Laptop Graphics

[Alan Cox]

On Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:13:57 -0700
Joe Zeff <joe at zeff.us> wrote:

> On 07/03/2011 10:46 AM, Petrus de Calguarium wrote:
> > Johan Scheepers wrote:
> >
> >> Looking around to buy a new laptop.
> >
> > I like Intel.
> >
> 
> That's what I have on the laptop I'm using right now.  It has the 
> advantage that you don't have to worry about binary blob drivers, like 
> you do with ATI and nVidida.

Well to be fair (and I have an Intel work hat) a lot of the ATI stuff is
now well supported without binary blobs.

Also on the Intel side one or two chips generally meant for
tablets/small devices are basically not useful in Linux as the graphics
on the chip is non Intel, notably GMA500 (Poulsbo), GMA600, 'Oaktrail'.
The staging driver provides 2D mode setting for these but thats all, and
most of those don't even have 2D acceleration. These turn up in the odd
netbook so for netbook form factor its worth checking what you get before
buying.

The "normal" Intel graphics based hardware found in laptops and desktops
should work wonderfully, although you'll need a pretty current
distribution for the very latest chipsets.

Alan