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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.
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.
While I don't agree with the "GPL or nothing" position on the level of principles, I often wonder why hardware vendors keep their source closed. It's not like a driver is of any value without the hardware and quality open source drivers would boost hardware sales. Maybe just a little, but still.
Just publish the source to whatever you have and see what the community makes of it. How could it possibly hurt?
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Often, not as much is done in the hardware as is advertised. I have been told that examination of some modern graphics drivers reveals them to be very good implementions IN SOFTWARE of graphics libraries. If those companies were to release the source, their competitors drivers would gain in ability, and projects such as OpenGL might suddenly become a lot better.
Essentially, it is partly the case that graphics cards are hardware dongles for graphics libraries (drivers).
I would be nice if ATI released open source drivers, both for Linux and for Windows. However, none of the big graphics card manufacturers are likely to do that unless they believe that their own card can compete on a pure hardware basis alone. The fact that they don't do it, is evidence that these overpriced 3D watt-burning powerhogs aren't really all they are hyped up to be.
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.