Some advice about SiS graphic cards in Ubuntu?

[JC Cheloven]

In my place is quite difficult to get a laptop without windows preinstalled, so my interest in this. Surfing the web, I found a store called Beep (don't know whether it is worldwide established or not), where I saw this laptop (http://www.beep.es/Portatiles/Ordenadores-portatiles/Portatil-Beep-Iridium-A15-T2370REwtQkVFNDI4NzU=.html) I'm considering. It has a SiS graphics card (should I say graphics chipset?), whose model isn't specified, as you can see. I suspect it can be a source of problems when running Ubuntu.

I searched for a while, and din't find much references in english forums. Found some more ones at spanish forums, mainly reporting problems with SiS, but most of them are from early 2007. I also saw that ubuntu has SiS drivers now, but that 3D acceleration seems not to work. So my question:

Can someone tell how is nowadays the state of SiS graphics cards under Ubuntu?

Note.- I can't figure out how in the world a manufacturer makes a laptop to be sold without windows, and doesn't care about being fully linux compatible either :confused:

[JC Cheloven]

Well, a self-answer (perhaps my experience may help other people).

--> I had with this laptop the WORST ubuntu experience of my life <--

Perhaps is the culprit of something else than the SiS component of this Beep computer. Anyway, the ubuntu live cd wont start, no matter the combination of "noapic - nolapic - pci=routeirq - pci=noacpi - acpi=off ..." and some others I've tried. Also direct install failed.

Furthermore, the laptop is advertised as "sold without OS" (well, it came with freedos installed), but that insidious sticker reading "windows vista home basic" was there, at the side of the keyboard. They didn't care to pull it out. Simply disgraceful.

To sum up, I got a bad impression both on the computer and on that Beep vendor-reseller (or whatever). I can't recommend it at all. Of course, the laptop is back to the store.