From owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 6 11:43:21 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E4B2106567C for ; Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:43:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48D7A8FC2A for ; Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:43:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id o76BhFNx021392; Fri, 6 Aug 2010 05:43:15 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) with ESMTP id o76BhFDH021389; Fri, 6 Aug 2010 05:43:15 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 05:43:15 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block To: Thomas Donnelly In-Reply-To: <4C598614.5090401@aol.com> Message-ID: References: <20100804132800.298731CC3A@ptavv.es.net> <4C598614.5090401@aol.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.6 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Fri, 06 Aug 2010 05:43:16 -0600 (MDT) Cc: Mubeesh ali , freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: free bsd on laptops X-BeenThere: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Mobile computing with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:43:21 -0000 On Wed, 4 Aug 2010, Thomas Donnelly wrote: > Kevin Oberman wrote: >>> >> ATI is open source friendly. NVIDIA is not. Still, both generally work. >> > I must be missing something because to my knowledge FreeBSD does not have any > 3D support for any modern ATi card radeon(4x) has 3D acceleration, and 3D software seems to use it (I'm not a serious 3D user, so there may be subtleties here). As far as modern cards, it supports X- (X700), 1000- (1650, 1950), 2000-, 3000-, and 4000-series cards. 5000-series are not yet supported. > while nVidia has 32 and 64 bit drivers that work very well for full 3D > acceleration (needed for things like compiz). Forum users have reported success with compiz on Radeon cards. I have not yet tried that (started but got distracted by other things). > I am running 8-Stable amd64 with a GTX 260 in my desktop at work and > it runs very fast. I would extremely highly recommend nVidia over ATi > if you are going to be using FreeBSD. My Inspiron XPS has an ATi > Mobility Radeon 9800 and not only does it not have 3D support, it also > frequently hard locks when running the ATi driver. This laptop works > fine with any other OS. Mobility 9800 isn't explicitly listed as working with the radeon driver, and of course it's very old. A Dell integrated FireGL 9000 with 32M of video RAM didn't seem to like 3D, either, but I don't know if that can be blamed on just the radeon driver. > Also, Intel Integrated works well and is a decent choice if you don't need > lots of horsepower. Well... there are problems with the way Intel is going with the driver. The latest versions of the Intel integrated video hardware can be a problem.