“Last October we had compared the performance of the open-source R300 display driver against the closed-source fglrx driver for ATI Radeon graphics cards. In that comparison a Mobility Radeon X300 was used with X.Org 7.1, but we have decided to take another look at this driver comparison under X.Org 7.2. In this last comparison, the fglrx binary blob had greatly outperformed the open-source driver. While the fglrx driver remains faster, has the performance delta between these two drivers decreased?”
IIRC the 3d acceleration is part of the mesa package, xf86-video-ati 6.6.3 is just the 2D driver.
I’d still rather use the OSS drivers.
I do use these OSS drivers. They work great.
Just a couple of days ago the vbo branch was merged which gives a major increase in UT2004.
http://www.mail-archive.com/mesa3d-dev%40lists.sourceforge.net/…
These graphs are always out of date, badly thought out.
I still don’t understand why resources are being spent on OSS drivers of any kind, there are drivers from the manufactures. If they do not work well then we need to pressure the manufactures to improve them on Linux as they have done on the Windows side.
I have read allot on this and other places allot of people talking about how closed source program should not be on Linux and to me that is BS. saying that is closing Linux and then it will not be “OPEN”
So much time is spent on re-inventing the wheel!
I still don’t understand why resources are being spent on OSS drivers of any kind
It’s quite simple. Let me list some of the reasons.
1. Religion – some people want OSS and don’t want proprietary software. Agree or disagree, it is a valid enough wish IMO.
2. Licensing – because the kernel is GPL it means you can’t link stuff into it and then distribute, which means distributions can’t (or at least this is up in the air legally) distribute linux with working 3D drivers, which means they can’t enable the 3D desktop by default. Although they could manually ask you to install (not a big deal) it is still an inconvenience.
3. Convenience – as fast as things change in the open source world, ATI/NVIDIA are always trying to catch up. Every time there is a new kernel release or X.Org release it seems like the drivers are broken and everyone has to wait while they get fixed. With open source drivers they can be fixed while the other projects are being updated so that a simultaneous release is possible. (this is possible now, but not very likely)
4. Personal enjoyment – some people like hacking away at 3D hardware related stuff. If they weren’t going to do this, then what would they do to spend their lonely days? Talk to their families?
5. Integration – obviously you can’t expect ATI/NVIDIA to support every single one of a million distros out there, but it the drivers are open source then the distros can take over that responsibility of making sure everything is working well.
Edited 2007-02-06 23:35
Good points. Do not like some of them but none the less good. Still think we should put the pressure on the hardware maker to come out with the drivers as needed as is the case with MS. New drivers come out all the time on MS. We need to decide where to focus our energy and do so effectively so we can get the type of support we need.
What I notice is that allot of people in the open source community seem to for get people are in business to make money and if money is not being made then the community will not be.
That is my 2cents.
One problem with your outlook is that to many people Linux isn’t an operating system to many people, but the symbol for Free Software. We like Linux because it’s Free, not because it has technical merits. As a result competing with Microsoft by becoming like Microsoft is not a good position for Linux and any other GNU based system.
I’m not a part of your “we.” I use Linux because of its technical merits, many of which are directly related to the fact that it’s free software.
The fact of the matter is that delivering binary drivers is really hard. It’s got to be just right, specifically linked to a particular set of object files. If any of the symbols change, it breaks, and you can’t fix it. You’re stuck waiting for somebody at the green or red company to get around to rolling a new binary, by which time it might be broken again.
Delivering open source drivers is a lot easier. Unless the relevant APIs change, which is relatively rare and always announced ahead of time, the driver source will build normally against new versions. And obviously, the Linux kernel community likes to pull drivers in-tree whenever possible, so open source drivers will be automatically included with Linux distributions and will be updated by the kernel maintainers to reflect any API changes that may occur.
In addition to being much easier to maintain, open source drivers are vastly easier to debug and support. The proprietary nVidia driver is almost as big as my entire kernel image, and there’s no viable way to figure out what’s wrong if it doesn’t work. You might be able to get support from your Linux vendor or from nVidia, but not very likely, and certainly not if you have any other proprietary drivers loaded.
