Hello,
I wanted to share my recent distro test experience with my low end PC - Via Eden 1GHz CPU, Via VX800 chipset, Via Crome 9 HC GPU. Before I came to antiX I tested various Ubuntu based distros and found out that those which are based on Ubuntu 12.04. would run with openchrome graphics driver giving me a resolution of 1366x768, but those based on 14.04. would run only with vesa driver and a resolution of 1024x768. I tested some Arch based distros and they would run olny with vesa.
MX-14 runs nicely with openchrome and proper resolution on my machine and compared with LXLE which is the only alternative (Elive is another with even older repos and I don't like Enlightenment DE) with current development has newer software in its repositories.
Lately I tested some Debian based distros.
- Siduction 2014.11: boots into graphical live mode with vesa, installer runs from web browser (Chromium). After installing the distro on my secondary drive (a CF card) and installing openchrome (newest version from unstable) I got black sceen on reboot. I changed xorg.conf to vesa driver and the system booted into graphical session. Then I enabled Jessie and Wheezy repos and installed xorg-core from Jessie repos with all the other drivers pulled for reinstall as dependencies. Result: black sceen on reboot and setting xorg.conf to vesa doesn't heal this. Perhaps I should have installed video drivers from Wheezy repos, but now I need to do this from command line prompt.
- Semplice 7.0.1 current: boots into black screen from USB. Kernel parameters vga=normal, vga=ask, via.modeset=0, nomodeset, ... don't change nothing.
- Sparky Linux: same as Semplice.
- antiX 15: booted once into graphical seesion with vesa driver, but then I forgot the kernel parameters which did it. I guess it wont work with opernchrome neither.
- Kali Linux: same as Semplice.
- HandyLinux: same thing.
- Debian Wheezy Live CD: boots into graphical live session with openchrome driver and proper resolution hence.
- Elive: same as Wheezy, but older repos.
Here you can check the versions of openchrome in Debian:
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So, I once again must say that I'm very thankful that I can run a high qualitiy distro which MX-14 is on my low-end machine!

Yeah, openchrome can be problematic with newer kernels and newer xorg. As I found out helping another user on another forum getting his box to a working graphical session on another forum.


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so i kind of know your hard work trying to get to working desktop.
Thanks for sharing. Because. Now it will be easier to help others with your chip get going in Linux and also good to know we have a new member with this hardware setup that can help others get going also.

Howdy and Welcome to AntiX. __{{emoticon}}__

Thanks, rokytnji!
You are right, my posts about this Via VX800 should be helpful to others. I can remember how I was looking for solutions and almost didn't find even any hints. Now when I search the web for this chipset I find my own posts. __{{emoticon}}__
Well, I've just borked my Siduction on CF card trying to install Wheezy version of xserver-xorg-core. It wasn't very difficult to get all the dependecies fulfilled, I just had to remove all SystemD stuff and some other important things. __{{emoticon}}__ But the system wasn't usable after that. __{{emoticon}}__
I'll try some other things, Robolinux, SolydX, Point Linux perhaps. I could also try antiX 14.
I'm really interested to find out what is the cause of success or failure of openchrome on VX800.
Oh, I didn't mention that I tried once to compile the proprietary Via driver, but the code asks for virtual packages which origins I coundn't find with web search.
Your link to Phoronix article gives some hope, but not much. At least Debian Wheezy and MX-14 have some lifetime yet so I will be able to enjoy Linux on my minimalistic computer.

Might help with the siduction issue. Or not. Your posts are not the only one on the web.


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Thanks, rokytnji! I went through 4 pages of google search results, clicked on some, but found only bull***. It looks like noone got it right how to boot into live environment. It works with via.modeset=0 AND vga=ask (then v). If you are booting a Wheezy based distro it works, otherwise you get dark screen. At least with my machine. And after installation it doesn't reaaly need any xorg.conf file, but it helps a bit perhaps. Otherwise the bootloader would search a bit longer for a suitable configuration but will find it finally.
I'm writing now from live mode of a distro called GALPon MiniNo. Very cute, LXDE, Galician origin. I loaded version 2.1 , it works with my boot parameters.
Before that I tried Point Linux based on Jessie and it failed as expected.

And I'm asking myself one thing: Is it possible to upgrade to Jessie while keeping xserver-xorg drivers from Wheezy? __{{emoticon}}__

I've just verified that Debian 7.8 boots into live session and recognizes the openchrome driver yielding good resolution, while Debian 8.1 boots into a black screen with a white minus in the top left corner. I'm having so much fun! __{{emoticon}}__
Now I want to try how Linux BBQ Popcorn works with Via VX800 and openchrome.

