[GRLUG] Anyone using Gnome3 yet?

[Adam Tauno Williams]

Quoting John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org>
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 07:06:52PM -0500, L. V. Lammert wrote:
>> Gave up on two machines with older video cards and SuSE 12.1 - one was a
>> server, so I let it go with Gnome Fallback, however I would like to
>> actually SEE Gnome3 on the other machine.
>> The plethora of notes online seem to be inconclusive - some recommend ATI,
>> some nVidia (OS arguments aside).

It is confusing - there is a pile of misinformation, a great deal  
emanating from the constant use of the meaningless term "3D  
acceleration"

 From my notes [some of these are unattributed quotes, so creds to  
whomever the source is]
* any intel integrated graphics card ? i915/945 (i.e. basically every card
shipped in a netbook, except the GMA500)
* OpenGL ? 1.2 + multi-texturing *or* OpenGL ? 1.3
* For information about graphics hardware that can work without  
non-free drivers or firmware, see http://h-node.com.
* intel 945 (and older) has horizontal limit of 2048 pixels after  
which acceleration auto-disables.
* Radeon R300 (and older) has limit of 2560 pixels after which  
acceleration auto-disables.
* ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200] is known buggy.  Don't buy  
ATI. <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=679579>

>> Can anyone recommed a decent video card (PCI Express) that WILL RUN OpenGL
>> accelerated and Gnome3, preferably OpenSuSE 12.2?

I use openSUSE 12.1 2/GNOME3 on all three of my machines.  All have  
nVida adapters and all work with the nouveau driver.

> My laptop is running an nVidia GT460.  it runs GNOME3 quite well.  I
> think the desktop version is GTX460.

Laptop -
   01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT216  
[GeForce GT 230M] (rev a2)
Workstation -
   0a:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G98 [GeForce  
8400 GS] (rev a1)
Server -
   01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV6  
[Vanta/Vanta LT] (rev 15)

The first two (laptop & workstation) work great, the card in the  
server is crap and works really lousy.  As I recall I had to do some  
do-it-anyway hack to get Shell to run;  but once you get used to Shell  
everything else feels so clunky.