MX-18 Users Manual: Review (S3)

[Stevo]

It also seems we need to add a section for hybrid graphics users, such as Bumblebee for Optimus and whatever the AMD equivalent is, since many laptops are coming with this now, and they often mistakenly follow the directions for primary Nvidia cards. Since I guess I've somehow become the Bumblebee guru here, I'll write a quick guide tomorrow, which is made much easier by inxi and ddm-mx's automation.

Do we have anybody with hybrid AMD graphics?

[Jerry3904]

Thanks, I certainly couldn't write it!

BTW: I did not intend for the very busiest Devs to take this review up. There are others among the 29 Devs who have a lot less MX on their plate, not to mention a zillion users.

[Jerry3904]

I think a mention of the system-keyboard tool, and the fact that you can select both locale and keyboard from the login menu, just in folks miss every other opportunity to set them up.

Had not even considered those, thanks. I have added and renumbered (grr!) images, and have started to think about what text to put.

I see there is no Help file associated with Keyboard or Locale, and the Help button on its screen gives a message about selecting the keyboard of this machine that is not much help... Will return to this after I finish going through this thread and Karen is ready for me to start fiddling with the Wiki again.

BTW: Dedoimedo made some comment about "Locales" IIRC in his recent Tools article that we should look at.

[Jerry3904]

It also seems we need to add a section for hybrid graphics users, such as Bumblebee for Optimus and whatever the AMD equivalent is, since many laptops are coming with this now, and they often mistakenly follow the directions for primary Nvidia cards. Since I guess I've somehow become the Bumblebee guru here, I'll write a quick guide tomorrow, which is made much easier by inxi and ddm-mx's automation

Thanks. I need that as soon as you can get it to me.

[dolphin_oracle]

I think a mention of the system-keyboard tool, and the fact that you can select both locale and keyboard from the login menu, just in folks miss every other opportunity to set them up.

Had not even considered those, thanks. I have added and renumbered (grr!) images, and have started to think about what text to put.

I see there is no Help file associated with Keyboard or Locale, and the Help button on its screen gives a message about selecting the keyboard of this machine that is not much help... Will return to this after I finish going through this thread and Karen is ready for me to start fiddling with the Wiki again.

BTW: Dedoimedo made some comment about "Locales" IIRC in his recent Tools article that we should look at.

keyboard and locale are basically the built-in routines for the keyboard-setup and locales packages that you get when you run dpkg-reconfigure $package_name

adding any buttons is going to mean actually building a full app.

[Jerry3904]

Sorry, I just want a Help file without app link, like we do for a few others

[Jerry3904]

S3 uploaded, and now included with the Beta version of the Users Manual that has just been released.

Thanks again for help received.

[georgeogoodman]

I have an HP Pavilion Power laptop which has hybrid graphics (Intel + AMD Radeon 500 Series). The degree to which I've dealt with the hybrid nature of the beast is that I order the "provider offloadsink" so the Radeon is first in that list and then set the "DRI_PRIME" environment variable before starting an app/game I want to use the Radeon. For example, I have a script in ~/bin/runFirestormWithAMD.sh that does the following to start the Firestorm SecondLife viewer:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
# runFirestormWithAMD -- start the SL viewer ensuring that the AMD graphics are used
xrandr --setprovideroffloadsink "Radeon 500 Series @ pci:0000:01:00.0" modesetting
DRI_PRIME=1 /opt/firestorm-install/firestorm

[Jerry3904]

Is this something you propose for adding to the Users Manual Section 3? It sounds more like a Wiki entry to me without knowing more...

[georgeogoodman]

Actually, I was responding to Stevo's inquiry for anyone who has an Intel/AMD hybrid setup. At first thought, the user manual might best contain a pointer to the wiki where there could be multiple examples and -- hopefully -- something more accessible to random users than my approach.