Zorin OS 15.3 Lite Display settings keep opening themselves

General Help
#1

Brand new to Linux, decided to upgrade my old laptop that was on Windows 7 to something that would work (it doesn't support Windows 10 because of the video card isn't supported by Microsoft in this latest version) First thing to help everyone, that laptop is a HP Pavilion DV7-4008ca AMD Vision 2.3GHZ 6GB RAM (upgraded from 4GB) 120GB SSD (also upgraded from a faulty 500GB HDD) Graphic card is ATI Radeon Mobility 5470.

Installed Zorin OS 15.3 Lite fine without any issues, but as soon as its installed, the display settings keep opening themselves over and over again, it even did this on the live testing version and I was expecting it would go away once properly installed, I did all the updates. but the problem is still there, if I boot into Windows 7, I don't have this issue obviously.

Do I need to install drivers from somewhere like for proper ATI support perhaps, I know nothing about Linux, I'm a 25 yrs windows veteran PC technical support, but exclusively on Windows.

#2

You mean those drivers are no longer working in the current version of Windows 10?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/amd-radeon-hd/ati-mobility-radeon-hd-5000-series/ati-mobility-radeon-hd-5470

#3

What are the contents of ~/.xsession-errors?

Are you using an external Monitor?

Can you please open a terminal and run xprop and then click on the Display Settings window. Some output will print in the terminal. Copy and paste that output here.

#4

I can't remember why but they wouldn't install on my latest attempt at the end of 2018, so I went back to Windows 7, but now that this system is very much unsupported, I wanted to try an alternative solution since I don't play games on that laptop, I don't need Windows on it.

#5

You're speaking Chinese to me, is a terminal something like windows dos prompt, I will try tomorrow when I have more free time to test stuff out. That laptop could also be at the end of its lifespan, I wish I could find a new one that would work out well, but my budget is around 150-200$, and none of the current laptops at these prices can run youtube at 720p or 1080p (I tested a few models and always had to return them)

#6

As you had the problem when running live testing, I would suspect the download or the USB media. If it were me I would do the download again, burn it to another USB drive (Zorin Lite could probably fit on a 4GB drive) and test it live. With Zorin 16 there is an automatic check of the download while running it, but not with Lite 15.

1 Like
#7

I really doubt its the download, I downloaded the release via a torrent and checked it with the checksum to make sure it would be accurate, the usb key is a brand new 64gb I plan to reuse for some other uses. I may recreate the media via Rufus and see what happens, but I suspect perhaps something is wrong with that laptop, normally a 720P video or 1080P video should play fine on a radeon 5470, but it struggles so much.

#8

Yes, the connection cable for the Monitor may be the problem.

#9

The monitor doesn't cause me any issues on Windows 7, maybe there's something else cause this only happens in Zorin OS, Tomorrow I'll try more troubleshooting, I may even install another distrib just to see, sometimes some specific hardware don't like a particular distrib of Linux. I like how Zorin is made, but if something better don't cause me any problems, I'm all in, the only main requirement is I need to be able to have a totally dark theme running and not just a high contrast style.

#10

Did someone say... Dark Theme? :slight_smile:

You may actually try reinstalling Zorin OS, as well. If switching to a different Distro is going to fix it (Though I doubt it). This is a rare and unusual thing to happen, but not entirely unheard of on hybrid AMD and Intel graphics. Disabling the discrete graphics usually halts the annoying popup.

#11

That is something I have to dig, I can't remember if I can disable one of the graphic card in the bios, I never had to do this on this unit, I'll have to dig to this, but since its an AMD CPU (AMD Vision) I suppose it can't be it, but we never know.

#12

It can be done with a grub parameter if you have dual graphics cards.

#13

You are losing me there, what is grub. Now that I'm on the laptop, I suspect none of the ati drivers of being installed, how can I tell if they are. I had to giveup once more that window poping over and over again got on my nerves, Tomorrow I'll try to install Ubuntu 12.04 which has drivers available for the card I have directly on AMD website, being an older version of Ubuntu, it should run fine on this laptop.

#14

Maybe you will enjoy that video that answers your question?

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#15

You got me there, ok, so its the thing that sits like in the MBR, and manage what can boot on the disk but for Linux

1 Like
#16

Correct!

And the one thing I didn't expect to happen, is that I would inadvertently post a video where the guy was speaking a different language. Makes you wonder why he was using an obvious English title?

But yes its basically your boot loader. I got a massive headache right now, I felt posting a link to a video was easier to explain the whole thing. And normally when I post a link to a video, its in English.

2 Likes
#17

What is the output of

lshw

#18

I thought you were joking with him!

3 Likes
#19

I am just guessing but is it not in Hindi?

I think we have some young ones on this forum who speak Hindi. They might find this video useful :slight_smile:

At least, it is not in Chinese nor Greek.
From: It's all Greek to me - Idioms by The Free Dictionary

(it's) (all) Greek to me

cliché This might as well be a foreign language, because I don't understand it at all. The phrase comes from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Can you make sense of these instructions? It's all Greek to me!

2 Likes
#20

That will teach me to actually check out the video first. I saw the title was English, even the freaking description was in English, talking about beginners guide or whatever. I assumed it was a great video for beginners.

Then many hours later, I discovered, after the fact, that I accidentally posted a link to a non English video. Suffice to say I emberessed myself. And since I've already been having a terrible week, that didn't help, my fault.

Anyways, got to move on at this point.

2 Likes