Re: [tlug] Need purchasing advice for a linux compatible desktop

[Edward Middleton <edward@example.com>]

Godwin Stewart wrote:
> Personally, I couldn't care less about 3D performance and gaming, so I
> stick with ATI Radeon 9x00 cards. The one in this box is a generic Radeon
> 9200SE (RV280) job which does everything I want it to.
>
> Matrox cards are also supported by the kernel and by X as a general rule.
>   
While I generally agree that Matrox's are good, don't get anything
slightly different unless you know it has good working drivers.  I got
burnt with a Matrox g450 eTV because I assumed that the TV functionality
would be supported by the drivers, Matrox decided that they weren't
going to support this functionality under Linux.  The end result was
that TV functionality was only possible if you loaded some hackish
matrox_fb drivers which conflicted in various ways with the X drivers.
> They are, however, a bit more expensive than your bog standard ATI Radeon.
>   
While I don't like binary drivers, I went with an nvidia for my current
system because even with no 3D acceleration the card works fine and they
are cheap.

Edward