Let’s back away from the issue of drivers and talk about the general impact of OSS on the technical capabilities of the free software stack. The fact that we have and share source code allows free software developers to innovate at a pace unmatched in the proprietary software industry–at a fraction of the cost. Compare Linux to proprietary UNIX, which has been relegated to niche markets because it lacks an agile, nimble development ecosystem.
I didn’t start using Linux because it was free. I started using Linux because it was fun, reliable, understandable, and most importantly, not Windows. The free software aspect was one that I grew to appreciate over time, but primarily as a means to these ends.
“butters”
“I’m not a part of your “we.” I use Linux because of its technical merits, many of which are directly related to the fact that it’s free software.”
If you use Linux you are part of “WE” does not matter why you use it, you use it!
Do the math any one demand equals more money so if the people who are demanding the product wants it and is willing to talk about it then they will get their way.
What I really dislike are all the people who started out using MS and still make allot of money because of MS talk about the company like it is the worse thing that ever happened. Can they do better yes and they should.
I love open source for many of the same reasons many of you do my question was not about open source in general but about open source drivers.
For all the people who thing closed source software will go way THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
What I notice is that allot of people in the open source community seem to for get people are in business to make money and if money is not being made then the community will not be.
No, we don’t. What allot of people in the business community seem to for get people are not born to be sucked into your vendor-lockin. That’s the only consequence of free software (I don’t think the protections against this are strong enough in open source), not that software is free. The fact that is free is the fault of the Internet, which makes it possible to distribute software w/o exchange of goods, only the exchange of bytes.
6. Security
You don’t know what goes on inside those binary blobs and have no way to patch them if a security hole is discovered. See recent issues with nvidia drivers.
You forgot one
6) Security. The NVIDIA Binary Graphics Driver for Linux had a vulnerability that allowed privilege escalation to root (http://download2.rapid7.com/r7-0025/).
You cannot always guarantee that a hardware company will patch a binary blog when an exploit is found, especially if it involves an older piece of hardware which is no longer sold. With open source, a patch will be made available as long as a driver still has users.
“You forgot one
6) Security. The NVIDIA Binary Graphics Driver for Linux had a vulnerability that allowed privilege escalation to root (http://download2.rapid7.com/r7-0025/). ”
I guess security will not be a problem with open source!
“7. Portability ”
I get that and I agree but if the demand is not there for it then will it be done?
Case in point I have a few laptops that I use from day to day, I only have SLES 10 on one of them reason? I can not find a driver for my spent wireless air cards. I am sure an open source drive can be done for it but the demand does not exist. I can call spent and the manufacture and they both tells me the same thing demand is not there. I do a search and I have post on forums about them and nothing. I guess open source is the answer to everything!
Do not be petty about the question I asked, most of you have given very good answers to the question and I like that. While some just did not seem to get it.
Thanks all, it was real.
Again I use any OS, any software that is right for the job.
P.S. if the demand is not there for anything they it will no longer exist, it is that simple.
“7. Portability ”
I get that and I agree but if the demand is not there for it then will it be done?
Case in point I have a few laptops that I use from day to day, I only have SLES 10 on one of them reason? I can not find a driver for my spent wireless air cards. I am sure an open source drive can be done for it but the demand does not exist. I can call spent and the manufacture and they both tells me the same thing demand is not there. I do a search and I have post on forums about them and nothing. I guess open source is the answer to everything!
Actually, you’re making points for the other side. Why couldn’t you find a driver for that wireless air card? Because the manufacturer decided it wasn’t worth it and also for whatever reason decided not to open the specs. If they had, there would doubtless be a driver for it already built into the default linux kernel. Take a look at the OSS ATI drivers. They’re the only option for Linux users on PPC because ATI has decided that the demand isn’t large enough to port their own. NVIDIA doesn’t have any either but their users are out of luck because no OSS drivers exist yet.
Sure, if the demand is large enough the problem would be solved. But the point is that when there are only a few hundred thousand people really clamoring for something the big companies don’t view that as being worth their effort. Honestly, I can’t really blame them – they’re in the business of making money. However, the OSS community does care about those users, and it has enough spare resources to take care of them.
