theinquirer.net— "Pete's Open Source Journal on Driver Heaven, said that it is five months since products have been released, but ATI is still unable to supply Linux drivers for the products."
Feb 27, 2006View in Crawl 4
I really think that the solution is an open-source hardware movement paired with open-source software. That would make the hardware work on Apple, Windows, Linux, Solaris, Irix, whatever. That would have to be profitable. Then the Linux devs would have a known architecture to work from. That would essentially be an open-source version of Apple I guess, but it would be better than the hit-or-miss thing that we've got going on now.
This doesnt surprise me, ATI has always had a lack of driver programmers with skills... the ones for windows are crap as well. don't expect linux ones to even be decent.
"This is actually good business sense for ATI. If you make a product that its ultimate use, is meant for GAMES and CAD -- both of which applications are either non-existant or HORRIBLE under Linux... why exactly would you spend money and resources writing drivers for that OS? This isn't ATI's fault. It's Linux's fault for not getting the desktop ready for a consumer state yet. There are a lot of bright people in the Linux and Open Source camp, but they largely have an elitism about them that doesn't allow them to think in terms of doing things the way "Windows" did. Sometimes, taking a page from a competitor is a GOOD thing. When Linux is ready on the Desktop, easy to use and simple to navigate, no need for ./make and RPM dependencies galore -- then ATI should be ready to make drivers for it. Until then though, I am not going to blame ATI because they aren't writing drivers for the .000001% of people who run Linux. The odds are even worse that they'd buy a graphics cards of any value for a Linux system when there's no software to make use of it."Wow, I take it you've never been within 100 miles of a 3d graphics project, Maya workstation, or render farm then, because almost everything you just said about CAD was complete horsecrap, not to mention everything about linux, market share and Ati's attitude to linux.Yeah, ATi are just catering for the huge contingent of 3D productivity users that have workstations and clusters to design and render their stuff *on windows XP, using ATi Radeons* - because there are loads of those.Try walking into any such establishment. You will see unix on the workstation and unix doing the rendering.I'll bet all the big shops wish they had your smarts - they could throw away all that SGI, Quadro, Mac and Linux kit and do all their stuff using direct3d with a nice soothing fisher-price GUI and a 200 dollar graphics card that screws up openGL. Why don't you phone Disney or SGI and tell them? You could time how long it takes them to stop laughing and hang up when you do too - that'd be fun.0.00001% my arse - a cursory google would have stopped you making a fool of yourself.Luckily ATi are smarter than you, and have been making FireGL drivers and premium products for Linux for ages. The whole issue, however, is not the (already well-recognised and lucrative) need for support of the linux market, but the fact that end-user apps like games on low end cards like radeons, need more realistic support now than ever before, because of the well-documented growth in desktop use of linux. That's something Ati really haven't been matching up to too brilliantly.
"ATI's purpose is to realize a profit on the hardware they develop and sell."Yes, and sometimes they sell it for use on linux-based platforms for, you know, the same price as one that's going to be used on windows? Or have you worked out somehow that linux users are not *paying* for hardware they buy after reading about Linux support on ATi's website?"There is no money in linux so why waste your time."Why don't you ask ATi? They already sell Ati cards to linux-based OS users and make linux binary drivers for them to use. The issue is that some paying customers are installing their cards to find the support isn't very good, so it would be good if Ati improved it."You'd think someone in the linux community would write their own ATI driver and share it with the community."There are already open source DRI drivers, with which ATi co-operate happily.ATi prefers - understandably it may seem, to support more modern cards themselves than to open the spec fully, which is why it's up to them to provide the support paying customers have been offered.
Linux is open source, I don't know if you heard.That means that:1. If people must taint it with closed binary stuff, they can do so easily. ATI and Nvidia have done this for yonks.2. If that were appropriate, it would be in the kernel as standard. It isn't and it isn't.
I hate the fact that the windows "cultist" world is so full of slopey-foreheaded people who probably stole their operating system anyway, but still see fit to turn up in every discussion of alternative OSes and throw insults around - acting like they're the only people in the world who are capitalist and have a job - despite the fact that the unix admins and mac users they're deriding probably have better paid jobs and work ethics than them, and probably don't pirate half the software they use.Newsflash - the Free in free software DOES NOT REFER TO COST.Politically, if you misunderstand the concept of freedom as in speech and associate it with some sort of weird socialism, that just means you can't be bothered to read the odd wiki.
