All,

I'm out shopping for a new laptop. I see some with ATI onboard graphics. I am used to Intel's D855GM. My only question is if I will get decent resolution and/or DVD playback on a newer laptop (assuming 2GHz+ dual core processor, 4GB RAM, etc) if I use the in-kernel drivers for everything. I only ask because I'm not a fan of "extra steps", i.e. of the binary drivers. They're ok but they're not for me. Anyone have any experiences to share with the kernel ATI drivers? Thanks!

Hello TwinReverb,

I got a similar laptop last week with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD3470 (not onboard). X-Window does not work out of the box with this ATI-Card (I got peculiar colors). But I got the Atidriver from the Ati-Site
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...x86.x86_64.run
and installation was no Problem. Just as root run

aticonfig --initial -f

after the installation. If you do not want to install a binary driver, be sure to test the laptop before you buy it.

Markus

AMD/ATI are moving in the right direction by releasing specifications/documentation for their chips to the open source community. The X.org ati/radeon drivers may not be quite ready yet, but a little down the line there's hope that they'll be good enough that the proprietary drivers are not needed, which will be a significant advantage over nvidia who show no signs of remaining anything but closed.

I'm considering an ati solution for my next purchase for this reason. Hell, I'm even tempted to go all out and get an AMD CPU too.

Hi, I have an XT1800 on my slack and to make 3D working with the open driver I had to compile the latest libdrm 2.4.1 and the Mesa 7.2 ..wich of course are not even in current atm ( and for a good reason ).

If I were in your shoes, I'd stick with Nvidia... It "just works"...

As mentioned, current Slack doesn't have support for quite a few new cards. intel, ati or otherwise. Not only that, alot of things have to go right with libdrm/mesa/udev to get dri working under latest xorg (which isn't even in current so a non-issue). Huge pain in the ass.

I upgraded to an HD3850 that replaced an XFX 7800GS. I'm really missing the nvidia card. There's the whole userspace libdrm headers moved to the kernel issue (not stable yet). GEM is brand new and subject to radical change. Everything is up in the air right now. I guess I consider myself lucky that radeon, ati and radeonhd work with Xorg 7.4.... No direct rendering tho. The official ATI drivers just locks up my box with a black screen. Looking at the ATI changelog, it took them a year and a half to add support for the 3850 AGP. Completely unaceptable.

Anyway.. Do what you want. I'd be prepared to recompile many pieces of Xorg if you go with ATI or intel tho.

There's really nothing wrong with closed source on Linux. Not if the proprietary drivers work a huge portion of the time. It's when you start running into companies like ATI/AMD who have (and probably always will) "suck", for a lack of a better word, in the linux arena. There is a dire need for ATI to release specifications because they are incapable of developing their own driver in a timely and consistent manner.

Nvidia, on the other hand, has always been on top of their game. The only reason ATI got my money is that they are still catering to AGP folk who game under windows. When I upgrade to an i7 box this year, it will be running Nvidia. Period.

My notebook has an NVIDIA card, and I use the drivers for it. No real problems here. There is only one minor annoyance, is that after installing the driver xorg.conf gets a little bit messy. I have to refer to my non-nvidia xorg.conf for the settings to my touchpad and keyboard and have to dig my way through what the nvidia driver has replaced. I guess thats the only draw back with those kinds of drivers. xorg.conf is just not recognizable anymore. That was the only thing I liked about ATI. I could just call the driver by uncommenting certain things. Load dri , Load drm, Load ati, and way at the bottom uncomment Section DRI, mode 0666, EndSection, and thats it! No mess.

I am running an ATI on my old desktop. Full DRI, and it is the standard xorg.conf.

like what was said with the libdrm and mesa upgrade it worked well for quite some time. then I noticed tearing in sections of the screen(this is with dual monitors, and not noticed in clone mode or seperate displays). So for me I went back with the ati drivers.

But I really need to understand this:

You use Slackware and do not want to have to use extra steps? You lost me with that one. Slack is the barebone and then you add "these" perks. As opposed from most where you have to take them away. Building the binary driver is a piece of cake, seriously!

Thanks for the responses. Based on this, I am going to get a laptop with Intel onboard graphics, because they truly "Just Work" (tm).