I'm planning to buy IBM Thinkpad T42 but I am not sure which graphics adapter to choose. I have heard about the troubles getting ATI cards to run on Linux as they run on Windows (3D in particular) because of the lack of Linux support from ATI.
Although I haven't played 3D games quite a long time and I do not have any intentions to do so in the nearest future, I do enjoy the eyecandy Linux provides on my desktop computer with NVIDIA card - window transparency and xcompmgr shadow effects.
From the IBM website I found out that Thinkpad T42 ships with ATI Mobility RADEON 7500, 9000 or 9600.
Are these eyecandy effects available on these ATI cards? As far as I understand, ATI provides drivers for RADEON 8500 and up. Is RADEON 7500 capable of 3D with native x.org drivers?

Thanks in advance!

i finally managed to get my desktop radeon 9600xt to function in 3d using the drivers provided by ati

i am running debian Sarge, 2.4.29 kernel, xfree86 4.3.0

just had to install the exact! correct kernel headers and divert libGL.so.1.2 so it doesnt clash with what ATI gives you.

oh and i read somewhere that kernel 2.4.18 is too old for version 3.9.0 of the fglrx driver

i hate ATI drivers, i prefer the ati card in that it runs cooler(and quieter) that Nvidia's offerings for the same ballpark performance.

if i had to buy again I would be sitting on the fence not knowing which card to choose.

I would definitely recommend AGAINST ATI cards.. especially for laptops.. because specs are terrible.. I have an HP notebook with an "ATI Mobility Radeon M6" which is nothing more than an integrated IGP 340M chip.. which has NO support(i have to use vesa drivers).

You would be much better off sticking with a notebook that has an nvidia chip or even Intel, if you must.. I know many ThinkPads ship Intel graphics..

The newer ATI Mobile Cards (9600, 9700, 9800, and all the mobile X*00 cards) seem to be pretty good...not sure as far as getting them to work with Linux but I am sure the drivers won't be too hard to find. Not that nVIDIA's cards are any better performance wise but some people say they do better with Linux.

I definitely had a hard time getting my ATI Mobility 7500 to do 3d acceleration on mandrake 10.1 (and even then it's not very good). In hindsight, I'd stray from the older ones like this because ATI has NO linux support for these cards. Check the ATI site out, I hear people have had decent results with the newer cards as ATI actually has drivers for them.