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How To Request Better ATI Linux Support
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Larabel, the editor of Phoronix, has outlined some strategies for contacting ATI's customers (OEM/ODM/AIBs) to seek ATI Linux fglrx driver improvements. He opines that contacting ATI or AMD directly is the 'wrong approach.' He also states, 'I know for certain that at least one major OEM would like to see improved Linux support but is afraid that the Windows support would then be at risk.' Michael cites examples from the past where Lenovo had sought improved Linux display drivers, which resulted in several new features last year. He provides links to the feedback pages for a number of the vendors to whom ATI actually does listen."
Simple: If you buy a Linux desktop, take care that it has a graphic card from NVidia. These drivers may not be open source, however they are easy to install, work and have a decent performance.
Get yogether with your buddies and collect a pile of ATI and competitor proofs of purchase.
With the ATI ones say that you are a customer and would really like to see Linux support. With all the competitor ones, say that you would have bought ATI but for the driver issue. make sure you youtube it, blog it,...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Is there an actuall graphics card out there that IS capable of doing the eyecandy stuff, it don't have to do games, that is fully opensource with absolutely no binary bits.
I used to think matrox cards were the way to go but even they have a binary HAL bit that you need if you want the more advanced features needed for xgl and the likes.
Anyway the matrox cards are not supported anyway, as they are listed as missing certain features that are required.
The only lists I ever find mention ONLY nVidia and Ati cards. Yet I have seen some references that Intel was working on opensource drivers for its cards or at least hired some developers to do so.
So, is there a graphics card out there that I can use that is simply fully opensource, no hidden tricks, that is capable enough to give me the candy?
Because that would I think send the strongest message of all, if everyone who runs linux just buys a fully opensource card the others would be sure to take notice.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Intels i810 and above are. Of course you can't get any graphics cards with them, since they're onboard solutions, so you're stuck with an Intel processor too. Which may or may not be a drawback.
at least one major OEM would like to see improved Linux support but is afraid that the Windows support would then be at risk.
Hmm, could it be Dell?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
The Intel onboard video cards are quite sufficient for modern Linux desktop.
They have completely and 100% open and free software drivers.
They are ahead of Nvidia when it comes to Linux desktop support. They will support sleep better, then will support hotplugging monitors better (when support for that sort of thing is added in X.org 7.3).
They supported technology like AIGLX before Nvidia.
They are quite fast enough for 3D desktop. The onboard GMA 950 can comfortably run either compiz or beryl 3d desktops with high efficiency.
As the display technology for Linux progresses the Intel onboard video cards will be the first.
Other advantages over Nvidia propriatory drivers include that they are much more inexpensive. The motherboards they come on have much better Linux support then the typical motherboards you find Nvidia onboard video drivers.
Laptops with Intel onboard video drivers will have advantages in price and battery life as well as stability when it comes to sleep and other advanced power management features.
The advantage that Nvidia video cards have over Intel is performance.
If you require performance for LInux desktop that goes beyond free software 3d games and good 3d desktop support and have requirements for newer video games or need 3d performance for your work then you have no choice but to buy nvidia.
There exists no open source 3d drivers that can support high end 3d performance nearly as well as what Nvidia provides.
But if your looking for cost effective and stable (much more stable then Nvidia) 2d/3d performance then Intel onboard video cards are the logical choice.
Plus they are open source.
Using Intel hardware I have absolutely no need for any propriatory software to drive my hardware. No SATA drivers, no video drivers, no wireless drivers, no nic card drivers, or no audio drivers need to be proprietory in any way.
(Intel is no freind of Free software, or realy even open source. They just see the financial advantage to supporting Linux properly.)
The current chipset for Linux to look for if you want as trouble free install as possible is the Intel 945g with the integrated GMA 950 video device. For non-bog-standard resolutions (ie widescreen) you will need to use the 915resolution hack for now, but this should go away in the future.
For special setups (for onboard devices) such as TV/componate/HD-out, DVI-out, and even dual DVI out you can purchase ADD2 cards for those features which plug into the PCI express port and interface the onboard intel cards. I don't know how well these work, but I am told by X.org folks that they _should_ work and will be _very_ interested if they don't.
