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ATI Updates Linux Drivers
GraWil writes "Famed graphics card maker and documented Linux supporter ATI has refreshed its proprietary Linux drivers (3.11.1) for the Radeon and FireGL series cards. Unfortunately, many of the previous comments still apply and it seems that ATI is not yet committed to supporting Linux well. The procedure for installing is now documented in a separate how-to but it seems that quite a few are stuck in an endless cycle of compiling kernels with/without DRI/AGPGART/RADEON/DBE (insert random module here). For those with strong enough feelings, ATI is seeking feedback on these drivers."
ATI makes some nice cards, but only for Windows users. Their Linux drivers are infamous for a reason.
If you are using Linux and want properly designed drivers, you really have no choice except to use an nVidia card.
I think the "documented" adjective was a bit sarcastic. It was likely meant to point out how ATI supports Linux with their words, but not their actions.
These drivers aren't new, they are out almost a month now and they suck just as much as every ATi driver before... I don't want a HOWTO to install a friggin' driver, I want to type ./install, restart the Xserver and have great framerates.
If the user interface is nice enough, does it really matter what exact steps are taken to install the driver? Even today, you hardly realize that a recompilation is going on with nvidia drivers, as they provide a nice little progress bar. To the user, the progress bar could represent copying files, compiling them from source, or whatever, he doesn't really care.
Part of it IS the installer. Nvidia's installer is what software installers SHOULD be like. After having to wrestle with ATI drivers, my jaw dropped when I put an Nvidia card in last night and had it installed and running about five minutes, including download time.
The REAL frustrating part is the Nvidia is an old one I had laying around, while the ATI is a brand new present from this summer. Under windows the ATI decimates the Nvidia card but the Nvidia pushes ahead in Linux.
Never confuse volume with power.
Are you kidding? They could get some numbers from Rage3D's Linux Forum and justify the expense easily. ATI isn't a small company. It takes very little to justify hiring one or two more people. It's a terrible corporate image to be perceived as writing shoddy software even by a niche market, because it's a niche market in their prime market share. When you go to an ATI based forum and people suggest that you buy an Nvidia if you get frustrated and return their $300 card, that's a bad thing(tm).
Never confuse volume with power.
Since I ran into a Linux brick wall with them (no specs, no binary drivers) my last two purchases have been Nvidia. I recommend the same for you if you use Linux.
I wouldn't. The thing is that proprietary drivers and no documentation are against the principles of F/OSS. If I had to recommend a graphics card, it would be ATI radeon 8500 which works well with Free drivers (accelerated OpenGL etc.)
If you encourage hardware companies to keep their documentation secret you will have a future where you have to use non-free drivers for all your hardware. That is a disaster from the perspective of both Open Source and Free Software movements. I would like you all to understand that the software freedom has a value and functionality is not the only meter of the goodness of software.
The other clue was that the documentation is almost 5 years old. They used to fund development of open source drivers, now they feed us binary only drivers that sort of work and we have to wait for their release schedule.
My last 3 graphics cards are ATi. I'm not sure why I bought one last time, but I'm sure that part of the reason was that I'd had 2 before and they'd done the job very well.
Same reason why I'm buying another Palm pilot and not a Pocket PC.
Now, let's say that I want to get on Linux. I'll probably ask around for best card for compatibility. Then, I'll go with that and probably stick with it.
If ATi don't care about Linux now, they could lose mindshare/fandom on Linux in the future when ownership reaches a point where everyone has to properly support Linux.
ATI Helped open-source driver development where Nvidia just gave out binaries, ATI got praise for there stance but everyone bought nvidia because they couln't run quake3 on the ATI boards under linux, so ATI reliese a binary like nvidia, and we decide to slam ATI for it?
As far as I can work out, ATI are being a lot more open-source friendly than nvidia are. And in this day of licenced patented tech being used in drivers to allow any form of advanced graphics, there not really to blame.
Please moan about software patents.