Slashdot Mirror

Phantom69 writes "Ixbt Labs have spent a month testing 101 graphics cards in 14 different games. They used one reference system, and tested at two different resolutions (800x600 and 1024x768). The cards cover virtually all the major manufacturers ATi, nVidia, 3dfx, Matrox, PowerVR and S3 from 1999-2004."

An anonymous reader asks: "Thanks to Walmart, TigerDirect, and Gnu/Linux, I can get computers at about $200 now. Thanks to Matrox, I have several multi-head video cards. Thanks to a hacker's convention last year, I have a truckload of monitors that haven't been put to use yet. I've been out of the financial markets since 1996. I'm itching to get back in now, especially since conditions will be very favorable shortly. Since I've lost my shirt in the markets already (most investors/traders loose their shirts at least once before striking it rich, and my beating was especially instructive), I'm now ready for better returns. Gnu/Linux is well known to support multiple monitor setups. I've seen 4 monitor setups per box in some financial firms, and I recently read a story on the National Weather Service using 3 monitor setups on another OSDN channel. I've also used a Quotrek trading monitor in the past, for monitoring stocks and other financials in real-time. This was before I was a penguinista. Now that I know a bit about Linux systems, I'd like to know the following: What Gnu/Linux applications can I use to monitor and/or process stocks, options, bonds, financial news, and other related information via low cost Gnu/Linux computing solutions, broadband, and multi-head video cards? Free software only, please"

"I'm not going back to paying hundreds of dollars per month like I did for my Quotrek (an FM receiver for stock quotes, possibly discontinued), or paying many hundreds for proprietary software that may not get the job done, or can't be modified or supported by the community. What free software applications do you use? What is a good multi-monitor layout? Any free software that picks up financial broadcast signals and decodes to a computer screen? Any slashdot tycoons want to help out other Slashdot readers?"

An anonymous reader asks: "Thanks to Walmart, TigerDirect, and Gnu/Linux, I can get computers at about $200 now. Thanks to Matrox, I have several multi-head video cards. Thanks to a hacker's convention last year, I have a truckload of monitors that haven't been put to use yet. I've been out of the financial markets since 1996. I'm itching to get back in now, especially since conditions will be very favorable shortly. Since I've lost my shirt in the markets already (most investors/traders loose their shirts at least once before striking it rich, and my beating was especially instructive), I'm now ready for better returns. Gnu/Linux is well known to support multiple monitor setups. I've seen 4 monitor setups per box in some financial firms, and I recently read a story on the National Weather Service using 3 monitor setups on another OSDN channel. I've also used a Quotrek trading monitor in the past, for monitoring stocks and other financials in real-time. This was before I was a penguinista. Now that I know a bit about Linux systems, I'd like to know the following: What Gnu/Linux applications can I use to monitor and/or process stocks, options, bonds, financial news, and other related information via low cost Gnu/Linux computing solutions, broadband, and multi-head video cards? Free software only, please"

"I'm not going back to paying hundreds of dollars per month like I did for my Quotrek (an FM receiver for stock quotes, possibly discontinued), or paying many hundreds for proprietary software that may not get the job done, or can't be modified or supported by the community. What free software applications do you use? What is a good multi-monitor layout? Any free software that picks up financial broadcast signals and decodes to a computer screen? Any slashdot tycoons want to help out other Slashdot readers?"

rhost89 asks: "I'm a hobbyist OS Developer and am appalled at the obscurity and availability of some of the specs sheets for various device groups, specifically video cards. If we want to write video drivers we are almost forced into writing for VESA or for cards that were obsolete 5 years ago, meaning high resolutions that run like a dog, or blazingly fast at 640x480 at 256 colors. Most manufactures hold on to their engineering spec sheets like pirate holds on to their gold doubloons (NVIDIA, and ATI come to mind, here). Other manufactures are quite happy to provide the specs for their devices, such as Intel and Matrox. My question is what can hobbyist OS developers do to get these coveted spec sheets. Would petitions help or would it be an exercise in futility. What else can we do to free this valuable information besides reverse engineering the manufactures binaries?" It's funny how the more things have changed over the last five years, the more things stay the same.

thebrix asks: "I've acquired a Dell OptiPlex GX150. It's a pleasant machine to use - small, quiet and uses only 145 watts at full tilt with my flat panel - but its Achilles heel is the feeble i815 on-board graphics which steals RAM from main memory and plasters black bars onto my KDE desktop at inconvenient moments. There's a 4xAGP slot, but it's low-profile because of the small chassis and finding a low-profile graphics card is proving difficult because, invariably, manufacturers are more interested in listing whizzo features than how big the card is. So far, the Matrox G550 Dual DVI is the only card I've come across which definitely fits. Does anyone know of others?"

