ATI video comes out of the closet

[Les Mikesell]

Bruce Byfield wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-08-09 at 10:03 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> 
>>> I've seen the same sort of problems with other distributions, as well as
>>> Windows.
>> We have a lot of windows machines on all the same hardware as has broken 
>> with fedora, and keep them all updated.  I can't recall any of them ever 
>> failing to boot after an update, at least in the post win2ksp2 era which 
>> would be pretty close to the entire lifespan of fedora.  Windows has its 
>> problems, but binary device drivers aren't among them as far as working 
>> for end users goes.
> 
> Then you've had the luck of the draw, and I haven't. SP2 for Windows XP
> broke two installations on me, and several minor patches also caused
> problems for me on different machines.

With hardware?  I'm curious about the devices.

> Moreover, on the install I did
> last week, I needed to hunt down drivers for the ethernet, sound, and
> video cards for Windows, while Linux on the same machine installed
> flawlessly.

That's always to be expected if your hardware is newer than the spin of 
the install CD, and I've had to do that with windows too.  But I don't 
have an issue with having to work on the initial setup - just when a 
working system breaks due to a mid-version update.

> This is the first time in nine or ten months that I've had
> Windows in the house, and the experience was enough to make me regret
> giving into the family request that I install it. So, clearly, there is
> a whole range of experience.

Did you have a current version of the Windows install CD?  It's unfair 
to compare an up to date fedora to a several year old cut of Windows in 
terms of included device support.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com