Graphics Which graphics card for linux?

hello all,
I am wanting to hook up my linux pc to my HD TV through HDMI as well as my desk monitor. It Isnt for hardcore gaming or the like, just for the odd Youtube vid and stuff. Basically I want the cheapest card i can get for this purpose. My monitor is VGA.

So could you recommend the best card for this purpose. I have heard that the drivers for ATI cards are very lousy for linux. I have been looking at the ATI Radeon 5450 and the Nividia GeForce 8400. I am open to other suggestions as well.

 

For desktop stuff it's fine on either. In Ubuntu it'll automatically offer to install the latest nvidia or catalyst drivers for you.

For ATI I'd see if you can find a cheap 6450 instead, as they should be around the same price as the 5450, but are much better for games, if you later decide to use it for that.

 

If you are just doing browsing and watching some vids either is fine.

I have found the nvidia drivers to be more up to date with more support, but again if you aren't gaming or anything it doesn't really matter

I run my 5870 on my laptop in linux just fine and it plays games as well.

Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio using Tapatalk 2

 

One area that does seem simpler with nvidia is accelerated hardware video decoding. There is support for both, but as far as I know it's very simple with the nvidia drivers (and automatically enabled in XBMC etc.)

AMD synchronises the drivers, so for instance Catalyst 12.6 beta came out a couple of days ago for Windows and Linux at the same time, with the same features (that doesn't mean performance will be the same).

 

only if your talking about the opencl sdk (your average probably wouldn't be able to configure it).. for what your doing- amd is fine.. nvidias cuda is easy to install and get working even though it's hell of inferior to ati/amd in brute forcing - it's why a lot of casuals love them for linux- just plop the driver in and cuda works (badly)

 

Why not get a passive card like I did for similar needs of yours?

Like a GT430.