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ATI To Support XFree86 4.3 Soon

Posted by timothy on from the 4.3-is-a-rocker dept.

uninet writes "With ATI's recent offering of its first proprietary GNU/Linux drivers, we were interested to see if a follow-up driver was in store to provide compatibility with XFree86 4.3, which was released earlier this year. To find out what ATI was planning, we contact the Ontario-based company and had a conversation with their Manager of Developer Relations, Michael Smith."

31 comments

  1. nVidia still leads in free software support by mnmn · · Score: 1


    nVidia has already released drivers for FreeBSD, while ATI is just starting out. They claim weird reasons like non-manageability of code... but hasnt nVidia solved that outside of X? And they claim some specs secrets will be spilled out if they opensource the thing... I wonder if those secrets would be that obvious. They should really try to make more money off their hardware rather than selling information on howto operate their hardware.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by Paul+Jakma · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Err.. how can NVidia lead in free software support when their driver is completely closed and proprietary?

      --
      I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
    2. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by satanami69 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Free as in beer.

      --
      I really hate Dan Patrick.
    3. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by Paul+Jakma · · Score: 0

      Not really, you paid for the hardware.

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      I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
    4. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by satanami69 · · Score: 1

      But that's like saying that I paid for the stein glass.

      --
      I really hate Dan Patrick.
    5. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Free as in, time you save debugging your X setup because the Nvidia Drivers actually work, and the 'nv' driver crashes and hangs frequently.

    6. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by OneFix · · Score: 1

      It's well known that the reason nVidia has closed portions of their drivers is that there is specific intellectual property contained in the closed portions. nVidia prefers to make their Linux drivers as good as/better than their Windoze drivers by including all of their improvements rather than removing closed portions of the drivers...

      Some of this is to protect their own IP, but most of it is to uphold deals with other companies regarding their IP...

    7. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Are you claiming the stein is worth nothing?


      You don't have to wash it. You don't have to replace it if it is broken by a drunk. You don't have to own it in the first place if you want to use it at home. You don't have to procure anything you wouldn't drink yourself should you want to fill it for use. You needn't ensure it is enjoyable in an environment uncontaminated by people hostile to your idea of a good time.


      Do your really think a stein glass is worth nothing?


      Guess what. When you go out to a bar you are paying for the stein glass.

    8. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also well nown that you get absolutley nothing of interest in the non-closed portions of the driver, it's just the kernel binder that's open source. By the way do you have something to back up those statements about Widows/Linux driver quality and IP protection, I know it's the imagined excuse, but fact?

    9. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by Paul+Jakma · · Score: 1

      You're wrong though, the driver is /completely/ closed. The only part that is open is the glue code needed to interface their driver to the kernel.

      --
      I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
    10. Re:nVidia still leads in free software support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you should come over to the real world some day.

  2. But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    we were interested to see if a follow-up driver was in store to provide compatibility with XFree86 4.3

    But unfortunately, the XFree86 developers won't support hte new drivers for another year...

    Christ, I just upgraded to 4.3. The new 'nv' driver for my Nvidia MX 2 Card causes my monitor to go into suspend mode! The monitor never comes back on, even if I "ctrl-alt-backspace' or switch workspaces with 'ctrl-alt-1', or 'ctrl-alt-2', etc.

    I can still use the keyboard, so I can reboot my computer with 'init 6'; but I am typing without a monitor... typing blind.

    The 'nvidia' driver from NVidia seems to work fine so far. Thank god for a company that produces quality drivers.

    Of all the services I use on Linux, most were buggy a few years ago but seem to work pretty well now. XFree86 is the only product that has ALWAYS had problems...

  3. Re:But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I have a Radeon, and XFree 4.3 shipped with Mandrake 9.1 just locks up the local machine when you try and log out. I mean locks the machine, not just X. Machine dies, need to power cycle.

    Oh, this is a 'known bug' someone says. Fixed in XFree CVS they say. Fat lot of good that does us with Mandrake cds!

    QUALITY CONTROL PEOPLE

  4. OS support by viperblades · · Score: 1

    Hopefully ATI comes out with a Freebsd driver soon. Of course if it doesn't support all their radeon series cards it'll be useless to me. Who knows maybe the linux zealots will be shouting ATI instead of Nvidia now.

    1. Re:OS support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm Nvidia supports Freebsd and Linux and there newest driver is out for both operating systems practically days after the releases.. Why exactly would I buy an ati card? Better hardware? I don't give a shit if I can't use it, it's a paperweight to me.

  5. ATI's change in policy... by geoswan · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Maybe the change in policy is related to changes in management? The founder and President of ATI was involved in some kind of scandal recently.

    Hmm. Google isn't helping today. My vague recollection was allegations of insider trading...

    1. Re:ATI's change in policy... by Papineau · · Score: 4, Interesting

      He (M. Yu) and 3 or 4 other execs plus wives/husbands were charged with insider trading for the sale/gift of a few millions worth of stock mere days before "desastrous" quarterly numbers which sent the stock down in 2001, hence getting more money/larger deductions. The Ontario Securities Commission is investigating the case.

      Can't find a link either in 2 minutes.

  6. Great!! by VisorGuy · · Score: 1

    I was just at ATI's driver site Sunday (well, and Saturday, and Friday, and Thursday...) looking for a driver supporting X 4.3.

