so,

would a nvidia card be better/safer choice for a linux-notebook?

for drivers the answer is yes. nvidia has the best linux driver support right now. the geforce4 in the laptops is equivalent to a geforce4MX not a Ti model so they don't have any of the advanced hardware shaders. the ati 9000 has hardware shaders.

GEM is not using the hardware shaders yet... but i have an ati 9000 in my laptop (g4 titanium) so the possibility is there to write some stuff. however, it is probably best to wait until openGL 2.0 and it's unified HSL (hardware shader language) is available in final form. perhaps by this time next year most of GEM's image processing can be done fully on a chip like the ati 9000. the geforce4mx will never be able to do this sort of processing (it's actually closer to a geforce2mx than geforce4 ti).

so your choice is basically between compatibility and driver support today, and the possibility of high performance processing in the future. if you must go linux then nvidia is probably the safe choice, but the ati chip will be better in the long run in windows and possibly linux depending on the driver support. all driver issues being equal i would choose the ati 9000 over the nvidia geforce4mx without hesitation.

oh and 3.7kg+42mm thick with a desktop P4 doesn't sound like a very nice portable device. hot, heavy, and battery hungry ;)

cgc

i was also thinking on one of those toshiba satellites with gforce4... but the design of gericoms masterpiece is much cooler... (i just love those round edges :)

cheers -andre

hi andre,

my own laptop, and Asus L3, has the same chip. with xfree version 4.1 or 4.2.1 (the best you can apt-get with debian anyway) i still had to do tons of hand-configuration to get it running. problem was quickly solved with an early snapshot of xfree 4.3.0 (4.2.99.909, i beleive). anyway, linux binaries for xfree 4.3.0 are available now at:

ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.3.0/binaries/

and they should handle most problems. still having a bit of trouble with hardware acceleration. (not an issue for me, as i only run pd and not much for 3d graphics).

in this case, maybe the Direct Rendering Infrastructure could be of interest:

http://dri.sourceforge.net/

have fun! d.

On Sat, 8 Mar 2003 17:47:17 +0100 Andre Schmidt andre@vju-tv.net wrote:

...

hi,

i'm about to buy my very first notebook :) and saw this on media-markt (germany)

http://shop.mediamarkt.de/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId...

...

it's a GERICOM Masterpiece 2440

• P4 2,4GHz
• 512MB
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, 64MB
• etc...

my only worry is that does linux (i prefer suse) and PD+GEM work on this

machine. specially that ATI chip. on my desktop with geforce2mx440 i didn't get the 3D drivers from nvidia to work :(...audio ist mir wurst, because i will buy an usb/firewire audio interface later...

so, if any1 has/heard this machine with linux+pd+gem, let me know... i will be buying it tomorrow, a special sonday here in frankfurt, the shops are open form 13 to 18 :))))

cheers -andre ps. i'm pretty sure that pd+gem will work on windows with this machine, but i WANT linux...

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just to reiterate the point, the radeon 9000 has a "full featured" driver supplied by ati (closed source, the graphics chip industry is a cloak and dagger affair presently - the current ati staff conference attire is an urban cammo tshirt with the ati logo).

http://mirror.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html

unlike the nvidia chips, it _appears_ that the radeon 9000 _mobility_ (laptop version) is compatible with the normal desktop version, whereas with nvidia, the similarity between model numbers of mobility and desktop cards is purely cosmetic. i mention this because there are reports of the desktop raadeon 9000 driver working on the mobility version - behaviour you wouldn't expect with nvidia chips.

in addition to the closed source driver from ati, you can also choose from the driver that comes with xfree (providing only 2d accelleration apparently), or the driver from dri.sf.net which may or may not provide some 3d support. and if for some reason none of these does what you want, you can look into acceleratedX (the theory being that they have licensed hardware info from ati, which is why you have to pay for it - they seem to be quite focussed on multihead support which will be important if you want to do any kind of video performance).

if it weren't for the fact that my current laptop is working adequately at the moment, i'd probably buy something with an ati card in it. *waits for current laptop to burst into flames*

or you can just wait a few months until nvidia leapfrogs ati again ;)

pix.

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003 02:20:04 +1100 delire delire@selectparks.net wrote:

pix and i got X up on this box but from memory hardware accelleration was hard for some reason [although we both use a range of hw accellerated cards on other machines under linux]. our inability to install may have had something to do with the fact we were in a remote croatian village at the time, with one dialup modem feeding the entire town.

i use a radeon 7500 on my dell i8k with the < http://dri.sf.net > with amazing performance [often faster than win32 and the same card]. this is your best bet with the dri.

ps don't buy the gericom if it rattles, the one we worked with did.

cheers,

julian

On Sat, 8 Mar 2003 17:47:17 +0100 Andre Schmidt andre@vju-tv.net wrote:

//hi, // //i'm about to buy my very first notebook :) and saw this on media-markt

//(germany) // //http://shop.mediamarkt.de/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?pr oductId=16005&catalogId=5000&langId=-3&storeId=5000&categoryId=10001// //it's a GERICOM Masterpiece 2440 //- P4 2,4GHz //- 512MB //- ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, 64MB //- etc... // //my only worry is that does linux (i prefer suse) and PD+GEM work on this //machine. specially that ATI chip. on my desktop with geforce2mx440 i didn't //get the 3D drivers from nvidia to work :(...audio ist mir wurst, because i //will buy an usb/firewire audio interface later...// //so, if any1 has/heard this machine with linux+pd+gem, let me know... //i will be buying it tomorrow, a special sonday here in frankfurt, the shops //are open form 13 to 18 :)))) // //cheers //-andre //ps. i'm pretty sure that pd+gem will work on windows with this machine, but i //WANT linux... // //_______________________________________________ //PD-list mailing list //PD-list@iem.kug.ac.at //http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list // //

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