X failure after upgrade to Meerkat (Ubuntu 10.10)

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

bruce.labitt at autoliv.com writes:
> gnhlug-discuss-bounces at mail.gnhlug.org wrote on 10/19/2010 11:15:35 AM:
> > On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:46 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
> > <rozzin at geekspace.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Well, ATI/AMD & Intel have both FOSS'd their drivers so that
> > > the community can decide to pick them up and maintain them,
> > > if need be, for as long as there's interest--possibly forever.
> > 
> >   In practice, the FOSS world isn't usually much better at maintaining
> > support for older hardware.  Unsurprisingly, old software that almost
> > nobody uses doesn't have many hackers interested in maintaining it,
> > either.
> 
> Which brings me back to my observation, that while linux is better, than 
> say windows, for 'legacy' platforms, there comes a time to retire the 
> beast, because, no one is supporting the drivers for key peripherals.  I 
> was surprised that, at least for me, the party was over - and abruptly at 
> that!

Did you try xserver-xorg-video-nv? If neither that nor nouveau works,
and if your `old' machine is old enough to still have PCI slots be
acceptible for a graphics card, I could probably give you a 3dfx card
that would still work....

I haven't actually used it myself in a couple of years
(which is like forever, in terms of Ubuntu releases),
but the driver appears to sill be live:

    http://packages.ubuntu.com/maverick/xserver-xorg-video-tdfx

I also have an ATI Radeon 9250 (also PCI) which I'm pretty sure is
still supported (by the FOSS drivers--dunno about the proprietary ones,
I never found a reason to try them), and which I might be willing
to part with, though I've been considering using it myself
as a replacement for an old inbuilt card that seems to be acting up....

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."