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Dell Asking ATI For Better Linux Drivers
Open Source IT writes "According to a presentation at Ubuntu Live 2007, Dell is working on getting better ATI drivers for Linux for use in its Linux offerings. While it is not known whether the end product will end up as open source, with big businesses like Google and Dell now behind the push for better Linux graphics drivers, hopefully ATI will make the smart business decision and give customers what they want."
I must be the only person on Earth who hasn't had much problems with ATI's Linux drivers. Them dropping support for anything older than the 9600 series sucks, but I have been Thrilled with with the Linux performance of my Mobility Radeon x1600. Easily bests my Geforce 6800.
Beryl, XGL, Compiz, UT2003, Enemy Terrority, America's Army, all glass smooth and stable. I can run Beryl while playing high-def (1280p) x264 videos at the same time, too.
Still, better is better, and ATI's drivers do have some problems entering/leaving the console.
Even if ATI released 100% working, fast drivers, they would be useless if they weren't OPEN and FREE.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
If you consider that AMD owns ATI and that AMD needs (considering how they have been hemorrhaging money) Dell to buy their CPUs, Dell just may be able to get what the Linux community has been asking wanted for quite a while.
While Dell doesn't have a lot of fans on Slashdot, they may also be able to get a lot more hardware supported as well.
Strange bedfellows, but...
Dell has something the community doesn't have... sales orders for chips!! If Dell wants drivers they stand a good chance in getting them. They just started building AMD systems and bundling ATI chipsets is a key part of the sales pitch. Hopefully several hundred thousand computers will be enough to get the ball rolling!!!
here just a couple days ago. Not sure how much better they are, but they are making some efforts.
"Even if ATI released 100% working, fast drivers, they would be useless if they weren't OPEN and FREE"
Totally. Unless, well... unless you want to some stuff that requires working, fast drivers. In that unlikely circumstance the drivers would be very useful.
When it comes to closed systems like video cards and their drivers, I think only a fool would turn up his nose at a binary simply because it doesn't come with source code. They should, of course, provide it for any GPL'd libraries they use.
If the drivers do what I want them to do (i.e. not suck), I will use them, GPL or no GPL.
Why does the never ending cycle of
ATI Needs to produce better Linux drivers --> ATI announces they really like Linux --> ATI never produces drivers
keep exciting everyone enough to cause this constant hand wringing?
They are not going to ever really support Linux well. If that's not clear after 12 years of the above cycle, then you haven't been paying attention. Move on.. Get a board with an Intel integrated GPU if you want totally open. Get an Nvidia card if you don't care about open, but want working accelerated drivers.
If ATI does somehow produce open specs or drivers, great.. think about buying one then. In the mean time, vote with your dollars, buy something else.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Even if ATI released 100% working, fast drivers, they would be useless if they weren't OPEN and FREE.
You people are all crazy about GPL/Open Source. "VIVA OPEN SOURCE WE WANT SOURCE CODES!". Seriously, how many *nix users contribute to OSS projects? How many contribute code? I bet a good bunch of people contribute because I've seen projects that have died and have been picked up by other developers to keep some applications alive so I won't deny the existence of contributors.
What I will say is that I would honestly prefer closed source drivers like Nvidia but that work correctly and perform great rather than open source drivers with the current ppl @ ATI. Call me crazy but why does every company that develop on Linux have to give in to this OSS idealogy, the idea of giving to the community in order to keep it alive? Seriously the company that do so are great but the companies that don't want to, it's their choice it's their product and it's their software.
Does ATI need to improve their drivers? Hell yes. Is the solution to open source their drivers? Maybe, maybe not. Get a good team of linux developers to regularly work on them at ATI and if the drivers perform great, you will see many happy ATI users who will not need to buy a Nvidia video card to simply to stay on Linux. Sure there will be a few pissed off GPL/OSS/Linux/Penguin zealots who will cry for the source code, too bad for them I guess.
I'm not holding my breath Me neither. I recently switched from ATI (on which I spent several days to get it to work but *still* suboptimal) to NVidia to get accelerated dualscreen and it Just Works. Never looked back. Sorry ATI, you're too late.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
So that explains VISTA problems, but we're talking Gnu/Linux here....
"And dismissing a binary simply because it's a binary, without even considering where the best option lies, seems like a fool to me."
My english done gone busted itself all up inside.
Yea ATI's drivers are great....
BTW I'll give it to any developer making a serious effort to write open source drivers. I'll even pay shipping.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
The NVidia driver update was a single
I've been a long time ATI user except for a single Geforce4 back in my gaming days. So long, and thanks for all the fish, ATI.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Haven't learned our lesson regarding security or portability have we?
Popular binary drivers had some unresolved, severe exploits and couldn't be bothered to address them for about two years. That's just an anecdote, but illustrates that the problem is real and not just theoretical. Anecdotes aside, there are inherent problems with binary-only drivers (or binary-only anything). For the obtuse, the interview with Theo de Raadt interview with Jonathan Gray and Damien Bergamini go into more details.
Production mistakes and design flaws aside, happen. That's why we get the effect that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". But with binary-only that also means that nearly anything, from back doors to monitoring, can be piggybacked into the blob. You'd be hard pressed to find out. And depending on the vendor for the binary also leaves you dependent on their choice of architectures - not yours, and their lifecycle timeline - not yours.
Some, like the GP, may prefer the GPL, others may prefer other open source license. Whatever. Any of them is a far cry better than no source code.
Also, remember the open source is not just a license, but a development model. Popular hardware will gain development speed and quality for the drivers. It's not like the drivers have any inherent value without the hardware. Opening up the drivers would most likely boost the sales of the hardware they use.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
As Henri Richard announced (some time ago...).
nemesis. Home of an experimental fe code.
15 years ago some of us were asking ATI for OS/2 Warp drivers. *rim shot*
It would be poetic justice if ATI put Dell on hold for an hour every time they called to check in on those drivers. Then transferred them to 3 different parties before cutting them off.
In fact, if ATI promises to do that I will forgive them for the OS/2 lies and bogus promises they made.
Uh, yeah, no. That blog is bullshit. He said they will work on better Linux support, and they've been saying that for years. He never said anything about open source drivers.