Thinkpads Forum

Hey guys,

I've been using Ubuntu on my Z61m for over a year now and I am largly dissatisfied with how it runs on my machine. The biggest problem I'm having is with my ATI video card. Whenever I put some advanced effects with Compiz I start to get crashes with google earch, viewing pdfs or playing graphic games like tuxracer. The camera also does not work, even though I've tried several times to configure it. Even firefox crashes on some occasions.
So I have been thinking of using some other distro. Can anybody give me an advice which one would run better?

Wouldn't the lack of ATI drivers be more of a problem than Ubuntu, which going to be a problem with all Linux distros.

What Ubuntu version did you use ?

Although ATI support has been flaky across most distros for over a year now I've seen significant differences on my antique (!)T-series with the even less supported Radeon7500.

Fedora 12 seems best able to remain stable while even doing the 3D stuff. But that's using the now included desktop effects rather than a Compiz add-on. OpenSuse 11.2 will produce 3D effects but with artifacts in the display. Both these with KDE 4.3.x. But Ubuntu (9.10 with Gnome) wouldn't do effects at all.

Perhaps inconsistent would have been a better term to use than "flaky". Although I've not had any of them crash.

Best advice is probably to have a good scour of the support forums of a few distros & see how common ATI issues are and how fixable...with the obvious caveat that they may not be directly related to the X1300/1400