Update: Popcorn didn't run, because xorg version 1.14

I've tested Linux BBQ LXDE"Elitist" from 2013, it has xorg version 1.12.4 and runs on my machine. It ist very well made, it behaves actually like a real professional distro, not like othe BBQ spins which simply fail to let you shutdown as user. __{{emoticon}}__ I found out that xorg 1.14.5 like in Semplice 6 wouldn't run anymore. But I guess, if I need current LXDE it would be enough to install Debian 7.8 and only upgrade LXDE stuff while holding back xserver stuff. Am I right? __{{emoticon}}__

I've just checked that SparkyLinux 3.2 doesn't boot into graphical session. In command line session I checked getting 1.14.5 as output. Now downloading SparkyLinux 3.1, should be version 1.12.4

eugen-b wrote:I've tested Linux BBQ LXDE"Elitist" from 2013, it has xorg version 1.12.4 and runs on my machine. It ist very well made, it behaves actually like a real professional distro, not like othe BBQ spins which simply fail to let you shutdown as user. __{{emoticon}}__ I found out that xorg 1.14.5 like in Semplice 6 wouldn't run anymore. But I guess, if I need current LXDE it would be enough to install Debian 7.8 and only upgrade LXDE stuff while holding back xserver stuff. Am I right? __{{emoticon}}__

My uneducated guess is that your assumption is right. Newer version of Xorg and older semi-maintained open source driver driver developers do not talk or work well together. Hence the user with older gear suffers and vesa is the only option besides maybe frame buffer to get a working gui going in the newer Xorg vs using a Open Source named drive like Sis, Savage, Openchrome, etc......

Just a uneducated opinion/conclusion drawn from what I have been seeing. These older drivers are maintained as a hobby by one dude from what I read, and Xorg is a group so one is able to draw their conclusions starting from that.

Your explanation perfectly makes sense. It puts my testing experience somewhat into context of what is going on in the upstream development.
I am writing now from SparkyLinux 3.1 having openchrome and xorg-core 1.12.4-6.2 running the graphical session. Looks nice a bit too much software for me.

Now I would like to make the following experiment: Install one of these LXDE distros on my CF card, either Debian 7.8 or LinuxBBQ"Elitist" or SparkyLinux 3.1 and then upgrade but hold back all xserver packages. My goal is to run LXDE version 0.99 as my secondary OS besides MX-14. It is not a crucial choice as I can experiment with my CF card. But what would you - or others are welcome to comment, too - suggest to do and what pitfalls to be aware of?

I'v just for fun installed wattOS 8 based on Wheezy on my CF card. Works sluggish on kernel 3.13, but quite well on kernel 3.16. Looks nice, not much software preinstalled, updated ok to xserver-xorg-core 2:1.12.4-6+deb7u6. An update to LXDE 0.99.0 from Jessie would require higher xserver version (as I found out on Siduction) and therefore would be a bad idea. My conclusion: any other distro than MX-14 that would run on my Via box has less choice and less (or at best equally) up-to-date packages and therefore there is no reason to switch to it or to add it.

So, I've got an idea to install LXDE as a second DE besides Xfce on MX-14. I'll search the forum how to do it and ask in a separate topic if I'll have some problems.

Just use the MX Package Installer, way too easy. Then select from the login menu (Session). I've never tried, so will be interested in how it goes and what it looks like when you are done. If you have the time and interest to start a thread about it, that would be great.

Jerry wrote:Just use the MX Package Installer, way too easy. Then select from the login menu (Session). I've never tried, so will be interested in how it goes and what it looks like when you are done. If you have the time and interest to start a thread about it, that would be great.

I tested LDXE as an additional session. The result is not that good, but it works in principle. First I installed install-meta-mx from Synaptic then installed lxde with it. Before that I made a btrfs snapshot which I'm glad to be able to use now. I put a screenshot and some explanations in my screenshots thread: mx-14-with-reddish-numix-theme-and-manjaro-s-maia-icon-theme-t5883.html
I could try some more troubleshooting, but it isn't woth it at the moment.

Instead I have a different idea to test: It should be possible to add a second installation into a btrfs subvolume. I would have two different root subvolumes on one partition and would choose which to boot with Grub2 menu.

The result is not that good, but it works in principle.

I find the result just fine: menu is good, bottom panel is set up. It's just waiting for the user to make it his own with normal additions such as a new desktop, etc.

First I installed install-meta-mx from Synaptic then installed lxde with it.

No need to do that: like I said, just use MX Package Installer, which is already there.