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I have an old Laptop (MSI MS1721) that I want to repurpose as a media player on my TV. I have installed an old SSD on with Linux Mint XFCE.

Almost everything works well, with only one exception. The laptop鈥檚 graphics card (ATI HD3850) requires proprietary drivers that haven鈥檛 been supported since Kernel 3.4. The replacement open-source drivers cause stuttering while playing videos, which makes it useless for my purposes.

Are there Linux distribution options out there that would fit my needs?

Edit After trying a wide array of distros including Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Lite, Linux MX, Bohdi, Linux Mint Debian Edition, Nobara, Debian XFCE and CachyOS, I was pleasantly surprised to see that CachyOS performed very well and still feels like a modern OS and runs surprisingly smoothly with KDE. It looks like the open source drivers do work decently after all depending on the distro you鈥檙e running and how well optimized they are for your CPU.

  • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4路
    9 months ago

    I am not a pro with Linux, so people are welcome to correct me, but these would seem to be the viable options.

    1. Try and find a Linux distro release that can run on the last Kernel 3.4 LTS release.
    2. Search for a workaround/fix for the stuttering and/or reach out to the developers of the open source driver for the 3850.
    • DaddleDew@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      4路
      9 months ago

      Thanks. I鈥檓 currently giving Ubuntu 14.04 LTS a try. Looks like it should work. We鈥檒l know once it鈥檚 installed.

  • actionjbone@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2路
    9 months ago

    Look up MX Linux. I don鈥檛 know if it鈥檒l specifically meet your needs, but it鈥檒l run on a toaster and I haven鈥檛 been able to break it.

  • MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1路
    9 months ago

    You might want to try AntiX - it鈥檚 specifically designed for older hardware and has good compatibility with legacy graphics drivers. it supports older kernels that might work with your ATI card, and it鈥檚 super lightweight which helps with video playback. I鈥檝e rescued a few ancient laptops with it.

  • glitching@lemmy.mlEnglish
    11路
    9 months ago

    off to recycling with that thing, that SSD is worth more than the whole machine. get a skylake or newer laptop with busted screen or malfunctioning keyboard or whatever that鈥檚 not a hindrance for your use case and it鈥檒l have full hardware acceleration and consume WAY less power and be future proof.

    if you鈥檙e adamant about running it, try mpv without DE/WM by way of framebuffer. I think Arch has some mpv build that enables that.