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    mobile ATI cards

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by puter1, Feb 27, 2009.

  1. puter1

    puter1 Notebook Deity

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    Is anyone who is looking for a Linux-capable notebook or who plans on dual-booting Linux researching notebooks that have ATI mobile GPUs?

    I am reading various reports and most of it seems to concern various problems and issues. I am almost thinking I should just eliminate any notebook with an ATI card out of contention. Probably too much trouble? Although, I understand that ATI/AMD offer more than one type of driver (ATI proprietary and open source), they are just not having much success or the development is soooo SLOW! I don't know whether they just don't have enough personnel or whether they're not advanced enough or the support just isn't extensive enough. Whatever it is, the support seems poor and the problem is that it has been at this status for quite a long time.

    I have gone to various Linux forums, Fedora forums, Ubuntu forums and of course, the Phoronix forum to read and learn of the current state of ATI support in Linux.

    The other concern is some notebooks only have one choice, the ones that aren't switchable and if you have ATI, you have no choice but to use what they provide.

    Should I avoid ATI notebooks or just choose whichever notebook includes the features I want and if it has ATI as a GPU, just deal with the issues? I am not sure I want to wait but even though there is tons of potential with driver possibilities, it is just taking too slow to get there.

    So, Linux users, what should I do? What would you do (provided 1) you own a notebook with an ATI card or 2) you are shopping/considering notebooks right now and use Linux?

    I know that Intel and Nvidia would probably be fine and although both probably have their own issues, I don't think they are as serious or extensive.

    Thanks, in advance, for your advice and feedback!
     
  2. AznImports602

    AznImports602 Notebook Deity

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    See my sig, but with that specs I am running Ubuntu and it works find. And yea the default drivers on there do suck, but I am only using Linux for surfing the web, typing papers, and other general uses. I have windows xp, is what I use for my gaming. But what are you looking to do with Linux? If it is just to mess around with I think any laptop with do you find, if gaming is something you want just stick with windows.
     
  3. puter1

    puter1 Notebook Deity

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    That's an old ATI card! Unless I go looking for a used laptop, I would be getting a newer generation mobile ATI card. They are not as supported. ATI cards up until the X1900 are supported well by both types of drivers. So, yeah, there would be some issues with newer cards like the Radeon HD 3xxx and HD 4xxx series. Go look into it if you don't believe it.
     
  4. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

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    I don't know about the notebook hardware, but I currently have an 3200HD in my media center which works pretty well with fglrx, as does my X1250 in my desktop (which used to be in the media center until it was upgraded). I haven't tried the open-source drivers since I break it too often for my wife's taste anyway ;) But I will do so as soon as I get my desktop running.

    ATI support in the future looks good on Linux. It's not as good as NVIDIA right at the moment though, especially if you think about watching HD video, what with VDPAU and all being available in the NV camp.
     
  5. helikaon

    helikaon Notebook Consultant

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    ATI catalyst driver for Linux made big improvement last year, i personally wouldn't be afraid go for laptop with ATI card and download and install proprietary ATI drivers for linux - if! the VGA is already supported by amd/ati under linux.
    I had before HP nx6125 with x200 integrated ati vga and the Catalyst proprietary driver worked perfectly.
     
  6. go_ahead_ed

    go_ahead_ed Notebook Consultant

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    I can't speak for everyone's experiences with Linux and ATI GPU's, but my experience has been positive. My VAIO SR290 has the ATI HD3470 GPU and Ubuntu-based distro's (32 and 64bit flavors) have been trouble-free.

    I don't do any gaming or DVD watching on my notebook but normal web surfing, watching online streaming video from CNN or Fox and other sites, email, a little playing around with GIMP, etc. has been glitch-free.

    Desktop effects (Compiz) work, battery life is tolerable, and temperatures are good. I use whatever ATI driver Ubuntu is currently offering.
     
  7. oldcpu

    oldcpu Notebook Guru

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    I'm a BIG nVidia fan. Very big. But last November I purchased a new laptop, and I specifically purchased a laptop with ATI graphic hardware (Radeon 3450HD), not because ATI are great, but because there is a scandal shaking the nVidia graphic card world of very bad quality nVidia cards ... Let me show you this: Inquirer: Every Nvidia Graphics Card With G84 or G86 Chipset Is Ready to Die - Gizmodo Australia
    and this: Nvidia G92s and G94 reportedly failing - The INQUIRER

    I personally know of someone who returned their HP laptop with a dead nVidia card after 14 months (and they unfortunately only went with the 1 year warantee - lesson here is if you purchase nVidia, go for a 3 or 4 year warantee).
    Now the g84, g86, g92 and g94 mean practically every nVidia graphic card in the 8000 and 9000 series is at risk. As a big nVidia fan, I was not happy to read those articles.

