ATI's Radeon Linux drivers no longer supported? 666
SuperBug writes "After viewing the previous story on Slashdot about the Radeon 9800 vs GF FX 5900, I checked out ATI's web-site which seems to have been re-designed relatively recently. It seems strikingly similar to nVidia's site regarding the driver selections. I thought "great, ths should be much better to find my drivers now. At least a little simpler." To my surprise. I found this message for Linux Graphics Drivers "Not Supported". Thinking this had to be a mistake, I took a look at the "Discontinued Products" list under the customer care link and lo and behold. Just about every recent card is there. I just wanna know, what gives?"
Bzzzt - Nope (Score:1, Interesting)
NVidia vs. ATI (Score:5, Interesting)
With the release of the Radeon 9800 and above, ATI is (arguably) finally catching up to NVidia in terms of quality graphics cards... it almost seemed a matter of time until something broke, and I guess the Linux drivers were the first thing. I just hope they keep their All-in-Wonder cards coming. If I ever save up enough money to buy another video card (holy crap, $400 for a modern one these days?), I'll definitely get one of those (I have a GeForce 4 Ti4600 right now).
I still like NVidia, I just hope their next card is better (and quieter) than the GeForce FX.
What!? (Score:2, Interesting)
You are wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Might as well go for the obvious... (Score:3, Interesting)
Truck number (Score:1, Interesting)
Didn't ATI just win Xbox 2.0 contract? (Score:4, Interesting)
A change for the worse, but not all doomed. (Score:5, Interesting)
I am using this driver currently with my Radeon 9000 Pro, and have had excellent results.
Script != Source (Score:4, Interesting)
If that qualifies as "source", then so do drivers delivered in
Re:possible answers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I had bought a TV tuner card about 2 years ago, (it was brand new at that point)... the drivers went from beta to discontinued. The beta drivers were a hunk of shit. It took me hours to install them: there was no installer provided, just the drivers with .inf files, there were 6 distinct drivers for one physical card, and unless you found the exact sequence to install them in, they would BSOD the computer *during installation*. (I had to go through quite a few permutations). UN-F*CKING-ACCEPTABLE!
That is why I swore to myself that I would never buy an ATI card again (and I won't).
Re:possible answers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:possible answers? (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought [and use] an ATI TV Wonder VE. The way this thing gets installed is kludgy at best, and under XP I get some crazy lines going all over the place randomly. They have some beta drivers for it, but using them made this card worthless as it never worked. pretty much had to reinstall after that.
and under linux theres no way to actually capture audio when you do a video capture under linux.. its a known issue. I got this for cheap which is the only reason why I got this.. but really. If I paid full price I would have taken this back and wrote ATI a letter.
Re:This article is all wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
Ah, thanks! Well, if you call that kind of information hiding suppport your demands are really on the geek end. Nice to have a driver, but why not give a slight hint somewhere on the ATI page that it does exist?
So, for the not so curious public, here is the head of the README [schneider-digital.de] file for the Fire GL X1, Fire GL Z1, Fire GL E1, Fire GL 8800, Fire GL 8700 LINUX X4.1.0 2.9.13 driver:
Re:discontinued product lines (Score:3, Interesting)
--Dweebs0r
Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This article is all wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
this is the eternal question. there are one man news sites out there that somehow manage to post more and varied content than slashdot ever does, and they don't dupe links or provide the same level of ignorant commentary.
i think, and think, and keep on thinking, but i still can't figure out why slashdot is so popular other than momentum
i use linux. i've been an admin and programmer for a long, long time
i long for the old days - where you had to really Know something to get out there
OSDN - suck my wangnad
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Radeon is supported by XFree86 team (Score:3, Interesting)
):
Re:possible answers? (Score:5, Interesting)
After a year of frustration involving daily machine hangs, GL glitches and many cursing animators, we switched to nVidia Quadro cards (not sure which one). Since then, we've had almost zero crashes. There are still GL glitches in both Maya and Houdini, but the drivers are of MUCH higher quality.
Even when ATI "officially" supported Linux, that support was in name only. So they're finally dropping even that? Big fuckin' deal.