“I guess security will not be a problem with open source! ”
It’s always a problem, now. It will continue to be. But much like the wireless card hacking has shown, open drivers can be quickly adjusted to meet the new demands, where vendor ones aren’t so quick. Now we just need no-root-login automatic updating of desktop distros every month or two.
“I get that and I agree but if the demand is not there for it then will it be done?”
******* lawyers and managenment, I think, not just real demand. Also, what kind of demand matters (many of these companies don’t really do anything with or for end users, so an end user wanting anything specific means nothing). Intel, nVidia, ATi, etc. have several problems, here:
1. What if their specs show they infringe on somebody’s patent, and that somebody has the money to take it to court?
2. What if opening it exposes some licensed IP they made an agreement to keep a lid on?
3. What if they wholesale agreed in a contract not to disclose anything for anybody, but it’s still easy to spot when actually using the hardware?
Some companies, like Broadcom, just don’t like FOSS, yet. Others, though, like Intel and nVidia, are certainly neck-deep in legal CYA, and if they begin to truly support an open product right now, it could be 5-10 years before it might actually hit the market (barring astronomical Vista failure or something equally unlikely).
Most OSS projects will be happy with specs to help poke around at the hardware to make a driver. Open source drivers for closed parts tend to be slower in developing, especially those that were rushed to market (many network devices, and all nV/ATi video card chips).
Why is it that Broadcom there doesn’t have the demand, yet Ralink and Realtek do, and have responded well?
On one hand, if we think we’re going to use Linux, we’re going to buy only cards we know use chips that can work well. So on the grass roots side, not giving out docs is causing Broadcom continued lack of demand, because I’m going to skip it over, and skip over anything I know has it integrated, as well. Given that price doesn’t change by chipset, that also means I’m going to get only Ralink wireless hardware for Windows, too–it won’t be better or worse now, and it could come in handy later.
“I guess open source is the answer to everything!”
Only if you’re a member of the Church of Free Software
. No system is perfect. But with everything else open, and APIs and ABIs changing regularly, open source drivers are easier to manage for an open source system.
6) Security. The NVIDIA Binary Graphics Driver for Linux had a vulnerability that allowed privilege escalation to root (http://download2.rapid7.com/r7-0025/). “
I guess security will not be a problem with open source!
I didn’t say that at all. You snipped the relevant part which was:
You cannot always guarantee that a hardware company will patch a binary blog when an exploit is found, especially if it involves an older piece of hardware which is no longer sold. With open source, a patch will be made available as long as a driver still has users.
As to your issues with finding OSS drivers for your hardware: be more aware of what you buy and you won’t have that problem.
7. Portability
Free software drivers are much more easily ported to different operating systems. This means that new operating system with new ideas don’t get held back by lack of hardware support from manufacturers.
There are tons more.
8. Lack of control – what happens if they decide to simply stop supporting certain cards? ATI already did this on older cards and it was OK because the OSS drivers could handle it, but what if they decide it is in their business interest to stop supporting newer ones as well? Likewise, what would happen if MS bought NVIDIA tomorrow? These are probably pretty unlikely, but they are the kinds of risks that CEO’s don’t like to take and that keep Stallman awake at night.
And nVidia has decided not to support their nForce and nForce 2 chipsets in Vista.
6. Continued support for legacy hardware. You can run beryl on radeon 7500! ATI dropped support for anything below r300.
Because open source operative systems were done to run open source software. If people didn’t matter using closed software we all would use windows and OS X and GNU and Linux would not have not born.
Stop wondering why. And no, not wanting to run closed software is not equivalent to “closing linux”. Claiming that having rights to run close software means “more freedom” and that GNU is wrong is equivalent to claiming that having rights to kill anyone without control means “more freedom” and that constitutions and laws that are there to protect your freedom are wrong because they’re limiting your “freedom”.
Edited 2007-02-06 23:44
Claiming that having rights to run close software means “more freedom” and that GNU is wrong is equivalent to claiming that having rights to kill anyone without control means “more freedom” and that constitutions and laws that are there to protect your freedom are wrong because they’re limiting your “freedom”.
Wow. Claiming the importance of the right to choice in software as a freedom in itself is, apparently, the equivalent to endorsing murder without repercussion. I’m speechless.
