Re: Best Video Card

[Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>]

Hi, Manaen.

On Apr 15 2006, Manaen Schlabach wrote:
(...)
> I know that ATI and Nvidia both have decent cards but their drivers
> are completely closed.  I know and understand that companies must
> protect some of their trade secrets but I would like very much to
> support a graphics manufacturer who opens their specs as much as
> possible to opensource and free software developers.  Having said
> that, what are everyones thoughts about which card that might be?

Thank you very much for posting this. I'm very interested in reading the
others' experiences with this part of hardware, which seems to be one of
the most problematic for desktop users.

I'm 100% aligned with your views as you can see from my other postings
to debian-user on this subject:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2001/01/msg02389.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2001/01/msg02442.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2000/11/msg00650.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2000/12/msg00863.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2001/08/msg03563.html

> At one time it was Matrox are they still the most GNU/Linux friendly
> out there or has someone else taken the lead on that?

Well, it seems that they are not that open anymore, from what I just saw
in the x.org (or was that dri?) support page.

> I wouldn't mind supporting ATi/nVidia if they at least opened up their
> specs on old cards (say older than 3 years)

My sentiments, *exactly*.

> do they really have that much to lose by doing so?


Thanks for raising the point, Rogério Brito.

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@ime.usp.br : http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito
Homepage of the algorithms package : http://algorithms.berlios.de
Homepage on freshmeat:  http://freshmeat.net/projects/algorithms/