i should be working (but i'm fixing my computer).

I can't complain too much -- all of my computers run linux and all of them work.  But that's not precisely the entire story, is it?

...

In fairness, I could not write a video driver if my life depended on it.  Then, there is the chaos added by the fact that video cards (and their drivers) are "proprietary."  Apparently no love lost between video card manufacturers and FOSS.

So, let's take stock.  Leaving aside my daughter's computer, I have at the moment six computers running linux.  3d compositing works on only two of them -- my Acer Aspire 1 netbook and my elderly eMachine desktop.    3d compositing DID IN THE PAST work on my hp pavilion ZD7000 (Nvidia); my Toshiba A15 (intel).  But for a long time it hasn't.  I haven't used the Compaq laptop enough to have a solid opinion (got it from my mother recently when she upgraded). My Gateway LT3013u is LESS THAN A YEAR OLD, but ATI has moved the drivers into its "legacy" package.  They never worked correctly in the first place and now the legacy package does not even install in OpSu 11.3.  Are you kidding me, ATI???

Lastly, I have an older e-Machine desktop with a Nvidia card -- the drivers did load correctly, once again in with the older kernel available in Ubuntu Jaunty.

Let's take stock of what I claim to "know" or have "read" on these issues -- and trust me, I have wasted a good deal of time trying to figure it out.

Some years ago, Nvidia provided proprietary drivers for the hp pavilion.  However, at some point Nvidia decided it was too much bother to maintain them.  I was left to use the "nv" linux open-source drivers.  These more or less work, but no 3d.    I've also written about the fact that WindowsXP updates caused the computer to be non-bootable in Windows.  Those problems also seem to relate the video drivers.

What we have here is not so much "planned obsolescence," but affirmative computer "disabling" by vendors.  There is nothing wrong with the hardware, or at least nothing sufficient to keep it from being useful -- I use the hp zd7000 on a daily basis and it runs 24/7 as my internet server.

The Toshiba A15 suffered pretty much the same fate.  After some linux updates, I am surprised to discover that I have 3d capabilities; and after other updates, no 3d.    I bought this computer as a fill-in while I was waiting for the custom-ordered zd7000.  It still runs 24/7  -- acting as the server for my stereo system.  Again, nothing wrong with the hardware (though I've had to replace the cheap, junky fan a couple of times.)

Nevertheless, for the most part, NO 3D.

The Nvidia proprietary drivers were retrieved and loaded properly on my eMachine desktop running Jolicloud/Ubuntu Jaunty -- which is a bit odd as this is also an old and not very capable machine.  The original WindowsXP is virtually non-functional now -- but once again, as I have recently blogged, it has made nearly "brand new" by my recent installation of Jolicloud!

The real "kick sand in the face of your customer" computer is the Gateway LT3103u, which as I have noted is less than 1 year old.  While one can understand why vendors would not be eager to spend money providing drivers for 10 year old computers, what about 1 year old ones?  There outta be a law!!!  Beyond that -- if a vendor chooses not to support its hardware any longer, then if you ask me, it ought to have the courtesy to put the necessary code into the public domain so that linux authors can maintain the drivers.  As I've noted here before, there are apparently two paths of development on the "radeon" cards:  the radeonhd branch, sponsored by Novell (with the assistance of ATI); and the "radeon" branch, sponsored by Canonical (with the assistance of ATI).  So ... here we have ATI making a token effort to work with the FOSS world.

Except -- my less than a year old card has been branched to "legacy" status by ATI.  Not only does it PRESENTLY not work, it has NEVER worked in 3d under linux since I bought the thing.

But ... it gets more frustrating.  The 3d on the eMachine is making a pretty good case for 3d -- especially as the compiz and cairo-dock combination have done a nice job of adding features not readily available in Jolicloud, and which did not work very aesthetically without 3d compositing.

Still, I would be happy to get the Gateway netbook to simply WORK without having video meltdown.  In OpSu 11.2, it was possible to make changes via SAX2.  And additionally, it was relatively easy to edit the xorg.conf file to change the driver.

OpSu 11.3 has tried to make video choices MORE user friendly -- which is probably successful when the system recognizes the computer (such as my Aspire Acer 1).  But, it is a lot LESS user friendly when the automated system screws up.  The system now relies on xrandr to identify and set the driver.    I haven't yet fully comprehended the xrandr wiki, which explains how to override the automatic selection.  My system claims (per sysinfo://) to be using the radeon driver.  I don't see any way to uninstall the radeon driver via YAST, although the radeonhd driver (which also doesn't work) can be installed.

During the boot process, the screens (internal and external) work well enough, so if I could just roll back to a generic driver, that might be the best option.  But, I'm not certain how to identify generic drivers (0ther than "vesa").  And, I'm not certain the generic VESA driver will go to 1366 resolution -- it may max out at 1280.

So, as I said in the title to this post, the state of linux video drivers is sucky -- at least on my computers.

(Which may explain why I have had so much trouble with KDE 4.x Plasma.)

_____________________

The same is not entirely true under Windows.  As I've mentioned in other posts, the Windows Vista that worked when I bought the LT3103u has now become extremely slow and useless.  OTOH, the video DOES WORK, and I use the Vista OS on the Gateway to watch Netflix on my external monitor.

It would be nice if FOSS would implement Netflix compatibility; or alternatively, if a Netflix competitor would use a system that runs on FOSS.  Hulu does, but it has mega-commericals, so I don't watch it.  There is an interesting repository of videos at the the "internet archive", consisting of some stuff that is old enough to be off copyright; and some other videos that have been released under a commons license or other open use.