Opposite problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
ATI rep interview (Score:4, Interesting)
Richard Huddy: ATI gives Linux drivers quite a high priority - but there's just way too much intellectual property exposed in the low level chip interfaces so we don't put that into the public domain. I'm amazed that people can really reverse engineer drivers from our binaries - but I guess that shows just how keen the Linux community is to get the best out of their machines. Sorry I can't offer more on this!
Re:DRI vs ATI ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:possible answers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not just Linux (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:possible answers? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nvidia Linux [nvidia.com]
They support Linux IA32, Linux AMD64, Linux IA64 and FreeBSD. They support their chipsets, etc. I also think a good portion of Intel's stuff is "offcically" supported under Linux like their graphics chips and audio. And even if they do not release a driver, they provide the specs which is more usefull to Linux then a proprietry driver in most cases.
so what DOESN'T suck? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:possible answers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Good Luck to those who need it.
To the rest, I say - go buy Nvidia, and save yourself the hassle.
Re:Might as well go for the obvious... (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft paid them BIG BUCKS to develop the next generation processor that would be used in the XBOX and the technology from the Microsoft money was also then used to further their Geforce line development.
Then NVidia decided that wasn't enough because they weren't making enough per chip for the XBOXes, even though their entire GeForce project was expanded and funded by Microsoft.
So NVidia played the we will take your money use it to make our products better and then run with it.
Which gives us two things, better Geforce Chips based on Microsoft funding, and Microsoft denying NVidia any more funding money for the XBOX II chips.
Even though NVidia and the press played it like NVidia chose not to be in the XBOX II project, it was actually Microsoft that was not offering them the chance once NVidia wanted more money for each chip sold in the XBOX.
(Inside MS information from late last year - can't quote sources, just have to trust me on this.)
In reality, like Microsoft or not, NVidia kind of screwed them. They used the infusion of cash to expand their GPU development to make the Geforce3, Geforce4, and GeforceFX what they are.
So if you are a NVidia card owner, you are using chips that Microsoft had a hand in funding.
Ironic, uh?
PS. Sad if it is true that ATI is dropping official Linux support, but I seriously doubt MS had anything to do with it. Especially considering there is not a deal with MS and ATI yet for the XBOX II, official or unofficial. (Again inside MS information)
The only ATI/MS alliance is the full support of DirectX 9 and DirectX in whole in hardware that ATI has been more committed to than NVidia, even pushing the MS envelope of what needs to be in the DirectX Video standard.
Re:This is an ongoing problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:possible answers? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've had issues with several ati cards and Linux. Been working for weeks with various groups to hammer the problems out. Basically they work ok on a monitor however I'm now trying to build a pvr using freevo or mythtv and the composite out just isn't working. I'm about to trade up for an Nvidia card. Ati simply isn't interested in linux and this is another nail in the coffin
Re:Radeon is supported by XFree86 team (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:possible answers? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the same fucking trick here I suspect, They want to cause us to think badly of a hardware company that was supporting open source OS users. Now if they manage to get us to stick with OSs that hardware manufacurers will support (because if they do work for microsloth they get to continue to remain in business).
Before the loss of Creatives driver support I was headed to OS2 in a big way because I was hearing how well it handled windows and dos software. I had to stop dead in my tracks once I discovered the lack of soundcard drivers (I am a video editing and Game playing fool) because sound support was pretty high on my list of of "Good Things" to have in an OS.
Im not so sure this will work with Linux or other open source OS's but I think that did play a large role in killing off OS2.
Re:Bummer, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Although RedHat9 came with the ATI driver for my card, and there seems to be lots of places to download the drivers, ATI, Xfree86, and everybody I could find basically shrug their shoulders when it comes to TV-out support for my Radeon.
I thought GATOS could be what I'm looking for, since it seems to support the VIVO card that I have.
Sigh. Same as everyone else. Under the option that allows TV-out support:
Re:Radeon is supported by XFree86 team (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you nuts? ATI has given DRI docs up to the r200 core. IIRC ATI chose to use DRI as the framework for their binary only drivers, which is about the only thing DRI and ATI have in common.
