Will Lenny release without NVIDIA?

[Telemachus]

This isn't a crushing concern, but I'm curious what people think. Lenny is about to freeze, and it's still missing some key pieces of NVIDIA. These are obviously not elements of "main", but I just wonder how this will be handled. Does anyone with a longer history in Debian have any idea?

Signed, Curious in Debian-ville

[hkoster1]

There is a scenario for NVidia that's even worse than not having packages in stable Lenny: the "make" command for the NVidia source package errors out in stable Lenny (as it does right now in testing Lenny). Our own Lavene will have her hands full with all the newbie posts crying for help.

P.S. Don't expect any sympathy from me in that case...

[Lavene]

I have come up with a method that will, with 100% certainty, end all your Nvidia problems:

1) Grab your Nvidia card
2) Place the card on a hard, stable surface
3) Grab a hammer
4) Whack the Nvidia card with the hammer.

I'm seriously contemplating applying the above method to my own Nvidia hardware. Since I use laptops exclusively it might leave me without a computer all together but what the heck... I might even get a life...

[dmn_clown]

This isn't a crushing concern, but I'm curious what people think. Lenny is about to freeze, and it's still missing some key pieces of NVIDIA. These are obviously not elements of "main", but I just wonder how this will be handled. Does anyone with a longer history in Debian have any idea?

Signed, Curious in Debian-ville

If it is a new package it probably won't make Lenny, which isn't that big a deal as most people that will use stable as a desktop/workstation will backport the nvidia driver from sid if they need the latest driver. They do this because they know Debian doesn't support non-free.

Then again this is probably Debian's way of giving the community something to argue about this release cycle

[anxious]

I have come up with a method that will, with 100% certainty, end all your Nvidia problems:

1) Grab your Nvidia card
2) Place the card on a hard, stable surface
3) Grab a hammer
4) Whack the Nvidia card with the hammer.

I'm seriously contemplating applying the above method to my own Nvidia hardware. Since I use laptops exclusively it might leave me without a computer all together but what the heck... I might even get a life...

LOL. Excellent idea. I wish I had not purchased mine.

[plugwash]

I always got the impression that ATIs propietry drivers were even worse than nvidias. Intel has open source drivers but they are buggy as shit and thier chips aren't exactly brilliant either. There are opensource 3D drivers for ATI in the pipeline but I don't think they are ready for general use yet.

So what are those of us who want decent 3D supposed to use.

[BioTube]

An earlier ATI? Radeon 9200 is perfect.

[plugwash]

do those exist in PCI express (I would really rather not have much graphics card hobbled by PCI and most current boards don't have AGP).

[BioTube]

Mine's an AGP card(so probably no PCIe). Use http://www.x.org to check the relevant driver to see if your card's supported.

[infinitycircuit]

fglrx works fine in 2.6.25. I'm glad I got an ATI card although it's too bad that R600 is far from open source 3D.

[dmn_clown]

http://www.khensu.org/index.php?itemid=219

[swirling_vortex]

I always got the impression that ATIs propietry drivers were even worse than nvidias. Intel has open source drivers but they are buggy as shit and thier chips aren't exactly brilliant either. There are opensource 3D drivers for ATI in the pipeline but I don't think they are ready for general use yet.

So what are those of us who want decent 3D supposed to use.

For a while, the fglrx driver did reek and was far behind the Windows driver in terms of performance. However, I'm surprised at how...pleasant Catalyst 8.7 is on my system.

Even then, the open source ati driver isn't that bad. It's not as good as fglrx, but if you don't need top notch 3d performance, it should be fine.

[servidora]

I think maybe a lot of us use nvidia because it is what is integrated on the motherboard. It has been a headache in Debian for sure though. If I want to disable the integrated nvidia and get an add on card that would ALWAYS work in Linux (hopefully any distro), what would be the recommended card to get? (For a poor person).

[Burnside]

Does Intel make add-on cards? GMA's aren't great but they get the job done and I've never had an issue configuring one outside of the old BIOS hack to get widescreen resolutions.

[BioTube]

Intel's all integrated. However, a cheap Radeon should do you.