I guess people will get bored of me. But I am new to Linux and experiencing issues.
If I understood correctly new kernel of Linux isn’t very good at supporting legacy drivers like the one for ATI RADEON XPRESS 200.
I really love OpenSuse 11.3 it is really amazing and solid OS. But I need 3D acceleration enabled and I have no other choice than to try and downgrade to older Linux kernel based OS. Could someone recommend an older and reliable Linux OS? It doens;t have to be OpenSuse, I will have to go with any secure and powerful distribution out there on which legacy drivers would work flawlessly. But I can;t use Ubuntu ( something is odd about the hardware of the PC I want to install Linux and Ubuntu, they just doens;t seem to like each other…)
It is a real pity ATI decided to no longer support legacy stuff, well at least I know whose hardware to never buy, it is the only part of my pc that doens;t play well with Linux. I was so happy to begin my half migration from windows to Linux and slap to my face. Well at least I can surf internet and edit images Linux is cool, even when something important doens;t work, the one can still be productive.
Yes I know that it is ATI fault. This is why I will no longer ever look at anything related to ATI. It shouldn;t be very difficult and resource intensive to port and adapt old drivers that are still being used by many people. This makes me think that if I will buy today their latest super graphics card, it is likely it won’t be supported in couple years. But usually people buy stuff that they could live with and use for a long time.
This is why I am looking for a recommended downgrade of Linux. I want to use Linux. But I have no idea what Linux should I take so the legacy drivers would be handled by the kernel (obviously because for that kernel it wouldn;t be a normal driver not old one). But I need it to be secure OS and powerful. And I suppose long term support.
Is OpenSuse 10 good? Does it have Yast package manager? I ma a newbie to linux there fore things like yest or synaptics package manager is a msut for me
Current distributions use current kernels… You could use an older Linux, but they most probably will give you other issues that easily outweigh the problems you have now - you won’t get any current software and no support for bugfixes. I don’t think that’s a good option.
The only technical solution I can think of is: buy an NVidia, they (as you wrote) are supported much longer then ATIs.
Devil’s in the details, but if downgrading was the only option, perhaps you can reduce your attack surface by configuring an SE Linux, perhaps even applying Bastille.
If this is going to be your gaming machine (I assume for your 3D acceleration), can you put it in a highly protected LAN which never connects to the Internet (except maybe for limited use through a Proxy Server)?
Try DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. for a birdeye review of various Linux distributions. Ubuntu, LinuxMint are user friendly and may have better 3D support for you Xpress 200. And are you sure the Xpress 200 isn’t supported? Xpress 200 is the chipset but the video is a R300 which is supported.
> It is a real pity ATI decided to no longer support legacy stuff, well
> at least I know whose hardware to never buy, it is the only part of my
> pc that doens;t play well with Linux. I was so happy to begin my half
> migration from windows to Linux and slap to my face. Well at least I
> can surf internet and edit images Linux is cool, even when something
> important doens;t work, the one can still be productive.
I’d recommend you look in the mail list archive, there are comments about
this. I don’t track ATI very much, though, I avoid that name.
Have you tried the radeon driver with this? I have a desktop computer with with an old 9600se, the radeon driver does a good job with 3d on this, although not quite as good as I got from fglrx.
I was so happy to begin my half migration from windows to Linux and slap to my face. Well at least I can surf internet and edit images 
Linux is cool, even when something important doens;t work, the one can still be productive.