AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) [LWN.net]

AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer)

Posted Jul 3, 2007 1:15 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
Parent article: AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer)

Yawn.

Nowadays your insane if you buy anything labeled 'ATI' for use with Linux. It's realy to bad. Always articles like this should always have a disclaimer similar to: "Just plain stay away from these devices. This is for people who are already stuck with this hardware".

If they do what Intel has done that would immediately put them at the top of my 'to buy' list, but so far all signs point to no.

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Author's response

Posted Jul 3, 2007 1:54 UTC (Tue) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

I responded to the author:

Hi Fernando,

When doing a review its usual to compare the product with its competition. To my mind Intel wins hands-down on usability -- the drivers come with the Linux distribution, are invisibly configured by the distribution's installer, and simply work.

The lack of stuffing about that comes with the Intel chipset makes them a winner for 90% of users. That other 10% that needs good OpenGL performance is in a bit of a quandary anyway -- sure the ATI and Nvidia cards are much, much faster but their drivers don't support the eye candy APIs leaving that speed useless to all but Linux gamers (an odd notion that) and movie animators.

Best wishes, Glen

The author responded:

Thanks Glen.

Actually it wasn't a review, but a follow-up story on AMDTI's inability to produce decent drivers.
Not to mention, as you say, the lack of truly open source ones...

FC

Author's response

Posted Jul 4, 2007 11:35 UTC (Wed) by glisse (subscriber, #44837) [Link]

Actualy there is open source driver for AMD hardware up to r500 and likely r600 for 2D, and only up to R400 for 3D with kind of still in development support to be accurate. Oh and 3D support for R500 should come soon in the open source one.

Oh and all 2D drivers support randr 1.2 which makes then a lot easier to configure especialy toward multiscreen. There is still some lacking features for r500/r600 (gamma correction and duallink support come to mind).

AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer)

Posted Jul 13, 2007 21:03 UTC (Fri) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link]

Nowadays your insane if you buy anything labeled 'ATI' for use with Linux.

ATI's cards up to the X850XT (including the Radeon Mobility 9600 mentioned in the article) have free 3D drivers, and are the highest-performing cards with free 3D drivers. Nvidia currently has no free 3d drivers, although the Nouveau project is trying to change that.

However, people interested in free drivers will not be interested in the review of ATI's control panel.