Just a poll for everybody out there. What linux version currently has the best driver support for laptops. I have a AMD Radeon Mobility 9700 and I run with dual monitors. I've had some problems with this configuration when using linux previously. Anybody know if there is a version of linux that natively supports this setup with a decent video driver? I don't want to have to deal with ridiculous slowdowns from using a generic driver or be unable to get the computer to extend the desktop over two screens, any suggestions?

~Lyuokdea

My suggestion? Find what distribution you like and then put the ATI drivers on it.

Seablade

wow...this is a loaded question.

i'll try to break it down.


which distro can run most hardware out of the box: Ubuntu

which distro can run fglrx out of the box (that i know of): PCLinuxOS .92-ati, Linspire, Myah, Kororaa XGL (although kinda broken). (my fav from all of these is PCLinuxOS by a HUGE margin)

whats best to do in your case: like seablade said, install whatever the hell distro you like to use, and then just install FGLRX on top of it. I have an ATI 9700 in my laptop as well and from my experience yes, some distros having to setup fglrx is a pain in my royal asshole, others aren't half bad though. Ubuntu and Arch linux I think have the most simple FGLRX configuration. Fedora and Gentoo are quite a bit more complicated though.

now what do i recommend most of all: Arch.

it looks to me like you're somewhat of a linux noob. So grab an Arch cd, and follow my "arch linux for noobs" thread. It will take you through getting the base installed, gnome, tweak it a little to be more usable. use wiki.archlinux.org to get the rest done. i only recommend arch over ubuntu because of speed concerns.

if you dont mind to take a bit of a performance hit, then make it easy on yourself and grab Ubuntu.

People are either going to respect this post or I'm going to get torn to pieces.. we'll see:

I'd recommend you start with Ubuntu. To answer some of your questions, it's not the version per-se of linux but rather the distrbution. Drivers are provided by 'linux' itself.. the kernel and loadable modules provide your drivers. These drivers will be the same more or less across every different distribution (provided its linux 2.6, you will see differences in older versions like 2.4). Ubuntu does automated hardware detection and should work well for your purpose.

Now here's the part where I get eaten alive:
Keep in mind that you're going to have a slightly harder time because you're using an ATI card. I've never had a good experience with any open source operating system and ATI hardware, especially considering you want to do two screens / dual monitor. I highly recommend anyone that wants a laptop for linux purposes to try and find one with an nvidia based chipset/GPU. It'll save you so many headaches later.. if you do go the ATI/Ubuntu route be sure and read the guide at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI .

If you have any questions I can try and help you, either post here or PM me.

-P

Phrost6 ... ATI drivers are not that hard to install really (especially from my experience arch and ubuntu). although, never tried to get dual monitors going, but i am sure its possible.

Check ATI's website and see what they recommend. Of those vendors who do support linux, most probably do so via RPM packages. That means some kind of Red Hat associated distro like Fedora Core would probably be your best bet. If I'm not mistaken Fedora also offers some proprietary drivers. You might also want to check out linuxlaptops.com for driver info about your particular laptop.

You don't truely appreciate the nvidia drivers until you either switch from or to ATI drivers. Once you have experience with both you'll truely understand why ATI is really behind the ball.

Now if the only 3d you do is in you screen saver then ATI will be just great. The minute you try to run wine/cedega, Maya, Blender, or native 3d games
you'll see very quickly that the ati drivers are slow and glitchy. That was my experience with my 9700pro up to when I switched 4 months ago.

Finally, I second everyone that suggested just trying a few distros and pick the one you prefer most.

Welcome to the dark side BT

Seablade

hmm.....glichiness in 3D games.... i seem to just have spent 2 hours playing ET just fine.

that said, the only problem i do have with ATi is suspend (be it hibernate or standby) evne if i can get the rest of the OS to go in and out of sleep (say it will do it with VESA or the opensource radeon driver) but once you factor in FGLRX it will not come out of hibernate... so you'll be forced to restart. i think THAT is my biggest beef with fglrx. unlike my desktop which is nvidia so i can really go in and out standy easier

It could also be due to the fact that you switched from a mr9700 to a go7800