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Problems With OEM ATI Cards And ATI's Linux Driver
Doug Bostrom writes "Over at FlightGear.org, Andy Ross describes how ATI's new Linux drivers only seem to work with "official" ATI cards (made by ATI), why that does not make sense, and a possible fix that unfortunately would mean booting Windows, if only for a few minutes."
There are a few possible explanations for this rather odd driver situation...
I know this is rumor-mongering, but I can't help but notice that the *Windows* drivers dont' perform such a check, and neither do the Linux Retail drivers...
Consider this: Microsoft or some other party requests unofficially that ATi *not* support Linux in its OEM hardware, just for the sake of not having OEM desktop vidcard support for Linux...this could explain things like the OEM/Retail check that occurs in Linux, but not Windows. Interesting stuff..I want to see what ATI's reaction on this is.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
This is probably a very good argument for non-binary, truly open-source drivers...
/* affect != effect */ void affect(int *thing,int effect) { *thing += effect; }
I have an Excalibur (ATI 9000 Pro based card), and have to run through a series of installs
to stop the video card locking up my Win2K system. The original drivers seem to be buggy.
When it is working fine (like now), it is a damned fine graphics card, its just such a
bitch to get going.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
My answer: For business use, buy Matrox.
I was wondering how far down I'd have to scroll before I found another Matrox supporter. My G400 has run flawlessly on three different distros, and about 5 different XFree86 versions. It may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but I still haven't found a compelling reason to upgrade, and especially not to change GPU sets. I had an Nvidia system sitting alongside the Matrox box for several months, and both had identical monitors. The Matrox box was very easy on the eyes while the Nvidia always looked fuzzy. The Matrox white backgrounds were solid white while the Nvidia painted rainbows and shifting Moire patterns.
As to gaming, I'm playing X-Plane on the Matrox box using the latest Wine RPM. The frame rates are the same as they are on the Nvidia in Linux - I don't know how the two cards compare under Windows since I don't use Windows for anything else other than to supply Wine some DLLs. So with frame rates being equal, the Matrox wins for clarity of display, better drivers, and a more open philosophy. One possible drawback for some - Matrox's OpenGL drivers for Windows are not very good, but that doesn't affect me. YMMV and all that....
3D graphics cards are really powerful computers
True, but they are not general purpose computers. They are designed to do one thing only - perform operations relevant to rendering 3D scenes. More than that, in fact - they are built to accelerate Direct3D and OpenGL operations specifically. Modifying the drivers might well allow you to do other cool things, but you'd almost certainly be better off doing those things with a normal CPU.
Other than that, while I sympathise with your sentiments, and to some extent agree with them, we don't really have much choice. The only fully working Linux drivers for modern graphics cards are closed source. By "fully working", I mean with complete, stable, fast suppot for all of the card's features. I'm pragmatic; if I've spent £200 on a new card, I want it to work properly. If that means using a close-source driver, so be it.
Finally, you seem not to realise that it isn't always up to the card/chipset manufacturers to open their driver source. NVidia, for example, is under NDA with several third parties over technology used in their cards and drivers. That means that they can't open the source to their drivers.
It's official. Most of you are morons.