    But there is no need to believe the articles. Pick a card you are thinking of in the nVidia 8000 or 9000 series, and do a google search on it for "problems" or "over-heating". .... I did - for the nVidia cards that I was considering, and there were a lot of unhappy users who had to return those cards (or in the case of laptops return the entire laptop for a motherboard replacement). Again, as a nVidia fan (which I am, or at least I was) this is painful to see.

    I then researched Intel graphic cards to try and see if I could get a good Intel card instead of ATI. .... Well, back in Oct/Nov-2008, when I was researching for my Laptop, there were major problems with the latest xorg, and basic Intel graphics with various distributions and various laptops. The Intel graphic driver was horrible. In many cases X would not even boot for users. I think that may in the most part be fixed, ... but back in Oct/Nov last year it looked pretty gloomy. (and I needed a functioning laptop for Dec-2008/Jan-2009).

    So, I went for the ATI Radeon 3450 on my Dell Studio 15 laptop. It works well on openSUSE-11.1. But note I use the openGL driver (radeonhd) and not the higher performance proprietary ATI driver (which may also be less stable).

    I think if you do not insist on "state of the art graphic driver" then the openGL drivers work reasonably ok with most laptops with ATI hardware.
     
  8. puter1

    puter1 Notebook Deity

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    Excellent posts, you guys (in particular, the last four)! Thanks for your input! I'm glad to receive some feedback and perspective on this issue! I think you are right. It may not be that bad if I figure I can use whatever works (if it's ATI) and I probably don't have to worry about HD because for now, I am satisfied with standard video as long as the quality is half decent. Heck, I don't even have a HD LCD TV!

    As far as the Nvidia scandal goes, yeah, I am aware of the reports. I speculate that Nvidia might have reacted in time, though. They were being cheap with the silcon changes and the subsequent use of inferior (solder) bumps due to using high lead instead of eutectic bumps on eutectic pads. That stuff, right? I would assume with so much coverage on the subject that Nvidia would not be going the cheap or careless route anymore. However, you would think that ATI would have capitalized on Nvidia's stupidity but I don't know if ATI has grabbed much market share as a result. It might help if their drivers for both Windows and ESPECIALLY Linux was better. Yet, their most recent cards are supposedly pretty good and the Nvidia fiasco resulted in some notebook manufacturers to either stick with ATI or even SWITCH to them whenever using discrete mobile GPUs. I guess time will tell if Nvidia's chips will cause more than just the current major problem they have.
     
  9. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

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    Well, ATI's drivers aren't necessarily better, but they've been beating the pants off of NVIDIA at the same price points last I checked.

    NVIDIA is trying to bury themselves, they've got a lot of things going wrong now. I'm not sure they'll be able to pull out of it.
     
  10. oldcpu

    oldcpu Notebook Guru

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    I don't know. I hope nVidia do come around.

    What I read was they were urging motherboard manufacturers to change their BIOS, to increase the fan speed, so as to improve motherboard cooling, to try and reduce the probability of the failures of the nVidia cards with poor components (apparently heat increases the probability of failure). .... I have not read of where they have made efforts to improve the quality of their components.

    But I do hope they improve. I have been a nVidia fan for a long time, and it was difficult for me to go ATI on my last purchase.
     
  11. Thomas

    Thomas McLovin

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    That is NOT a fix oldcpu, it's a problem with the hardware and their attempting a quick and easy fix with it.
    Both the free and non-free drivers have vastly improved, and I know have Compiz out of the box in the Ubuntu LiveCD even :).
     
  12. Ayle

    Ayle Trailblazer

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    Have they finally fixed videos with compiz enabled?
     
  13. Ayle

    Ayle Trailblazer

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    The Catalyst 9.2 almost broke my system....
     
  14. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

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    How did you install it? I have the latest installed on my media center... I just built the Ubuntu 8.10 packages, installed them and then did an aticonfig --initial and it reset my Xorg.conf properly
     
  15. Ayle

    Ayle Trailblazer

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    Oh I didn't know about the aticonfig --initial. I have removed ubuntu to make room for my 73gb xplane installation... I'll try that command later.