Explain the difference between 2d/3d drivers -general

[deri]

I have a working system with ati drivers, but I still don't understand this.

If you build your linux driver from ati file you get 3 different debs that contain the opengl driver, ccc and somekind of 2d/3d driver?

But what's FIREgl driver?

What's DRM/radeon?

If you use ati drivers how to make sure you don't have conflict with mesa? Or otherway round?

If you add xorg edge (or whatever it was) ppa. What do you actually get?

[kennerc]

I have a (Jurassic) HD 5450 and on my last install i decided to test the open-source drivers. Partially, because of the same doubts as you. We have the fglrx 9 (which give 3 options o the additional drivers) fglrx 12 (which also give 3 options) and the driver from the AMD site.
Installing the open source driver made my system run smoother and even games (I only play emulators) ran better.
But I’m interested to know if there's a right choice to driver and if all I was missing was some configuration.