[LAU] Graphic card

[Len Ovens]

On Fri, 26 Dec 2014, david wrote:

> There's no point in getting anything Atom-based for a desktop PC. They 
> don't have the horsepower. Although the graphics chipset in my wife's 
> Atom-based netbook works just fine with Ubuntu.

While the newest atoms have yet another graphics set that may be supported 
natively... the old ones that most people have, do not. Yes they work fine 
with a LED panel, but with the external display, the lcd video never goes 
away and there is some tweaking needed to get a higher rez monitor to work 
at it's higher rez. The short coming of the current drivers for the 
graphics for the Atom show up when trying to do things like run a you tube 
video in full screen. It is not the CPU that lacks the HP but the 
graphics driver doesn't support the GPU which should do the resize job, 
leaving it for the cpu. I am currently using one (64bit) as a desktop and 
it does low latency audio well with no xruns. It is quiet (no fan) uses 
less power and other than the gpu trouble a nice package. The one I have 
will end up in a headless use (server as my current one is 32 bit and my 
distro is phasing out maintenance of 32 bit kernels). The Atom is designed 
for two things: netbook/tablet and low power/cost server. It does both of 
those things really well. I would have no problem recomending it as a 
fanless, headless stage box with the right interface. They are available 
up to 8 cores and probably make a better server than an i3/5/7 series chip 
as well.

But I agree, they are not suited to desktop use.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net