Medion AMD64

[Theodor Fruendt]

Hi to everybody,
you might find this funny, but against all pro photographers
recommendations I want to take things seriously and try to give Ubuntu
Studio a try.
Working mainly on low budget laptops (I report from hostile regions and
socially unstable societies where confiscation of equipment is common).
So I can not drag a Ubuntu machine around. Currently I work on a Medion
AMD64, a cheap thing because the Accer found a new owner in Afghanistan.
However I came across this SiS thing which screws up my VGA Display. Due
to my lack of experience this seems not to be solved any soon unless
some one of you has time to send me some hints.
It is already tough to explain picture desk editors that I am not
willing to use Adobe products unless they are willing to increase,
instead reducing, their fees. Also, I'm pretty happy working with GIMP
and F-Spot instead of Photoshop and I-View oder Fotomechanic.
Being native German speaking, living in France, I'm would help with
translations and with evaluating in photo editing issues.
Cheers

--
________________________________________________________________________
Theodor Fruendt,Photo-Journalist|Bureau:75013 PARIS|Atelier:F-30700 Uzes
Phone:[phone] | fruendt@... |www.teamwork-press.de




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Bonjour Theodore,

Thank you for reviving the laptop testing team mailing list!

Now that that's out of the way, I think I know what you're talking about
when you say SiS screws up your VGA display. You did not make it clear
what make/model laptop you currently have. I would also recommend you
reply with the model of the video card in the laptop - you can get all
this information by running this command in a terminal, and attaching
the output from your home directory to the reply email:

lspci -vvnn > ~/pci.id.medion

I have an Acer and it has an AMD Turion in it, basically I have video
issues as well. I thought I would try to help you out. Obviously Acer
went the cheap route when equipping their laptops with video cards and
passed the savings (and grief) along to their customers.

Take a look at the following bugs which may describe what you are
seeing. My friend and I can confirm these issues on the Aspire 3000/5000
series.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/317658
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/291294
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/264769

I have tried contacting the maintainer of the driver, but have not
gotten a response. I have also contacted Bryce Harrington - Ubuntu's
lead X.org expert, who has taken a look at these bugs. All I can tell
you is that I have had video problems with this card (Silicon Integrated
Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
[1039:6330]) only after Ubuntu 7.10 - so you can try the work around
explained in these bugs (the sisfb option) or you can backup /home and
go back to 7.10 which has flaws and has hit end of life recently (so is
no longer getting security updates).

http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/gutsy/

Either way, event though I am a free software advocate, I would
recommend Picasa over F-stop any day (I'm talking about quality here),
and Ubuntu over Ubuntu Studio. If you have to get a cheap laptop that
you can hide from those who may want to confiscate it, i would recommend
a small netbook - under 1KG (and under $300) which you can pass along in
a small bag with a thin camera. Get us some nice pictures! Hopefully
some of the kids of the region holding up the ubuntu logo: the circle of
friends. Hope this helps.

Cheers and peace,

-komputes

Theodor Fruendt wrote:

> Hi to everybody,
> you might find this funny, but against all pro photographers
> recommendations I want to take things seriously and try to give Ubuntu
> Studio a try.
> Working mainly on low budget laptops (I report from hostile regions and
> socially unstable societies where confiscation of equipment is common).
> So I can not drag a Ubuntu machine around. Currently I work on a Medion
> AMD64, a cheap thing because the Accer found a new owner in Afghanistan.
> However I came across this SiS thing which screws up my VGA Display. Due
> to my lack of experience this seems not to be solved any soon unless
> some one of you has time to send me some hints.
> It is already tough to explain picture desk editors that I am not
> willing to use Adobe products unless they are willing to increase,
> instead reducing, their fees. Also, I'm pretty happy working with GIMP
> and F-Spot instead of Photoshop and I-View oder Fotomechanic.
> Being native German speaking, living in France, I'm would help with
> translations and with evaluating in photo editing issues.
> Cheers
>
>  

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Salut Theo,

> As Pro Photographer I have to deliver, to convince my editors I have to be as good as they are with Photo-Mechanic and Photoshop C4 (which is consuming so much RAM) I can not have any failiures, then these guys say: "We have told you".

In America it's "told you so" but it sounds more like "tol ja soh" with a nice melody to it ;)  -  Hopefully you'll be the one telling them, told you so I could do it on linux!


> I work with Olypus E3 and Leica and each image has at least 10 MB as JPEG

Dude! The E3 is a huge camera. Hopefully you won't get that confiscated.
I thought you were trying to pass through without seeming like you have
much equipment, but I guess an SLR is needed to even be considered for
publishing, plus you get to swap lenses to your need which makes fore
more specific picture types. I suggested a netbook because battery wise
you get 3+ hours and they are small, but obviously size is not an item.

> As I had been in Chad, 40° Celsius, same in Pakistan recently,the
Medion really is giving up after ca 200 images. TOO HOT!

Ah, laptops in hot conditions, this one is tricky but you can find them.
From my experience cheap AMD chips heat up too quick. I don't even have
to be in Chad and my computer can shut down from heat. For this you can
tone down the CPU power (Right click top Panel > Add to Panel > CPU
frequency scaling) if your computer supports it. I'm not sure how you
acquire your used laptops or if you can be picky and try them out, but
if you can. I would prepare a 1h movie and 10GB of files to play and
transfer simultaneoustly. This is what I would test:

1 -Turn on the laptop you are testing and let it sit for 10 minutes.

