...but is nvidia any better?

Phil Meyer pmeyer at themeyerfarm.com
Tue Nov 14 21:09:40 UTC 2006


Christopher A. Williams wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-11-14 at 09:32 -0500, Tom Horsley wrote:
>   
>> I've been having an infinite series of problems with getting my ATI card to
>> work correctly with FC6 x86_64, and the pointers I've been able to find
>> in places like the Linux driver forum on rage3d.com don't give me warm
>> fuzzies that ATI will ever fix anything (nor does the opensource radeon
>> driver seem to work any better - it just has different bugs).
>>
>> So, what is the state of nvidia with respect to Fedora Core 6? Have the
>> bugs been worked out? Is DRI and GLX and all that jazz working OK
>> now with latest nvidia drivers? Are they compatible with Xen? Is there
>> some nvidia equivalent to the rage3d forum I can visit to read all about
>> the new trouble I'd get into if I switched cards?
>>
>> Thanks for any pointers you can provide.
>>     
>
> Based on my experience and watching this list, I think you could
> accurately sum up the nVidia vs. ATI choice of video cards as a matter
> of choosing your poison. I personally run nVidia cards, but have often
> considered switching my main system, having used ATI cards with Fedora
> on other computers. The main reasons why I haven't switched are that I
> have found better pricing on nVidia cards where I tend to shop, and I
> have had just as many headaches with ATI drivers on other systems.
>
> As Ben Franklin once said, "There are good men on both sides of the
> issue." You can get either to work quite well - particularly if you use
> the pre-packaged drivers. I'm using Livna's nVidia packages right now
> and just enabled desktop effects. Very cool...
>
> Your mileage may vary of course. In the end, the combo of card and
> drivers you use is a matter of choice. That's a good thing.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
>
>   

I have been testing the ATI packages vs. the livna packages on my laptop 
with a mobility X1400 in it.

The latest ATI drivers (fglrx) do not list my card as supported, but it 
works.  The radeon driver does not work at all with this card.

Both sets of packages work with a bit of tweaking.

The current livna packages need one tweak:

ln -s /usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri/fglrx_dri.so /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so

This will cause glx and dri to function together properly.

The only issue now is the AIGLX stuff.

I get in my log:

(EE) AIGLX error: dlsym for __driCreateNewScreen_20050727 failed 
(/usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so: undefined symbol: __driCreateNewScreen_20050727)
(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering


All of my glx tests other than AIGLX seem to function well.

We will have to wait for a new driver from ATI to add the new Composite 
extension anyway.

For a walk trough on doing the FC6 native packages from ATI, see the 
redblog at phoronix.com.

Good luck!




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