I am going to buy a graphics card for my computer (heh, what else would it be for?). I run Mepis Linux andhave no AGP or PCI-E slots. I've found the following link and would like advice about it:

This is it
1.) It says it can cope with OpenGL for Windows. Does that mean it can cope with OpenGL or only OpenGL on windows?
2.) Is it actually a PCI card or is it a mistake and it's actually PCI-E?

Also, any other recommendations of a cheap (<£40) graphics card that is PCI and OpenGL? Preferably ATI as I don't like NVidia after the driver issues.

EDIT:
I know it's out of stock, but I can just type the name into eBay.

I see.

A normal PCI slot has that, yeah?

There is only one ATI driver too. I just thought there was some issue to do with NVidia refusing to co-operate with FOSS, while ATI were fine with it. I dunno...

EDIT:
Forget the manufacturer thing.

I use 1600*1200 at the moment, but I'm not too bothered. I have a Celeron so I should be OK, and neither the board nor the BIOS are antique (about December 05).

EDIT:
I just ordered one off eBay so we'll see what happens. If it don't work it's your fault (Only kidding)

Well you guys do have that exploit in your binary linux driver....

Yeah, except it was fixed months ago, and it's the only time anyone found a root exploit in our drivers, unlike (say) the Linux Kernel.

I second BAF. Avoid ATi, even if you were using Windows.

Let us know. I don't want to waste a week if it turns out it doesn't work.

Did you even read the thread?
I am actually going for an NVidia card and my machine is December 05 - it was the cheapest available.

Theres two. In both senses.

Theres a Windows Radeon driver, and theres the Linux fglrx driver.

Also, theres two linux ATI drivers, the fglrx binary drivers, and the open source r300 radeon driver thats a part of the xorg and mesa projects.

The reason theres any sort of ATI driver is ATI will open up the specs to the basic bits of its cards, after they are obsolete. Like the mach and rage cards, and I believe they have specs for cards up to and including the radeon 9200 (which is really a 8xxx based card).

Nvidia however, has never and likely will never release any kind of specs for any of its hardware. At least thats the feeling I've had.

And yeah, for linux, stick with an nvidia card till ATI starts putting more effort into their drivers. Its a shame really, seems like theres one person on the entire fglrx "Team".

I personally wouldn't have a single issue with the fglrx drivers if it weren't for them not being able to handle dual display and 3d rendering properly. I've even put in a bug for it, and a few other things, and so far, everything else was fixed. Now its just the "off set" rendering, and the bit of corruption I get when my mouse hovers just below the bottom of my smaller screen. well at least the corruption goes away, it follows the mouse.

edit,

Oh, and the new x10k radeon's all no longer have 2D hardware it seems. They've totally replaced it with the 3D hardware and some emulation.

I've been turning more to NVidia lately

I loved ATi, but these days they're falling short of my expectations now. Price/Performance is not nearly as good as it use to be in the 9XXX days and drivers are starting to become an issue (where they never were for me in the 9XXX/8XXX days).

NVidia has always had usability issues for me along with driver problems. From the 4600 Ti and up to their current models. Their control panel is a nightmare. However, ATi now suffers from the exact same problem. I sooooo miss ATi's classic control panel

As for linux, I've never used it for games.

I just said that

NVidia swallowed up 3DFX, which is why all of NVs cards started running hot and using up kilowatts of power.

Oh, I don't think either of nvidia's or ATI's drivers qualify under that deffinition anymore. ATI has dropped all pre 9000 (including 9200) cards from their main drivers iirc. (at least they have for linux/fglrx)

And no, it seems nvidia has 4 different driver sets for their various cards.