Re: xserver-xorg vs. xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
On Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:19:44 +0000, lee wrote:
> Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com> writes:
>>> Hum, did you ever try to get X11 to work with an ATI mach32 or mach64
>>> or, later, a Matrox G200, about 15 years ago?
>>
>> My first linux box (SuSE Linux 8.2) was installed on a Matrox G450,
>> IIRC. I had to do nothing, it worked out of the box. Maybe I was just
>> lucky.
>>
>> Afterwards, I have installed over nvidia (mostly in workstations), ATI
>> (in servers) and Intel (netbooks).
>
> You must have been really lucky then :)
Yes... I also think so. True is that I always try to buy good hardware.
>>> Remember your huge 14 or 15" CRT monitor flickering and possibly being
>>> damaged when you got the frequencies too high in your xf86config while
>>> trying to get a less flickery image in an unbelieveably high 1024x768
>>> resolution?
>>
>> Nope, maybe because my displays were well supported (Sony) :-)
>>
>>> And remember trying to figure out modelines?
>>
>> Nope, in fact I've only had to deal with that at the time Xorg became
>> dynamic but not before (openSUSE had a very nice tool to configure this
>> called "SaX").
>
> Yeah, there were some tools to calculate modelines ... Fortunately, I
> got away with specifying the frequencies.
"cvt" is a very old and useful tool for adding modelines and refresh
frequencies. And to be sincere, I've only had to use it now with xrandr
and not in the time xorg was static and predictable :-)
>>> Nowadays, you don´t really need to do anything ...
>>
>> No? Nothing? Really? I mean, really?
>
> You are very likely to end up with a graphical display because all the
> drivers are (needlessly) installed through dependencies, and which one
> is used is being figured out automatically. That doesn´t mean that your
> display is optimally configured.
He, but having all the drivers installed does not guarantee they are
going to work well ;-). In fact, having all the drivers installed can
even aggravate the situation.
>> You do have to do many things now that were not needed in the old days.
>> For instance, try to install the closed source nvidia driver while
>> having nuvó installed.
>
> Just put nuveau into /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.
This *should *work, right? But it does not always work :-)
And how can you now use a vesa or fb driver? In the old days you only had
to put "vesa" in xorg.conf, but now... he, he... is not that easy.
>> In the old times, editing one line at xorg.conf was all to get the
>> driver loaded.
>
> In many cases, things work without xorg.conf.
Of course, but the problem arises when it does not.
>> Now you can be even forced to uninstall one set of the drivers to use
>> the other. And debugging has turned very difficult...
>
> If you have had several different drivers for the same card 15 years
> ago, you´d probably have had the same problem.
Nope, because they collided and could not be installed at the same time.
>>> What hasn´t changed is that ATI cards (now made by AMD) cause nothing
>>> but trouble ...
>>
>> Well, "radeon" driver should be by now the best open source VGA driver
>> out there, it's almost open source and developers have been working on
>> it since many years...
>
> ATI cards have been troublesome with OS/2 2.0 and 3.0, with various
> versions of Windoze and with Linux.
>
> I have a Radeon card in this laptop, and when I switch over to that card
> with vgaswitcheroo, I don´t get any further screen output until I switch
> back to the Intel card. The open source driver for them might be great,
> it just doesn´t help me when there´s no screen output. If I could have
> bought this laptop with an NVDIA card, I would have. All the NVDIA cards
> I´ve had just worked fine, and all the ATI cards I´ve had and have seen
> were troublesome.
Yes, but that's not an expected situation, I mean, shouldn't the open
source driver be the best one, in quality and stability terms? Why we do
prefer nvidia over ATI cards?
>> Intel is another good choice if you don't want many problems and are
>> happy with a low-end 3D card.
>
> The Intel card is ok unless I want to play a game. For games, it´s an
> euphemism to say that the performance is pathetic.
I can't tell for games because I do't play much :-) but for the usual
tasks I find it enough.
>>> Unfortunately, the free NVIDA drivers are rather useless when you want
>>> to play games. You can install the non-free ones from the Debian
>>> packages.
>>
>> I've always been lucky with nvidia closed drivers. I don't like the
>> fact they are closed but at least I get a stable system with few
>> glitches.
>
> Yeah, that´s why I keep buying NVDIA cards: they work. Now I didn´t have
> a choice but to get an ATI card in this laptop, and of course, it
> doesn´t work ...
And that (that ATI cards have too many problems) IMO shouldn't be
hapenning at all.
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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