Just in time for my Christmas (or possibly the 9.2 final release?), ATI has released new official XFree86 drivers for it's video cards. The version number indicates that they are a minor update of the ones from the German site.
A couple of possible problems: there is an OpenGL library included that conflicts with one from the XFree86 install on my installation. Apparently to enable 3D support some mods need to be made involving kernel headers.... this sounds annoyingly like the nVidia stuff that I was trying to avoid. I haven't gotten that stuff to install off the CD-ROMs yet.