2 - run the following command (may be different for your CPU but
pressing tab, should auto-complete the different part) and record the
temperature.

example:
komputes@mini:~$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ01/temperature
temperature:             47 C

The TZ01 part is the one that will differ from laptop to laptop, but
pressing tab at that part should auto-complete it for you, you just need
to add temperature afterwards and press enter.

-Now copy the 10GB of data and play the movie simultaneously

Repeat the same command (cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ01/temperature)
and see how hot it gets. The CPU with the least amount of change as well
as the lowest temperature is the one for you.

Have fun and keep in touch!

-komputes

T.Fruendt wrote:

> Hello,
> thank you for taking the time for such comprehensive answer! Well, yes that the one: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter. On the web I found someone in Austria who was spending lots of time to develop a driver but even having been working ages ago on UNIX systems and being familiar with DOS things have changed. Thanks for the advice, I will just install 9.04 on the laptop now, not studio. I will get all data of this silly Medion RAM 2020 as you said.
>  
> Will test Picasa but moving some 70.000 images is not as easy, still struggling gaining enough experience with Ubuntu (currently on my
> desktop I use 9.04 and I find it really comfortable to work with). As Pro Photographer I have to deliver, to convince my editors I have to be as good as they are with Photo-Mechanic and Photoshop C4 (which is consuming so much RAM) I can not have any failiures, then these guys say: "We have told you".
>
> I work with Olypus E3 and Leica and each image has at least 10 MB as JPEG, not to mention RAW... also for Linux are nice tools for RAW. I hope on long term I can bring in some experience in this field because for young colleagues, starters, software is really a issue in terms of investment. So, for now I must say digiKam is close to be perfect! Fast, RAW imports via DNG converter etc etc... Very smart solution!
>
> Regarding the Laptop: As I had been in Chad, 40° Celsius, same in Pakistan recently,the Medion really is giving up after ca 200 images. TOO HOT! To your experiances what is the most suitable machine und Linux, Ubuntu 9.04? I can handle the good old 15 inch size. What do you
> think about the old Compaqs? Its more important being robust when carried in a rucksack, 1 or 4 kg more, I don't care... have to wear often a flak-jaket and this is allready 8 kg...
>
> Thanks again
> Theodor
>
> On Thu, 2009-05-28 at 22:10 +0200, komputes wrote:
>  
>> Bonjour Theodore,
>>
>> Thank you for reviving the laptop testing team mailing list!
>>
>> Now that that's out of the way, I think I know what you're talking about
>> when you say SiS screws up your VGA display. You did not make it clear
>> what make/model laptop you currently have. I would also recommend you
>> reply with the model of the video card in the laptop - you can get all
>> this information by running this command in a terminal, and attaching
>> the output from your home directory to the reply email:
>>
>> lspci -vvnn > ~/pci.id.medion
>>
>> I have an Acer and it has an AMD Turion in it, basically I have video
>> issues as well. I thought I would try to help you out. Obviously Acer
>> went the cheap route when equipping their laptops with video cards and
>> passed the savings (and grief) along to their customers.
>>
>> Take a look at the following bugs which may describe what you are
>> seeing. My friend and I can confirm these issues on the Aspire 3000/5000
>> series.
>>
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/317658
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/291294
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/264769
>>
>> I have tried contacting the maintainer of the driver, but have not
>> gotten a response. I have also contacted Bryce Harrington - Ubuntu's
>> lead X.org expert, who has taken a look at these bugs. All I can tell
>> you is that I have had video problems with this card (Silicon Integrated
>> Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
>> [1039:6330]) only after Ubuntu 7.10 - so you can try the work around
>> explained in these bugs (the sisfb option) or you can backup /home and
>> go back to 7.10 which has flaws and has hit end of life recently (so is
>> no longer getting security updates).
>>
>> http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/gutsy/
>>
>> Either way, event though I am a free software advocate, I would
>> recommend Picasa over F-stop any day (I'm talking about quality here),
>> and Ubuntu over Ubuntu Studio. If you have to get a cheap laptop that
>> you can hide from those who may want to confiscate it, i would recommend
>> a small netbook - under 1KG (and under $300) which you can pass along in
>> a small bag with a thin camera. Get us some nice pictures! Hopefully
>> some of the kids of the region holding up the ubuntu logo: the circle of
>> friends. Hope this helps.
>>
>> Cheers and peace,
>>
>> -komputes
>>
>> Theodor Fruendt wrote:
>>    
>>> Hi to everybody,
>>> you might find this funny, but against all pro photographers
>>> recommendations I want to take things seriously and try to give Ubuntu
>>> Studio a try.
>>> Working mainly on low budget laptops (I report from hostile regions and
>>> socially unstable societies where confiscation of equipment is common).
>>> So I can not drag a Ubuntu machine around. Currently I work on a Medion
>>> AMD64, a cheap thing because the Accer found a new owner in Afghanistan.
>>> However I came across this SiS thing which screws up my VGA Display. Due
>>> to my lack of experience this seems not to be solved any soon unless
>>> some one of you has time to send me some hints.
>>> It is already tough to explain picture desk editors that I am not
>>> willing to use Adobe products unless they are willing to increase,
>>> instead reducing, their fees. Also, I'm pretty happy working with GIMP
>>> and F-Spot instead of Photoshop and I-View oder Fotomechanic.
>>> Being native German speaking, living in France, I'm would help with
>>> translations and with evaluating in photo editing issues.
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>>  
>>>      

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