The news already got out yesterday, but now it's official: AMD will open the specifications to its graphics chips. "AMD announced on Sept. 7 a major strategic change in open-source graphic processors support. The company announced it would provide open-source information and a development package supporting the ATI RadeonHD 2000 series ATI Radeon X1000 series of graphics processing units on Linux desktops." The new information is that AMD will partner with Novell's SUSE team.
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Member since:2005-07-06
>I'm sorry Nvidia works on Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux - when ATI works on all three I'll be happy to buy their hardware.
BTW what's all the fuss about 2D drivers for ATI?. VESA is good enough for text graphics and video.<
have you ever seen how windows redraw with the VESA driver?
Also, this is the full specs which will allow both 2d and 3d drivers to be developed for any os that dedicates developers to it.
Edited 2007-09-07 21:22
Member since:2006-05-29
Member since:2005-07-06
With closed drivers, or the poor but open nv driver, I guess it does.
With Open Source drivers, that's clearly going to happen.
No it isn't. Even slightly. Even for a "light" system like Syllable, VESA is rubbish. At a bare minimum you need hardware blits.
Member since:2006-08-18
Open source drivers will make it on all the major *nix platforms. This is seriously good news for FreeBSD users who've always suffered from terrible ATI support.
I am going to continue to use the proprietary drivers because R300 card specs (my Radeon 9600XT) won't be opened and the R300 FOSS drivers are slow, buggy, and incomplete.
Member since:
2006-01-11
I'm sorry Nvidia works on Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux - when ATI works on all three I'll be happy to buy their hardware.
BTW what's all the fuss about 2D drivers for ATI?. VESA is good enough for text graphics and video.