[Gllug] Graphics card recommendations wanted

[Tethys]

--------

John G Walker writes:

>It looks like I need a new graphics card. It has, obviously, to
>have good Linux support. Anyone have any strong recommendations? Or
>warnings?

What are you looking for? Something simple to use as a desktop?
Something where you want to have the eye candy turned up to the
max, with wobbly windows, spinning cubes, etc.? Something for 3D
games? What sort of budget do you have? Where are you on the free
software scale (from idealist to pragmatist)?

Personally, I'd recommend an older Radeon. Until very recently,
I was using a Radeon 9200, and was very happy with it. 2D was
great, and 3D performance was more than adequare for my needs,
even if it was well below the current bleeding edge.

But that machine died, and I was handed a replacement, which came
with a X850XT already present, which also seems to work just fine
out of the box. Personally, I object to using binary drivers, and
the free drivers for the older Radeons are pretty good, which works
out well for me. The same can't be said of the newer Radeons, and
of most Nvidia cards (the situation is changing for both of those,
but it's not quite there yet in shipping distributions).

Tet
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