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If you are interested in broadening your timeline to include other operating systems' promise/delay/delivery-not-meeting-expectations, there are plenty of other examples out there, notably OS-X (AKA Rhapsody) which is 3 years late and lacks CD-R(W), DVDRW, DVD play support, along with missing printer and SCSI drivers (without running in 9.1 emulation mode). I'm still waiting for a major x86 Linux distro with good enough USB support, lacking for over a year, to use my Visor that I don't have to manually upgrade the kernel (I know, short work for some of you kernel hackers, but too much of a PITA for me), preferrably Red Hat, but their 'next several weeks' continues to drag on.

I doubt the 'promises/delays/letdowns' are exclusive to Windows, but fairly standard practice for the industry as a whole. That doesn't make it right, just typical.

Even more puzzling to me is how these apparently industry standard release cycles contribute to fragmentation, especially from a single proprietary vendor who can control all the different flavors! Sure, if they want it to fragment, they could make it happen, but it would require them to make it happen (or perhaps a federal judge ;).

The US nuclear arsenal is less than 3,000 megatons of explosive yield. Russia's nuclear arsenal has been estimated to have a comparable yield. While this is enough, if properly targetted, to kill a large proportion of the humans on Earth, it isn't remotely enough to "destroy all life on Earth". As a point of reference, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens has been estimated to have released 450 megatons of energy.

This card is an oldie but goodie. Perhaps you could simply get this as a pci card and supplement your primary agp card/display (if you need 3d power for games, or have some badass big monitor). The tv support is excellent in linux through gatos. The card is also has excellent 2d. I use it in my dorm room as my only tv and only display adapter (I do not play games).

Good luck in your search.

I hate to slash dot my school, but I'm in a Masters class right now that uses the above mentioned TM simulator It works pretty well, but is very picky on format. Here's an example input file (from one of my assignments) that explains how it works:

file assign3.atm:
ATM
{w (a+b+c)* : na(w) = nb(w) = nc(w) > 0 }
a b c // input tape alphabet
a b c d B // tape alphabet
4 // number of tapes
1 // num. of tracks on tape 0
1 // num. of tracks on tape 1
1 // num. of tracks on tape 2
1 // num. of tracks on tape 3
1 // tape 0 is 1-way infinite
1 // tape 1 is 1-way infinite
1 // tape 2 is 1-way infinite
1 // tape 3 is 1-way infinite
q0 // initial state
q3 // final state
q0 a+B+B+B q1 a+d+d+d s+r+r+r
q0 b+B+B+B q1 b+d+d+d s+r+r+r
q0 c+B+B+B q1 c+d+d+d s+r+r+r
q1 a+B+B+B q1 a+a+B+B r+r+s+s
q1 b+B+B+B q1 b+B+b+B r+s+r+s
q1 c+B+B+B q1 c+B+B+c r+s+s+r
q1 B+B+B+B q2 B+B+B+B s+l+l+l
q2 B+a+b+c q2 B+a+b+c s+l+l+l
q2 B+d+d+d q3 B+d+d+d s+r+r+r
end

This simply checks to see if a string contains the same number of a's b's and c's.
The file starts after the "file" line.
ATM is needed.
comment is next.
The input tape alphabet
The tape alphabet
The number of tapes.
For each tape, list the number of tracks.
For each tape, is it infinite one way or two ways
The starting state.
The final state
All the state transactions:
of the format: state
followed by the expected input on the tapes (each tape separated by a +)
Then the next state to go to
Then what to write on the tapes
Then the directions to move "s=stationary, r=right, l=left"
The file must end with the word "end"

Have fun.

Steven Rostedt

Yes, ATi tends to have some really cruddy drivers, but their hardware's some of the best. If you're looking for decent linux drivers for ATi products, take a look at the utah-glx project, where you can get an OpenGL GLX module for 3.3.6 of X. (Supposedly, the DRI module's in the works, but since it's being done by just one guy, and only in his spare time while he's working on the Radeon driver...) Also, if you're interested in video capture, that too appears to be a bit iffy, but you can find the GATOS project online which provides at least a tv-viewing app, and the beginnings of an xv module.

The preminary work on these two projects has been done, so if people really wanted to start making kernel modules or whatever, it could be done. It's just that no one apparently has the time, and since the cards are pretty old anyways, I think everyone pretty much considers them obsolete.

Personally, I know several people who've said that they'll never buy ATi again, because (a) they can't make windows drivers, and (b) they pointedly ignored linux for yeaaaaaaars, when the Rage Pro was the big thing.

Me, I'm still undecided. ..but this time, I'm waiting for the drivers before I make my purchase.

James

I using an PCI All-in-Wonder card for some time now and it runs pretty well. 2D Part is the Rage(Pro or IIc) chipset that is both supported by xfree86 3.3.6 and 4.0.
As another comment already said, the tvtuner works with a third party product called xatitv (the gatos project) http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~inso mnia/gatos
The same should apply for the All-in-Wonder Pro/128 cards and so I would say it'll be the same for the new ones too.

