What Do You Want In Linux Drivers This Year?

[bridgman]

You cats should be able to do whatever the hell you want with your driver, end of story.

We *can* do whatever we want... it's just that if we don't do what other people want (DRM implementation in the Windows drivers, carefully protected) we lose maybe 70-80% of our market

This applies to all the hardware vendors; this is not an ATI/AMD-specific problem.

[Elv13]

ATH9k actually working with WPA connection, not just seeing 1% signal at 2 meter from the spot (while OSX is at 5/5 and madwifi at 3/5) and faling to connect (while OSX and madwifi do connect without issues)

[Zhick]

ATH9k actually working with WPA connection, not just seeing 1% signal at 2 meter from the spot (while OSX is at 5/5 and madwifi at 3/5) and faling to connect (while OSX and madwifi do connect without issues)

I think that's the first statement in this thread that's not about display drivers. Goes to show that hardware-support in general on linux has become realy good.

Anyway, my wishes:
1. Better 3d-performance/3d-support. Call me weird but I'd like to be able to play games with the FOSS-drivers. Not because that's more important to me than 2d-stuff (which is good already anyway), but because I want to see the proprietary drivers die, but not games for linux.
It seems things are already in a good direction for this, I've read somewhere that Gallium3d and GEM/TTM should bring the FOSS-drivers to about 70% of the performance of the proprietary one, and should bring OpenGL 2.1 (and possibly 3.0?).
2. KMS in the mainline-drivers.
3. OpenCL I guess... though it's not realy a very high priority for me.
4. DRI2... would be nice, but I can live with disabling compositing for playing a game (or just running the game in full-screen).

And because I feel very greedy and a little bit dirty for making a list of things I want from a project I'm not contributing to, let me say that I'm very grateful for the hard-work of everyone working on the FOSS-drivers. Thank you guys (and possibly girls)!

[whizse]

Stability.

At least for the Intel DRI drivers, it's ridiculously easy to hang the Xserver. I've filed too many bug reports already

[DanL]

WHQL certification is only an issue to the extent that certification requires DRM compliance. DRM is really a Hollywood thing, not a Microsoft thing.

Your second sentence is logically inconsistent with your first sentence.

ATI (et al) is caving in to Microsoft/WHQL (which is caving into Hollywood). ATI and others should just give a well-deserved middle finger to Microsoft and digitally sign their own drivers. The concept of MS being in charge of quality control is laughable at best.

it's just that if we don't do what other people want (DRM implementation in the Windows drivers, carefully protected) we lose maybe 70-80% of our market

I guess you're implying that OEM systems won't use non-WHQL hardware? That blows..

[grege]

Good working reliable 2d ATI drivers for HD3000/4000, including video acceleration and ACPI. Whether from fglrx or radeon/radeohd, just a good working desktop please.

I have a HD3450 running on a G33 chipset motherboard. With the onboard Intel GMA3100 I can do anything 2d without glitch. I can activate Compiz, add wobbly windows, start an avi and shake the window and the video will play without effort while being distorted. Menus and programs and scrolling are all instant and smooth. With the HD3450 I am lucky to have the proper resolution set, I get reasonable 2d if I run Compiz (3d accelerating 2d?) but cannot play videos properly without turning off Compiz. My monitor will not go into standby. All the advances in 3d and OpenGL are meaningless without basic day to day functionality

I bought the HD3450 because of AMD open sourcing, so far the HD3450 spends most of the time in a drawer or running a radeonhd driver in my number two machine. It is a bit sad when a GMA3100 runs rings around a dedicated quality pcie video card.

[Ant P.]

I think that's the first statement in this thread that's not about display drivers. Goes to show that hardware-support in general on linux has become realy good.

Heh... let me throw a few more in.

- Working driver for my USR805422 wi-fi dongle (0baf:0118). Seen a few things claiming the prism driver supports it, but I've never got it to work.
- OpenAL hardware accel for my Aureal Vortex

[aidanjt]

I want stability, I want bugs to be fixed. I don't need more useless 'features' ballooning driver (hence kernel) code size with *more* bugs, I started using Linux years ago because I wanted a stable and safe OS, and it was, these days I can crash my box just by booting. So, less features, more fixing, mmmkay?

[dungeon]

Yes and don't push features just for the marketing reasons, we loose years for some never_couldn't_working_good on_a_desktop compiz-demo. I want approximately console-like stability and that is related not only to display drivers (free or propertiary), but also to the kernel and X developers on generally. Those 3 amigos must do things in sync, if we want rock stable, beautilful and monotonous desktop for all average users.

So i want NOTHING new. Just stability. Stability = fix the bugs, but try to not announce new bugs and that is it.

P.S. If we bring that stability to do desktop, than we could rumor more about girls and football and less about M$, Hollywood, new sorts of quaternary apples and six_months pears releases, etc.

[bridgman]

I guess you're implying that OEM systems won't use non-WHQL hardware? That blows..

That sums it up pretty nicely, except these days most board partners and channel distributors won't buy non-WHQL hardware either. Apple doesn't care two hoots about WHQL, of course, but they do also need robust DRM in order to be able to sell into many of their key markets.

The challenge here is to allow effective open source driver development without releasing information or enabling the reverse engineering of information which would jeopardize the Windows and Mac markets that account for maybe 99% of our sales. I know that blows too, but I think we're all (and I don't mean just AMD/ATI) making it work.