Hi,
Thanks everybody for all the useful mails about open source/binary drivers. My original point was:
1)I'm running X on a laptop with an ATI card (for which there must be some sort of open source driver, since X works without fglrx). 2)ATI has dropped support for my graphics card in the latest releases of their driver (the laptop was not even 3 years old, when it happened) 3)The last fglrx supporting my card does not work with the latest version of the kernel 4)Because of that, I cannot use the S-Video output any more (there is a driver called GATOS, but I've never managed to make it work) 5)I don't want it to happen again with the PC I'm about to buy.
From all the mails, and some goggleing, I've understood that Intel
produces cards that are fully supported by Linux, while nVidia's are better (if you use a binary only driver).
Since I want to
1) watch movies 2) watch movies on an external TV via DVI or S-Video (e.g. BBC HD, from a DVB-T card) 3) not much else
I think Intel is good enough.
Mario Rossi wrote:
Hi,
Thanks everybody for all the useful mails about open source/binary drivers. My original point was:
1)I'm running X on a laptop with an ATI card (for which there must be some sort of open source driver, since X works without fglrx).
...
From all the mails, and some goggleing, I've understood that Intel
produces cards that are fully supported by Linux, while nVidia's are better (if you use a binary only driver).
However, Intel does not sell add-on cards. It only makes graphics devices that are pre-installed on motherboards. (The ADD2 card that I mentioned allows you to add a DVI port, but the graphics processor is still on the motherboard.)
You only choices are ATI and nvidia, for your laptop. (Are you sure the graphics system on your laptop can be replaced? I didn't think they could do that - I avoid laptops as much as possible, so I could be wrong.)
Personally, I've had better results (easier installation) with nvidia products than with ATI ones.
There are open-source and closed-source drivers available for both types of cards. The open-source ones are easier to install (Fedora should use them automatically, to start), but the closed-source binary ones have much better performance.
If all else fails, use the bare-bones "vesa" driver - but forget about movies.
It's all a little too complicated :-(
Hope this helps!
- Mike