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ati + open source

May 9, 2007 in Fedora, Freedom, GNOME, Red Hat | 69 comments

The ATI marketing guy on stage (Henri Richard) at the Red Hat Summit just committed to fixing the ATI problems with open source. To paraphrase “most people are worried about what they will lose…IP, etc…we’re worried about what we can win.” They know it’s a problem and they are committed to fixing it.

  1. Mr Flibble’s avatar

    Mr Flibble on May 11, 2007 at 6:07 pm

    My current laptop is Intel-only. I chose it because of the OSS support.

    My current desktop box has an older ATI card (9200). I’m keeping it because of the OSS support, though a better OSS-supported card would be acceptable.

    My next desktop box is likely to be with Intel graphics due to the lack of availability of OSS drivers for Xpress200 (which I’m aware is being worked on) and for the X1000 series and the lack of availability of older ATI cards. Oh, and the Intel hardware is adequate for what I want of it… :-)

  2. Xav’s avatar

    Xav on May 12, 2007 at 1:44 am

    So, any news about this ? Some of the commenters seem to imply there should have been an announcement of some sort…

  3. Dark Phoenix’s avatar

    Dark Phoenix on May 12, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    All the people who are whining about mediocre ATI support should try running the graphics chipset I have in MY laptop…

    It’s an SiS. And it won’t run DRI, period. 3D? Forget even fast 2D.

  4. Raghu Nayak’s avatar

    Raghu Nayak on May 13, 2007 at 9:17 am

    Linux driver support was the main thing why I selected NVidia over ATI, even though my motherboard was built for ATI cards.(It supports ATI CrossFire.)

    I really would have selected ATI, if they had some decent driver support for Linux.

  5. Aodhagan’s avatar

    Aodhagan on May 13, 2007 at 11:01 am

    Chris indicated that there was more info coming from ATI. I agree that AMD/ATI opening their drivers is really the only way to appease the majority of Free Software enthusiasts. (I currently only purchase Intel solutions). The question for me is whether the opening of ATI’s drivers would end up being a lot like the original Netscape code dump. i.e. – lots of good stuff in there with a whole lot of holes that would need to be filled by new code because there were unopenable parts. This is really something for Redhat, Mandriva, Linspire. Canonical, etc. to get behind and generate market pressure going.

  11. John Gilmore’s avatar

    John Gilmore on May 21, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    Blizzard, does ATI/AMD have a contact email address and/or bugzilla and/or support forum where people who have problems with Linux and ATI chips can converse (with ATI and with each other)? Failing that, what’s Henri Richard’s email address? :-) I have a new HP dc5750 which is built with ATI chips, and it has various troubles with the ATI chips (not just with video), and so far I’ve found ZIP as far as support resources at ATI. They say to talk to my vendor (HP) who says Linux isn’t supported. End of story?

  12. Fundi’s avatar

    Fundi on May 28, 2007 at 10:45 am

    If ATI opensource there graphics drivers my next graphics card will be an ATI.

  13. Fletcher’s avatar

    Fletcher on June 13, 2007 at 7:39 am

    Funny thing, the official ati drivers for my x800 when run under Debian caused the thing to overheat and lock up my computer. Instead when I ran the xorg drivers, while 3d wasn’t supported, I no longer smelled burning. I now use Ubuntu with the xorg drivers with 3d accelleration configured and it works flawlessly to an extent… (Me thinks the overheating was due to a missing capacitor though…)

  14. kd’s avatar

    kd on August 14, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    Well it’s been almost 3 months since the announcement was made, and it’s amazing how much has changed since then.

    Don’t know about you but I’m going to believe everything that AMD tells me from now on wrt to linux.

    I tell you, I’m so glad I bought the latest ATI card. Compiz at 2fps is just f*&king brilliant!!!!!!!!

  17. Terry’s avatar

    Terry on September 6, 2007 at 3:36 pm

    A marketing guy who keeps his word?

    This could set a bad precedent.

  19. Anon’s avatar

    Anon on December 30, 2008 at 10:59 am

    I’m sorry I doubted you AMDTI. AMDTI were telling the truth ( http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/30/0337204 ) when I was slinging mud.

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