ATI R200 Linux Driver Redux

[Michael]

Last week we had published The Truth About ATI/AMD & Linux, and to no real surprise, the feedback ranged from beliefs that it was propaganda to others being grateful that AMD finally shared some additional information with their Linux customers about the fglrx development cycle. While the article was far from being propaganda, what had outraged a number of open-source developers were AMD's comments on the R200 support or there the lack of. In this article, we have a few additional comments to share along with what some open-source developers had to say about AMD's information.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10158

Discuss Here.

[yoshi314]

let's hope that ati will do something significant to help linux developers like glisse and airlied, instead of being overzealous about their IP.

other than that i can only hope for their success. i don't really put much hopes in fglrx anymore.

[Svartalf]

ATI will be overzealous. AMD, the new owner, may/may not be. Depends on how much sting all the truth getting out causes them and how badly they want to be a player in this space. They're not doing so hot, financially, right at the moment, so they might just figure out releasing technical data and helping with the driver source for the win is in their best interests- but they may not, so I'm not holding my breath.

[yoshi314]

they might just figure out releasing technical data and helping with the driver source for the win is in their best interests- but they may not, so I'm not holding my breath.

yeah, but only in the long-term. they are probably more concerned at the things at hand.

[Raven3x7]

Does anyone know how to contact the devs and if those of us with X1K cards can help out somehow?

[Michael]

Does anyone know how to contact the devs and if those of us with X1K cards can help out somehow?

I've been in contact with the X1000 RE developers since basically the beginning. Once they need dumps there will be more information available on Phoronix.

A bit more info on my blog: http://www.michaellarabel.com/index....arch&t=Reverse

[sundown]

I really look forward to the open drivers for the r500 now.
All I really hope is a nice 2d acceleration capable of handling HDTV + no problems with 2nd display.
Does my request sound achievable for this stage of the driver?

[yoshi314]

3d acceleration is probably not there yet. but it certainly will.

what do you mean by hdtv? tv-out?

[sundown]

No, HDTV rips, .mkv-s. If the driver can handle the 40 Mbps rip of LOST I'm safe
And while I'm on topic, is anybody familiar whether playback of HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays is a reality on Linux?

[yoshi314]

one of those formats is getting there (mplayer/ffmpeg has some support). at least unencrypted ones. no idea what the developers are going to do about already getting broken encryption (maybe there will be something like libdvdcss library to handle encrypted media someday).