Closed AccountFeb 27, 2006
heh, linux whores are only slighter better than Apple whores, they actually bought the OS, at least Linux was free LOL
skunkman62Feb 27, 2006
yup, you'll need all the ATI power for those awesome linux video games.
ztirffritzFeb 28, 2006
I really think that the solution is an open-source hardware movement paired with open-source software. That would make the hardware work on Apple, Windows, Linux, Solaris, Irix, whatever. That would have to be profitable. Then the Linux devs would have a known architecture to work from. That would essentially be an open-source version of Apple I guess, but it would be better than the hit-or-miss thing that we've got going on now.
sintaxMar 1, 2006
This doesnt surprise me, ATI has always had a lack of driver programmers with skills... the ones for windows are crap as well. don't expect linux ones to even be decent.
blackadderiiiMay 2, 2006
"This is actually good business sense for ATI. If you make a product that its ultimate use, is meant for GAMES and CAD -- both of which applications are either non-existant or HORRIBLE under Linux... why exactly would you spend money and resources writing drivers for that OS? This isn't ATI's fault. It's Linux's fault for not getting the desktop ready for a consumer state yet. There are a lot of bright people in the Linux and Open Source camp, but they largely have an elitism about them that doesn't allow them to think in terms of doing things the way "Windows" did. Sometimes, taking a page from a competitor is a GOOD thing. When Linux is ready on the Desktop, easy to use and simple to navigate, no need for ./make and RPM dependencies galore -- then ATI should be ready to make drivers for it. Until then though, I am not going to blame ATI because they aren't writing drivers for the .000001% of people who run Linux. The odds are even worse that they'd buy a graphics cards of any value for a Linux system when there's no software to make use of it."Wow, I take it you've never been within 100 miles of a 3d graphics project, Maya workstation, or render farm then, because almost everything you just said about CAD was complete horsecrap, not to mention everything about linux, market share and Ati's attitude to linux.Yeah, ATi are just catering for the huge contingent of 3D productivity users that have workstations and clusters to design and render their stuff *on windows XP, using ATi Radeons* - because there are loads of those.Try walking into any such establishment. You will see unix on the workstation and unix doing the rendering.I'll bet all the big shops wish they had your smarts - they could throw away all that SGI, Quadro, Mac and Linux kit and do all their stuff using direct3d with a nice soothing fisher-price GUI and a 200 dollar graphics card that screws up openGL. Why don't you phone Disney or SGI and tell them? You could time how long it takes them to stop laughing and hang up when you do too - that'd be fun.0.00001% my arse - a cursory google would have stopped you making a fool of yourself.Luckily ATi are smarter than you, and have been making FireGL drivers and premium products for Linux for ages. The whole issue, however, is not the (already well-recognised and lucrative) need for support of the linux market, but the fact that end-user apps like games on low end cards like radeons, need more realistic support now than ever before, because of the well-documented growth in desktop use of linux. That's something Ati really haven't been matching up to too brilliantly.
blackadderiiiMay 2, 2006
"ATI's purpose is to realize a profit on the hardware they develop and sell."Yes, and sometimes they sell it for use on linux-based platforms for, you know, the same price as one that's going to be used on windows? Or have you worked out somehow that linux users are not *paying* for hardware they buy after reading about Linux support on ATi's website?"There is no money in linux so why waste your time."Why don't you ask ATi? They already sell Ati cards to linux-based OS users and make linux binary drivers for them to use. The issue is that some paying customers are installing their cards to find the support isn't very good, so it would be good if Ati improved it."You'd think someone in the linux community would write their own ATI driver and share it with the community."There are already open source DRI drivers, with which ATi co-operate happily.ATi prefers - understandably it may seem, to support more modern cards themselves than to open the spec fully, which is why it's up to them to provide the support paying customers have been offered.
blackadderiiiMay 2, 2006
ATI claims it's supported, and they're happy to take a few hundred dollars from you for their hardware. That's all that matters.
blackadderiiiMay 2, 2006
Linux is open source, I don't know if you heard.That means that:1. If people must taint it with closed binary stuff, they can do so easily. ATI and Nvidia have done this for yonks.2. If that were appropriate, it would be in the kernel as standard. It isn't and it isn't.
blackadderiiiMay 2, 2006
I hate the fact that the windows "cultist" world is so full of slopey-foreheaded people who probably stole their operating system anyway, but still see fit to turn up in every discussion of alternative OSes and throw insults around - acting like they're the only people in the world who are capitalist and have a job - despite the fact that the unix admins and mac users they're deriding probably have better paid jobs and work ethics than them, and probably don't pirate half the software they use.Newsflash - the Free in free software DOES NOT REFER TO COST.Politically, if you misunderstand the concept of freedom as in speech and associate it with some sort of weird socialism, that just means you can't be bothered to read the odd wiki.