Linked by Michael on Fri 7th Jan 2011 23:30 UTC
"On the same day that we learn VIA's Linux support is basically dead and after a troubling week for Intel with regards to open-source graphics support for their new Sandy Bridge CPUs, Advanced Micro Devices has come forward and released open-source graphics driver support for their AMD Radeon HD 6000 series of graphics cards."
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RE: Open source drivers sadly still suck ..
by Kivada on Sat 8th Jan 2011 10:53
in reply to "Open source drivers sadly still suck .."
Member since:2010-07-07
Nah, Michael as usual is blowing smoke for page hits and thinks that we should already be at zero day support with 90% of binary blob performance. But then he also thinks that there will be Steam and Unreal Tournament 3 for Linux any day now!
The community is doing a great job so far, they've gotten very far in the actual OpenGL implementation for the backlog of cards and is still working around the legal issues with the OpenGL 3 spec.
Currently they are only focusing on getting everything working on all R300+ cards and finalising Gallium3D before they can begin performance optimisation. Why get everything tweaked for performance with half the spec implemented only to have to redo half of the optimisation to get more features in place?
RE[2]: Open source drivers sadly still suck ..
by lemur2 on Sat 8th Jan 2011 13:28
in reply to "RE: Open source drivers sadly still suck .."
Member since:2007-02-17
Currently they are only focusing on getting everything working on all R300+ cards and finalising Gallium3D before they can begin performance optimisation. Why get everything tweaked for performance with half the spec implemented only to have to redo half of the optimisation to get more features in place?
Having said that, I noticed
http://wiki.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
that the Page Flipping support for all models has recently been marked as "Done" (requires kernel 2.6.38).
Page Flipping was said to be one thing that was relatively low-hanging fruit, that is to say it wasn't seen as too hard to do, it was being worked on, and it would yeild significant performance gains.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODcyMA
Accelerated video is still some way away, however XvMC and VDPAU may be coming to the ATI R600 Gallium3D driver as well as the R300 Gallium3D driver. This willwould allow those with Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000/5000 series graphics cards to enjoy accelerated video playback using GPU shaders beyond just the limited X-Video extension.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODcxOA
It seems that after the Linux 2.6.38 kernel is released, the Gallium3D open source drivers may become the default preference for Linux distributions instead of the classic mesa drivers.
At that point, maybe sometime this year, the open source drivers for Radeon GPUs would begin to challenge the closed source drivers certainly for functionality and perhaps for performance as well.
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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2009-03-13
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=15604 According to Phoronix there is still a far far way to go for the open source drivers ... so does this mean that "AMD release the specs and we will make the drivers ourselves" group was wrong? I am for sure very happy with NVIDIA which has shown almost exemplary support throughout the years (minus some KDE4-related issues which took some time for them to fix) .. but I would be perfectly happy to jump on some open-source drivers wagon .. however even Intel who supposedly commited itself to Linux even before AMD made its decision, its open source drivers are even more pitiful. Try running some serious graphics on it and compare the results to Windows drivers. So is anybody actually happy with non-NVIDIA graphics cards on Linux and actualy doing serious and modern stuff with OpenGL?
Edited 2011-01-08 04:07 UTC