Arch Linux Revolts Against ATI Catalyst Driver

[grantek]

@energyman, you just want to take the time to tell us your achievement frustrations?

@Melcar, 10% of our users use ati open source driver. 9% use catalyst, so no not many users use catalyst, not even ati at all, nvidia is used by 43% of the users.

Just curious, how many use nv/nouveau?

[Hephasteus]

Just curious, how many use nv/nouveau?

I tried the nouveau the other day. The kernel didn't support it right. I could try it again but I'm trying to keep things to breaking X once a week as it stands.

I know everyone is really frustrated with video driver support on linux. I see some really great work and progress happening and I'm really excited about it. I just downloaded some fedora testing files and broke X but good. After messing with it for about an hour it finally started working. Seeing what the heck happened I find that my computer was being automatically probed for 5 screens. Sure it looked broken and frozen but things are happening.

Microsoft is going to try to generate alot of hardware sales with windows 7 and if it happens people will go back to kissing it's butt again. If it doesn't then linux probably go from 10 plus million desktops to 50 60 million desktops this year.

[kensai]

Just curious, how many use nv/nouveau?

13% use nv driver. But we have no statistics of the noveau, just yet.

[jeffro-tull]

so, the consensus is "more people use Ubuntu, so that should get the most coverage. If something really big happens with another distro, then it'll get a mention."

Hey guys? That doesn't make sense. By your own logic, this site shouldn't even exist. Windows has orders of magnitude more users than any Linux distribution. So, since more people use it, that should get coverage. Since so few people use Linux, as compared to Windows, it should rarely, if ever, get a mention.

I know, I know, there are many, many, many Linux distributions, and it would be impossible to cover all of them in any kind of great detail. All I'm saying is that news about portage picking up support for solving USE-flag dependencies is more interesting than the code-name for the version of Ubuntu that'll be coming out next year.

[deanjo]

I
Microsoft is going to try to generate alot of hardware sales with windows 7 and if it happens people will go back to kissing it's butt again. If it doesn't then linux probably go from 10 plus million desktops to 50 60 million desktops this year.

Actually the main focus on Windows 7 is not about added features that require hardware upgrades, it's quite the opposite, It's more about using the present hardware smarter (same can be said with OS X 10.6). MS even has come out with Warp10 in Windows 7 that allows cards that previously were not able to use all the aero effects but now can with the CPU picking up the slack for those effects when needed. It's also been created with systems with limited capabilities in mind such as the netbooks. Then there is also DX 11 with GPGPU support which is again focused on making the most of your hardware. While it may finally prompt some users to upgrade 3+ year old XP systems to run it more effeciently, it is quite at home running on a system such as a AMD 1700+ with 1.5 gig of ram. Minimum system specs are still the same as Vista however it does a better job with lower end hardware (as one journalist found out here http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=672).
Many people may upgrade their XP systems now that they feel it's a worthy upgrade but I would imagine that percentage would be much smaller with the people presently running Vista on their systems. Those people will more then likely just get the OS upgrade and stick with the present hardware since it is more then ample to run Win7. Of course OEM's are hoping like hell Win 7 is a success as it may finally get those XP users to switch and that is a welcome chunk of the market in these hard times.

[b15hop]

Energyman:
What distro do you use then?

[kraftman]

@deanjo

Said shorter - they'll optimize aero etc... There's no logic in windowses or macoses. First they're unoptimized crap which demands high end hardware to run properly and then ms and apple release newer versions without meaningful improvements, but just optimize them. Logically it should be different order.

[Stedevil]

On topic:

I would say that the original article seems to leave a much harsher view than what the Arch devs actually seems to have, and more importantly, is quite unclear with the exact gripes they have. For AMD to progress, it's IMO important to give accurate and to the point critique of what and how they do things wrong.

Off topic:

Ubuntu is great for keeping the "z0mg it doesn't work 1 d3mand y00 fixor it NOW or else" crowd out of Debian

And the same Debian people saying that wonder why people in general view them as elitist pricks and chose Ubuntu instead...

There are a lot of knowledgeable people tired of such a crappy attitude and instead prefer use eg Ubuntu. And biggest problem with Ubuntu IMO is that it depends on Debian to update packages which means to get your package up to date in *buntu you run the severe risk of having to fight above mentioned elitists and cross your fingers they dont break your perfectly fine working software in their modified source .deb...

And people, dont even get me started on the Gnome/KDE issue... WTF... half the linux community hates KDE the other hates Gnome, and (K)Ubuntu offers both... so get the stick out of your hiny. For sane people, it's a non issue.

[kraftman]

@Stedevil

And people, dont even get me started on the Gnome/KDE issue... WTF... half the linux community hates KDE the other hates Gnome, and (K)Ubuntu offers both... so get the stick out of your hiny. For sane people, it's a non issue.

It is issue for Ubuntu newbies who don't know that KDE exists and they're trolling on Ubuntu forums, because they want features which KDE has, but gnome doesn't. Btw. I want to stop here. /Off topic

[yogi_berra]

Many people may upgrade their XP systems now that they feel it's a worthy upgrade but I would imagine that percentage would be much smaller with the people presently running Vista on their systems. Those people will more then likely just get the OS upgrade and stick with the present hardware since it is more then ample to run Win7. Of course OEM's are hoping like hell Win 7 is a success as it may finally get those XP users to switch and that is a welcome chunk of the market in these hard times.

Off Topic: No one upgrades for the sake of upgrading. Until there is a valid reason for people to upgrade from XP (Like Microsoft ending security support) they won't move to anything new. In some cases even when that support ends XP will stay in place. I know of a place that is still using NT 4 as an interior file server and until the hardware dies they see no reason to upgrade it. That is not an uncommon situation.

On Topic: As long as Arch users are made aware of the situation by the Arch maintainers so no one ends up with a frustrating view of tty1 unexpectedly on upgrade, why is it news worthy? Package maintainers often get burned out (for lack of a better phrase) or disappear from other distributions or decide that upstream is too asshole-ish (ref: Debian's on going argument with Joerg Schilling over wodim) to work with so it really isn't new or even exciting.