> -----Original Message----- > > I'm guessing that you're specifying that you don't need to > run 3D games? > > (ie, that 2D will suffice) or is that 2D "minimum" avoidable? > > Right, no 3D gaming. Streaming video is about the most > graphics intensive thing I can imagine doing on the monitor. > > > Do you have a particular interest about the licensing of the video > > driver code, or are you agnostic, ie, "just make it work"? > > I have to say that I'd be happier in running a card that had > a true Open Source driver, but I realize that might not be > realistic at this point. > > --Hal
Depends on your definition of "true Open Source driver". If you mean open source driver released by the manufacturer, yeah, not much you can do. If you want a community maintained driver, then Ubuntu has them. For example, if you get pretty much any ATI Radeon card, an new Ubuntu install will use the open source driver by default, which offers 2D/3D support. The 3D is not as fast as ATI's proprietary driver, but if you're not gaming you'd never notice the difference. It also has good support for dual heads (apparently, even better dual-head support than the proprietary driver). More info: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver Nvidia cards have much better proprietary drivers, but with a default install of Ubuntu I believe they only get the generic video support, which means 2D only and you might not even get dual head support. There are some open source nvidia drivers out there (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/), but I don't know how easy it is to install them under Ubuntu. I'm a gamer, so I finally gave up on ATI and bought a new NVidia card, because I'm willing to use proprietary drivers to get performance - but that's just on my "gaming" machine. My Dell laptop and my other two linux boxes all have ATI video and use the open source drivers. - Jason L. _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
