Mandriva Improves Silicon Motion Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mandriva Improves Silicon Motion Driver

Along with VIA releasing a new open-source X.Org video driver, there is work underway on improving the status of another open-source graphics driver. Silicon Motion is perhaps more obscure than VIA Technologies when it comes to integrated graphics, but they primarily specialize in low-power graphics chips for tablet PCs. The xf86-video-siliconmotion driver usually only receives a handful of commits a year and from a few different developers such as Adam Jackson, Egbert Eich, and Alex Deucher...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NjY4Ng

[Extreme Coder]

Good job Mandriva devs is all I can say :P
I never heard of that Silicon Motion hardware though..

[yoshi314]

makes you wonder why would they start to care about "low-power graphics chips for tablet PCs. ". they're probably preparing a new product for that kind of hardware.

[Michael]

makes you wonder why would they start to care about "low-power graphics chips for tablet PCs. ". they're probably preparing a new product for that kind of hardware.

I received this email:

Michael;

I think the reason for Mandriva improving the Silicon Motion driver is
this >>

EMTEC has a new concept Mandriva G-Linux notebook with the SM502 in it!
http://www.gdium.com

Click on description to see the specifics!

This notebook is designed to complement the resources at the web portal
Gayaplex.

Another article from earlier this year >>
http://www.liliputing.com/2008/07/up...able-will.html

By the way, the Silicon Motion graphics acceleration chip is also found
in the devices made by ThinLinx
http://www.thinlinx.com/hardwarecurrent2.html

and are therefore in our Linux point of sale solution. >>
http://www.thinlinx.com/pos.html
which features an application-specific X Window Manager which makes it
easy for people who do not have programming skills to build
Internet-based POS solutions.

Gene Mosher

[Extreme Coder]

Yeah, it had to be a reason of that sort..
But does this Silicon Motion have 3D acceleration? :P

[mlau]

Yeah, it had to be a reason of that sort..
But does this Silicon Motion have 3D acceleration? :P

No, the SM501/502 don't have 3D (although the databook states in chapter 4 "The SM502's Drawing Engine is designed to accelerate Microsoft's DirectDraw and Direct3D applications." (think D3D on WinCE)).