I have an ancient laptop at work with only 1GB ram and integrated graphics and it is running the Unity desktop without problems.

But, I cannot get Unity to run on my 3Ghz 4Gb Intel P4 DVR system?????

I am thinking that the problem is that I am still stuck with the Native Drivers?

lsmod indicates a "Radeon" module. But, it is not the ATI ?fxgl?...

I understand that Catalyst 8.x.x was the last Catalyst to support the ATI Radeon 9200 series.

But, I think I read somewhere that I can not use something that old with Unity.

Needless to say I am a bit miffed.

Note: I am a Linux Newbie, and I spent all day Sunday working through issues trying to get this setup to work.

Also Note: All the hardware including DVR/PVR (BeyondTV) works flawlessly in Windows XP sp3 fully patched.

Its not so much that unity wont support the 9200 8.X catalyst (closed) drivers, its xorg. No modern linux OS uses an xorg version old enough to install the 8.X catalyst drivers.

It is possible to use hardware as old as the 9200 with unity. It might even be possible with the 9200, but I'm not at all sure about that.

Personally, I dont know why you are that worried about unity. Why not just use Xfce, Lxde, KDE or even one of the *box versions?

I am thinking that the failure to run Unity may be indicative of why I haven't gotten the TV Tuner part of the card to work, yet.

That is, if the Native Drivers won't let my card run Unity...

What else can I *not* do with my card? Watch cable TV? Set a matching HD resolution when watching HD?

It's not Unity that I am missing... I kinda like the Menu System I've got.

It's just that, it appears, the native drivers do *not* give me the full capability of a Card that works flawlessly in Windows...

The drivers have nothing to do with Unity. The old drivers are not compatible to newer X.org versions. The free drivers should run well with the graphics part of that card.
The tuner part should have different drivers. Please post the output of so that we can see how the kernel sees that device.

The TV tuner may, or may not work under linux. I dont know if does right now, it used to with the GATOS drivers.

http://gatos.sourceforge.net/supported_cards.php

Since those drivers last got updated in 2005, I dont think they will work now....

If the tuner doesnt work, then you probably cant watch cable TV. 1920x1080 ('full HD') should work with the 9200, provided that your monitor supports that resolution.

I wouldnt be that suprised about that. ATI cut support for those cards in 2008.

Its not like running windows vista or win7 with that card will get you all the features of the card, linux versions are not the only 'modern' OS that would have issues with the 9200 AIW.