linux eye candy / video card recommendation sought
I heard on the Linux Action Show podcast about the Beryl project, which seems to offer linux users both eye candy and improved functionality through a 3D user interface. They say that Beryl will run acceptably with 256 MB and an ATI Radeon 7500, Geforce 3, or equivalent or better video card (seems like these are all a few years old, which is great for my budget.) Since my linux machine has 512 MB RAM but only on-board video, I found a used $20 Radeon 7500 on ebay and will try Beryl out. [Side note: I bought an "afordable performance pc" for linux from madtux.com for about $200, and am generally satisified but for the power supply which sounds like a snowblower. Very minimalist interior. Space for 6 HDD's, for example.] My question: In case the Radeon 7500 isn't up to the task, or for future expansion, are there any particular low-cost video cards that anyone would recommend which are very well supported under linux ? By "very well supported", I mean that it should work "out of the box" with all of the major distros, at least if this is possible. I'm sure that avid gamers would want only the best in video cards, but there are probably a lot of folks like myself who would like a pretty good video card for linux with no hassles. Thanks in advance. -Dr. Andrew B. Perry Dept. of Mathematics, Springfield College Schoo Hall Room 123 263 Alden St., Springfield MA 01109 Work Phone (413)748-3193
Andrew> Since my linux machine has 512 MB RAM but only on-board video, Andrew> I found a used $20 Radeon 7500 on ebay and will try Beryl Andrew> out. [Side note: I bought an "afordable performance pc" for Andrew> linux from madtux.com for about $200, and am generally Andrew> satisified but for the power supply which sounds like a Andrew> snowblower. Very minimalist interior. Space for 6 HDD's, for Andrew> example.] This is a neat and interesting site, though I think Dell's clearance store to also be full of good deals as well. I wonder why you didn't get more RAM on that box as well, since 1Gb would make a big improvement here I'm sure. But the Knoppix PC is tempting for my kid at home, though I think I can find a used Dell/Random PC which will do fine. He just wants to find and print pictures of whales at this point. *grin* Andrew> My question: In case the Radeon 7500 isn't up to the task, or Andrew> for future expansion, are there any particular low-cost video Andrew> cards that anyone would recommend which are very well Andrew> supported under linux ? By "very well supported", I mean that Andrew> it should work "out of the box" with all of the major distros, Andrew> at least if this is possible. I still like my Matrox G450, it's got great 2-d performance, and a nice crisp display. I'm right now at work using a Dell P4 box with i865 graphics on a Samsuny SyncMaster 204B LCD and it's just fine too. I could care less about 3-d at this point. The bigger issue I have is that dual PIII Xeon 550mhz CPUs on my home machine just don't cut it as well for photo editing and such. Poor me. :] John
I could not get Beryl to work with my Radeon 8500. I think if you look through the online documentation, the minimum recommended ATI card is a Radeon 9200. I ended up buying a used Nvidia GF6600 and it works very well. Enough so that I bought a 2nd one for another box. You can find a brand new GF6200 256M for about $60 online. I should think you can find one used for around $40 or less. These are all 3 or 4 generations old, so hardcore Windows gamers have them to unload. As far as "out of the box" goes, you're not going to find it. A default Linux installation will use an open source driver, but you'll need the closed source drivers from either ATI or Nvidia to make Beryl functional. The ATI driver is a PITA. Nvidia does a better job. That said, you can google detailed instructions to install either on your distro of choice. Clint Andrew Perry wrote:
I heard on the Linux Action Show podcast about the Beryl project, which seems to offer linux users both eye candy and improved functionality through a 3D user interface.
They say that Beryl will run acceptably with 256 MB and an ATI Radeon 7500, Geforce 3, or equivalent or better video card (seems like these are all a few years old, which is great for my budget.)Since my linux machine has 512 MB RAM but only on-board video, I found a used $20 Radeon 7500 on ebay and will try Beryl out. [Side note: I bought an "afordable performance pc" for linux from madtux.com for about $200, and am generally satisified but for the power supply which sounds like a snowblower. Very minimalist interior. Space for 6 HDD's, for example.]
My question: In case the Radeon 7500 isn't up to the task, or for future expansion, are there any particular low-cost video cards that anyone would recommend which are very well supported under linux ? By "very well supported", I mean that it should work "out of the box" with all of the major distros, at least if this is possible.
I'm sure that avid gamers would want only the best in video cards, but there are probably a lot of folks like myself who would like a pretty good video card for linux with no hassles.
Thanks in advance.
-Dr. Andrew B. Perry Dept. of Mathematics, Springfield College Schoo Hall Room 123 263 Alden St., Springfield MA 01109 Work Phone (413)748-3193 _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 09:58:27AM -0800, Andrew Perry wrote:
My question: In case the Radeon 7500 isn't up to the task, or for future expansion, are there any particular low-cost video cards that anyone would recommend which are very well supported under linux ? By "very well supported", I mean that it should work "out of the box" with all of the major distros, at least if this is possible.
For 3D acceleration out-of-the-box (meaning supported by Open Source drivers), you only really have two choices: Intel graphics, or ATI. I believe NVidia support is being worked on, though (nouveau drivers). Unfortunately Intel graphics are only built into their chipsets, so you only find them on motherboard integrated video cards and laptops. I've been using ATI cards in recent years, and have been very happy with the progression of OSS support of their 3D acceleration. My laptop's ATI FireGL (radeon) video "Just Works(TM)" with Compiz, the 3D desktop eye-candy that ships in Fedora Core 6.
participants (4)
-
Andrew Perry -
Chuck Anderson -
Clint Moyer -
John Stoffel