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An OpenChrome VIA Driver Status Update

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  • An OpenChrome VIA Driver Status Update

    Phoronix: An OpenChrome VIA Driver Status Update

    For any unfortunate Linux souls still stuck with VIA hardware, here's a status update about the OpenChrome driver project for providing an open-source graphics driver for VIA integrated graphics processors...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Business as usual. I honor the guy still putting work in this seemingly lost GPUs. But personally I am really careful when buying anything that doesn't already have a working driver or at least a company that is doing good community work.
    Stop TCPA, stupid software patents and corrupt politicians!

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    • #3
      Via chipsets are pretty much crapware anyway, even on Windows there's bugs galore within their drivers. Props to the developer that is still trying to make it all work and work around the hardware bugs

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      • #4
        On contrast, Im thankfull for what he does.
        Because I use VIA KM400A pro in HTPC, running aged athlon 2500 barton.
        The build-in unichrome uses openchrome driver and is sufficient for MythTV/Mythbuntu.
        Using XV openchrome acceleration and drm, performance is adequate for up to 1080p.

        I couldn't use XBMC for reason - it requires opengl acceleration.
        Currently openchrome is incompletely integrated with mesa and not all extensions implemented.
        This is widely known bug/showstopper.

        Mythtv plans to transition to OpenGL soon, so I thank you for your work.
        If VIA really wants more customers, they should really put work behind opensource driver - on par or exceeding that of AMD.
        Think what you want, but knowing that hardware will not work, will never make you customers take your hardware from shelves.

        By the way, very old but still working ATI Radeon 1 64DDR, AGP4x, works with XBMC.
        One extra card is worth several extra watts without any benefit, hence I ditched for Mythtv and openchrome that works here.
        But given IGP radeon would exist for socket A board, I would have purchased AMD IGP instead because of drivers.
        There were no AMD IGP or chipsets in socket A era though.
        Last edited by crazycheese; 10 November 2011, 12:26 PM.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Adarion View Post
          ...or at least a company that is doing good community work.
          Why are you trash-talking VIA? At least once a year they announce that they are getting serious about Linux support. And have done so for more years than some graphics hardware producers have been in business.

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          • #6
            They announced it, indeed, but it's cancelled. There's been driver packages (partially open) up to Ubuntu Maverick and Fedora 10/11 but that's all. By the way, that driver was very insecure and required running video playing programs as root. It's crap for anyone who likes Linux's security. And then you're stuck with openchrome.

            For simple 2D on these low-power chips, openchrome is fine.

            On Windows the VX900 Chrome9 HD graphics can beat every generation of Intel graphics including HD 3000 so in fact there's nothing wrong with the hardware. A single-core VIA Nano 3000 series CPU can also easily beat a single-core Intel Atom. The dual-core Nano X2 on a smaller production process is even better. I think we need an OEM requesting Linux support at VIA, just like they did at Broadcom.
            Last edited by AlbertP; 14 November 2011, 11:19 AM.

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