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Your rightYour rightPosted Nov 14, 2006 20:18 UTC (Tue) by Felix_the_Mac (subscriber, #32242)In reply to: Users need help choosing their computers by rknop Parent article: Resisting the binary blob
I am hoping to get a new system and am currently trying to figure out what the best graphics solution is using Free drivers; And as you say it is not easy.
Can X run the 3D desktop? Is Y faster than X when using free drivers? etc. etc.
If anybody can point me to a decent site I would be grateful.
But I think we need a 'Linux Hardware Quality Labs' that can test and certify hardware and give certification and logos.
(Log in to post comments)
Your right Posted Nov 15, 2006 4:42 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Intel is the only company that supports Free software video drivers.
These are supported by Free software drivers:
The GMA 3000 and x3000 are relatively new and drivers are relatively immature at this point.
ATI cards older then x1000 (the R500 series) are supported by Free software drivers. R200, R300, R400 ATI cards are supported by Free software drivers for the most part.
Supported:
Supported:
Supported:
They are basic drivers. Probably give 40-60% the performance of ATI propriatory drivers. They are fairly reliable. There are certain models that aren't well supported..
See also:
Cards to avoid.
ATI, no open source support for 3d OR 2d.
Avoid all Nvidia cards. No open source support for 3d.
Prefereably for best compatability you want to get a Intel motherboard with 945g chipset. If you need better performance then that then get a R420 series ATI card, probably a PCIE x800. Those are decently supported by free software drivers and should work out of the box on most recently released distro versions.
The GMA x3000 in the 965g will probably be attractive also, but aren't to common yet.
Graphics nightmare Posted Nov 16, 2006 5:41 UTC (Thu) by rakoenig (subscriber, #29855) [Link] If the recommondation is "buy an Intel GMA" then this means: Buy a system with an Intel CPU based on an Intel Chipset. I'm working at a computer manufacturer and I know that there are a lot of customers, that want to buy non-Intel products because of pricing issues or just because they don't want an Intel monopoly on the market.
Those people don't have any option to get free 3D graphics support. Intel graphic is always on mainboards, but there is no PCIe plugin card that offers a graphic chip fully supported by free drivers.
The main manufactureres for graphic cards are ATI, Matrox and nVidia (alphabetically) where Matrox has a low market share. nVidia is evil by default because there is no free GPL driver available. ATI has some free drivers for older cards, but they won't fit into todays systems that come with PCIe slots instead of AGP.
The main problem why both ATI and nVidia refuse to GPL their drivers are IP issues I think. I doubt that releasing a graphics driver under the GPL will make it easier for somebody to "pirate" the hardware, but there is a high risk that one firm or the other has a software patent that is violated by the driver of the other party. In the long run the price of software patents is that we need to give up our freedom.
I'd love to run a machine with free software only, but I wouldn't like a monopoly of just one vendor. So I have to go with proprietary code even if its a pain in the ass. Sad, but there is too little market share of Linux overall to put pressure on the vendors.
Graphics nightmare Posted Nov 16, 2006 12:49 UTC (Thu) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link] What about VIA? Their EPIA boards have onboard graphics which I think is their own, rather than intel's. The drivers are free. No doubt it's performance is weedy in comparison to the 3 main manufacturers, but for many applications (perticularly the multimedia the boxes often target) it is quite good enough.
So you can buy non-intel computers with free graphics. Still on-board, admittedly, and not at the high-performance end of things. Those people need to follow drag's advice on which cards have free drivers.
Graphics nightmare Posted Nov 16, 2006 12:55 UTC (Thu) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link] Oh bollocks - a grocer's apostrophe in public <FX: hangs head in shame>.
Graphics nightmare Posted Nov 16, 2006 15:56 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] > ATI has some free drivers for older cards, but they won't fit into todays systems that come with PCIe slots instead of AGP.
You can buy new R9250 (r200) cards in both PCI and AGP.
Granted, their current-gen X1k stuff has zero opensource support, but even those are available in both PCI and AGP form factors too.
> I'd love to run a machine with free software only, but I wouldn't like a monopoly of just one vendor. So I have to go with proprietary code even if its a pain in the ass. Sad, but there is too little market share of Linux overall to put pressure on the vendors.
My laptop has only free drivers on it, including for the Radeon board. It does everything I need it to do.
Your right Posted Nov 16, 2006 21:23 UTC (Thu) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] I've long been a loyal user of AMD's 64-bit CPUs, but Intel's combination of first-class support forFree Software integrated video and top-notch performance from their new CPUs is making me reconsider. Unless this situation changes, I'll be building my next system with Intel Inside, for the first time in... In Ever, actually. (I think my first home-built system used a Cyrix CPU. :-))
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