Open-Source Radeon HD 7000 Series Still Lacking

[barkas]

Do you read comment 14 of this bugreport carefully?

I wish that was the only bug. Actually I couldn't stomach the taskbar corruption and screen corruptions long enough for it to crash.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Actually I couldn't stomach the taskbar corruption and screen corruptions long enough for it to crash.

With Catalyst 12.6?

[barkas]

With Catalyst 12.6?

Obviously not with 12.6, as I stated before. I don't have the time to test crappy drivers all day long.

[agd5f]

What people are asking for is documentation. With out it the HD7xxx is just one step up from a software frame buffer device.

It has taken longer than I hoped for the SI documentation to come out, but there is certainly enough documentation available in the code for community developers to jump on board. The kernel side is pretty much done and the 3D driver has all of the register headers and shader ISA information and even has basic draws working! Apart from the shader ISA changing, the actual 3D pipeline is very similar to earlier asics. If you are at all familiar with our previous asics, it's not a stretch to jump on board with the SI development. The great Linux myth is that if you provide documentation, somehow magically the drivers will get written, but in my experience that's rarely the case.

[entropy]

The great Linux myth is that if you provide documentation, somehow magically the drivers will get written, but in my experience that's rarely the case.

At least for much simpler hardware such as wireless network adapters, a release of documentation surely quickly turns into an initial working driver.
Why this is different for GPUs, one of the most complex hardware-software package in modern computers, seems obvious.

Keep up the great work, Alex!