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Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com)
Linux.com looks at two
decisions by the Ubuntu Technical Board. "Ubuntu CTO Matt
Zimmerman has announced two Ubuntu Technical Board decisions that will
affect the upcoming Feisty Fawn release, due out in April of this year. For
the Feisty release, proprietary video drivers are out of the default
install, and the PowerPC port of Ubuntu is being downgraded to an
unofficial release."
(Log in to post comments)
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 13, 2007 19:08 UTC (Tue) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link] I certainly hope that X.org and Intel can get out a working system for the G965 in time for April. It would be really nice to have a completely open stack for modern hardware with first-class support in a major distro.
I'm a little bummed about PowerPC, though.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 13, 2007 22:46 UTC (Tue) by codergeek42 (subscriber, #43334) [Link] "I certainly hope that X.org and Intel can get out a working system for the G965 in time for April. It would be really nice to have a completely open stack for modern hardware with first-class support in a major distro."
Eh? I certainly hope that you've installed any recent (<1 year old) distro, as the support is there, and works right out of the proverbial box. :P
I installed FC6 on my G965-based system and needed only to tinker with the resolution settings - the 3-D and XVideo and stuff works beautifully with no effort on my part other than clicking through the installer.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 13, 2007 23:02 UTC (Tue) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link] Well I have a G965 system with Ubuntu Edgy and the list of things which it is unable to do include setting the video mode, enabling either DVI port, display accelerated video, and use OpenGL without crashing. So I'm looking forward to Ubuntu Feisty.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 2:13 UTC (Wed) by eklitzke (subscriber, #36426) [Link] I'm not familiar with your chipset, but in my experience X is a lot better on Fedora than on Ubuntu. I have FC6 and Edgy on my laptop, and getting things like external monitors to work in Ubuntu is kind of cumbersome and involves editing the xorg.conf file. OTOH, Fedora has their X configuration set up somehow to automatically configure itself correctly. There aren't any resolutions or sync rates in the xorg.conf file whatsoever, the default is to have everything automatically detected at runtime. It may be worth finding out if your problems are due to a lack of drivers, or just the way that the folks at Ubuntu have X configured.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 2:37 UTC (Wed) by rlamont (guest, #35601) [Link] I am using Ubuntu Edgy (amd64) on a machine with an Intel DG965WHMKR motherboard and it does all the things you mention. DVI enabled itself as soon as I plugged the ADD2 card (a PixelView PV-CH3707(N16D)-F) into the x16 slot. The only thing that doesn't work is the Marvell PATA driver (and it still didn't work when I tried the Feisty Herd 2 install CD). It's best to stick to SATA only.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 8:52 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] As has been discussed quite repeatedly here, the functionality on various G965 boxes is note created equal. There is the variance of the types of glue chips used, and whatever BIOS tweaks have been placed in the vbios image.
However, even if you _can_ get the right modes, the implementation is quite glitchy. Failures when using virtual scrolling desktops, crashes in some OpenGL usage patterns.
It's not baked. Not in x.org 7.1.x, not in mesa 6.5.2.
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 13, 2007 20:41 UTC (Tue) by wtogami (subscriber, #32325) [Link] On the surface the blurb summary on LWN made this look like good news for freedom and the community. But reading the actual linux.com article and technical board decision... they are only refraining from enabling the closed drivers by default.Ubuntu continues to ship closed source proprietary drivers in potential violation of the GPL. This is trading long-term liberty for short-term convenience. The price of liberty is not free, nor is it comfortable. Fortunately in this case however, there is a reasonably comfortable choice. What if Free and Open Source Software communities to voted with their dollars and bought video hardware that had libre drivers? Today with Intel video, you have the convenience of working video out-of-the-box with full 3D acceleration with upstream X.org and kernel support. Perhaps if more people voted with their dollars, the other hardware vendors would take FOSS software more seriously and become a more honest partner in order to compete. Think about it.
Warren Togami,
p.s. I'm soon buying a new laptop with Intel 950 video and IPW3945.
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 13, 2007 21:02 UTC (Tue) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link] So, when is Intel going to release a video card that I can plug into my AMD-64 motherboard?
