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VIA Releases 16K-Line FOSS Framebuffer Driver

Posted by kdawson on from the can-only-get-better-from-here dept.

billybob2 writes "VIA has released 16,434 Lines Of Free & Open Source code that enables Linux natively to use the framebuffer on VIA's graphics chipsets. This comes a month after VIA announced that it will provide Open-Source drivers and documentation on its Web site so that its hardware will work out of the box with Linux distributions. This gives VIA-powered systems that come pre-installed with Linux — such as the gPC, 15.4" gBook, CloudBook, and Zonbu — the ability to output graphics through digital connections such as HDMI, and probably makes them the best-supported framebuffers Linux has ever had. Look forward to documentation and X.org drivers from VIA as well in the near future."

3 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Does "framebuffer" mean no HW acceleration? by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 4, Informative

    If that were true, it wouldn't take 16 kLoC for a driver. With that much code, it's exposing quite a bit of hardware-specific functionality - which means hardware acceleration for something.

    --
    -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  2. Re:More like giving up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Even the much praised nVidia still lacks proper (read: in comparison with Windows) drivers Huh? No. The nvidia linux binary drivers are actually nearly identical to the windows ones, nvidia actually use the same sources for windows/linux/solaris. Performance is slightly higher on linux for the same card, and various nvidia and arb extensions to opengl 2.x make up for any power-differences from directx10 (that's something gamer fanboys tend not to understand, the opengl 3rd party extension mechanism, allowing for a stable core and bleeding-edge goodies at once.)

    Now, the fact they're binary sucks, but they're binary on windows too. nvidia cards are _heavily_ used in the "pro" 3D area, as is (believe it or not) linux - these days, engineering workstations running windows are the exception rather than the rule (at least here in euro-land).

    The problem is, nvidia differentiates their pro vs. gamer 3D cards mainly by software changes in the drivers. That's the real reason they're leery of open-sourcing them - they lose their artificial market stratification. ho hum.

  3. Because they've played this game before. by pavon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Via has "supported" linux in the past, and all it amounted to was dumping some poorly written and undocumented code, and then not doing anything to maintain the code themselves, and not accepting accepting patches, not responding to queries for documentation/clarification from those that wanted to improve the drivers themselves.

    I hope they are doing the right thing this time, and will gladly praise them if they do, but I can understand why some people would be skeptical until then.