Sunny Dubey
Re:vendor asshats (Score:3, Interesting)
If I'm remembering correctly, Linux already has more market share than Apple does.
Besides, it's a chicken-in-the-egg problem. If vendors don't support a product that competes with the dominant product, then the competitive product has a harder time growing. By the same token, the vendors use the excuse that it's not widely used as a reason for why they don't support it, yet if they did support it, they'd have 1) an exclusive relationship with those who use the product, and 2) they'd help the product be more widely supported in general, since people would be more inclined to jump on the bandwagon.
Nvidia has a binary-only driver that works, Matrox does too, to a lesser extent (I'm still pestering them about getting a good 3d accelerated X server for the Parhelia). These companies see significantly more linux purchases for brand new hardware than others do, because the cards can be made to work. I don't know how much of their business it is, but they'll have repeat customers, which alone is very important.
Re:possible answers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hardware will be supported in Linux by OSS programmers until there are enough people using Linux that hardware companies would be insane to ignore the percentage of the market they are ignoring by not supporting it.
I think you have too much technology experience and not enough real-world economic and business experience. Companies go along with Microsoft because it makes business sense to do so. When 10, 20, or 30% of the market is using Linux it no longer makes sense to blindly accept everything Microsoft dictates.
Don't worry, the sky is not falling.
Re:possible answers? (Score:1, Interesting)
http://mirror.ati.com/support/drivers/linux/rad
Re:possible answers? (Score:5, Interesting)
and every single one of us needs to write them a letter explaining why we will for the forseeable future only buy Nvidia and only reccomend nvidia to friends and relatives.
Nvidia supplies us binary drivers, but at LEAST they supply us drivers! I will buy only nvidia and reccomend to everyone to only buy nvidia cards. I have influenced at least 10 video card purchases in the past 2 months just by my reccomendations to co-workers.
If ATI would like to increase their sales, they had damn well get us IT people on their side... we influence far more people than they realize... and that can make or break a company.
Re:possible answers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why no more linux drivers? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's alot of cash! They expect ROI, and nobody out there will buy the bleeding-edge 3D graphics card with vibrating codpiece cooling system if the best they can do is run TuxRacer, or 2 year old ports of Unreal Tournament.
If you want hardware which supports linux, you have a few options.
(1) Reverse Engineer and write them yourself... excpet that's now illegal.
(2) Haul Microsoft up on monopoly charges so competition can flourish... oh wait, that's been done.
(3) Ummmm, convince the RIAA that there's a new Windows-ONLY file sharing protocol that uses the latest video drivers to convert mp3's into explosion graphics?
(4) Setup a windoze machine to play games on, and keep it quarenteened off in its own DMZ
(5) Play games using WineX and software drivers and enjoy how solid and uncrashable solitare is!
I chose option 4 and just pretend it's an old Atari 2600 -- pretend that the reboot between games is the tube-type TV warming up!
Re:Isn't this suppored by DRI? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is the main reason why I can't sleep at night. You see I have a GeForce, and I sometimes like to play games under Linux. But the GeForce only has proprietary drivers for 3D acceleration. Yeah I have to admit - I sometimes use them. I don't really know when my problem started. All I know is that I'm pretty fucked up now, and I know it has something to do with nVidia's proprietary drivers. I hear that someone is trying to write a DRI driver for nVidia cards, though. Man that would be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! Imagine it. 5 times slower, and hardly any features of the proprietary drivers, and crashing all the time and stuff... I hope it's not just a rumour.
Grow up dude. If you're in a position like me, where you HAVE a fucking Radeon 64MB DDR and can't use it because the DRI drivers don't support S3 Texture compression, or lock immediately when running Tribes 2, or are slow as shit running Neverwinter Nights, or TV-out isn't supported because they don't give a shit, or capture doesn't work because the authors have a problem with gcc-3.x then you say "fuck it!" and borrow your best friend's Geforce, and install the evil proprietary drivers and STFU.
In error? (Score:2, Interesting)