[ale] thinking about switching away from ubuntu

[Robert Coggins]

nvidia is what I am using in my thinkpad.  I am using the proprietary
driver.  Maybe I should try another.

On 04/14/2010 04:21 PM, Michael Trausch wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-04-14 at 15:45 -0400, Robert Coggins wrote:
>> I am really hoping ubuntu 10.4 will fix my problem with my system
>> locking up when using compiz on dual monitors.  If not I may be giving
>> fedora a go here soon. 
> 
> Ubuntu 10.04 has a free software, 3D enabled graphics driver for ATI
> systems that even supports kernel mode setting, and it has no problem on
> my laptop doing dual-head with the laptop monitor and either HDMI or
> VGA.  I have not tried to see if it will do triple-head or not.
> 
> On my NVIDIA system, dual head works excellently in 10.04 as well as
> 9.10.  I did have a problem with the on-board graphics chipset (an
> NVIDIA), but when I also had that problem in Windows (I wanted to see if
> I could eliminate the driver as a cause, and that I did).  When I added
> a PCI-E NVIDIA card into the system, all was well again.
> 
> As a side note:  For just about everything, my laptop with the free
> software ATI driver performs much better than the proprietary NVIDIA
> driver does.  I have never been able to get the proprietary ATI driver
> to work well, but then again I've never had a terribly large amount of
> time to spend on working out issues with proprietary software---I'd
> sooner run without X than fuss with non-working drivers.
> 
> One other thing that I have learned is that not all graphics chipsets
> from the vendors are equal in terms of reliability.  The I've generally
> had very good luck with NVIDIA-based systems, though the most recent
> on-board that I had was awful.  It would cause horrible hard-locks to
> the point where even the power button on the system would fail to
> power-off after holding it in for five seconds; I'd have to pull the
> plug to reboot.
> 
> 	--- Mike
> 
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