VIA OpenChrome KMS Support Is Nearly Done

[phoronix]

Phoronix: VIA OpenChrome KMS Support Is Nearly Done

James Simmons has written a status update to the OpenChrome development list concerning his ongoing work towards enabling kernel mode-setting (KMS) support for VIA hardware with this community-maintained VIA Linux project...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTU4Mw

[Adarion]

OMFG noes! It probably won't happen for my old chipsets... calm down, boy, calm down. *phew*
I believe this when I see it. I got no expectations that could be hurt.

[Kivada]

Where can you even get VIA/S3 hardware these days? Te Nvidia Ion+Nano never came to be, I looked, but never found a Chrome 540GTX, found 1 review of it on the entire internet, but never could find it for sale anywhere.

Who buys their stuff these days, why do they do it and where do they even find it in the first place?

Seriously, the only thing I could find and buy with VIA/S3 anything was the Augen Genbook which was sold at KMart as a garbage grade netbook.

Wish Nvidia would have merged with them so there would be more solid competition in the X86 market.

[ahlaht]

Who buys their stuff these days, why do they do it

I certainly would not buy any these days, but around 3 years ago VIA was doing fairly well. They even announced open source support.

And thus we have a large number of specialised computers with these display controllers currently in use:
VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. CX700/VX700 [S3 UniChrome Pro]

And they are not going anywhere until they start to break down...

[deanjo]

Wish Nvidia would have merged with them so there would be more solid competition in the X86 market.

Every company that has been acquired by Via has faded into nothingness. Cyrix, IC Ensemble, S3, .....

[Nobu]

They have a few boards sporting VIA Nano processors over at Newegg, all with VX900 (or VX900H) chipsets, most jetways.

The mini-ITX board looks nice, but it's a bit expensive (for me; I'm sure it's reasonable for somebody).

There's even a board that supports DDR2 or(!) DDR3, if that's your cup of tea.

[BlueJayofEvil]

Where can you even get VIA/S3 hardware these days? Te Nvidia Ion+Nano never came to be, I looked, but never found a Chrome 540GTX, found 1 review of it on the entire internet, but never could find it for sale anywhere.

Who buys their stuff these days, why do they do it and where do they even find it in the first place?

I've been looking for a VIA Nano X2 (or even a single-core Nano 3000) and have found no results. VIA's website says they only support OEMs (read: not individuals/hobbyists.) Upon hearing about the new VIA Nano QuadCore I was quite disappointed. Not because of the CPU itself, but because VIA hardware is almost impossible to find. I'm almost convinced that all their newer tech is just a myth.
Given how small VIA is compared to Intel and AMD, I have to wonder why they restrict hardware sales primarily to OEMs who seem to be reluctant to use their hardware?

S3 doesn't even have a web store anymore (they were out of stock of each of their cards for over a year anyways when it was still online.) VIA's new eH1 card is actually a re-branded S3 Chrome 5400E GPU. Even if you can find one of these, it likely won't be worth anyone's money.
I tried looking for S3 graphics on ebay, and all I found was a lot of old AGP/PCI cards from 10+ years ago.

If VIA wants to do some better business, they better drop their OEM-only policy and start selling their hardware to interested buyers.

[Adarion]

If VIA wants to do some better business, they better drop their OEM-only policy and start selling their hardware to interested buyers.

Well there were and are a few complete board or laptops with their tech but some of them are kinda expensive, though that might be the small form factor. But then, they better should make drivers first. Cause all hardware availability won't be of use if you can't access it on your OS.