[KDE Dot News]
 faq
 flatforty
 contribute
 subscribe
 configure
 search
 rdf

 main
 parent
 thread


Re: ATI / fglrx?
by Troy Unrau on Wednesday 30/May/2007, @10:53
AMD has claimed that they will be releasing ATI drivers as opensource - so I assume that once this happens, it will be supported in short order... I'm pretty certain this works under the opensource driver already, but there may be some speed problems.

I guess as long as AIGLX or XGL work with the fglrx drivers, you should be okay. The reason I mention the nvidia driver directly in the article is that for nvidia, it works without aiglx or xgl, which may or may not be an advantage, depending on your perspective... (one less layer means slightly faster, vs. proprietary driver implementing things in it's own way....)
  Related Links
 ·   Articles on KDE Public Relations and Marketing
 ·   Also by Troy Unrau
 ·   Contact author

Thread Threshold:

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whomever posted them.
( Reply )

Re: ATI / fglrx?
by Martin on Wednesday 30/May/2007, @10:57
If I'm not totally incorrect, NVidia has implemented something very similar to AIGLX on their own.
ATI's proprietary drivers (fglrx) doesn't even support composite yet. But once they (hopefully) release their source code, the extensions will be added quickly to the drivers/it will be merged with the radeon driver.
Also noteworthy, is that I read somewhere that ATi was blocking the release of open source drivers that supported their newest card (the code was ready, but somehow the programmer wasn't allowed to release it, probably an NDA).
[ Reply To This | View ]
  • Re: ATI / fglrx?
    by Troy Unrau on Wednesday 30/May/2007, @11:08
    About NVidia: that is correct to the best of my knowledge.

    Also, about fglrx, last I checked, it does support Composite, and it does support GL, but not both at the same time forcing you to choose. Normally, users will elect for GL, since you are reduced to using Mesa if you enable Composite.

    Not sure about the ATI rumour, but when companies release the source code, they usually try to clean it up somewhat to ensure they aren't accidentally releasing IP that they do not own the rights to... think of the big delays in opensourcing java, for example, or star office :) A driver is a little smaller, but the principle is the same.
    [ Reply To This | View ]
Re: ATI / fglrx?
by Alexander van Loon on Wednesday 30/May/2007, @11:24
Troy Unrau, you say NVIDIA's drivers work without XGL or AIGLX. I know XGL is a separate X server, but isn't AIGLX a part of X.org?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiglx

"The AIGLX project has been merged into X.Org and is available as of X.Org 7.1."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl

"Xgl is an X server architecture..."

So how can you work without AIGLX if you run X.org and use NVIDIA drivers?
[ Reply To This | View ]
  • Re: ATI / fglrx?
    by Troy Unrau on Wednesday 30/May/2007, @11:35
    NVidia's drivers perform the same functions as AIGLX or XGL without their presence. They do it internally within the driver, and as such, will run KWin Composite on X.Org version 6.9, for example, when using the proprietary nvidia drivers.
    [ Reply To This | View ]
Re: ATI / fglrx?
by Anonymous on Wednesday 30/May/2007, @15:58
>AMD has claimed that they will be releasing ATI drivers as opensource [..]

If you're referring to the keynote at the Red Hat Summit, opinions diverge and there was nothing like a promise of any kind, except that AMD's marketing person claimed that AMD is willing to work on better Linux support for their drivers - like AMD/ATI did so often. Only (tabloid) news sites Slashdot and OSNews reported in a "It's coming soon" way, linking as proof to a blog of someone who thinks to have heard a promise of open graphics drivers.

Just to consider: AMD doesn't even care enough to clarify. And then recall again their promise of having to work better with the Linux community. All I'm saying is, don't get your hopes too high with AMD.
[ Reply To This | View ]
  • Re: ATI / fglrx?
    by Jack Ripoff on Wednesday 30/May/2007, @20:45
    They'd rather just release their hardware's specs/documentation freely so we stop depending on them and their flawed drivers. Mind you, ATI drivers have never been good (never even MS Windoze's).
    [ Reply To This | View ]
    • Re: ATI / fglrx?
      by Stephan Sokolow on Friday 31/Aug/2007, @02:40
      You're telling me. I have an old ATI Rage128 card that guarantees a WinXP blue screen (with the newest version of the driver) if you start up aMule but it works like a charm on the reverse-engineered X driver.
      [ Reply To This | View ]

 
The Fine Print: The previous comments are owned by whomever posted them.
( Reply )

  "KDE: Get Over It!" -- Ivan E. Moore II
KDE®, "K Desktop Environment", "KDE Dot News", "got the dot?" and the KDE Logo® are trademarks or registered trademarks of KDE e.V. in the European Union, the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the poster. The rest: Copyright © 2000-2008 KDE e.V. for The KDE Project. For further information or comments on this site, please contact the Webmaster.
[ home | post article | flat forty | subscribe | search | rdf ]