IBTK version 0.0.14
XServer Vendor: The XFree86 Project, Inc. Release: 3360,
Protocol Version: 11, Revision: 0,
Available Screen(s): 1,
Depth: 16.
GATOS version 0.0.5
Homepage: http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~insomnia/gatos/
PCI card @ 0:11:0: ATI 3D Rage II+DVD (Mach64 GU):
==> FrameBuffer @ 0xFE000000, Registers @ 0xFFAFF000, BIOS @ 0xFFAC0000
==> RefClock 14.318180 MHz, Max Scaler Clock 100 MHz, Max Scaler Width 720
==> 2048 kilobytes of Video RAM
==> Mach64 BIOS MultiMedia Table: 55 AA 40 EB 7B
TV Out: No ImpacTV chip (ID read was 8B)
CPU speed is 332 BogoMIPS
Using Type B (GP_IO Register) I2C Bus Driver
==> Screen 960x720+0+0, Dotclock 90.247922 MHz, Scaler Clock Factor 1
I2C unit @ 0x70: Stand-Alone Capture Board
I2C unit @ 0x82: TDA8425 Stereo Audio Processor
I2C unit @ 0x88: Bt829A/B Video Decoder, Revision 3
I2C unit @ 0xC0: NTSC M/N Tuner Module (Samsung TCPN7082PC27A)
video memory protecting

I don't know anything about a generic driver, but you may be able to copy some code off of them.

ATi has _the_ best integrated DVD decoding of any multifunction card on the market right now. I own an ATi 128 All-in-Wonder card and its a very good card for my Linux machine. It is lacking an opensource driver but the binary one from SuSE works great. (http://www.suse.de/en/support/xsuse/). The driver is also present in lastest XFree as well (I think it's also opensourced).

The only other thing you need to make your ATi complete is the TV.... get gatos (General ATI TV and Overlay Software ATI-TV) at http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/

With this SDK we'll be able to combine all these features + DVD into one driver.

Awesome! I only wish other comps. did this... (*cough* nVidia *cough*)

--
GroundAndPound.com News and info for martial artists of all styles.

Nah, it doesn't. That's what the GATOS project is all about. Currently the chief developer is busy, but next they're gonna work hard on KATOS as I understand; the Kernel Ati Tv Overlay System, i.e. the Video4Linux driver. The current GATOS is a standalone program that does work with my ATI All In Wonder Pro 8MB PCI card... I'm able to watch movies and TV with it. Video capture isn't too possible yet though... the current frame grabber built into GATOS thrashes my HD so hard the filesystem gets corrupted.

How about the guys working on the ATI TV Tuner drivers? They've managed to create a successful petition, hack a chipset without any documentation, get a multi-billion dollar company (ATI) to change it's Linux philosophy (and now provide some docs), and create a useable interface for the popular ATI tv tuner cards. See http://www.core.binghamton.edu/ati/ and http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/. Congrats and thanks to Bob, Insomnia/Stea, Oyvind, and others.

How about the guys working on the ATI TV Tuner drivers? They've managed to create a successful petition, hack a chipset without any documentation, get a multi-billion dollar company (ATI) to change it's Linux philosophy (and now provide some docs), and create a useable interface for the popular ATI tv tuner cards. See http://www.core.binghamton.edu/ati/ and http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/. Congrats and thanks to Bob, Insomnia/Stea, Oyvind, and others.

How about the guys working on the ATI TV Tuner drivers? They've managed to create a successful petition, hack a chipset without any documentation, get a multi-billion dollar company (ATI) to change it's Linux philosophy (and now provide some docs), and create a useable interface for the popular ATI tv tuner cards. See http://www.core.binghamton.edu/ati/ and http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/. Congrats and thanks to Bob, Insomnia/Stea, Oyvind, and others.

How about the guys working on the ATI TV Tuner drivers? They've managed to create a successful petition, hack a chipset without any documentation, get a multi-billion dollar company (ATI) to change it's Linux philosophy (and now provide some docs), and create a useable interface for the popular ATI tv tuner cards. See http://www.core.binghamton.edu/ati/ and http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/. Congrats and thanks to Bob, Insomnia/Stea, Oyvind, and others.

ATI, till a few months ago, had provided no support. They are welcome, but not leaders like Matrox and a few other companies out there. See the Video for Linux and the ATI driver pages.

Unsupported on Linux by ATI before now, yes. But the All-in-Wonder does work on Linux/X11 pretty
well. I'm using my All-in-Wonder right now, it works great. Even have the TV tuner working under Gatos.

Really? That's funny. I turned up almost 8000 results. Did you try clicking on the little button labeled "Submit"?

A few minutes searching on the real internet turned up http://ati.veiled.net/ and http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/, sites which deal directly with support for the "ATI All-In-Wonder, All-In-Wonder Pro or Rage II/Pro with ATI-TV tuner card". Yes, under Linux.

I can just imagine a linux junky saying to a hapless newbie linux user who's new video card isn't supported "don't buy crap hardware!".

If you would care to show me a video card which has _no_ support under linux, then I will listen to you. Until then, you are just babbling.

Not having kernel level routines to implement UltraHyper8DQuakotronicRenderomatic instructions does not count as being "unsupported". If you have an "unsupported" video card, and bought it without bothering to spend a few minutes checking to see if it had support (an act comparable in stupidity to buying software labeled "DOS/Win95" to run on your Mac), then just run it in VGA or SVGA mode until the new drivers come out.

Ignoring a problem by having the user research for 2 weeks trying to find hardware that both performs at the expected level, has the required features, and is fully supported in linux isn't going to fix anything.

*cough cough* So you're saying that buying a new computer should be as simple as, say, buying a car or choosing a school to send your children to -- Just take whatever comes along first and expect that it will naturally meet all of your needs. Does it really take you two weeks to read the Hardware Compatibility Howto and then follow up to see if your hardware is or is not supported by the latest releases?

-D

dcross@cryogen.com

Am I the only one who has been using the GATOS XATITV package as my TV software under Linux? I have an All-In-Wonder-Pro and have no problems using it under Linux.

The URL is...

http://www.core.binghamton.edu/~ins omnia/gatos/