System76 and ATI

[Ylon]

Hi,

I'd made some browsing over your very interesting products... by the way I did notice that almost all (if not exactly) are equipped with Intel/Nvidia cards.


Now, I know that ATI boards are pretty infamous (in Linux community), but when talk about professional effort to equip a mass product... rule change from occasional user.

Now...

Why avoid ATI video cards? There are technical reasons (having to provide support for a product that is not particularly effective within the Linux community), style (just because they were considered "infamous" (even if unfairly) as a feature proprietary drivers) or for reasons marginal ... type "Intel and Nvidia just works (without continued testing on other cards).

If for technical reasons: what "went wrong" in your test "Linux and ATI"?


Many thanks and regards, and keep up with this good work!

[thomasaaron]

We did a ton of testing with ATI cards and sold them for a while. It's possible we may do so again in the future.

While they tend to offer more performance for the buck than nvidia cards, they are a royal pain to configure, and the drivers for Linux are too buggy. Simply more hassle than what 95% of users are interested in going through.

[doas777]

as long as you steer away from the lower end of the 8000 (83&8400s have compability issues) series, nvidia definitely works better with linux. I have a few ATI boxes, and all of them require me to download the ATI driver from AMD, and to reinstall it with every kernel upgrade. I've also found that some settings related to dual monitors take manual intervention to work right. took me a good number of hours to get my dual head configured initially.

[Ylon]

Thanks for the answer, surely will observe with interest when and to what ATI will be available in your range of products: for any sign of when ATI has taken again seriously to support the Linux community.

I think people expect to find in your hardware adapted to Linux in the same way that Apple users expect to find in their hardware suitable for Mac OSX

I know it will be a harder without have "weight" of Microsoft or Apple to assert themselves among the hardware manufacturers.... but hope that the growing Linux community will support your business initiative with the necessary "weight".

[thomasaaron]

surely will observe with interest when and to what ATI will be available in your range of products: for any sign of when ATI has taken again seriously to support the Linux community.

Absolutely! Like I said, performance wise, it definitely provides more bang for the buck than nVidia. I really like ATI. They've just got to get their act straightened out.