Since defending the right to use closed software is now equivalent to the wholesale slaughter of innocent people, how does that reconcile with the LGPL? The single purpose of which is to allow and encourage the use of non-open software with OSS components, including some critical pieces of the GNU projects? Could it be recognition of the fact that offering choice is sometimes a necessary compromise when advancing the ultimate goals of freedom and encouraging adoption? Or do you think RMS owns a really big gun?
For some people analogies are kind like software documentation, even if it’s there they won’t see/read it.
Uh, one of the four freedoms the GNU program espouses is as follows (copied from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
Under that fundamental principle, for example, the Linux kernel developers cannot prevent you from linking non-free software (say, an nVidia driver) into the kernel (which was tried a month or so ago, and shot down by Linus on exactly those grounds), or running proprietary programs on Linux. You’re just not allowed to distribute proprietary/legally encumbered things under the GPL, or conversely, you can’t NOT distribute modified source for GPL’d programs, etc…
It’s not an ideal situation from the perspective of those who want free software, no (and runs counter to the other three freedoms), but even the GNU people recognize the importance of being allowed to actually run the programs.
That, and I don’t think there’s anything in there to actually prevent you from denying yourself the freedoms. It’s a ‘be it on your own head’ sort of thing.
Edited 2007-02-07 04:21
or conversely, you can’t NOT distribute modified source for GPL’d programs, etc…
You CAN choose not to distribute modified GPL’d source, if you refrain from distributing the binary also – i.e. only use it inhouse/privately.
“Claiming that having rights to run close software means “more freedom” and that GNU is wrong is equivalent to claiming that having rights to kill anyone without control means “more freedom” and that constitutions and laws that are there to protect your freedom are wrong because they’re limiting your “freedom”. ”
What the hell are you smoking? Being able to run anything I want with my computer is more free than being told what I can run. Nobody here said that GNU or OSS is “wrong”, and trying to equate the stance with murder and constitutional law is just stupid. In no way is closed source software equivalent to murder, the analogy is just too extreme.
Freedom is really based upon choice, the ability to choose what product/action/belief that best fits your needs given the current circumstances. Closed source drivers on Linux give me more choices, just as OSS software on a prop. OS gives me more choices, and that is a good thing. I don’t want anybody limiting what I can do with the hardware I purchased, regardless if his name is Gates or Stallman.
Open source drivers are important for a myriad of reasons. Including license issues, philosophical issues (if you don’t care about Free Software why aren’t you just using Mac or Windows) and practical issues, eg. FGLRX drivers don’t work for my ATI 9200 in my computer because ATI doesn’t support PPC. AMD-64 users have the same issue. If you want to use the ATI drivers, be my guest, but the OSS drivers create a more unified front and are necessary for plenty of good reasons.
Quarrier, FYI, I will us any OS that is best for the job. I do hope you understand what that means. We all need to stop this BS about who uses what and which is best because they all have there strengths and weakness. I have never seen a perfect OS on any lever be it server or desktop. I just think that the person who makes the hardware should be responsible for giving it users what they need. So if the demand is really there why not show it and then they will have no choice but to do so. In the end it all comes down to money. where are the sales coming from.
take a look at this, you may get it.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/55597.html
Quarrier, FYI, I will us any OS that is best for the job.
As a free software user/advocate, so will I.
I do hope you understand what that means.
Yes, it means I will use the platform that is in for the long haul. The list of proprietary platforms that have fallen by the wayside is legion, and I have been bitten by the fate of at least two of them myself. The fact that Microsoft is a monopoly is due not only to its support for developers and its kill-kill!-KILL! attitude to the competition, but because the only alternative in the closed-source world is to have a lot of incompatible systems. People complain about the differences between Linuces, but they pale in comparison to the differences between the ZX Spectrum monitor and the Commodore 64 Kernal [sic], AmigaOS, AtariTOS, and RiscOS, VMS, UNIX and RDOS, Linux and Windows, or even differing Unices. Not only that, but all indications are that the differences between Linuces, unlike those between Unices, are actually being *minimized* as time goes on.
