This isn't a review, it's your opinion about the "easy" install process, and you've clearly indicated that you're a tinkerer. And why are you running a brand new version on a shitty computer?
The acceleration works on the Radeon with manual tweaking of the XF86Config file. It's a trivial and known point about Radeons - blame ATI for their legendary obscurity.
As for using ksh - uh...does that make you special?