Limited ATI support?

[crazycheese]

I think it is a question of three moments.

1) Availability. Linux driver stack is unfinished, unpolished and lacking lots of functionality - if to be compared with catalyst(yes, big "lol") or nvblob.
2) Lacking manpower. Linux driver stack itself receives 1/100 of attention it "should".
3) Licensing. BSD is steal-friendly. Where GPL would give good protection against raw stealing(ie. concealing), BSD is plainly give-away. I doubt any company would share any IP unless it is well-known by others and hence outdated, cause that would mean simply loosing advantage vs minor gains(bsd moneyflow).

Panix points are valid in many cases.

[kraftman]

Well, if there are people interested in making FOSS drivers work on BSD, I'm all for it too. BSD is actually quite a mature OS compared to Linux and getting BSD to run the latest hardware would definitely be a good thing.

Maybe it was quite a mature ten years ago, but Linux has much greater manpower thus it's much more mature right now - what's enterprise using, what's running on most of the servers, HPC, what's being used in professional graphics? While bsd devs hack graphic drivers to make them running on their system I doubt if they're adding anything useful to Linux. They're just porting techs which were invented by Linux programmers and givie nothing back.

@Blackstar, Crazycheese

+1

[archibald]

I use OpenBSD, but believe my comments are applicable to Free/Net/OtherBSD. I use OpenBSD because it seems more logical to me. I have a linux install for skype, occasional games, and Meshlab, and a windows install for one or two games that don't like wine.

2 years ago I was playing openarena and using various other desktop programs just fine on OpenBSD, I'm wouldn't have thought things have got worse. Open source driver only, but compared to a few years ago (prior to opening up) it's pretty good. The open source drivers meet all my needs (which include working with large 3D models), so I probably wouldn't bother with a binary driver even if one came along.

There isn't kernel support for R600+ in OpenBSD because the guy who is going to do it decided he wants to finish his PhD first, which is hardly unfair. Those who use BSD do so knowing the driver situation.

Maybe Oracle is paying for it?

Nvidia have had binary drivers for Solaris for many years: long before any oracle deal was considered (at least publicly).

3) Licensing. BSD is steal-friendly.

Using it in accordance with the licence (e.g. making a closed source program with it) isn't stealing.

[crazycheese]

I have a linux install for skype, occasional games, and Meshlab, and a windows install for one or two games that don't like wine.

You dont need linux and you have no choice, but use windows, since skype malware and windows games work in windows better.

Using it in accordance with the licence (e.g. making a closed source program with it) isn't stealing.

Stealing is allowed yes, this is stealing OS with stealing license. You are doomed to be 2nd (read "slave") class and bug-test playground.

[airlied]

Nvidia have had binary drivers for Solaris for many years: long before any oracle deal was considered (at least publicly).

Christ do you need someone to hold your hand with logic?

Maybe Sun was paying for drivers for Solaris, or a major customers of Sun/Nvidia was paying both of them.

Nvidia aren't writing drivers for Solaris for the enjoyment value of it.

Dave.

[XorEaxEax]

Stealing is allowed yes, this is stealing OS with stealing license. You are doomed to be 2nd (read "slave") class and bug-test playground.

I can't understand how you can call it stealing when they are only doing what the licence allows. The programmers willingly licence the code so that it can be used within proprietary projects without any requirements of giving back, I think it's extremely generous.

I do agree though that it's very unlikely that companies will find the BSD-style licencing something they want to contribute code under, since it's practically giving away your work to potential competitors, and that's not something companies are keen on doing.

Which I assume is also why GPL has become the de facto standard licence under which different companies cooperate when developing open source code. Well, given it's popularity I guess it's the de facto standard licence for cooperative open source development even outside the corporate realm.

[archibald]

Christ do you need someone to hold your hand with logic?

Maybe Sun was paying for drivers for Solaris, or a major customers of Sun/Nvidia was paying both of them.

I didn't think through my response, sorry.

[LinuxID10T]

You dont need linux and you have no choice, but use windows, since skype malware and windows games work in windows better.


Stealing is allowed yes, this is stealing OS with stealing license. You are doomed to be 2nd (read "slave") class and bug-test playground.

Umm... Troll much? LOL

[Herarki]

Hey Guy.. I wanna need the answer of same question.. You can't use ATI cards in BSD?
Hope you will share here answer.

[archibald]

You can use ATI cards in BSD - they all come with the open source classic driver.

They don't meet all the requirements for the latest (Gallium3D) drivers, but they're perfectly usable with the classic drivers (obviously depending on what you actually want to do with them).