I think manufacturers should at least contribute on development of interfaces and kernel (DRM & modesetting) and hardware-independent stuff (Mesa GL, Xorg) while DRI userspace driver component for their ultra-secret hardware can remain closed source (example: even Intel DRI driver contains some closed-source parts) as it’s still unlikely someone will have evidence to sue them for patent violation or see their trade secrets. This approach sounds as best of both worlds as many common improvements (like hotplug, suspend, DRM memory manageent, scheduling etc) would benefit all.
After all, Microsoft is attempting to do same thing in Vista (although their kernel video framework code is secret).
Does anybody know how the DVI output quality is with the open source drivers?
I currently have a GeforeFX 5200 and cannot watch DVDs in decent quality with the OSS drivers.
It works better using VGA output but manually setting the resolution and screen position sucks.
I’m absolutely no gamer so I think it should be possible for me to use OSS drivers.
Btw, my monitor is a Samsung Syncmaster 19″, 1280×1024, 60Hz.
That’s because the open source nv driver received considerably less care than the ati driver, probably because ati proprietary drivers were always crap, while nvidia’s support is actually excellent (and quite portable, they work on FreeBSD as well as Solaris, not just linux). Even though there were problems or instabilities from time to time with the nvidia drivers, for most they worked flawlessly, so few felt the urge to develop the opensource drivers. I believe that most of those problems were blown out of proportions (I mean we had problems with open source drivers as well, but in nvidia’s case, because its closed source, the problems were exaggerated to make a point: closed source is bad).
I think that ATI is the worst choice for free operating systems. Fglrx supports a limited number of platforms and lags behind it’s windows counterpart considerably. This is not the case with nvidia. If you don’t want to use a closed source driver in your free os (I can understand that as well), than Intel is still a better choice: it has good quality open source drivers, and probably modern intel chipsets won’t be much worse for gaming than ATI cards with open source drivers, and you need open source drivers to have good support for desktop 3d effects (beryl/compiz).
If you intend to use a Free OS, than either buy Nvidia if you can’t live without gaming, or by a mobo with an Intel chipset. ATI just doesn’t make sense: good support for gaming on a limited number of platforms or but bad support for 3d effects (beryl/compiz) – you can’t have both with ATI.
I read your post unfortunately Ati is the fastest Open-source drivers.
What the benchmarks don’t tell you.
is at 1600×1200 for tremulous/open-arena runs at a full limited to 80fps.
They are not as stable as the intel ones *by a long shot* in the various open source games certain features don’t work;are slow or simply will crash a game.
The reality is you quickly learn what will, and what won’t work, and compatibility/speed move forward every day.
“If you don’t want to use a closed source driver in your free os (I can understand that as well), than Intel is still a better choice: it has good quality open source drivers, and probably modern intel chipsets won’t be much worse for gaming than ATI cards with open source drivers, and you need open source drivers to have good support for desktop 3d effects (beryl/compiz).”
This is absolutely true, and one of the reasons I decided to go with a Core2Duo-based system rather than an Athlon64 X2, as I wanted the GMA X3000 graphics (DG965WH ATX board).
For my moderate gaming needs, it works wonderfully (BZFlag at its highest settings gets about 30-35 FPS, and Tremulous gets nearly 50 FPS). This is slightly more than the performance I had with my old Radeon 9250 and the Mesa/R200 DRI drivers…and the Intel drivers are still far from feature-complete!
…but is there any effort to use the open source ATi driver codebase to produce a free driver for Windows? I certainly see the need.
I don’t think using Fedora 7 Test 1 was a valid test, as the distro is still in testing, food for thought though
Sad to see that the free driver not yet is as fast, or faster than the closed source one. Hope it will get there some day.
In the mean time, the important thing is to have a driver that is good enough to get AIGLX to run out of the box on more hardware, and that users get a resoable user experience from it. For that the ultimate speed you can get from a modern graphics card is not needed.
The first impression people get from a system is often very lasting, and if Linux looks less beautiful than Vista on first install, people may get the wrong impression of what Linux can do for them.
If they do get an as good as Vista or better user experience at first install, they may stay on the platform and demand that games are developed, if the performance isn’t enough for these games, I suppose they have to upgrade to propriatory drivers until the free one is up to speed.
The important thing is to be good enough to catch the user.