Hi,

I thinking about installing a Linux distribution on my T42, but before I go diving into testing various derivatives, I was hoping for some input concerning the configuration of the ATI Mobiliy Radeon 9600 drivers

My main candidates are:

- openSUSE 11.0
- Ubunto 8.04

I would really like to see Compiz+Fusion run on my laptop (T42 - 1400x1050, Radeon 9600 64MB). I've read somewhere that Beryl perhaps could perform better on the Radeon 9600..


Any advice?

I had it working on my T42 w/9600. Used the propriatary ATI drivers I downloaded from ATI's site, although it also worked with the Xorg free drivers. Kinda slow in either case. This is with Mandriva Free 2007.1. I also had it working out of the box with Mandriva Powerpack 2008.1, but I turned it off - too slow for everyday use.

I found a YouTube clip of Beryl SVN on Ubuntu 6.1 showing the Desktop Wall effect running on a T41 w/7500 32MB and it looks usable and fast enough.

I'm hoping that the ATI 9600 drivers and compiz+fusion/Beryl has improved since then.

I just found out that ATI has released updated Catalyst drivers for Linux last friday:
http://www.techpowerup.com/64159/ATI_Releases_Optimized_Linux_Drivers_for_ATI_FireGL_Graphics_Cards.html

Here's the YouTube clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwn0oo5V1w