ATI graphics in F7

[Jim Cornette]

Dave Stevens wrote:
> Yesterday I downloaded and burned an iso of mandriva 2008 one (a live cd), 
> just to see. After figuring out that the terminal was called Konsole I ran 
> glxgears and got a figure of about 10,000 fps. The desktop came up with 
> desktop effects enabled by default and everything was pretty smooth.
> 
> I have in the past tried quite hard to figure out what is the best free driver 
> setup to use and to actually install and use one. But the performance of what 
> I could achieve was pathetic and the process was painful. Do people have 
> opinions about
> 
> 1 a good simple test of graphics capabilities for a Fedora install?
> 2 the likelihood that Fedora will have comparable performance to Mandriva (or 
> any other similar distribution) any time soon?
> 3 Is the ATI disclosure of their software internals going to result in the 
> RadeonHD driver getting better? or when?
> 
> Many thanks.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 


Since both distributions are rpm based, some sort of mixed system could 
be possible. You might check to see what packages Mandriva are using and 
grab the source rpms and rebuild for a Fedora system. Also there might 
be ready made repositories that have the components needed for better 
video.
Also a warning: Do not attempt the rawhide versions now though. The 
builds are using a different version of X and would crash. I tried the 
updates-testing on a rawhide system and can confirm they are 
incompatible builds.
You are right that the desktop effects for the F8 ati driver are pretty 
useless. I disabled the effects because of the problems and use 
metacity, then and now with rawhide.

Jim