On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 21:03:11 -0800 (PST), Lin Tse Hsu <evfreek(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Markku Kolkka <markkukolkka(a)kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> Are you an antiques collector, or do you have any
> other sensible
> reason for wasting time and money on obsolete
> graphics hardware?
>
The computer is an old Dell without an AGP slot. I
had always heard that Linux tends to run better than
Windows on older hardware. Also, the very new
hardware often has more bugs associated with it.
Note that these cards are all listed on
www.tldp.org
as supported, and they all are recognized and
configured. It is just that some don't work, and
others are unstable to varying degrees.
>
> Yes, get a video card that's currently manufactured.
> The X
> developers aren't likely to spend much effort on
> developing
> drivers for ancient cards.
>
> --
There also seem to be a lot of bug reports for newer
cards, especially ATI or Nvidia (like the ATI Rage 128
problem). Does this mean that if I try one of the
listed cards that are currently manufactured, as long
as I steer clear of the ones in the FAQ.
And, I think that you meant "maintaining" rather than
"developing" drivers, since all the drivers for the
cards I have tried have already been developed. They
appear in the hardware compatibility lists, and they
appear in the README's for xorg, but, they may be
"less" supported due to age. This makes sense, but
buying 5 different modern cards and having them all
fail is an expensive proposition. Perhaps I will try
just one.
Are there any suggestions for a PCI video card which
is "more" rather than "less" supported? All the ones
at the store seem to be AGP cards.
I'd suggest a GeForce4 MX 440 or MX 4000. I have a 440 and a 440 Go
(laptop) and they both work great with the nVidia binary drivers. You
can find both AGP and PCI versions for not too much. Check out
www.newegg.com Looks like you can get one there for about $50. You
can also search for cards with PCI interface to see all of what is
there. I have only had experience with nVidia, but it looks like the
ATI cards are about the same price. A GeForce2 MX400 and a Radeon
7000 are a little less expensive, but not much. The MX 400 should be
fine, maybe someone who has had experience can tell you about the
Radeon 7000.
Jonathan