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 13, 2007 21:57 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Supposedly around 2008-2009.Supposedly a 16 core and 16 times faster then the current Nvidia G80 design. A monster, they are going to release high-end first, then move down the line. I am thinking that if it's true then it's going to be about the equivelent of 16 X3000 cores packed into something similar to the size of a current Pentium CoreDuo2 cpu. (this should give you about 128 programmable pipelines) I figure this makes sense because I know that when a CPU manufacturer does a move like from 45nm to 32nm proccess they basicly have to build a entire new assembly line for the new proccessors. So if you move to the next-generation proccessors you still have all the equipment for the previous-generation stuff laying around doing nothing then why not use it to make GPUs? (instead of celerons, I suppose) Intel's previous-generation is probably pretty close to Nvidia's next-generation. from Vr-zone From our non-Intel sources, we came to know about Intel's Visual Computing Group (VCG) discrete graphics plans. There seems to be a few interesting developments down the pipeline that could prove quite a challenge to NVIDIA and AMD in 2 years time. As already stated on their website, the group is focused on developing advanced products based on a many-core architecture targeting high-end client platforms initially. Their first flagship product for games and graphics intensive applications is likely to happen in late 2008-09 timeframe and the GPU is based on multi-core architecture. We heard there could be as many as 16 graphics cores packed into a single die. The process technology we speculate for such product is probably at 32nm judging from the timeframe. Intel clearly has the advantage of their advanced process technology since they are always at least one node ahead of their competitors and they are good in tweaking for better yield. Intel is likely use back their CPU naming convention on GPU so you could probably guess that the highest end could be called Extreme Edition and there should be mainstream and value editions. The performance? How about 16x performance of any fastest graphics card out there now [referring to G80] as claimed. Anyway it is hard to speculate who will lead by then as it will be DX10.1/11 era with NVIDIA G9x and ATi R7xx around. Complete rumors, of course.
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 13, 2007 22:01 UTC (Tue) by thebluesgnr (guest, #37963) [Link] The question you should be asking is when will AMD release a graphics cards with Free drivers that you can plug into your motherboard.
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 14, 2007 2:13 UTC (Wed) by lgb (guest, #784) [Link] Well, I've chosen nvidia card into my Linux-only computer, since that's quite good supported and has enough performace at last for me. However, if there is a card with good/better support (in particular FOSS driver!) I would change immediately. Sure, there are guys think the same, however I think the market share of people wanting only FOSS drivers is quite a low percent :(
Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 14, 2007 13:48 UTC (Wed) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link] I look at it in the other direction, if I buy the best hardware I can get with freely licensed drivers then I am supporting the advancement of the hardware that I want. If I buy hardware with closed drivers I will be supporting the hardware that I don't want.
Intel is currently working in the right direction, I will support Intel with my next purchase.
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars -- I did Posted Feb 14, 2007 10:22 UTC (Wed) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link] > when will AMD release a graphics cards with Free drivers that you can plug into your motherboard.
I already have one of those -- an ATI 9250 based card, free driver based on specs that ATI (now part of AMD) released.
(Granted, they haven't released any since -- hopefully that will change under the new ownership.)
Intel's Intentions Posted Feb 13, 2007 23:21 UTC (Tue) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link] Are Intel committed to producing open-source drivers for the long-term future? Because other vendors (such as ATI) were happy to do so while they were smaller players, but as soon as they achieved significant market dominance, they shut down their open-source efforts. Has Intel promised not to do the same?
Intel's Intentions Posted Feb 14, 2007 0:42 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] In a recent Debian Miniconf Keith Packard basicly said that Intel says they are commited to open source drivers. (I beleive he works for Intel now, as well as other X/Linux hackers)
And not only releasing drivers, but releasing them the same day they release the hardware to public. So on the day Intel hardware starts showing up in stores there will be a Linux driver that will work out-of-the-box.
Supposedly. This is the sort of thing were I'll beleive it when I see it. I am optimistic though with the modification they made to the firmware to enable breaking away from that nasty userland daemon.
BTW it's hard to call Intel a 'smaller player' when they outsell Nvidia and ATI combined. But, obviously, they are not competitive performance-wise and I suppose the temptation to get into bed with Microsoft heavily is very strong if it means getting a nice performance boost for the largest majority of your customers (Windows users).
DirectX/Direct3D is one of those things that is tied very close to your hardware.. it's not like OpenGL were you can support newer versions with a driver update. If your running a DirectX 8 card your not compatable, or at least much less compatable, then if your running a DirectX 9 card with DirectX 9 games.
With ATI and Nvidia they introduce new features and new 'extra' capabilities and extensions with each new card they produce. Then game makers and such will pick which features they like and then you end up with a ATI or Nvidia label on the box indicating what manufacturer the game makers prefer.
I suppose that if Microsoft, when drafting a new API (say DirectX 10 or 11), were to favor Nvidia's alredy existing extensions over ATI's cards then that would give quite a large advantage to Nvidia (and visa versa). So I would expect that if Microsoft said 'no open support for Linux' to either party then that means no open support.
A curious artifact of history is that around about the time Nvidia announced it's contract with Microsoft to produce the graphics for Xbox, and around about the time ATI announced it's contract for Xbox360, was around about the time they closed up tight against Linux. I don't know if that indicates anything or not.
