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VIA Releases FOSS Graphics Driver
billybob2 writes "VIA has released a 113,800 line open source graphics driver with full mode-setting support for CRT, LCD, and DVI devices along with 2D, X-Video, and cursor acceleration. Harald Welte, VIA's open source representative, states that the next step is to add 3D (see preview), TV-out, and hardware codec support while integrating this work with existing open source projects. VIA has pre-installed Linux on a significant portion of the company's latest products, including the EVEREX gPC2, 15.4" gBook, and CloudBook. It has also helped port the open source CoreBoot BIOS (previously LinuxBIOS) to several of its motherboards." VIA seems to be making good on the promise of its open source initiative announced last April.
Yes, but does it support -- World of Warcraft?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I hope that this goes better than VIA's prior activities in this area. VIA has some very, very cute hardware for linux project purposes(loads of small form factor boards, without the restrictions that intel has been putting on atom), some decently interesting netbooks, etc.
If I can trust that VIA video will actually work properly under linux, their boards become considerably more attractive for my purposes. The prospect of coreboot support for such boards would be gravy. I'd love to be able to put together some little linux widgets with linux burned right into the motherboard.
I really find it hard to accept that a company that around 5 years ago copied GPL code in many of their stuff made such a 180 turn and is now with full commitment in actually supporting the stuff that they have been copying for so long. The motives behind it and better: who was able to make this shift possible from inside the company, hiring an OpenSource devver is one, but the process before that is much more interesting.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
About time ./ had some real news !!
I went to newegg. No via video cards. Hm. A lot of hub-bub about nothing. Move along. Nothing to see here.
VIA seems to be making good on the promise of its open source initiative announced last April.
The only problem on my part is that I find VIA products mediocre when it comes to gaming. I have also found that drivers for their products make my system (Mandriva) rather unstable.
Verdict: Avoid VIA technologies till enough open source code has gone into this new product. The community should act fast on this issue.
they're mostly for onboard video chipsets, and this is awesome news for integrated devices and lightweight PCs like media centres, internet kiosks, settop boxes, netbooks, etc etc etc
simply the fact that one of the largest video chipset manufacturers in the world is writing open source drivers is huge, and an awesome step forward for linux and foss in general
not everything related to the phase "video card" is about pcie cards in sli and their crysis benchmark
I could be wrong, but I thought most via cards were integrated into the motherboard. Meaning that you're not going to find a discrete card.
By your logic the fact that you can't find Intel cards at newegg would nullify an article about an Intel graphics chipset that doesn't suck.
I sincerely hope that being the only closed driver provider, that nVidia will follow, Intel, AMD and apparently Via's lead and provide open drivers.
Seriously, with most EPIA fanless systems suitable for MythTV being Via chipset, the tv/hardware accel (some chips have hardware mpeg2/mpeg4 support for pity's sake), that's what would absolutely rule if there was an opensource driver that worked.
As an act of faith, we should build something cool out of this - not to mention promote them to non-gaming computer users.
If we can optimize a graphics driver or do new things with it, they can sell more hardware and everybody wins. God knows ATI isn't making any money off of their drivers.
Hopefully we can use this to drive the point home.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Their chips only support certain modes and none of those modes proportionally scale 720p or 1080i so their chips are effectively dead in the US market. They have potential for embedded stuff, but in less than 6 months, NTSC will be no more in the USA and VIA is just not an option for its replacement.
Fortunately, AMD-owned ATI is stepping up to the plate and their new Linux software rocks. (Stay away from nVidia which once ruled Linux but now blows chunx, not just in terms of chip defects, but in terms of un-supporting previously stable hardware in screwed up binary-only driver releases that you are otherwise forced to install when you need to upgrade your kernel for some reason.)
So when I bought my Dell Ubuntu laptop last year, I thought, "Intel and nVidia are the LEAST evil of the graphics chipset manufaacturers." Wanting a little more oomph, I went with nVidia.
Now, a year later, nVidia is looking ridiculous by clinging to closed-source binary drivers while the rest of the industry (including ATi, for pete's sake) go open. And the fact that freaking VIA is more open than nVidia really makes me feel...frustrated. Sorry nVidia, but I can't recommend you as long as you lag like this.
... that it has to be a Taiwanese company doing this, rather than an American player.
Well... Taiwan On!
It worries me a bit that in the 3D driver video demo that they're displaying it on an old CRT monitor. Maybe we should all chip in a little and get them a flat panel.
I've got a NVidia driving 2 1920x1200 DVI monitors. What VIA product(s) will do this?
If VIA offered an IGP that didn't get blown out of the water by even a crappy old Intel GMA950...
