[arch-general] New 64 bit computer

[David C. Rankin]

On Tuesday 16 June 2009 12:12:15 David Rosenstrauch wrote:
> 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.
>
> Forgive me if I'm ignorant on the specifics of the topic.  But in theory
> shouldn't older model hardware drivers already be fully integrated into
> the kernel (and supported by kernel developers), thereby making such a
> move a non-issue?
>
> DR

	One would think, but NO. The entire problem, the short version, is that with 
the introduction of support for the 2400 series card support and support for 
xorg 7.4 which occurred with the 8-10 driver (October 2008) release, ATI broke 
support for a number of X1200 and earlier cards. (little things like your 
machine reboots on driver load, etc..) For many if the driver would load, 
performance of the 8-10 through 9-3 drivers was roughly 50% of performance 
with the 8-9 release (September -- you get the release numbers...)

	In either late Feb or early March 2009, ATI announced it was washing it hands 
of support for all newly termed "Legacy" cards. This announcement was made not 
more than a few weeks before the 9-3 release. With the 9-3 release, it was 
quickly confirmed that problem ATI introduced with the 8-10 release had not 
been fixed and at that point in time all owners of pre-series 2400 cards were 
just hosed if their hardware had problems with the 8-10 to 9-3 drivers.

	Biggest problem - no upgrade path to Xorg 7.4. The 8-9 driver is not 
compatible with the new xorg. So all ATI owners of "Legacy" cards were left 
without a workable ATI driver with the only option of reverting to the 
radeon/radeonhd driver. (I'm not knocking the radeonhd driver, Matthias, Yang, 
Rafal and the rest of the really smart guys working on the driver are all 
doing Excellent work with it, but it is not there yet for laptop users)

	For desktop users with plenty of power, like in Baho's case, it isn't an 
issue. For laptop owners it is a huge issue. The fglrx driver incorporates 
downclocking and selective powerdown of unused portions of the graphics 
chipset so heat is managed well. This can make a 20 degree + difference in 
case temps and that is the difference between a laptop or a nut-cooker.

	So while one would normally think that a driver (and Graphics card company 
for that matter) would maintain backward compatibility with earlier cards, ATI 
just drew a line in the sand and as of March 2009 said "We will no longer 
release drivers for pre 2400 series cards, if the current Linux driver is 
still broken for your earlier card -- F.0." And, that is exactly what ATI 
did....

(Trust me -- this IS the short version;-)

-- 
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