Amd apu

[yakusa]

Hello.Hello. I have laptop with AMD APU (A4-3300M+ATI GPU+8GB) i want to change OS to upcoming F17x64 from W7HPx64. Did my laptop will work properly? I found AMD drivers on their site. Which desktop enviroment choose? KDE or Gnome?

[george_toolan]

Which notebook do you have exactly?

Your APU should be working, but there are other components involved as well.

You can download Live CDs with different Desktop Environments like Gnome 3, KDE, XFCE or LXDE to find out if it's working on your computer and which one you like best. Later you can even install all of them and choose one on the logon screen.

[hostace]

For notebook best thing for using LXDE or XFCE. Should work properly.

[droidhacker]

Originally Posted by yakusa

Hello.Hello. I have laptop with AMD APU (A4-3300M+ATI GPU+8GB) i want to change OS to upcoming F17x64 from W7HPx64. Did my laptop will work properly? I found AMD drivers on their site. Which desktop enviroment choose? KDE or Gnome?

Proper drivers are built into the linux kernel. No need to download horrid blob mess.

[Penguinclaw]

The beauty of Linux is the choice of desktop environments. Your hardware should work with any of those mentioned by George Toolan above. So if you have the broadband try a few live cd's and see which feel and look you prefer. To run a live cd you may have to go into the bios and change the boot order to cd first. Exact instructions on this vary on motherboard so it may be worth checking with the manufacturer or googling.

Good luck and I hope you find the desktop for you! By the way most can be configured to look exactly how you want ie theme changes, 3d acceleration via ATI propriatry drivers (there are howto's within this forum) so you can get wobbly windows and spinning desktops. But if you'd prefer a more minamalistic approach Xfce and LXDE are both light and ultra fast; leaving you to just enjoy the applications of your choice. Remember there are litterly thousands of applications in the repositories that you can add after you install; so you don't have to stick with the default ones.

[droidhacker]

Originally Posted by Penguinclaw

The beauty of Linux is the choice of desktop environments. Your hardware should work with any of those mentioned by George Toolan above. So if you have the broadband try a few live cd's and see which feel and look you prefer. To run a live cd you may have to go into the bios and change the boot order to cd first. Exact instructions on this vary on motherboard so it may be worth checking with the manufacturer or googling.

Good luck and I hope you find the desktop for you! By the way most can be configured to look exactly how you want ie theme changes, 3d acceleration via ATI propriatry drivers (there are howto's within this forum) so you can get wobbly windows and spinning desktops. But if you'd prefer a more minamalistic approach Xfce and LXDE are both light and ultra fast; leaving you to just enjoy the applications of your choice. Remember there are litterly thousands of applications in the repositories that you can add after you install; so you don't have to stick with the default ones.

NO, 3D is provided by MESA/RADEON, and is activated and functional right out of the box. Leave the horrid blob and use what actually works.

[screamin_jesus]

Originally Posted by hostace

For notebook best thing for using LXDE or XFCE. Should work properly.

Personally, I love gnome-shell on my notebook

@ OP I'd recommend trying a few livecd's and seeing which environment suits you. gnome, kde, xfce, lxde are all good but they have different audiences. Your apu is supported well with the default open source driver from what I've heard, but again you will want to try the live cd to make sure wireless/sound etc.. work alright. Even if they don't work out of the box its usually not too hard to get them working.

[Penguinclaw]

Originally Posted by droidhacker

NO, 3D is provided by MESA/RADEON, and is activated and functional right out of the box. Leave the horrid blob and use what actually works.

Thanks for that correction. I must admit I haven't owned an ATI card in ages so Sorry for the error. Nice it now works out of the box.

[Fenrin]

if you have APU + dedicated graphiccard make sure that you only use the APU under Linux and turn off the dedicated graphiccard. Otherwise it will heat up a lot.

Recently I read about a fedora user who had a notebook with Radeon APU. At first he didn't even know that in his notebook had a dedicated graphiccard too, but he wondered why the power consumption and heat was so high. And then he found out that he had to turn off the dedicated graphiccard.

The thread is somewhere in this forum I think, but it could be that it is a few weeks older.

The free Radeon driver should work pretty decent with this card. The proprietary driver has some advantatages, like better performance and efficiency, but as linux noob and for someone who doesn't play advanced games, and for people who use the newest Fedora releases it's generally better to use the default driver.