[Wlug] linux eye candy / video card recommendation sought

[Chuck Anderson]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 09:58:27AM -0800, Andrew Perry wrote:
> My question: In case the Radeon 7500 isn't up to the
> task, or for future expansion, are there any
> particular low-cost video cards that anyone would
> recommend which are very well supported under linux ?
> By "very well supported", I mean that it should work
> "out of the box" with all of the major distros, at
> least if this is possible.

For 3D acceleration out-of-the-box (meaning supported by Open Source 
drivers), you only really have two choices: Intel graphics, or ATI.  I 
believe NVidia support is being worked on, though (nouveau drivers).

Unfortunately Intel graphics are only built into their chipsets, so 
you only find them on motherboard integrated video cards and laptops. 
I've been using ATI cards in recent years, and have been very happy 
with the progression of OSS support of their 3D acceleration.  My 
laptop's ATI FireGL (radeon) video "Just Works(TM)" with Compiz, the 
3D desktop eye-candy that ships in Fedora Core 6.