AMD started delivering on their word of providing GPU specifications to the open-source community without a Non-Disclosure Agreement, and now with the 2007 X Developer Summit having come to a close, we asked several key members of the X.Org community on how they judge AMD's recent move. They were also asked if they believe NVIDIA will follow suit in helping the open-source community. Those that responded were David Airlie, Daniel Stone, Jerome Glisse, Stephane Marchesin, and Oliver McFadden. Mark Shuttleworth had also previously commented on AMD's efforts.
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Member since:2006-11-08
Don't worry, their drivers even suck when using Windows. One time I had to use modified drivers (Omega drivers) to get it running at all. There wasn't even 2D acceleration!
I have no idea WHY it didn't work (it's not like Windows is very verbose there) but it just didn't. Okay, the Linux-drivers suck even harder, but it's not like those Windows-drivers are anything near "good".
Member since:2007-03-31
well, if they give the user the ability to give feedback and after 15+ times iving feedback with all the times a simple question like "please reply that you at least have seen it" and it stays qute, it doesn't ive me a warmand fuzzy feeling. Especially if the do acknowledge a ew bugs in teir drivers for 3+ years.
People know that switching from X to a vc always was a dead system, for years. Stuff like that cause people to state that the drivers are crappy.
I also fail to see why you talk about windows sales, the article is about unix (AND ALIKES), not windows.
Member since:2006-01-14
Well, I may a small minority when I use Linux, but I am the man making the decision when my department buys hundreds of computers. And they ALL get Nvidia cards. ATI sucks. Period. End of story. They have a lot of work to do to get away from that reputation. I am happy that they are trying though. Who knows, in a couple years it may be Nvidia who sucks, not ATI.
Member since:2007-09-06
Hmmm...a sweeping generalization I think!
Being a life long ATI customer (and oh how that pains me to admit), I can say that there Windows drivers and media software are Beta quality at best. I've had nothing but grief with ATI under both Windows and Linux. Each driver update seems to break something different in the media software. Each media software update gets more flaky. And what driver update requires that you uninstall the previous driver, sand your computer back down to the generic VGA then install the new update. ATI's drivers are not an update in either installation process or functionality.
My Radeon All In Wonder 9600 may as well be a door wedge at this point. If the drivers improve by releasing full specs then I'll happily return to buying there products but at this point my new machine is looking like Hauppage and nVidia to cover the same functions with true cross platform support. They have until my bank account says I get to start buying parts.
Member since:2006-03-12
"Being a life long ATI customer (and oh how that pains me to admit), I can say that there Windows drivers and media software are Beta quality at best. I've had nothing but grief with ATI under both Windows and Linux. Each driver update seems to break something different in the media software. Each media software update gets more flaky. And what driver update requires that you uninstall the previous driver, sand your computer back down to the generic VGA then install the new update. ATI's drivers are not an update in either installation process or functionality. "
I know you are talking specifically about ati binary blobs. You have a R300 card this topic is only *indirectly* related to your card. The R300 already has an open source driver. That would have solved your update pain. Although the open-source ones although *stable* are slower for gaming because they are not feature complete, even some events in the compositing Desktop are unusable. I strongly advise that you check-out 6.7.193 which I suspect will be the delayed stable release of the open-source ati driver, as it is a lot more feature complete, without the hassle of the binary drivers.
Why I say indirectly related is because the specification for the R300 are marked to be released *later*. I have little knowledge of the new binary drivers. I didn't use the old ones.
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Member since:
2006-04-17
"They so far have written crappy drivers, which is the major reason people use NV."
Hmmm...a sweeping generalization I think!
Depends on what OS you use, whether or not 'people' even understand what they are buying when they buy a PC.
If you're talking about a small minority of people building computers to run Linux _specifically_ then I shouldn't think ATI gives a rats ass about your opinion, their bread and butter will come from winxp/vista sales
at this point in time.