Compare and Contrast: Ubuntu 9.04, Mac OS X 10.5.6
Linked by Jordan Spencer Cunningham on Wed 13th May 2009 01:18 UTC
Benchmarks Phoronix, known for their various speed tests and reviews, compared the latest in Ubuntu and what, until recently, used to be the lastest in Mac OS X with 29 different benchmarking tests. Some of the results were rather interesting.
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lemur2
Member since:
2007-02-17

Having a kernel that forces people to provide open source drivers. Whilst linus tolerates closed source drivers, its a risk creating them. And companies aren't going to pour all their optimisations into open drivers which any other company can just steal the optimisations. Otherwise its like handing over money to the competition.


Assumes that only companies can write optimised software. Not a valid assumption at all. The one and only advantage that companies have in writing software is that companies have access to secret information held by ... companies.

Duh.

OK, so ATI have been good enough to release documentation recently, and even some code and a programming guide.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r600_700_gui...
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r700_oss_3d&...
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzAxNg
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzE3Nw


Expect the decent, open-source, 3D drvier for ATI chips to follow within a month or so.

http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeon
http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonhd%3Aexperimental_3D

Clearly not ready yet, but definitely on its way. Enjoy (when ready).

So ATI have released documentation (specifications) of their chips to open source programmers, open source programmers are busily writing an open-source driver for Linux for ATI chips, so that ATI chips will soon become the most powerful graphics chips available with a decent (non-binary-blob) 3D driver for Linux, which will no doubt be supported directly within the kernel, and hence Linux buying public will tend to buy ATI chips.

This is giving money away ... how exactly?

Edited 2009-05-13 02:56 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 6

rockwell Member since:
2005-09-13

//3D drvier for ATI chips to follow within a month or so. //

Sure. A month or so. Just wait, it's right around the corner.

Reply Parent Score: 3

Tom K Member since:
2005-07-06

Take a look at the sheer AMOUNT of documentation released, and the complexity of such a graphics processor.

Now try to tell me that the open source community can write as good a driver as ATI's for Windows in 1 month's time.

Reply Parent Score: 3

alias Member since:
2007-02-11

Expect the decent, open-source, 3D drvier for ATI chips to follow within a month or so.


Intel had open specs and open drivers for far longer than ATI, the chip is simpler AND they actually have paid developers for the xorg driver. The intel driver is probably the best maintained driver for xorg right now.

The result?

The benchmark here clearly shows that the result is not what you would expect, the performance is awful. Comparing my hp box at work, the graphics performance are actually better in vista than linux with the xorg-intel driver, even after tuning the driver parameter for migration heuristics (which did a HUGE difference).

Compare this to the nvidia binary blob, which gives me the opposite result on another box. ATI is in an unusable state at the moment (I'm not taking sides with any graphic vendor, that's just a fact).

Reply Parent Score: 3

uaxactun Member since:
2008-04-17

Ummm...no. Intel drivers were suffering from a *BUG*.

Reply Parent Score: 1