In a FOSS world, processor instruction set is of relatively minor importance. Change the processor and all one does is recompile the code, possibly, but probably not, with minor tweaks. In an open source world VIA would be free to break away from the x86 instruction set and compete in an unfettered manner with Intel.
In the description in the link for it, it actually informs the user about needing to move some windows around due to all the buttons not being visible, something that has been a common problem while running desktops that weren't really made for low resolutions like Gnome. That's really something that should be fixed and I'm surprised it hasn't been by now. Some way for X to detect that there is no way for a window to fit on the screen and add some scrolly bars to it to make everything accessible. Perhaps it's purely the fault of the window manager or library though and not X, or maybe it's both?
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
VIA is actually in the embedded x86 space. Home routers, MIDs, and other appliance-like consumer devices seem to be appropriate uses of VIA's chips. Companies there are mainly using Linux(there are exceptions), so I don't see any other choice for VIA but to start improving their Linux support and releasing open source drivers. VIA's cpus can't really compete with normal consumer desktops. Intel's integrated graphics and low power cpus are much more capable, but not as cheap or quite as low power (yet).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
A bunch of months ago now VIA quietly released an accelerated driver for their Chrome9 video chipset (not open source, but a big step in the right direction) - now I can run Compiz mostly trouble free.
http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action
Geee.. You linux guys get everything for free, even cursor acceleration! I see now that you're ready for the Desktop.
It was found that renaming quake.exe to quack.exe
would affect performance. The reason is that the
driver purposely degrades the quality for stuff
that is used in benchmarks. This is dishonest, and
it is a filthy hack. It's damn obvious why video
drivers are a major cause of crashes; they dig
around in kernel memory (totally undocumented) to
enable dirty hacks.
Open Source fixes this problem automatically.
Some way for X to detect that there is no way for a window to fit on the screen and add some scrolly bars to it to make everything accessible. Perhaps it's purely the fault of the window manager or library though and not X, or maybe it's both?
The original FVWM ("Feeble Virtual Window Manager") did this. FVWM is still a rather nice window manager, assuming you don't mind editing ~/.fvwmrc to adjust it.
WoW is redundant http://www.theonion.com/content/video/warcraft_sequel_lets_gamers_play
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
I am using Ubuntu 8.04 fully updated. The run.sh in the xf86-video-via-83.1.0 just gives me a ton of errors. I also tried going in to the X11R7 directory and following the instructions in the README to chmod +x a few files but this barfs on ./configure and complains I don't have packages xorg-server, xvmc adn fontsproto. None of which are in the repos.
By current units sold market share VIA is small. My understanding is that it's roughly 40% Intel, 30% NVIDIA, 20% AMD and everyone else is crammed into the remainder 10% (that's total shipments of both desktops and platforms, discrete and integrated cards). (Rummages around web) Here's a link to GPU units sold in the second and third quarters of 2007. It looks like VIA sold almost 3 times less than ATI (but they seem to be on an upward progression).
It's the timing that makes this more interesting because Intel have pushed so much work on their open source drivers they are now the easiest "current" GPUs to get going on systems like Linux. Intel have done this by hiring engineers to work on Linux AND releasing specs which is kinda a double whammy. If this turns out to be the only way companies can achieve a similar smooth out of the box operation on FOSS OSes it's not going to cheap for others. It's also interesting that AMD had also taken big steps in specs and drivers direction before this move by VIA. Some would argue VIA's hand has been forced into this if they wish to remain relevant in the FOSS playground. Others point out that this is a process that can only be started by a willing company.
This is a brave play by VIA but there are more challenges to come. The next question is what they do with regard to the OpenChrome and Unichrome drivers and how to integrate the work they've done into the xorg development process. Judging from their Linux kernel integration it looks doable so long as VIA have some help.
TFA says VIA has already released a 2D driver. If that works well, it should do for routers/firewalls/servers. And that is where I can see a small VIA based PC being used.
For gaming, I'd still prefer a full size PC with AMD or Intel dual core CPU and a separate ATI graphics card (NVidia binary drivers are acceptable, but now ATI is more attractive thanks to its Open Source program).
C - the footgun of programming languages
I think this now brings the total drivers for the Chrome chipset to 4. There's already:
- Via proprietary binary drivers (support some 3D acceleration and TVout, but only available for specific distro/kernel combinations)
- Unichrome drivers (focus on code quality rather than features, so no 3D accel and TVout)
- Openchrome drivers (used in most distros, support some of the features, but imperfect and seem not to support Compiz)
- The new Via FOSS drivers (2D only at present)
Why couldn't VIA just contribute to one of the existing projects or send them docs and maybe funding? That would have been truely embracing open source.
I'd be interested to know if Via tried to contact any of the uni/openchrome developers.