If you want Linux drivers, you have to let these companies know:
ASUS
Lenovo
HP
Power Color
HIS Tech
Sapphire
The suggested letter is:
Subject: Product Feedback
To whom it may concern,
I recently purchased one of your [graphics cards || notebooks || desktops] that had contained an ATI GPU. While I realize your products are catered toward Microsoft Windows users as they are your largest consumer base, I wish to use this product with Linux. I had used the [your model number for their product] with the ATI Linux drivers, and while they have improved a great deal recently, I still feel there is much room for improvement. The drivers in their current form run much slower under Linux than Windows, lack support for AIGLX (a visual desktop feature), and other features found within the Windows Catalyst drivers but not Linux.
I do realize you may not officially support Linux and that you have limited control over the development of these drivers, but I would kindly ask that you forward this comment to AMD and that you ask them to channel additional resources to the development of these drivers. In good time you should make Linux support from AMD a requirement. Another step that I would hope to see is including the ATI Linux display drivers on your support/driver CD. As the adoption of Linux on desktops continues to increase, I hope you are able to jointly improve your Linux presence with ATI/AMD.
[your name]
now who do we contact to get them to write good windows drivers?
How about requesting ATI/AMD to take care of the already existing free X11 drivers, by giving informations about newer cards and manpower to develop all features, so that we have something readable (and working), and fixable by the community ?
I doubt that it would work. As far as ATI is concerned, the market for people who are (A) building their computer from components, _and_ (B) run Linux on it, _and_ (C) didn't buy a cheap 9200 or 5200, is very very very small. Especially look at that last part. Keeping even 1000 people satisfied when they bought the cheapest chip and made you barely a couple of bucks each, hardly justifies the salaries of a driver team.
I know, we all like to think that the customer is king, and that just because you have a proof of purchase for an old $30 graphics card, it means that a major corporation must bend over backwards for you and catter to your every whim. They should instantly hire a big team to code whatever you fancy today, open-source all their programs... Why, they should even come over and do your laundry. Dream on.
When cattering to mass-markets, you have to think in terms of ROI. If it costs X dollars to do something, will you even get those X dollars back? Is it likely that you'll even make a profit? If not, it's actually smarter to ignore that market segment.
Drivers nowadays are complex and expensive things, and frankly the Linux hobbyist market is tiny. And then they're likely to buy the lowest end card, or not even that as they're busy bitching about how binary drivers are evil.
So, basically, fully expect someone at ATI to at most have a chuckle as they dump your letter into the garbage bin.
OEM's are a whole other affair, because they move millions of boxes. If one of those says "we need linux drivers", then:
A. they probably know what their many corporate customers want. Dunno, maybe some major corporation or government department decided to standardize their desktop on Linux and actually needs 3D accelerated drivers. Basically if a big OEM bitches, they probably aren't doing it out of zealotry and fanboyism, but they know something about demand that you don't. You listen and take notes when those guys speak. And,
B. even if not, you want to listen to those anyway, because they're the guys who make your money. They're the "R" in "ROI". The last thing you want is Dell or IBM (Lenovo) standardizing exclusively on nVidia cards because you told them to fuck off when they complained that lack of Linux drivers hamstrings their server sales. If that were to happen, you'll see a big dip on your income chart, and the mere rumour would make your shares dive and the shareholders demand blood and rolling heads.
Basically you'll have a chance with your proofs of purchase when you fit at least one of the two criteria, preferrably both.
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As someone already said Intel's onboard stuff is the best out there. Especially if you are building a new computer, which propably don't have anything but pci-e slots.
With older hardware there were more options. I have an old Ati Radeon 9200 in my closet, just in case I need AGP graphics card. It's the last Radeon that works completely with open source drivers. (also 7000 and 8500 and 9000 work).
So it doesn't look too good, does it..
Well there is hope. Intel is working on discrete graphics chips. read more here and here.
I believe Intel has no reason to change their Linux friendly policy. So I hope they come up with a decent discrete graphics card and release open source drivers with it.
Since Intel is such a big player it just might encourage others to do the same.
I tell you my experiances.
I am using Debian unstable, which currently uses the X.org 7.1 release.
The drivers that are supplied with that are not well optimized. They are good for compiz and can run Beryl very well, even with high amounts of eye candy except (almost everything turned on) for the one or two features that require special shading support. (basicly water effects).
It is capable of playing Quake2 and Quake3 well.
Return to Castle Wolfenstien is _very_ playable.
Enemy Territory is starting to push it and my currently favorite game, which is a full modification called True Combat: Elite is barely playable (it adds several more advanced features to the ET like HD lighting)
Nexuiz is not realy playable. Tremulous is fine, warsow is very playable. Cube/Cube2 is mostly playable except certain levels.
Benchmarks suggest that they offer decent enough performance for UT2k3 and UT2k4, but I don't know that for a fact.
