VIA Drivers

[Sanguinor]

Okay here is the situation, I have an old Medion MIM2210 laptop that I have kludged back together (I had to replace the screen with one too small and it's taped on) to use as a web browser machine for when I am at home or out and about etc. Now this laptop happens to have a certain VIA graphics chipset installed within it which I can't get working. I have downloaded the drivers from the VIA website and followed the instructions on there, this has earn't me the following error messages:

install the via driver!
........./usr/bin/install: cannot create regular file `/lib/modules/2.6.31-14-generic/kernel/ubuntu/via_chrome9/via_chrome9.ko': No such file or directory
...VIAERROR:The /etc/X11/xorg.conf is missing!

I have tried to create the xorg.conf in that place but I have had no avail, I did consider tryign to use the openchrome drivers which are apparently installed with ubuntu but none of it makes any bloody sense, atleast not to me. All I want is for my 3D acceleration to work so I can play a few games and have desktop effects running.

I have a basic idea of what I am doing with all of this but I like any instructions to be a) full and b) in plain english.

Further information: Yes this is Ubuntu 9.10

[Bucky Ball]

Not sure if you can get 3D happening with that graphics chipset. Try System->Admin->Synaptic Package Manager, search for 'via'. At the bottom of the list somewhere you should find this:

xserver-xorg-video-unichrome

Is your card listed there? To find what card you are using if you don't know exactly, open a terminal (Applications->Accessories) and paste this in:

lspci

Should be in that list somewhere.

My other suggestion would be load 8.04 LTS and see if that does the trick. Try the alternate install ISO. That is text based install and might get you further. Runs great on my wife's old machine with VIA chipset and graphics.

[Sanguinor]

First off, sorry for the late reply. I haven't been anywhere near the internet all weekend and I have managed to forget to bring my laptop into work today, I did have a look at what you suggested on Friday and I remember there being an openchrome (I think) option but no unichrome.

I will drag my laptop into work tomorrow and have a better look then get back to you.

[anewguy]

I had a laptop a few years ago that had a Via S3 Unichrome in it, and from my experience it doesn't do a lot of good trying to get 3D working - if I remember right you had to use the openchrome drivers to get that. But beyond that, I wouldn't count on it for playing any games, compiz eye candy, etc., - mine just didn't support some of things needed to do so.

Dave

[Bucky Ball]

Yea, my wife's machine with the VIA chipset doesn't run Compiz. Lucky it is the household admin machine and doesn't have to. Mind you, would be nice to get better streaming vid, even though it works okay as is.

[Sanguinor]

Yeah, the main reason I want to put this on is so I can have a bit of eyecandy and so things will run a bit smoother. It's pretty annoying because I really want to make the transition to Ubuntu completely for my laptop but this problem is starting to tempt me back to W7 which runs like a mint on it.

[Sanguinor]

Right, according to synaptics package manager I already have the openchrome drivers installed... Fun. So it looks like I need to install the VIA Proprietary drivers.... This is becoming so much fun.

Not.

As a thought, doesn't this package require a xorg.conf in /etc/x11/ ? If it does I haven't got one, and for some strange reason part of the openchrome driver install keeps timing out.

This is really getting on my nerves now, I want to use my laptop more often but something like this is enough to put me off until I can acquire myself something on either intel, ATI or nvidia.

[Bucky Ball]

Yea, you could be pushing s**t uphill with a pointy stick on this one. I for one left it after hours of trying to track down and install the right driver until I realised that was about as good as it was gonna get. Not real well supported and fairly old and obsolete, not that there's anything wrong with that!

If and when you do get new graphics for it, make sure it is going to suit the motherboard and fit the graphics slot. If it is an older one you could be fairly limited by what will fit and what the MB is capable of in the first place.

[ukripper]

Playing 3D games on VIA chipset on Linux hmmmm...Are chalk and cheese

[Vaphell]

via chipsets are absolutely horrible when it comes to support. They just don't work with 3d and via doesn't really care. They promised supporting open source community but there are no actual proofs. They release so called drivers once in a blue moon and they rarely even work. I had to configure Fujitsu Siemens laptop with integrated via gfx/audio, fought with it a lot and that was a world of pain.
There was actually one fully working driver for some chipset families for 1 exact version of Hardy kernel (somethinsomethingsomething-16) and no earlier and no later version could ever work. Total failure :/