On Monday 25 August 2008 08:27:55 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > My boss bought second-hand extra monitors for all of us and I now need > > to buy a graphics card which can support dual-head for Debian/Ubuntu > > (and Windows XP and Vista). > > > > Since there are always swings around about "best linux support" which > > I didn't follow, what's the order of the day? Should go with nVidia, > > AMD or maybe Intel? Any specific card families/models? > > Intel, unless you need serious 3D performance[1], then AMD/ATI, since > they have released the spec for the cards and so open drivers are on the > way. NVIDIA last of all, because they are as closed as ever, recently > had a rash of hardware production quality faults, and the reverse > engineering efforts are great -- but never as good as the hardware > documentation. > > > The computers are a mix of older (2-3 years?) to new (2 months old), > > so the system bus might be a bit limited too. > > Find out what the video card connector is, since AGP vs PCIe is a real > consideration, as is the width of the PCIe slot. > > OTOH, that also means AMD/ATI graphics: you still can't buy a discrete > Intel graphics part as far as I know.
I totally disagree, but I'm pragmatic not idealistic. nvidia-settings let you setup 2 monitors, specify master monitor, and get it working in seconds, all in an easy GUI and IMHO setting up dual monitors IS a GUI task. Setting dual monitors of recent INTEL was an hour of googling and phaffing for a mate (and I have setup 100s vi-ing XF86config then xorg.conf over the years) THEN intel graphics performance on mythtv was so bad that he reverted to running DVICO under winders. <sob> :-) Last I purchased a 5300 card was about $50, and worked well for google-earth and most tasks, was a bit low-end for mythtv Finally if pci is the only option, get a new mobo. Many ASUS with dual nvidia onboard. PCI is nigh impossible to get. (ASUS AMD uATX mobo for $70 ish) James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
