other cool stuff until they master basics of Linux. In this post I will try to summarize some of my experiences and thoughts about it. 

Reparing corrupted root system partition in Ubuntu 10.10

Usually, they say that Linux is unbreakable. This statement might be correct to certain degree, but only if you understand how Linux works.

Recently, I had a problem of booting Ubuntu installation. Took me a whole week to find a solution, which came in the nick of time, since I was preparing to wipe out Ubuntu installation. Apparently, it was a root filesystem problem.

Migrating to Linux (Part II): Installation

Installing Linux nowadays is a simple task. However I suggest you first try it before actually installing it.

One of the most safest method is to use a Live CD. This will load linux into your RAM memory, without doing anything to your hard disk. Nothing will be copied to hard drive. Ubuntu offers Live possibility. Simply, burn downloaded Ubuntu ISO (or create bootable USB), restart computer and insert CD (or USB) during boot-up sequence. Remember that BIOS settings must be configured to allow booting from CD (or USB).

Another option, which I generally used to test Ubuntu in the first place, is to install a virtual machine emulation software, like VMWare. This will allow you to emulate whole new machine inside your Windows environment for testing. I recommend using this method because you can see how OS installation procedure will work. If something fails, it will be only inside virtual machine, without any consequences yo your own computer. Keep in mind that VMWare is commercial product. Another good virtual emulation program  is virtualbox. Personally, I never tried it, but many youtube how-to-do-something-in-linux uses it.

There is another option using WUBI which comes with ubuntu ISO and it is available when you insert Ubuntu disc on Windows operating systems. I never tried this, but one my friends did. It is something like virtual machine emulation with ubuntu already installed. Again, I never tried this solution so google somewhere else to see what this actually does.

Migrating to Linux (Part I)

As a programmer, I found that I needed to make myself familiar with Linux OS at some point. A year passed since I got exposed to Linux (mainly using it to publish web sites on Apache tomcat) and decided that the time has come to try it on my desktop.

Last time I encountered Linux was during my faculty days. Curiosity and general interest in something new, made me to install it as a second operating system besides Windows XP. However, intensive studies allowed very little to none time to experiment. Back in those days, Linux distributions were not very user friendly to the absolute beginner. Not to mention cruel and depressing... 

Few months ago, serious 'infection' of bad sectors on my hard drive made me to replace it  with newer, better and much much larger (talking in TBs :D). It was a perfect time to reserve some space for Linux.