Can Puppy use Radeon HD 3450 in elitebook 6930p?

[Dingo]

Woof Woof! I'm planning to buy an elitebook 6930p with following specs:

Unfortunately, this model has not an Intel GMA as gpu, but an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450

I should have found the ATI driver located here:
https://drivers.eu/Video/ATI/Radeon%20H ... x%20x86_64

But without ATI drivers, is Puppy able to turn on xorg server or not? I ever had gpu intel on my pc so I have no experience

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HP EliteBook 6930p Notebook Laptop  
CPU	2.66 -GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Operating System	MS Windows 10
RAM	4GB
RAM Upgradable to	8GB
Hard Drive Size	320GB
Hard Drive Speed	7,200rpm
Hard Drive Type	SATA Hard Drive
Display Size	14.1
Native Resolution	1280x800
Optical Drive	DVD+/-RW DL
Optical Drive Speed	8X
Graphics Card	ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450
Video Memory	256MB
Wi-Fi	802.11a/b/g/draft-n
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 2.0
Ports (excluding USB)	Microphone
Ports (excluding USB)	Headphone
Ports (excluding USB)	Firewire
Ports (excluding USB)	Ethernet
Ports (excluding USB)	VGA
Ports (excluding USB)	Modem
USB Ports	3
Card Slots	2-1 card reader
Card Slots	ExpressCard
Warranty/Support	30days
Size	13.0 x 9.6 x 1.2 inches

[bigpup]

All of the newer and newest Puppy versions have the generic drivers for ATI, Nvidia, and Intel graphics hardware.
So, all brands are supported.
The generic drivers are good and give general good features.
So, should be no problem booting to a working desktop and doing stuff.

The ATI Radeon and Nvidia Noveau drives are not as complete on features as the actual manufactures drivers.
But, those you can install and use after you get Puppy running.

The Intel driver is already all you can get for Linux to run Intel graphics hardware.

I know yours is not one of these laptops, but if you decide to buy one.
Laptops that have an Intel processor, with integrated Intel graphics, and also an additional ATI or Nvidia graphics GPU, are not fully supported by Puppy.
Those setups are designed for Intel graphics to do normal stuff and when high demand graphics is required, auto switch to the ATI or Nvidia hardware.
Puppy does not have the support software to do this auto switching.
So, Puppy uses the Intel graphics all the time and never switches.

So far I have seen nobody using Puppy with this laptop setup try to get the auto switching to work.
Maybe someone has and can post info about how to do it.

[Dingo]

Do you are aware of possible overheating issues with generic driver modules inluded in linux kernel for ATI? I may have read something of this kind but I don't remember precisely if I remember right or not

[rcrsn51]

This is an old Core2Duo machine, so it's going to run hotter than modern machines anyway. But that just means that the fan will be on a lot. I doubt if Radeon graphics will change that much.

[Dingo]

This is an old Core2Duo machine, so it's going to run hotter than modern machines anyway. But that just means that the fan will be on a lot. I doubt if Radeon graphics will change that much.

My tipycal usage will be for daily tasks like openoffice/ browsing web, using sodipodi, mtpaint, graphicsmagick and so on... And for compiling tasks from lighter to heavierr like building QT5 static programs from source. If you have better cheap recomendations I'm interested. I looked at Elitebook 6930p due to its magnesium case I really liked in another elitebook (8470p) that I had to return because it do not booted if not from hard drive or lan (something having to do with BIOS that listed no USB or dvd drive even if selected in BIOS config)

[bigpup]

You do not have to answer.
But how much money you willing to spend on computer?
Where are you getting it from?

[Dingo]

You do not have to answer.
But how much money you willing to spend on computer?
Where are you getting it from?

No more than 170 euro (about 200 US dollars). I would buy from eBay Italy (I currently live in this country). Having USB 3.0 ports would be a bonus for external backups with rsync, but I can live without. The fundamental thing is puppy compatibility. I use puppy since 2007 and no other distro fits to me, so I trust in puppy Linux long term users for recommendations.

[bigpup]

I have never read anyone not being able to get some version of Puppy working on a specific computer.

only laptop setup I would not recommend is one with processor integrated graphics and a separate graphics GPU hardware.
Puppy is just not setup to run both graphic GPU's.
Puppy will work ,but only use the integrated processor GPU.

By what you want to do.
Processor ability.
Amount of RAM, more the better.
Are your main issues.

[01101001b]

you are aware of possible overheating issues with generic driver modules inluded in linux kernel for ATI?

No problem whatsoever. I recently bought an E1-6010 with Radeon R2 Graphics. AMD has driver support just for wind*ws but radeon driver (or amdgpu driver) in kernel (or in module) works amazingly well (I've played a couple of games with no problem).

The only remaining detail in my case is I can't still figured out how to change screen resolution but it's just a matter of time

[peterm321]

Since I my computer is a desktop, I can't vouch for differences to a laptop.

What I can say is that the Radeon driver in Puppy Tahr seems to
handle the Radeon X300 (128MB) graphics fairly well, however for
3D acceleration I read that the proprietary Radeon driver is better.

xrandr/xrandrshell can switch resolutions though I nearly always
remain in the native resolution 1280x1024.

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