Linux will work with all video cards in text mode, VGA cards not listed below probably will still work with mono VGA and/or standard VGA drivers.
If you're looking into buying a cheap video card to run X, keep in mind that accelerated cards (ATI Mach, ET4000/W32p, S3) are MUCH faster than unaccelerated or partially accelerated (Cirrus, WD) cards. S3 801 (ISA), S3 805 (VLB), ET4000/W32p, and ATI Graphics Wonder (Mach32) are good low-end accelerated cards.
32 bit color means 24 bit color aligned on 32 bit boundaries. Modes with 24 bit packed pixels are not supported, so cards that can display 24 bit color in other OS's may not able to do this in X. These cards include Mach32, Cirrus 542x, S3 801/805, ET4000, and others.
Early Diamond cards are not supported by XFree86, but there are ways of getting them to work. Most recent Diamond cards ARE supported by the current release of XFree86.
8 bpp unless noted.
No, I do not know when support for these cards will be finished, please don't ask me. If you want support for these cards now get Accelerated-X.
Commercial X servers provide support for cards not supported by XFree86, and might give better performances for cards that are supported by XFree86. Only cards not supported by XFree86 are listed here. Contact the vendors directly or check the Commercial HOWTO for more info.
$199 from X Inside, Inc. <info@xinside.com>. Accel-X 1.1 is available right now for a promotional price of $99.50, with free upgrade to 1.2.
16 bit support for ATI Mach32, ATI Mach 64, Cirrus 542x/543x, IBM XGA, IIT AGX-014/015, Matrox MGA, #9 I-128, Oak OTI-077/087, S3 cards, ET4000, ET4000/W32 series, Weitek P9000, WD90C30/31.
32 bit support for ATI Mach64, Cirrus 5434, Matrox MGA, #9 I-128, S3-928/864/964, ET4000/W32p, Weitek P9000.
Accel-X 1.2 will support 24 bit packed pixel modes and have support for many more video cards.
$150 from Metro Link <sales@metrolink.com>. Metro-X 2.3 is now available for special introductory price of $99.00.
Metro-X has similar hardware support as Accel-X, however I don't have much more information as I can't seem to view the PostScript files they sent me. Mail them directly for more info.
Next Chapter, Previous Chapter
Table of contents of this chapter, General table of contents
Top of the document, Beginning of this Chapter