Intel's Intentions Posted Feb 14, 2007 3:37 UTC (Wed) by superstoned (subscriber, #33164) [Link] > A curious artifact of history is that around about the time Nvidia> announced it's contract with Microsoft to produce the graphics for Xbox, > and around about the time ATI announced it's contract for Xbox360, was > around about the time they closed up tight against Linux. I don't know > if that indicates anything or not.
Well, as MS was supposedly involved with technical stuff concerning the
Intel's Intentions Posted Feb 14, 2007 5:07 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Makes sense to me.
I wonder if AMD will make the effort to purge the Microsoft IP from their GPU designs then. I seem to remember reading something about it.
But since complex chips like that are designed two generations out then it's not something we are going to see happen very quickly, unfortunately.
I definately hope they get that 'IP' removed from their GPU designs before they start integrating them into their cpus!
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 13, 2007 22:58 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Perhaps if more people voted with their dollars
Done exactly that :-)
> I'm soon buying a new laptop with Intel 950 video and IPW3945.
Yep, that's what I selected in my notebook. Cannot speak of wireless, since I don't use it, but 950 works rather nice with AIGLX from FC6. Another :-)
Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars Posted Feb 14, 2007 8:54 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] To beat a dead horse: I have this hardware and your definition of "working" and mine do not overlap.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 13, 2007 21:46 UTC (Tue) by mbottrell (guest, #43008) [Link] That's great... but the current flux with the G965 video chipset isn't an alternative at present.
Unfortunately it's a matter of numbers... that the majority of cards in Desktop PCs are still ATI or nVidia.
Intel have announced that they are going to start building standalone video cards, but if it's anything like the G965 exoerience it will drag behind.
I wish Intel would release the damn drivers as an upgrade package of your distro of choice... currently one needs to wait until their distro picks up the latest X and package it up...
I'll buy Intel cards... but I really do want the support at the time they go on sale... 6-12 months behind product shipment is crazy.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 13, 2007 22:07 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Well actually the majority of desktop PCs, or laptop PCs or any PC has Intel graphics.
They have something like 60% of the market.
If your thinking of 'gaming' machines or anything like that.. G965 will not realy be very usefull for that. For 3D desktop it will be fine, though.
Right now the 945g chipset is pretty easy to come by. They make great little machines.
A nice little example would be something like:
Personally I built my PC on a Asus motherboard and Pentium-D 930 dual core cpu. Happily using those VT extensions to run KVM...
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 13, 2007 23:29 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Just for a FYI..
I played around trying different things to get the best performance out of my 945g GMA 950 and these are the things that I've found out to help..
In my xorg.conf I did:
Not sure what mtrr is, but it did give me a decent performance boost. Also it lowered the cpu overhead of running glxgears by a large margin.
VideoRAM has it allocate a full 128megs of RAM. I think the GMA 950 can do up to 256 and the G965 can do up to 512.
LinearAlloc is to allocate enough ram to be able to use XV for HD-sized video.
Not sure if UseFBDev is nessicary though.
Then before running games or anything that I want to use 3d acceleration with I do:
I don't know exactly what that is suppose to do, but I think it disables ome RandR stuff.
Then 16bit graphics will help you get a bit more out of your limited memory bandwidth, but it makes things look ugly sometimes.
All these things together probably gave me a 75% - 100% boost in 3D performance, which makes it usable for games like Tremulous.
FC6 or Ubuntu? Posted Feb 14, 2007 8:12 UTC (Wed) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] drag, are you using FC6 on this system, or Ubuntu?
FWIW, I just purchased a mid-level laptop and a low low end desktop, and I specifically went for the Intel graphics (950 GMA on both) and the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 on the laptop (which actually cost more than the standard OEM provided wireless) because of the open source driver support Intel provides. So yes, I put my money where my beliefs are!
So hey AMD(ATI)/Nvidia - here's a sale you LOST because of your poor support for open source drivers. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
I dropped off the Red Hat bandwagon a while ago and went to Debian, but I expect either FC6 or Ubuntu will work better on the laptop than stock Debian.
Thanks,
PS: Now if they'd only included a PATA port on the desktop - sigh... time to go hunt down a PCIe PATA card... any recommendations?
FC6 or Ubuntu? Posted Feb 14, 2007 14:45 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] I am using Debian unstable.
However I installed using the Debian Etch media, if I remember correctly.
I have a Asus motherboard with the Intel 945g chipset.. On it it has the 4 port SATA controller and then one PATA controller that comes with the chipset.. Then there is one add-on PATA controller from Asus and I am not sure about the manufacture of that.
(As far as these things go Asus is actually pretty Linux freindly. They are now my favorite name-brand)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
On mine in order to get the cdrom drive be recognized in Debian Etch I had to disable some bios setting just for that controller, but I don't remember off the top of my head what that was. Doesn't affect the speed of the drive any.
