Need a Video Card for Linux
 

I recently rebuilt my computer with a Gigabyte 970A-DS3 motherboard, AMD FX and a Diamond Radeon HD 6450 video card. Works fine with Windows, but all attempts to install Linux (openSuSe 12, others) had a garbled screen. Installing Radeon Linux drivers seem to make it worse. (computer ran through 12-16 drivers downloaded from manufacturer, rejected all.)

Type of distortion (before driver replacement) was 20 vertical bars across screen, alternating dark & light, very noisy. Sometimes it was possible to make out the normal text in the background, but only in the lighter bars. This was the SuSe setup screens. Text appeared normal, setup options could be made, but the final setup was never loaded to hard drive.

The Linux drivers seemed to eliminate the bars, but still showed lots of snow in various colors. These were displayed while the drivers were being tested by the computer, all were rejected by the computer.

Seems to be a video card problem. It was "brand new" in the box from Fry's, but too many "unopened" items from Fry's turn out to be someone else's returns.

What video cards are known to work well with Linux? This is a business computer, no fancy gaming features needed.

Thanks

You can see the state of open source drivers here. While I have no clue how it works in SuSe, in Ubuntu-like distros you can install proprietary drivers using package management, no download and install by hand required.
For business Intel graphics work great, for superior 3D performance and video hardware decoding nVidia is hard to beat.

Hello

I'll go along with what Emerson said and add that I've not had any issues at all with the dozen or so nVidia cards that I've run under Linux over the years.

What do you mean by "rejected by the computer"?

You say that the card works well in Windows - this probably means that the card itself is ok, but you should try benchmarking it, and if it gives corrupted images during stress-test, it is defective.

The 5xxx and newer AMD cards works quite well now with the current fglrx drivers (13.1 stable right now).
I used for a couple of days a A4-3400 APU and ran just fine with Debian (it has a built in HD 6410D video). Now i have an A8-5500 with 7560D built in video and it works perfectly well (note that i use xfce DE with no desktop effects, but games run just fine on it). Also before i used nvidia exclusively and the IGP i have now runs just as stable as the nvidia card before it.

Linux drivers
 

Thanks for the help with drivers. Next timeI try to install Linux, I'll go there for drivers.

What I meant by "rejected by the computer" -- This was Diamond Radeon drivers I downloaded from Diamond. When I uploaded them to my computer, I saw a series of 12-16 screens, all very snowy, in various near-white tints. Then there was a message like "none found." Maybe I was supposed to click on one, I don't know.

I see you have decided to do it the hard way, in case you get tired of breaking and fixing your box, here's the easy way.

It's Not so easy...
 

..I don't have Linux installed yet. When I do, I will certainly try these drivers.

Right now I'm gathering information so my next Linux installation will work the first tine.

Thanks for your help. It looks good to me.

Bobdi

I don't want to be one of those "soap box persons", but in my opinion I would avoid using Nvidia due to there stubborn in providing driver source to the Linux community. There are binary drivers that work with many distros. But the nature of the proprietory drivers can make things rough going if you get off the beaten trail. Things seams to go smoothly with the ATI/AMD video cards that I have bought over the years.

Thank you. I believe the problem is in my MB, because of another problem as well as previous helpful posts here. I have ordered a new MB, a smaller Gigabyte with a built-in video, which is whatI wanted in the first place. What I have now is what I had to settle with in a store that had what I wanted on display but not in stock, and even the MB I had to settle for was open box.

Bro google it and choose the best card according your p.c

Trying again
 

Deciding there were problems with my Mobo, I am preparing to add openSuse with a new Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3. This is a 64-bit micro-ATX AMD board with a built-in video, brand new. My previous failure, fine with Windows XP & 7, but inop with Suse. Hopelessly garbled video in Linux 64-bit, fine with XP & 7 at 32 bit.
I've noted since that some video cards were rated for 32-bit only with Linux. I didn't see that in my Radeon board, but suspect that was the cause of my garbled video with Suse 64-bit, but was ok with Windows 32-bit.
There were other problems that I associated with the board, mainly printing to my printer connected with ethernet to the router. Although the router showed proper connections, the only was I could print was by sending the data to my laptop (through the router), and then print from the laptop. That's with all OSs.

Are there any suggestions before I install the new mobo and a WD 500GB drive that will be only for the Suse?

The mobo says it's a Windows board, but can run Linux. No mention of 32/64 bit problems

Any suggestions before I do it, probably next week..??

Your mobo hes a radeon 3000 integrated card. That works only with the open source driver that is included in Linux. Ideally you need the newest kernel and mesa to make it work best. I dont know what kernel and mesa has Suse bundles in.
Also make sure you have the radeon firmwares installed.

I really doubt that the printing issue has to do with your mobo specifically since it is done via ethernet (which, i suppose, its working). Make sure you have the correct IP address of the printer (best is to use a fixed ip address on it, the vendor specific auto configurations sometimes dont work as they should) and have no firewalls to block the connections to it.

I didnt hear of any 32-bit only video card support on Linux and i dont believe there is such thing. All drivers can be compiled on any architecture. Sometimes you have to install some 32 bit libraries on 64-bit systems to make certain stuff work (such as the proprietary fglrx/nvidia drivers), but nonetheless they do work.

In your case the hd3000 card is supported by the proprietary fglrx 'legacy' amd driver ONLY if the X server version is 1.12 or older.

DO NOT rely only on vendor-provided information (which is usually lacking in detail) when checking for Linux compatibility. Do your own research. From experience i can tell you that most (in my case 100%) mobos do work with Linux, the newer ones sometimes require a newer kernel (such as mine, the sound works correctly with kernel at 3.6 and newer).

Thanks for your help. I've printed this entire string, and I'll be referring to it when I try to install Linux again, probably openSuse again.

There are other reasons to suspect the mobo, probably too much to go into on this site, especially since I'm not even running Linux now. I have a new Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 board ready to go in, with a new HD for Linux (I don't want to go dual-boot this time). The mobo has built-in video this time, but if it's inadequate I still have the HD3000 card, which I'll try to load Linux drivers on.

My application needs two monitors, but all business-type activity, not gaming. My biggest aps are Scribus, where I do a 40-page booklet each month, and GnuCash, where I do accounting for my non-profit. All my aps are open-source, and I'd rather run them on Linux than Windows anything!

I've learned a lot since my last attempt, thanks to all who responded. I expect to make it this time.

Thanks to all and to this site.

Solved: The defective vido card
 

I finally decided that I needed a new MB, and I found a smaller Gigabyte board with a built-in video, It solved the problem, I now have both monitors running properly.

At one time, I put the Radeon card back in to try to separate my monitors, and it showed the same screen garbage that I mentioned in my first posts, I eventually found out how to separate the monitors properly

Thanks to all who tried to help.

Bob Di