-- Mike
On top of that, they fell behind badly in terms of performance, and the great signal quality from their cards is mostly meaningless in the age of DVI.
Looks almost like a case of corporate suicide, as in "nobody can be THAT stupid, so it must be intentional" ;-).
C - the footgun of programming languages
As a casual observer, it appears VIA is doing this way faster than ATI. This could imply they were actually planning it first, or always had the plan ready as a kind of emergency plan.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Atom kills VIA in Price/Performance/Power ratio across the board.
Once Intel fixes the problem of their north bridge requiring 6x the power Atom does then via is in really big trouble
?? Didn't someone just do a watt/performance comparison of the atom _platform_ against an amd64, and it lost in both wattage and performance?!
I doubt if Intel would improve their northbridge much as they don't want this to be a viable platform against their celerons.
For whatever reasons, market forces have given open source a chance.
If Via turns around six months from now, and their driver is much improved by the community, this will encourage them in a big way to do this again in the future.
Video drivers could be an entrance for the open source community to the hardware market. Everyone needs them; most don't work so great all the time. There's room for exploration and excellence.
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
Even a server or firewall needs some configuration.
What configuration user interface does a typical home or small business firewall need that a built-in web server can't provide?
The whole argument for FOSS 3D video card drivers is just silly in my opinion. Very very very few people have the skills necessary to write good drivers for these chips
Here's how the Ubuntu restricted drivers installer explained it to me: If the developers of other kernel or X components can't use their debuggers to trace execution through a kernel module (or a user-mode process that has equivalent hardware access to the kernel), they can't provide support for a system that includes such a module, other than "go back to VESA". So it isn't as much a license issue as the ability to see what the code is doing and how it is interacting with other code on the same machine; even a more restrictive license such as the Microsoft Reference Source License might be a step up.
the drivers are some of the most important IP in a graphics card
Unless you mean "Internet Protocol" (and you don't), the term "intellectual property" has some undesirable baggage associated with it. It implies to the reader that 1. copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets are more alike than they really are, and that 2. owners of copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets deserve exclusive rights comparable in scope to those of the holder of a plot of land. Worse, the abbrevation of "intellectual property" as "IP" implies to the reader that these two positions are so self-evident that the reader ought to have already accepted them by now.
Of course, I don't game at all
Do you babysit children who game? I do.
In a FOSS world, processor instruction set is of relatively minor importance.
A world of high-performance video is a world of games and high-definition feature films. In such a world, some would say FOSS is of relatively minor importance. Since when has a major retail video game been based on a Free engine?[1] Or since when has a Free film got a nationwide theatrical release?
[1] I mean Free when the game is first published, not half a decade later like id Tech.
the blog entry
why hiring Harald Welte was the right thing to do on the technical side and on the community and legal side.
I've met Harald once. If VIA got him, they are definitively serious about this.
Not only he is a very intelligent person, with deep knowledge of Linux internals, he is also a very strong OSS advocate.
morcego
Linux.
You're wrong.
> NTSC ending doesn't mean we'll all be watching 720/1080.
> It means everything is digital, MPEG2 streams. We're all
> a looong way off from HDTV-to-the-door.
Many US OTA TV stations are broadcasting 720p or 1080i.
So many TV shows are only available in 720p or 1080i.
So you have to decode HD even if you are watching on
a SD display (digital or analog). The SD display is
actually more work for the computer, since the image
must be scaled down.
>> I thought most via cards were integrated into the
>> motherboard. Meaning that you're not going to find
>> a discrete card.
Is this true? Or is there a GPU available that does
not require a new mainboard (PCI, PCIe, Ethernet,
Firewire, USB, SCSI, kite string, whatever...) and can
support at least Xv and XvMC for OTA 720p & 1080i
mpeg2 ts with a FLOSS driver?
The YouTube preview looks just as smooth as my nVidia card, and is probably much smoother on window resizes (my nVidia cards are rather bad in that respect). I'd be happy to build a computer around the VIA video system once the 3D finalizes.
MIT licensed, too. Awesome.
That's beside the point unless the machines in the Pixar render farm use VIA chipsets. True, Pixar uses Linux in the render farm, but the DVD-ROM special features on Disney DVD retail titles aren't designed for Linux. Nor is the motion picture itself free; in fact, it is under digital restrictions management and patented codecs. So let me rephrase:
A world of high-performance video is a world of games and high-definition feature films. In such a world, some would say FOSS on home hardware is of relatively minor importance. Since when [...] has a Free film got a nationwide theatrical release?
Perhaps, but is there enough memory bandwidth on a nanoITX to render it? I've never gotten past 1080i, and I'd love to be able to render 1080p.
In Liberty, Rene