Over time, many people have complained about the X Window system; the X Window system, or Xorg in its current most popular implementation, is the layer between applications and the graphics adapter.

My last post was about Mandriva 2008.0 and Ubuntu 7.10—and I let slip a little bit about trying drivers with them.

Now, however, I have compiled enough data to (roll drums please) update the 3D driver matrix!

This article updates and replaces this previous version.

Did you game well? If no, is it because you had 3D driver issues and couldn’t make head nor tail out of this mess? Here, I discuss the most recent driver releases on the most demanding 3D application there is today on the GNU/Linux desktop.

I appreciate NVIDIA’s existing support for free software operating systems: their drivers are various, quite full featured, and they do upgrade the source of their minimalist free “nv” driver for those platforms they don’t support fully.

But where do the others stand?

_The matrix in this article has been superceded by the one in _this article.

It’s been mentioned in one of my previous posts. Now, I’m putting it forward due to some progress…

Well, while I haven’t posted anything new in a while, I’m (AGAIN) updating my 3D desktop article.

This time, I’ll answer some comments I have seen appear in response to the two previous incarnations of this very same article, as well as revise (further) some of the content.

This revised version brings some confirmations from users, and adds a preliminary Matrox product line support description.

_The matrix in this article has been superceded by the one in _this article.

I’ve been talking about them, complaining about what you CAN’T do, about the troubles with 3D cards… Personally I’m getting a bit lost with all this. So, I’ve decided to compile all the information I could find out about those pesky 3D desktops.

Since last week, comments, accounts from other websites, personal experiments, further readings and general nosiness allowed me to update my article. Still, further comments are welcome.

I’ve been talking about them, complaining about what you CAN’T do, about the troubles with 3D cards… Personally I’m getting a bit lost with all this. So, I’ve decided to compile all the information I could find out about those pesky 3D desktops.

Comments required.

_The matrix in this article has been superceded by the one in _this article.

Seeing SuSE’s new desktop—the one using XGL and Compiz—one may be tempted to try and get it working on his own system… Good luck.