[vox-tech] Debian configuration: X and modem and zip]

[Jonathan Stickel]

Ashleigh Smythe wrote:
> Quoting Rick Moen:
> 
>>
>> Oh, everyone has opinions.  ;->  Mine are a little out of date on the
>> current state of video, because, one, I don't buy often, and two, I
>> couldn't care less about whizbang 3D graphics features that are all the
>> rage among people truly impassioned about these things.[1]
>>
> 
> 
> I too am not in need of 3D - I don't play games at all.  This is why I 
> thought I'd skip getting the graphics card and figured I'd be fine with 
> the integrated graphics - I just need X to run Lyx (LaTeX frontend), 
> mozilla, OpenOffice, and Ximian Evolution - just about everything else I 
> do is at the command line.
> 

Accelerated 3D rendering is helpful to have for other things than just 
games.  I do 3D visualization as part of my graduate research, and 
rotating the objects is painfully slow without fast 3D.  But for your 
stated needs, you probably don't really need it.  A 32 MB ATI or Nvidia 
card would probably do just fine for you, and would be cheap too.

Part of the reason I suggest Nvidia graphics cards for Linux users is 
because of proprietary drivers that /work/.  As long as they continue to 
provide Linux support their products as they currently do, I will in 
turn support them.  Installing their drivers is easy:  download the 
latest script from the website, execute it, and make 2 small changes to 
XF86Config.

Jonathan