Red Hat Talks About Nouveau, Open-Source Drivers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Red Hat Talks About Nouveau, Open-Source Drivers

As part of a series of blog posts and video interviews about new features coming to Fedora 13, Red Hat has most recently published a new item entitled Making 3D Free for Innovation: Fedora 13 Graphics Drivers...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODI0MA

[droidhacker]

I would really like to see some major source, like RH, make particular mention of the GMA500/Poulsbo driver problem (also known as "lack of a driver"). Instead, every one of these "we're so great" statements that come out conveniently ignores it.

And the fact of the matter is that GMA500 and soon GMA600 are MAJOR problems since these are the only graphics parts that intel HAS that in any way are actually better than the products sold by AMD or NVIDIA (simply due to the fact that neither AMD not NVIDIA even HAVE a product filling that segment), and the segment that those parts fill is ENORMOUS.

[chithanh]

Let's face it, the market share of GMA500 is not large enough to be incentive for a major reverse-engineering effort.

So it depends on Intel to provide drivers for their chipsets. Until that happens, for most Linux distros GMA500 will simply not exist. Complain to Intel if you don't like that.

[V!NCENT]

The rate at which the growth rate of Linux' marketshare is growing is exponential. There are other options like radeon so the FLOSS graphics availability is secured.

The obvious fix is not buying Intel. That'll teach them a lesson...

[Hephasteus]

The rate at which the growth rate of Linux' marketshare is growing is exponential. There are other options like radeon so the FLOSS graphics availability is secured.

The obvious fix is not buying Intel. That'll teach them a lesson...

Ya I think redhat has gone from 12.5 million or so users last year to probably something rediculous like 40 60 million after 13 release. It's just exploding and not slow motion.

And for Intel GMA 500. They are all grown up and involved in the Linux world. They can either get it done or ignore it. Their choice. If there's 3rd party licensing problems learn how to negotiate.

[Remco]

The rate at which the growth rate of Linux' marketshare is growing is exponential.

Not exponential, but linear. This may change with Android (not taken into account here), which *is* growing exponentially at the moment. The question is whether it will continue to do so. Plus, you're not going to be playing state of the art games on your smartphone.

[whizse]

The rate at which the growth rate of Linux' marketshare is growing is exponential. There are other options like radeon so the FLOSS graphics availability is secured.

The obvious fix is not buying Intel. That'll teach them a lesson...

Not buying GMA500/600 is a great idea. Not buying Intel stuff at all is a horrible idea.

[devius]

Not buying Intel stuff at all is a horrible idea.

Why?

(this is just to make the message longer than 10 characters)

[whizse]

Do I really need to spell this out?

Intel is a large company, employing a lot of developers to work on and support Linux, in many cases having the best support available today.

Telling people to not buy any of their products because of the PowerVR fiasco will send the wrong message. By all means, don't buy the GMA500/600 stuff, but an all out boycott of Intel will result in a lot of collateral damage.

[waucka]

It would be really nice if AMD came out with a GPU positioned as a direct competitor to GMA500/600, but with open-source support. I would definitely be willing to buy a netbook with such a chipset (assuming it didn't go with Broadcom for WiFi).

As for boycotting Intel, I am already conducting a "partial boycott" of Intel. Naturally, I refuse to purchase anything with a GMA500/600 GPU, and I urge others not to purchase it either, but I also try to limit my purchases of Intel hardware in general. For one thing, I think Intel's market share is cause for concern, especially since they have demonstrated a willingness to abuse it. Secondly, I want to help AMD maintain their position as a competitor to NVIDIA. If Intel is the only reasonable option, though, I will purchase their hardware. For example, I am looking for a new notebook, and whatever I purchase will almost certainly contain an Intel CPU and GPU.

I really do feel betrayed by Intel over the GMA500/600 thing, though. That was not cool, and it definitely does not encourage me to purchase Intel hardware when AMD gets the job done just as well.