    Vendetta looks a lot better with the ATI binary driver and maybe Racer will crash less with it.

    --
    This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
  7. Re:But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything. by Feztaa · · Score: 1

    I have a Radeon, and XFree 4.3 shipped with Mandrake 9.1 just locks up the local machine when you try and log out.

    Are you using the VESA driver? I had lots of problems with the vesa drivers with my radeon, it seems like there's a 50% chance of X hanging the whole computer whenever it starts, stops, or changes resolution in any way if I use the vesa driver...

    I've had no troubles at all using the actual radeon driver, though.

  8. Re:But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything. by Drakin · · Score: 1

    Strange, I have an older Radeon (7500) that will lock with anything but the VESA drivers. And even with the VESA driver, if I want to change video settings there's a better than 50% chance it'll lock up, forceing a reboot.

  9. Re:But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm the A.C. who started this thread.

    The vesa driver worked pretty well for me. Didn't try many resolutions, but no hangs so far.

    On my previous Linux installation, I had Redhat7.2, X4.2, a GeForce MX 2, and used the nv driver. The system completely hung (no mouse, no keyboard, need hard reboot) once every couple of days. Quite annoying... had to use just 'svga' driver back then.

  10. Any XFree86 4.3 Support Good by 4of12 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm really glad to hear that ATI will be supporting XFree86 4.3.

    Actually, I'm glad to hear that anyone will be supporting XFree86 4.3.

    • Given the recent Keith Packard comments and flap over the future governance of XFree86 and
    • given that X is the bedrock underlying graphical interface to all kinds of UNIX flavors,
    • given that X development is rapidly moving into more insignificant minor rev levels preceded with ever more dots (X11 6.5.1 - No! Wait! X11 6.6 has been out 2 years and I didn't even notice! We'll be at X12 any day now!),
    it's encouraging that someone with commercial interests finds it important to support XFree86 on their hardware.
    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  11. Re:But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything. by Feztaa · · Score: 1

    Strange, I have an older Radeon (7500) that will lock with anything but the VESA drivers.

    Well, mine's the 9000, and I was really talking about the stock X 4.2.99.3 as distributed by the Xfree team themselves (compiled from source on an LFS system).

    Nowadays, Knoppix boots X 4.3 and uses the vesa driver by default, and there doesn't seem to be any trouble with it. Currently I'm using the radeon driver on my RH9 system, and it seems totally fine (no reason for me to even try the vesa driver, so I can't comment on it).

  12. GNU/Linux Open Source by hubertf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Let's hope they don't support only Linux (probably via some binary module, as nVidia does), but really open up their drivers. Preferably in a way that can be used on non-PC, non-Linux too.

    - Hubert (not speaking for The NetBSD Project :)

  13. Article has two icons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone else notice that this article has two different topic icons at the same time. WTF is up with that?

    1. Re:Article has two icons by neric · · Score: 0

      I see three icons! This is a good move since so many stories map to more than just one topic.

  14. Are 4.3 or Red Hat such big issues? by rsidd · · Score: 1
    Right now, on my FreeBSD laptop running XFree86 4.3, I'm using a driver (trident.o) compiled with linux's XFree86 4.2. I found video playback on the new driver was a bit erratic, so I copied the old one from my linux partition over to my freebsd partition, and it works perfectly.

    I believe this is how XFree86 4 is meant to work: binary drivers stay compatible, even across different OS's (as long as it's the same platofrm). Yet in the interview there's a question "What about Debian"? Why wouldn't it work -- are there some specific problems with 3D acceleration etc? If the issue is RPM packaging -- well, I don't use Debian, but surely it can handle that -- heck even FreeBSD can.

  15. Re:GNU/Linux Open Source by Tet · · Score: 1
    Preferably in a way that can be used on non-PC, non-Linux too.

    You can already use it on non-Linux. The design of XFree86 means that drivers can be interchanged among any OS for the same CPU. Thus a Linux/x86 XFree86 driver will work fine on *BSD/x86, and even in theory with XFree86 on OS/2 as well. Of course, it's no substitute for a proper open source driver that can then be ported to other non-PC architectures.

    --
    "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
  16. Re:But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything. by bradkittenbrink · · Score: 1

    The new 'nv' driver for my Nvidia MX 2 Card causes...

    Dude, you have an MX? No wonder you posted as AC, I'd be embarrassed too.

  17. Re:But X won't support ATI, or NVidia or anything. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    The 'nvidia' driver from NVidia seems to work fine so far. Thank god for a company that produces quality drivers.

    I also have an MX2 and I've had nothing but trouble with NVIDIA's drivers. It locks X within a couple days if I'm lucky, a couple hours if I'm not. I've tried 13 different versions of their drivers from 0.9-5 all the way up to 1.0-4191. I've tried them with Mandrake using the stock kernel, as well as a custom kernel. Now I'm using Gentoo and NVIDIA's drivers are still unstable.

    My motherboard uses a VIA chipset. Perhaps that's the difference, but I'm not going to go out and buy a new motherboard.

    I'm still using X 4.2.1, but the XFree86 'nv' driver works fine for me, except there is no 3d acceleration. I've been thinking about replacing my GeForce with a RADEON, but comments here leave me a bit concerned.