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I have an ASUS eee pc x101ch, running an Atom intel graphics card, but Ubuntu 14.04 doesn't pick up the graphics card and intel isn't supplying the driver for this version (as far as I'm aware).

I was wondering before I try something like installing an earlier version if there is any work around.

Everything is working fine, watching videos, some streaming apart from Flash which can sometimes be choppy. But mainly the window transitions are very slow and choppy.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this?

Also, as a side note, my internet seems slow. I've switched to WICD, but doing a test my download speed is 6.72 and upload speed is .60. Might this be a driver issue too?

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor D2xxx/N2xxx Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0be1] (rev 09) 
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:84a9]
Kernel driver in use: gma500 –  Mark Wots'isface Smith 2 days ago   

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b] (rev 01) 
Subsystem: AzureWave AW-NE785 / AW-NE785H 802.11bgn Wireless Full or Half-size Mini PCIe Card [1a3b:1089] Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17 Region 0: Memory at dfe00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K] Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath9k –  Mark Wots'isface Smith 2 days ago

no proprietary drivers are in use – Mark Wots'isface Smith yesterday

and no additional drivers are available – Mark Wots'isface Smith yesterday 

mesa-utils: Installed: (none) Candidate: 8.1.0-2 Version table: 8.1.0-2 0 500 gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty/universe i386 Packages –  Mark Wots'isface Smith yesterday
JoKeR
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Mark Wots'isface Smith
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  • please add to your question the output of lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 VGA – JoKeR Feb 28 '15 at 13:09
  • 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor D2xxx/N2xxx Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0be1] (rev 09) Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:84a9] Kernel driver in use: gma500 – Mark Wots'isface Smith Feb 28 '15 at 13:26
  • 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b] (rev 01) Subsystem: AzureWave AW-NE785 / AW-NE785H 802.11bgn Wireless Full or Half-size Mini PCIe Card [1a3b:1089] Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17 Region 0: Memory at dfe00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K] Capabilities: Kernel driver in use: ath9k – Mark Wots'isface Smith Feb 28 '15 at 13:31
  • no proprietary drivers are in use – Mark Wots'isface Smith Feb 28 '15 at 14:01
  • and no additional drivers are available – Mark Wots'isface Smith Feb 28 '15 at 14:04
  • I googled that driver you're using is not fully compatible with Ubuntu 14.04 https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements you may try this suggestion http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/05/intel-linux-graphics-driver-installer-1-0-5 and respond if it works for you. – JoKeR Feb 28 '15 at 14:35
  • I get a message saying 'you don't seem to have an Intel i915 chip set so no updates needed' – Mark Wots'isface Smith Feb 28 '15 at 14:47
  • Do you think switching to Xubuntu 14.04 desktop would help?https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/alternative – Mark Wots'isface Smith Feb 28 '15 at 14:56
  • difference between them is just a different desktop-environment it wont do much about graphics. – JoKeR Feb 28 '15 at 19:02
  • I have a similar netbook. It's going to be choppy. The Atom CPU's are weak. I would suggest a lighter distribution. Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and Mate come to mind. regarding your side note, there isn't enough information to go on. – Elder Geek Feb 28 '15 at 21:10
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    @MarkWots'isfaceSmith please put those 2 comments into your question ;) – Rinzwind Feb 28 '15 at 21:12
  • mesa-utils: Installed: (none) Candidate: 8.1.0-2 Version table: 8.1.0-2 0 500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe i386 Packages – Mark Wots'isface Smith Mar 01 '15 at 11:45
  • @JohnnyEnglish- Any further info on this please? – Mark Wots'isface Smith Mar 02 '15 at 13:42
  • @ElderGeek - And what info do you need for the wireless? Thanks – Mark Wots'isface Smith Mar 02 '15 at 13:42
  • I would keep closer to Elder Geek's suggestion, indeed the atom cpus with gma500 driver on board not that good to run Ubuntu. You're not the first I tried to solve this issue with. – JoKeR Mar 02 '15 at 14:52
  • Thanks @JohnnyEnglish , I've installed Xubuntu so the window transistions are fine now. The only problem is video, both flash and downloaded are choppy – Mark Wots'isface Smith Mar 02 '15 at 14:54
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    if you check this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements under visual effects you'll see why. – JoKeR Mar 02 '15 at 14:57
  • Your wireless problem is a separate question. Look here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/425155/my-wireless-wifi-connection-does-not-work-what-information-is-needed-to-diagnos/425180#425180 – Elder Geek Mar 02 '15 at 16:23
  • Thanks guys..I'll keep playing. I've heard Linux Mint might be a better option so will keep trying – Mark Wots'isface Smith Mar 02 '15 at 16:27

1 Answers1

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You can't get a video driver but you can still get a good, smooth video playback. Take a look at my tutorial to learn on this and more:

Asus Eee Pc X101ch and Intel Atom: Get A Suitable Video Playback!

Extract from the post:

There is no available driver for this GPU. That means we can't use hardware graphics acceleration. But we can still get a much better video quality by installing another video player. We will install SMPlayer. We will also install MPV player. SMPlayer is a great MPV player front-end. Installing SMPlayer should also cause the installation of MPV (dependency).

So, we will install two packages

  • SMPlayer
  • MPV

For example, run

sudo apt install mpv smplayer

Next, open SMPlayer and make sure you got the right "MPlayer/mpv executable" setting. Check this by opening Options > Preferences, go to General menu > General tab: you should read MPlayer/mpv executable: /usr/bin/mpv. It should be already set this way; if not, change it.

Now, go to Options menu > Preferences and change these settings:

General > General
Enable screenshots = false (unchecked)

General > Video
Output driver = x11
Start videos in fullscreen = true (checked)

General > Audio Synchronization
Audio/video auto synchronization = true (checked)
Audio/video auto synchronization Factor = 100
A/V sync correction = true (checked)
A/V sync Max correction = 0,10

Performance > Performance
Allow frame drop = true (checked)
Threads for decoding = 4
Use core AVC... = true (checked)

Now, try it! Play some video file from your hard disk. Still not perfect? You will probably get much better results by pressing F to switch to full screen, if not already done. Now, there are (probably) no frames being skipped so the movement is fluid. Pretty good for such a small computer!

Finally, go to: Start Menu > Preferences > Preferred Applications. Select Multimedia tab. Make SMPlayer your preferred Video Player, if you want.

Tested and approved with these versions:

  • SMPlayer Version: 15.11.0
  • MPV Version: mpv 0.14.0
Sébastien Bouchard
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