Deven Phillips writes: "Matrox has released a GUI based configuration tool for Matrox cards. It has the ability to set up Dual-Head, TV out, and Digital Flat Panel configurations. It also configures all of the resolution modes for XFree86 4.0.[2|3]. I have tried it, and it works with or without the Matrox supplied drivers, but you can't switch on the fly with the XFree drivers."

As the title says - Matrox has released a beta driver for their G200/G400/G450 which includes support for DualHead and QuadHead (up to 4 monitors), Flat Panel and TV out. This driver is a beta. You can get it here and I mirrored it here. You'll need XFree 4.0.1 in order to use this driver. Please follow the readme file carefully! (the readme file from Matrox's FTP needs to be converted dos2unix). Note: you cannot use the 3D hardware acceleration on the 2nd monitor (yet).Matrox & Precision insight - Keep up the good work!

SuperN wrote in to let us know that Matrox will be contracting Precision Insight to develop a DRI driver for the G400 and G200 chipsets, for use in XFree86. There's more information available, as well as a press release. Once Precision Insight is finished developing the driver, the source is to be released with the rest of XFree86, so it looks to be good vibes all around.

SuperN wrote in to let us know that Matrox will be contracting Precision Insight to develop a DRI driver for the G400 and G200 chipsets, for use in XFree86. There's more information available, as well as a press release. Once Precision Insight is finished developing the driver, the source is to be released with the rest of XFree86, so it looks to be good vibes all around.

Anonymous Coward writes "Matrox just released the hardware specs for the highly rated G400 here (must register). According to the guys working on the G200 driver (including John Carmack) from a driver perspective it is very similiar to the G200, so XFree86 and 3D support should be coming very soon. 1999 is going to be good year for Linux and high performance graphics. " With XFree86 4.0 out by the end of the year (hopefully), the Precision Insight news, and mandrake's work on xinerama, I'm inclined to agree. Now, if only I could get my hands on one of those babies...

Fernando Perez writes "A new Linux distribution called BeroLinux is out. It's RedHat 5.2 based and seems to have been put together by a single guy." It notably includes kernel 2.2, GNOME, KDE, and Pentium+K6 optimized binary. Secondly, fellow Debian developer Adam Heath (doogie) wrote in with something I'm surprised hasn't been posted yet: Matrox has released G200 specs. Next off, Alan Cox throws us a hat trick. Staring with ac1: For those of you who remember the Echelon articles from awhile back, you can take a "UK ballon trip of a lifetime" over the NSA's listening post in Menwith Hill. ac2: A linux-kernel post where you can read about HP working on a port of Linux to the Merced. ac3: Before Alan worked with Linus, he worked with a man who wrote an entire Unix clone for himself. He's released the source at the website, and has named it, appropriatley enough, OMU (One Man Unix). Finally, for those of you in the DC Metro Area, NOVALUG will be meeting tomorrow morning at 10AM in the Lee Center (check the website for more information).

mrproper sent us a link to a User Friendly noting that a strip this week featured those Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints that nearly killed me at ALS. Judah wrote in to say that the November issue of the LinuxGazette is now online. Ignacio wrote in to note that the XFree86 3.3.3 will be out this month, and the XF86_SVGA server will support the Matrox Gx00 video cards. Sixl6 wrote in to send us a link to an entertaining catalog oof christmas presents for, well, crazy people. I'm disturbed that this exists. Pleased, but disturbed. Tim Doran wrote in and sent us a link to a moderately humorous usenet post that takes a humorous pot shot at MS with a linux joke. Dave Whitinger wrote in (along with everyone else on earth) to note that Slink has now frozen really for sure definitely (note:I spelled it right!) this time. Debian 2.1 should be ready soon. Lastly, I'm just gonna throw a link out to Taco Hell, where I've posted a bunch of pictures of the old Geek House, as well as goofy pictures of my room mates (including myself and Hemos).