nVidia drivers and TV-OUT

[Phil Meyer]

Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> Kanwar Ranbir Sandhu writes:
>
>> Unfortunately, I don't, and I've given up on it anyway.  I'm not going
>> to bother since I'll be getting a new laptop in a year or so.  I can
>> live without the 3D desktop effects.
>
> This is your golden opportunity to get rid of this headache, once and 
> for all. Be sure to buy a laptop with an Intel or ATI chipset that's 
> supported by Mesa, and have everything working out of the box. I don't 
> see why anyone who'se in the market for a laptop with Linux would want 
> to put up with this annoyance, in this day and age.
>
>
Careful there.  All the new ATI models are unsupported.  None of the 
X1NNN series are supported by the radeon or ati driver.  The commercial 
fglrx driver does not support AIGLX and will only work with the XGL 
server, which is a pain.

Almost all of the new ATI based laptops are shipping with X1400, X1300, 
and other X1NNN series GPUs.

I just rebuilt my X1400 based laptop with 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) display 
with F7.  The very best I can get is 1600x1200 with the vesa driver, and 
of course, no 3D support.  The commercial fglrx driver has an issue with 
F7 right now.

So saying that anyone should buy ATI GPUs in laptops is asking for 
trouble as well.

The video card vendors are trying to maintain lock in, and that means 
that both ATI and Nvidia refuse to divulge enough details about the 
hardware interface to make an equivalent device driver.

Currently, only intel has enough of the notebook GPU market to make a 
reasonable recommendation to Linux consumers.  And only intel is 
actively working with open source developers.  And to make matters 
worse, the intel GPUs are generally inferior (3D OpenGL performance 
wise) to the others.

Performance wise, only the nvidia driver is on par with its Windows 
counterpart.

So what to do?  What to buy?

Same old answer:  Do what's best for you.

If OpenGL performance is paramount, then there is no option but Nvidia.

If seamless integration is important, the the only major laptop GPU to 
buy is intel.

If your company buys what is on sale and gives it to you to work with 
(raises hand) then you will probably get stuck with an ATI X1NN series GPU.

Good Luck!