System76 Drivers on Mint

[einnar]

Will the System76 drivers work in Mint?
If not, can someone smarter than me figure out how to make it work?

Thanks! :)

[thomasaaron]

They will not work in Mint.

You might be able to make them work with a little python hacking and experimentation.

That said, I have no way of knowing if the fixes applied by the driver will be compatible with Mint.

[einnar]

Thanks Thomas!

In that case, I'm looking for someone that knows Python, and is smarter than me. :)

Can anyone assist?

[matthekc]

I bought a serval performance and the first thing I did was throw mint on it. My video card is good, audio is fine, and the webcam works. This is all without any special drivers. I only have minor gotcha's like if the monitor powers down I can only get it back sometimes, or not all the special keys work. I think the problems we're so minor I don't think I'll even go out of my way to fix them.

Your mileage my vary but I love mint and this machine together.

[doubledown11]

Just installed Mint 7 on my Gazu1. Webcam is out of commission but other than that everything seems to be running perfectly. I was having lots of flaky issues with wireless that seem to be resolved now. Not sure if it is Mint that fixed it or just the fresh install.

Like Thomasaaron said, the System76 Driver Utility will not run on this distro.

[thomasaaron]

The packages for installing the web cam drivers are in the System76 driver. you can pop it open, extract and install them. There's a few special considerations for the GazU1, though. Let me know via email if you need further help with this.

[Scotty Bones]

Actually...This can be done! Albeit, with some hacking.

Mint is really nothing more than an "enhanced" Ubuntu. So...with a little work, you can get Mint to report itself as Ubuntu.

The main culprit here is mint-system, This package checks to make sure the OS is branded as Mint at startup, and if it is not, it makes it so. It is also used by several mint tools for identification purposes and is a required dependency, so don't even think about just removing it.


HOWTO: INSTALL S76 DRIVERS IN MINT

Warning: Create backups of config files before editing them. You have been warned. Attempt at your own risk!


I. The first file that needs editing is: /usr/lib64/linuxmint/mintSystem/python/mint-adjust.py

This file will show you what is being modified by mint-system and how. Under the "# Restore LSB information" heading. Four lines down, you should see a line that reads:
"lsbfile.writelines("DISTRIB_ID=Mint\n")"
Change Mint to Ubuntu.



II. The second file to be edited is: /etc/lsb-release

It should be modified to look something like this:

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.04
RELEASE_NOTES_URL=http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_gloria.php
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jaunty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.04"




III. The third file is: /etc/linuxmint/info


RELEASE=9.04
CODENAME=jaunty
EDITION="Main Edition"
DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.04"
DESKTOP=Gnome
TOOLKIT=GTK
NEW_FEATURES_URL=http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_gloria_whatsnew.php
RELEASE_NOTES_URL=http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_gloria.php
USER_GUIDE_URL=http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/stable/7/user-guide/english.pdf
GRUB_TITLE=Ubuntu 9.04


Notice that in 2 and 3, I have only changed the pertinent lines.



IV. The last two to edit are: /etc/issue


Ubuntu 9.04 \n \l


and /etc/issue.net


Ubuntu 9.04




V. Give your system a reboot. If I haven't missed anything here, your system should now identify itself as Ubuntu 9.04. Don't forget to restore your backups after you have completed the System 76 driver install.



Your welcome :)

If anyone can find any easier way (and i'm sure there is), please let us know.

[Scotty Bones]

If anyone has tried the above howto, please let me know if it works for you. I got this working almost a month ago, when I first got my new Pangolin. It was a lot of trial and error, making documentation difficult.
So...just let me know how it turned out for you, good or bad.

[Cadeyrn]

Worked great for me. Thanks! But, when you said that /usr/lib64/linuxmint/mintSystem/python/mint-adjust.py had the red name as Mint, I don't know if that's true for any random Linux Mint distro, but I do know my x64 Gloria says LinuxMint and not Mint. A simple, insignificant mistake, but who knows? Fixing that could prove helpful.

And also, maybe you should include what the text of the original files looks like too? Because I forgot to back a few of them up and certain pieces of text were lost forever. I just barely remembered them, but the next person to make that mistake might not remember.

Lastly, after the post-driver-installation reboot I was faced with a broken NVidia driver and Ubuntu asking if I wanted to run the session in low graphics mode, so first I navigated that menu to reset my graphics configuration to default, and then went to jockey to find the NVidia driver was deactivated, since I set the display config back to default. Reactivating that driver seems to be working. If I never edit this post again, then it worked. Otherwise, I may be screwed.

[Scotty Bones]

Worked great for me. Thanks! But, when you said that /usr/lib64/linuxmint/mintSystem/python/mint-adjust.py had the red name as Mint, I don't know if that's true for any random Linux Mint distro, but I do know my x64 Gloria says LinuxMint and not Mint. A simple, insignificant mistake, but who knows? Fixing that could prove helpful.

I'm glad to hear the process worked well enough for you.
The difference in text of the python script might be because of a difference in the version of mintSystem. I tend to pull from the newer repos, ie. those for Helena, so that might be the cause in difference there.

And also, maybe you should include what the text of the original files looks like too? Because I forgot to back a few of them up and certain pieces of text were lost forever. I just barely remembered them, but the next person to make that mistake might not remember.

If necessary, the original config files can always be pulled from the live cd. I wasn't sure how much demand or interest this would be to others. But I could clean this up and expand it for the Helena/Karmic release, If there is interest. It may also be possible to script the process, but that is a bit out of my league.

Lastly, after the post-driver-installation reboot I was faced with a broken NVidia driver and Ubuntu asking if I wanted to run the session in low graphics mode, so first I navigated that menu to reset my graphics configuration to default, and then went to jockey to find the NVidia driver was deactivated, since I set the display config back to default. Reactivating that driver seems to be working. If I never edit this post again, then it worked. Otherwise, I may be screwed.

This wasn't an issue I ran into; but since I tend to pull in newer nVidia drivers from the PPA's, this is usually the last thing I install. If I redo this howto for the next release (Clem may change things that affect this how-to). I will be sure to make a note about the breakage. And suggest that nVidia install be held off until after the S76 driver install.

[Cadeyrn]

Well, I found out the cause--the System76 Driver automatically downloaded the newest kernel and I didn't notice that kernel had become the default one to boot from, and everyone knows the newest Ubuntu kernel almost never works with the NVidia drivers. Simply setting the kernel I always use back to the default in GRUB's menu.lst fixed it. Also, the items in menu.lst were overwritten from the driver install--I had to re-enter the Windows boot line.

[thomasaaron]

You're right, nVidia tends to lag slightly behind the newest kernel -- particularly if you are running proposed updates (see System > Administration > Software Sources).

However, just to clarify, the System76 Driver has nothing to do with kernel updates. Those come down the pipe via Update Manager, which is an Ubuntu program for monitoring the availability of new updates.