AMD HD8180 Graphics Driver for XP

[jaclaz]

5 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

@jaclaz

So, is that it, are we now done?

Yep, unless in the meantime something new has come out (or until something new come out) those were the cards we could play.

jaclaz 

[Dave-H]

Understood, I thought that would be the case.
I've left the driver installed but with the device disabled.
Thanks again for all your help!
I can manage OK with the basic Microsoft driver, in fact I've found it works quite a bit better if you switch off all the graphics acceleration functions.
The display refreshing when you drag windows about is noticeably better.
My main worry was that I would be limited to VGA level resolution, but that isn't the case, and it will do the native resolution of the netbook display, which is good.

As an off-topic aside, I finally bit the bullet and "upgraded" the Windows 8.1 installation on the netbook to Windows 10!
I got so fed up with various annoying issues on Windows 8.1, mainly things like the Offline Files system not working properly, that I decided to see if Windows 10 was better, and I did it for free so no problems there (I wonder how many people know that you can actually still do that?)
The machine seems to be performing much better with Windows 10!

Cheers, Dave.

[jaclaz]

Yep, as I see it:

Vista is a bettered XP, only worse
7 is a bettered Vista, actually better
8 is a bettered 7, only much, much worse
8.1 is a bettered 8, only worse
10[1] is a bettered (and bettered, and worsened and updated, and re-realeased and re-bettered and re-worsened) 8.1, actually better[2][3]

jaclaz

[1] thanks to continuous updates/changes you never know what you are actually running
[2] actually bettering 8.1 is kid's play
[3] though there is still a loooong way to get to the levels 7 reached.

[RainyShadow]

Well, since you're gone to 10... I see that the guys over at Linuxfx got a new release recently :P

Check if you'll like it. The LiveCD/USB is good enough for a preview.

Too bad that they don't do 32bit x86...

[Dave-H]

Is that a whole operating system?

Actually the netbook itself is 64 bit, I'm just running 32 bit operating systems on it.

[jaclaz]

8 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

Is that a whole operating system?

It is essentially an Ubuntu with Windows 10 themes/looks/UI (i.e. essentially the WORST part of 10):
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=linuxfx

with added (as compared to a normal Linux distro) a number of - BTW nice - features that noone, exception made for some geeks, will have an actual use for.

jaclaz

 

[RainyShadow]

20 minutes ago, jaclaz said:

It is essentially an Ubuntu with Windows 10 themes/looks/UI

I already fooled a few coworkers with it last week :D Not for long though.

btw. the etcher.io repository was failing back then, not sure if it was the server itself, or our overly-restrictive firewall. You might want to uncheck it if there are any errors with apt-get.

 

@Dave-H

If you're out of options currently, put aside couple GBs and try experimenting with a clean XP.

First check without updating Windows. If none of the drivers gives any hope of working, update as much as possible and try again.

Also, try without installing all the chipset drivers wherever possible.