[arch-general] New 64 bit computer

[David C. Rankin]

On Tuesday 16 June 2009 11:13:55 Jan de Groot wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-06-16 at 11:09 -0500, David C. Rankin wrote:
> >         What I am pissed at AMD/ATI for is dropping all Linux driver
> > support
> > for all cards sold before 2007 (Everything before the 2400 series).
> > This
> > screwed a lot of loyal ATI users over and left a real bad taste in my
> > mouth. Think about all the 9600, 9700, 9800, x800, x850, x1600,
> > x1650,
> > and x1800 ATI cards (many recently sold) where the users are just
> > screwed. (9.3 was the "last" driver release for these cards and for
> > "many", the 9.3 driver is broken)
>
> Instead of being pissed at them, you should love them for releasing
> specifications about these cards so open source drivers can support them
> better.
> The current code living in git for xf86-video-ati and mesa has improved
> a lot, and powermanagement is also supported. In the end, you'll be
> better off with the open source drivers than any fglrx driver that ever
> supported your card.

Jan,

	You are correct and I should look at it that way, but after sinking good 
money into a laptop less than a year and a half ago and being given the 
middle-finger by ATI, I look at it a little different. What they should do, if 
they are pulling support for all pre-series 2400 cards is open-Source the 
driver code for the Legacy cards so that the open-source community could at 
least maintain compatibility for Linux in general for the millions of cards 
out there (especially the laptops) which now are left stranded and without an 
upgrade path with the fglrx driver.

	There are no cutting-edge features in the Rev. 600 series cards and earlier 
that justify ATI both dropping Linux support for the cards and refusing to 
open-source the code. This is especially true when they know the 8-10 through 
9-3 Linux driver releases were broken for a large number of their cards. (How 
do they know? -- I authored the bug reports with the linuxdriver feedback 
system for each release.)

	Another issue that kills laptop users stuck with ATI cards is performance. 
Let's face it. With performance provided by the fglrx driver being 400-500% 
better than the current radeonhd driver, on laptop hardware, it makes a huge 
difference. I work with the radeonhd driver and the radeonhd list as much as 
possible to help where ever I can to help bring that driver along. I look 
forward to the day when it rivals, if not exceeds, what is provided by the 
fglrx driver. Until then, I'll just make sure my new hardware is nvidia and 
I'll use my old hardware to help the radeonhd project;-)



-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com