more lockup laptop problems with dapper

[Eric S. Johansson]

Wenzhuo Zhang wrote:
> I'm annoyed by the open-source ATI driver related lockup probem of
> dapper as well, although my ThinkPad X32 locks up less often than
> yours. It typically locks up several times a week when using the
> "ati" driver. Switching to the "vesa" driver can solve the problem,
> and I've been suffering with the slow generic driver for more than a
> month.
> 
> I just came across a post on ubuntuforums.org
> <http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1388897&postcount=14>,
> which suggests using the "radeon" driver instead of the "ati" wrapper
> driver. I am testing it now. I'll report back next week. Perhaps you
> may want to give it a try as well.

radeon locks up after a couple of hours.  vesa reduces resolution of the 
screen.  Doesn't seem to be able to display the full 1400 x 1040.

You now, one would think that for something so important as the video 
driver, there would be a fund-raising effort to pay the developers to do 
the damn job right.  Volunteer work is fine for noncritical stuff like 
open office or gimp.  but something like device drivers, we really need 
some mechanism to pay people to do the job right and then hold them 
accountable to those who paid.

Just think for only $.50 per video card, we could have stable, reliable, 
maintained device drivers for our video.  For an additional $.25, we 
could eliminate X11.  Not sure what we would replace it with but we 
could eliminate it.  ;-)

1/2 snark.  You get to figure out which half.

---eric