No Stable RadeonHD 2D Driver This Year

[phoronix]

Phoronix: No Stable RadeonHD 2D Driver This Year

The key developers at Novell that are behind the open-source RadeonHD driver for the ATI R500/600 graphics processors have been doing a great job (as you can find out by reading a number of our RadeonHD articles). Previously we reported that the Novell developers had hoped to complete the 2D RadeonHD work by the end of the year; however, that will no longer be the case.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NjE4Ng

[Fixxer_Linux]

I'm about to buy a new system.
I'll buy from the company that gives best linux support.
If AMD confirms open-sourcing the specs of latest GPU for having open-source drivers, I therefore don't mind waiting a little to have the drivers. I also don't mind spending more bucks in acquiring ATI products. I don't even mind losing some FPS versus a cost-equivalent nvidia GPU.

But i don't mind on those points only if there is real open-source support, as ATI said. A full release of GPU specs, even from the latest GPU, both 2D and 3D.

If not, I'll go for nvidia, since, for the moment, is less expensive for better performance.

I feel confident that the community will be able, at the dire end, to best tweak the GPU performance as it would never been done with binary blobs. Just have to the phoronix test of open-source drivers .vs. binary ones. On ETQW, the performances are far better with open-source. And I don't want either my hardware to be dependent on the "goodwill" for writing good drivers from any manufacturer.

[Dandel]

Personally i don't really care that no stable 2d driver is out by the end of the year, although i'm more interested in the fact that AMD is releasing documentation on their GPU's without the requirement for a NDA.

[d2kx]

Btw., if anyone was wondering, the RadeonHD developers are working on RandR support since one week.

[remm]

Maybe the 2D driver would be stable enough to be in the next round of distros.

[yoshi314]

i could see that coming. it seemed way too fast.

the progress on radeonhd is pretty good, though.

[Mithrandir]

Maybe the 2D driver would be stable enough to be in the next round of distros.

Even now radeonhd is usable if you do not want to play 3d games or use compiz. After three months I believe that 2d should be stable enough to be included in distros by default.

[butdie]

AMD still holds up specs this late, while they suggested 2D by this year.

Just don't get feed up by AMD propaganda. They do not really care about customers. They couldn't get fglrx for years, therefore, no miracle for open source either.

Everything from AMD is propaganda. There benchmarkings, like, "super fast barcelona", "open source video".

Remember, RMS still holds the sign, "Don't buy from ATI, enemy of your freedom", now we can safely s/TI/MD/.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:R...n_sign_ATI.jpg

Even now radeonhd is usable if you do not want to play 3d games or use compiz. After three months I believe that 2d should be stable enough to be included in distros by default.

[Mithrandir]

I doubt that 3d specs would be very useful at this stage of development of radeonhd. Stable 2d and video playback is needed before 3d development can start. What we really need is more people working on free software drivers.

P.S. It would be interesting to hear what RMS now says about AMD.

[fhuberts]

I doubt that 3d specs would be very useful at this stage of development of radeonhd. Stable 2d and video playback is needed before 3d development can start. What we really need is more people working on free software drivers.

I do not totally agree with you here. 3D is a different kind of beast than 2D and when combining the two (which has to be done somewhere along the line) is quite a challenge. It would be a huge advantage to have a least some knowledge about the 3D part when building the 2D part so that you can already design and implement for the integration later.

P.S. It would be interesting to hear what RMS now says about AMD.

Do we care? Let AMD keep their word, that's much more important.

Also, I think releasing the specs involves quite some work (I have actually worked in ASIC development), but they _should_ do it quickly now as far as I'm concerned. They got many people hanging by a thread and when these things take too long people loose interest and switch. Their reputation will only get worse.

Also, I think that getting GFX in the open is a very sound strategic choice of AMD: think of Fusion and what is would mean if this was a closed platform....
Because of this, NVidia is missing the boat here, which I think they are doing something about (like talking with Intel about a merger/takeover......., if not they _really_ will be missing the boat)