I’m thinking about buying a thinkpad, but I’ve recently found out that there’s only ATI cards on these laptops…
I’ve always had nvidia cards, which worked flawlessly with the proprietary drivers.
Because it’s a laptop we’re talking about here, I’d need to suspend, use the power management features of the card, and be able to run kwin’s composite flawlessly. Do you think I’ll get into issues? What is the best driver for my needs, the free or the proprietary? I won’t be playing games on linux, that’s what the windows partition is for…
Thanks everyone
PS: Oh, yes, I’ll be installing the latest opensuse on it.
Thinkpad W500
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087¤t-category-id=EC3A24B73CCE493BB1C514421A9BB0B7
Notice the ATI chip is the V5700 - But at: Graphics Drivers & Software
The V5700 is NOT listed.
I see the W500 also has Intel Graphics. My R61e uses Intel, but different and fortunately one of the best Intel chips. But I’m not sure about the W500’s.
But as far as ATI are concerned. They suck. I would look for a model that uses nvidia.
Hmm, I wouldn’t quite say that they suck…it’s more like a gentle inhale… 
Anyways, I have a ThinkPad Z61p with ATI V5200 and this has been working fine with the open radeonhd-driver. The tricky part is 3d, which is not working that well. Thus if you really need 3d then you should look for something else. I started using the open source driver when it was still in early development because the proprietary one caused me a lot of trouble, especially with suspend.
As a side note, isn’t W500 the one that nowadays has the 1920x1200 screen? I have it and have to say that it alone almost makes the W500 worth getting…
That is my problem… Lenovo stopped offering nvidias on the thinkpads. If you can find me a new one with an nvidia card, that’d be awesome! I can’t buy an intel card because… Well, they suck for gaminglol!
I wonder then which driver worked on my last instalation before i switched to ssd - i installed opensuse while dedicated card was turned on and both cards worked properly.
I am using Intel for work, even for games. Just wanted to run Ati for some more complex 3d game, it’s not big deal actually. Also Ati on W500 likes to overheat, which is not comfortable for everyday work.
After all i’ll try other driver (radeon-hd, right?) today and let you know.
Yes, it is 1920x1200. This is why i am sticking to it :D. I was thinking about W520 cause it have I7 and nvidia but every model younger than W500 has 16:9 screen, also after W540 lenovo put worse keyboard. Maybe some future model will be okay.