Prepare installation media
Base installation of Linux Mint
- Follow the standard Linux Mint installation procedure - choose timezone, partitions, username, password etc.
- Disconnect the installation media and reboot.
- Login using previously selected username and password.
ATI Catalyst video driver
- fglrx is a proprietary ATI Catalyst video driver that provides XvBA (X-video Bitstream Acceleration) support.
- WARNING!!! fglrx driver has been updated on 2015-05-19, from version 13.350 to 15.200. There is a bug or some incompatibility in the new package. Please blacklist new version until Ubuntu or ATI will release the fix. Create file /etc/apt/preferences.d/fglrx.13.350.pref
Package: fglrx*
Pin: release a=trusty
Pin-Priority: 1001
- Install fglrx driver and other required utilities with the command below:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates fglrx-amdcccle-updates xvba-va-driver vainfo
- Note: system reboot is required after the installation of the fglrx driver.
Kodi and VLC
- Kodi (formerly known as XBMC) and VLC are well known free and open-source multimedia players
- Both of them use GPU accelerated video decoding and give excellent playback quality
- Both of them compatible with the most popular video formats
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install kodi vlc
- Kodi will support GPU accelerated video decoding out of the box
- In VLC you need to check Tools->Preferences->Input and Codecs->Use GPU accelerated decoding checkbox to take advantage of GPU accelerated video decoding
Thermal monitoring
- Install tools for monitoring CPU and storage temperature
$ sudo apt-get install lm-sensors hddtemp
$ sensors
k10temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1: +60.9°C (high = +70.0°C)
(crit = +105.0°C, hyst = +104.0°C)
$ sudo hddtemp /dev/sda
/dev/sda: SanDisk SD6SF1M064G: 42°C
Aggressive Link Power Management (ALPM)
- It's a mechanism where a SATA controller can put the disk into a very low power mode during periods of zero I/O activity and into an active power state when work needs to be done. Tests show that this can save some power and decrease mSATA average temperature.
- Create text file /etc/pm/power.d/sata_alpm
#!/bin/sh
for i in /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/link_power_management_policy; do
echo min_power > $i
done
$ sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/power.d/sata_alpm
- Reboot, check that SATA power management policy has been changed
$ cat /sys/class/scsi_host/host*/link_power_management_policy
min_power
min_power