It's no secret ATi's Linux driver support pretty much sucks compared with nVidia. With the AMD-ATi merger approved, how will the favored alternative OS fare? Linux Watch attempts to answer that: Now, I could be wrong. But, the longer I ponder what AMD wants to do with ATI, the more I think it makes perfect business sense for AMD to target both the Mac and Linux markets. I'm sure that they're also hoping to win more desktop Windows users, as well, but they could make a lot bigger splash a lot faster with the Mac and Linux desktops. If AMD decides to pursue the Linux sector, the Linux driver support team will likely end up with Hector Ruiz cracking the whip.
ATI 9200's and earlier have open-source drivers which work well with no user interaction. The later cards however rely on horrible closed-source drivers. NVidia's drivers are closed-source also, but at least they work. I guess my point here is that ATI drivers are not all horrible, just if you actually want a video card which was made within the last few years.
And that's the problem. While AMD's involvement doesn't guarantee better Linux support, if the company decides to support it, I think we'd see much better support.
I would hope so... the ATI Linux Drivers cant really get much worse can they? I found i wasnt able to play SOF (a fairly old game) on my 256MB 9800XT (with a AMD64 3200+ and 512MB DDR PC3200) it was so sluggish as to be unbelive-able and unuseable...