As for a PATA PCIe card? I don't know. Just get the cheapest, I suppose, that advertises Linux support.
Doing a quick look over what Newegg has I think it may be easier to just get a SATA dvdrom drive. I have a feeling that PCIe IDE controllers are going to be difficult to come by.
It would probably have a higher reliability also when it comes to burning dvds and such. There was a lite-on that was about 40 dollars or so. I don't know how well installing from one will go, but I don't expect it to be that hard.
I know that you already bought your motherboard and such.. But one thing to keep in mind for these 945g's and such is this (especially if you want to turn it into a server once you retire your desktop):
Most newer ones should support the Intel VT extensions. This will allow you to run unmodified guests at decent speeds using KVM or Xen. In order to use these extensions you need to have both a motherboard and a cpu that supports it. The cheapest CPUs that supports it is the Pentium-D 9xx series (the 8xx series doesn't support VT)
Then on the SATA controller you can get ones with AHCI support. Very recent linux versions have very good ACHI support for things like hotplugging, PM, and such. Most desktop boards aren't going to support it. (mine doesn't) You'd have to go with the 'execuative' line or the media boards. Anything advertising Intel's 'Matrix storage' probably supports it.
That stuff would be very nice if your running software RAID. A fast dual core cpu with 4 500gig drives in RAID 10 would be _very_ nice for a multimedia machine.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 13, 2007 23:59 UTC (Tue) by arjan (subscriber, #36785) [Link] (disclaimer: I work for Intel)
the 965 graphics drivers got released before the hardware was commercially available.... I don't understand your suggestion that they were not...
(It may be that not all distros picked them up, but to a large degree that is a problem of the distros; Intel can only do so much there, we make the driver, we ask them to include it and even offer help with that. Beyond that it's out of our control)
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 9:08 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] The parent wasn't suggesting the drivers weren't released, but that they weren't available to users.
Kernel drivers, by comparison, are often compilable against the current kernel in a system without _too_ much hassle. Worst case it's pretty workable to just update to whatever kernel is necessary.
The steps to deploy a new version of X.org in a running system are often not known, not documented, and not achievable by normal users. Despite the goal of maintaining a stable interface bewteen drivers and X.org core, I don't seem to find any simple instructions on deploying a new driver against whatever X.org core I have installed. Is this realistically possible?
Even then I think you lose because you really have to deploy a new Mesa and new dri (and new drm) for the new card.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 9:08 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] Oh and yes, expecting Intel to fix all this is a bit much. I agree.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 9:35 UTC (Wed) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] Just a random thought:
replace the "Linux drivers" link with a link to a recent live CD (that contains only free drivers) that supports that hardware well.
If such a reference distribution supports the hardware, other users will be able to replicate the settings.
(As I said: just a random thought)
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 10:20 UTC (Wed) by arjan (subscriber, #36785) [Link] I think it's fair to expect your distro to do this for you.. this is what support/maintenance is about to some degree...
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 4:32 UTC (Wed) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] Have I understood it correct in saying that what they have basically concluded is that Beryl isn't quite ready yet?
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 5:28 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] I think they _may_ have concluded some of these thigns:
- Compiz and Beryl are a bit immature still, and the feature freeze for Feisty was on 8th of Feb
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 5:49 UTC (Wed) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] I more or less have found an answer to my own question here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/95
Quote: "Neither Compiz nor Beryl have the requisite stability and compatibility to be a default option in Feisty."
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 8:26 UTC (Wed) by jdub (subscriber, #27) [Link] As with every previous release of Ubuntu, proprietary drivers will be provided and installed by default, but they won't be used by default unless the free drivers do not function at all on the hardware present (a choice that has nothing to do with 3D acceleration). This decision just means that the plans to use proprietary display drivers by default have been nixed, but only for feisty. Everyone seems to make a big deal about the display drivers, but Ubuntu has shipped proprietary wifi drivers since warty, and they are used by default on vastly more hardware than the display drivers.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 9:14 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] Thanks for the info/reminder.
We of course treat the video drivers as a hot button issue because there is no good choice. The ATI drivers suck and are closed. The Nvidia drivers are of varying result and closed. The Intel drivers are open but of varying quality, and the performance is very much second rate.
It would be nice to have a first class citizen status video chipset.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 13:24 UTC (Wed) by lamikr (subscriber, #2289) [Link] Mandriva is releasing separately a "complete free" version from the their latest distros and then separately the ones which include the commercial drivers, etc...
Maybe ubuntu could do the same. Or maybe had in the installer
Mika
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com) Posted Feb 14, 2007 15:39 UTC (Wed) by jdub (subscriber, #27) [Link] Interestingly enough, they are. :-)
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