Re: Have to agree
"I understand Nvidia has marginally better Linux support than ATI"
At work we recently had a kind-of-trial (but in frontline service) project which required the use of very small form factor boxes stuck to the back of monitors on the VESA mount. We went for Acer Aspire Revo machines. All running Linux (Ubuntu/Debian).
Really nice machines to work with, Nvidia Ion chipsets, did everything we wanted. 25 of them in service, everyone happy.
This month we were asked to extend the trial to 10 more locations. Could suddenly no longer purchase the Ion-based machines, and the only thing we could get our hands on had ATI cards onboard. OK, we expected some issues.
So they arrived, set them up, they didn't do the graphics processing out the box we required for the project. Downloaded, compiled, installed the official ATI driver. We were then left with a FUCKOFFMASSIVE box in the lower right corner of the screen saying we were using an unsupported driver. HOURS of Googling failed to resolve this. Same on both available choices of Linux flavour.
In the end we stole small PCs from elsewhere and hid them in the ceiling... :-(