The state of ATI driver on Linux

I'm looking at getting an Asus laptop, but there are so many with ATI cards, and pretty well all of them that I like have ATI X700s or X1600s.

How is driver support now that ATI has released an official driver? I won't need this laptop for intense gaming, but I would like it to be compatible in 3D mode.

The other option I have is the 7600, but I don't like the looks of the A8JM as much as the Z70VA for one. I guess I'll have to see it in person when it comes out.

 

ATI has pretty much saturated the mainstream laptop gpu scene with nvidia having only their gpus in the high end models.

The drivers for ATI in linux are decent. They will work but make sure you follow your distrobution's install method. Since you will not be gaming, the 3D mode will be fine. However some have found and said that if not gaming then the xorg drivers prove to have better performance in 2D that the ati binary drivers.

However it all depends on you and your laptops gpu.

 

Okay, I was looking at the X700 or X1600, and using Ubuntu if that helps any.

Are xorg drivers 2D only?

 

Afraid so, the x.org drivers only handle 3d on the older (pre 9000 series) radeon cards.

I'm hoping that ATI's drivers have improved since I last tried them a couple of years back, they sucked badly then.

I'm in a similar position... I'm looking at several Asus notebooks, but most of them (not just Asus, most Core Duos) seem to be running the ATI X1K gpus. I'd settle on the X1600 knowing it's linux performance was below par compared to Windows, since I'll be dual booting anyway... but I need them to be stable too. I'm lurking over at rage3d.com to see how the new drivers are working out.

 

Well, I'm pretty well wowed by the V6VA (X700/1.86Ghz P-M), so I'll make do with what ATI offers.

 

Cool, let us know how it goes CT. Potential (I'm prolly just biased ) gpu issues aside, the V6Va is a sweet machine... It apparently has one of the sweetest LCD screens currently available, bar none.

Most of the other hardware in the V6Va should run well under linux with a little tweaking.

 

I'll let you know. However, after seeing all the positive comments on the A8JM after it came out today I'm not so sure now.

I'll head over to Milestone PC this weekend to check them out in person so I can get a feel for which one I like best.

 

I wouldn't anticipate any issues with ATI linux drivers anymore, and if you do they will be most likely be fixed shortly - ATI's linux driver team is pushing updates on a monthly release cycle these days.

Here is a review of the current drivers: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=441&num=1

some other good related articles if you poke around on phoronix

also, the ati driver installer provides support for ubuntu dapper - there are details somewhere on the ubuntu forums, but it's a pretty simple installation process.

 

That's some good news, thanks for sharing.

I'll be running Ubuntu, and with Dapper just around the corner it looks like things will work out.

 

The ATI installer will support current "stable" ubuntu as well.. But if you are installing ubunut, go with dapper drake - even though it's "not done yet". It's stable and will auto-update to the final when it's done

Here is some info on different ways to install the drivers:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

 

just thought id add, i have a 9000 radeon, and the linux drivers suck. I get decent enough performace with the open source drivers, but it was the main thing that drove me to buy an a8jm, which i should be getting shortly

 

Affirmative. I tried the ati drivers on my dads Dell D600 and D610, which have the M9000 and Mx300 video cards.

The drivers sucked. First off all I am using gentoo linux.

The drivers wouldnt let me log in. X would continually crash.

Then i tried the nvidia drivers on my servers gf2 mx400 and they installed like a dream, and the nvidia contorl panel in linux is awesome, and is some what akin to the one in windows.

Hopefuilly i will let you guys know more when I get me a Dell M60 with a 128mb quadro fx 1000!!!

 

Hi everyone, I am fairly new to linux and I am wanting to get a laptop to dual boot windows and linux on. I am thinking about running either Ubuntu or SUSE Linux 10.1. My question is does anyone know off hand if an ATI X1600 graphics card would work well with either of these distros. I will not really be playing games in Linux because I will be dual booting so hardcore 3D gaming isnt really an issue. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

The current ATI drivers support the X1K series GPUs, and packages are available for both SUSE and Ubuntu. As such, getting them up and running on either distro shouldn't be a major issue.

 

lol.

i got an awesome deal on a well used ibm t41p and i bought it. the drivers work great for the firegl t2 128mb video card in there.

also the ati drivers seem to have no issues with suspending and hibernating unlike their nvidia counter parts.

 

Awesome! thank you so much TedJ

 

One problem you will have w/ ATI drivers is changing consoles- my system hangs everytime I do it, which is a pain. It also wacks out the screen when I shut down. I had version of the driver from several months ago that DIDN'T do this. I wish I hadn't upgraded the driver

 

I have SuSE 10.1 and tried Kubuntu 6.06 on my new inspiron 6400 with a radeon x1400. The graphical installer for the ATI binary driver doesn't have scroll bars so forget about running at 800x600 before you install it but aside from that it works fine.

I haven't run any real 3D benchmarks so let me know if there is interest.

 

Thank you noahsark and Neal. I think I will end up getting an Nvidia card in my next laptop to avoid any hastle.