Usability of open source drivers

[Micket]

What could i expect to experience from the current state of open source drivers with a Asus Radeon EAH6950 graphics card?

I need a card which can deal with more than 2 monitors. I don't care for 3D performance (although being able to play Hammerfight or some other humble bundle games would be nice), but I do care about excessive fan noise, random crashes or other missing features.

[curaga]

For those requirements you should pick a passive low-to-mid end card, just saying.

[Micket]

I was more a matter available connectors. I couldn't find any monitor which supported DP daisy chaining. The cost doesn't bother me much.

[BlackStar]

I was more a matter available connectors. I couldn't find any monitor which supported DP daisy chaining. The cost doesn't bother me much.

Even low-end cards come with 3 usable connectors nowadays (at least on the Ati side). Obviously, check for support before you buy but don't spend a fortune on a card. My recommendation: unless you game on Windows, don't go higher than a 6770 (the higher cards are faster but the open-source drivers won't make use of the performance and they will burn through a great amount of energy).

[julakali]

There is a nice overview for compatibility and state of implementation: http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
I'm using a 5850, but it seems the support for mine and your card is almost the same.

I just switched from the proprietary to the opensource radeon driver, which WORKS SO MUCH BETTER in terms of 2D Desktop.
I have a flicker-free desktop at last, no tearing when watching videos.
With the proprietary ati drivers, this was only possible with "tear-free desktop" activated, which caused a really laggy desktop.

[sandy8925]

2D is definitely a lot better on the open source drivers. I have an Asus K53TA laptop (radeon hd 6720g2 - integrated HD6520G + dedicated HD6650M). On stock Ubuntu 11.04, no acceleration but got 1024x768 screen resolution (proper resolution is 1366x768). Tried linux 3.0 kernel from xorg edgers and fails to boot. Tried compiling vanilla kernel 3.0.4 and still fails to boot. most probably because my CPU is AMD A6-3400M which has integrated graphics card. you might not face the same problems.

[Panix]

There is a nice overview for compatibility and state of implementation: http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
I'm using a 5850, but it seems the support for mine and your card is almost the same.

I just switched from the proprietary to the opensource radeon driver, which WORKS SO MUCH BETTER in terms of 2D Desktop.
I have a flicker-free desktop at last, no tearing when watching videos.
With the proprietary ati drivers, this was only possible with "tear-free desktop" activated, which caused a really laggy desktop.

Yeah, ATI in Linux still sounds awful.

Tearing isn't working and the problem has existed with fglrx for over 3 yrs, probably longer. I mean, AMD is said to have better support with the open drivers but the proof is shown over and over that they're a biased pro-Windows company.

Read any review about AMD hardware. The open source drivers are said to be good at a few things but not optimized so lacking several features so you are recommended a binary driver that doesn't deliver for even watching videos.