If you use:
export INTEL_BATCH=1
and run 16bit RGB then everything is mostly playable. Also manually allocating memory to AGP and Texture stuff helps. And then allocating memory to a special buffer will enable HD-sized XV support. (see the 810 man file) A little tweaking is very helpfull. Expect a 75% boost in performance from that alone.
Now X.org, DRI, and Mesa folks (the DRI drivers are basicly made by taking Mesa and accelerating what they can), are working on efficient ways to manage video card memory, which is required for newer cards and usage patterns.
They are working on a special branch of DRI drivers called 915tex_dri.so (were the normal is just 915_dri.so). This adds lots of optimizations and efficient dynamic memory management and allocation. Using this you get quite a performance boost over the default drivers.
ET is very playable. As is True Combat: Elite and you rarely get framerates that drop below 20FPS. I keep my framerates limited at 70FPS and most of the time it's sitting at that limit.
If your using LCD display there is no point beyond having the limit set at 60 FPS. But you need to have good performance to keep it dropping down under 30FPS for good online play.
So the drivers are definately improving. I am expecting good things to happen with X.org 7.3. But due to the shared memory sceme and lack of accelerated texture and lighting effects these things will never be usefull for gaming, not like most 'gamers' expect.
Now with the GMA X3000 aviable with G965 video cards they will offer acceptable gaming performance once the drivers are optimized. They offer hardware acceleration for texture and lighting effects as well as shader support and other such things.
Technology-wise, at least on paper, they are on par with ATI's and Nvidia's entry-level video cards.
You can find benchmarks on Phoronix for the GMA 3000, which is from the Q965, which is a bit lower end then the X3000. It completely lacks T&L hardware acceleration and other such features. So it's sort of like a X3000 core, but with the GMA 950 features.
The X3000 should perform better then that, by quite a bit, but I don't think right now the drivers are realy all that optimized. Not until the memory management stuff gets worked out. Then it should meet the lower end requirements for Doom3 and Quake4 pretty well. At least enough to be playable.
But realy if your a 'gamer' that is more then casual then Nvidia is about it.
The nice thing about this is that you can get a 945G motherboard right now, get good 3d/2d support and if it doesn't work out for you then a Nvidia card is a easy add on.
Probably with Feisty the G965-based motherboards will probably be a good choice, but unfortunately I don't own one right now for personal testing. If Ubuntu was smart they'd be paying close attention to those chipsets, especially since they will be in the majority of next-generation laptops that people will be trying to use Ubuntu with.
It's who you ask, not how... although being nice always helps:
Dirk Meyer
His executive bio is here. Please ask him, nicely, to open the hardware documentation, and if he could provide some resources (people, money, hardware) to the X.org team so they can build drivers.
That's a pretty strange opinion really. Sure, *whining* isn't going to solve anything, but how is this whining? The GGP has a point when he asks for documentation so he can make the hardware he bought actually work, but even if you disagree with that and think that he doesn't, you shouldn't troll him by labelling his opinion as "whining" simply because you don't agree with it.
butter the donkey
Where did I ask for CODE? I asked for DOCS. CODE != DOCS.
It's up to the device manufacturers to work with their vendors that they work with to ensure that documentation for subcomponents is available if needed in order to write a driver. They should make the subcomponent vendor aware that they can't use their parts unless this information is made available to third party developers. The VALUE of the part is less without documentation as it makes the hardware less compatible.
The fact is, in days gone past we USED to be able to get all the technical docs we wanted. IBM even used to release the source code to their BIOS. I've already debunked the "trade secret" red herring in another post.
You absolutely can't have open source ATI drivers due to ATI licensing technology from other companies.
You won't have absolute open source and you need to get used to that idea. You will always have a mishmash of open source and closed. What's important is that the OS and the underlying major technologies be open source. Drivers and applications do not need to be Open Source, and rightly shouldn't always be. You can see this by looking at gaming. No gaming developer is going to release their game into open source upon launch. It may be released 10 years later. There's absolutely no need to and should never be a pre-requisite for running on linux. The Kernel to the OS or the OS itself is licensed this way but that doesn't give zealots in the community the right to demand everything be open sourced or be no good.
Just accept that. It is important to bring in commercial ventures and you won't do it with the pure open source ideology. In fact, that would be killer to any attempt to bring in companies such as game developers. The OS yes, quality productivity apps yes, utiliites yes, drivers yes, games and other such products such as photoshop NO (and don't even consider it).
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.