Matrox Drivers: usefull?

[Six Of One]

Hi again,

i am running XFree86 4.1.0-16 on a Debian Woody and it is running flawlessly with the integrated drivers. But out of some yet unknown reason it refuses to run my new monitor at more than 75 Hz at 1280x1024 (roughly 80kHz) while the monitor is able to do more, as i can run the Framebuffer Device at the same resolution at 90 Hz. I don't need DualHead, because my G400 is SH. Now i wonder, if the Matrox drivers are worth my time.

Any recommendation?

Regards

[Steve Snyder]

>Now i wonder, if the Matrox drivers are worth my time.

What time? You just download the file, untar it and run the install program.

(The install program just copies 2 or 3 files to appropriate directories, detecting your version of XFree86 in the process. You can do this manually if you're nervous about the installer.)

While you're at Matrox's download page, get PowerDesk and build/install it too. It's a usefull this to have for controlling your G400.

Matrox's software has been totally trouble-free on my RedHat v7.x Linux boxes.

[GehRehmee]

Basic concern when using matrox drivers on a debian system: Because debian's packages are updates so frequently, you're going to run into the problem of new versions of the X package overwriting matrox's drivers. There are a couple approaches to solving this, one of which I know and use, the other I haven't tried.

1) dpkg-divert. Use "dpkg --add --local <file>" to tell debian that whenever it sees a given file, install to a different place instead. For example "dpkg-divert --add --local /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/mga_drv.o" will create a mga_drv.o.distrib, which is always the debian version of that file, and debian won't touch the other. You also would have to do this for the mga_dri file.

2) I haven't tried this, but I'm told that it's possible to set up /usr/local/X11R6/lib/modules to override distribution's files with your own. YMMV.

[Six Of One]

Well, thanks for your answers. The intent of my question (hence the "worth my time") was: what are the advantages of using the Matrox drivers over the XFree drivers? what kind of problems can i expect, if i use the Matrox drivers? Do they solve the mentioned problems?

And GehRehmee, interesting. I didn't know that.

Thanks again.

[GehRehmee]

Sorry, I really don't know the answer to that. Just detailing exactly what would be required of your time. If you can get the advantages/disadvantages described too, then you can do your own comparison.