The Truth About ATI/AMD & Linux

[sundown]

Thank you. That was very interesting and enjoyable to read

[ageha]

AMD/ATI makes it pretty easy for nVidia. It's unbelivable a company like AMD isn't able to deliver an up-to-date and fast Linux driver.

[wirechief]

I am sure that Nvidia dev's celebrate on each "failure" that the ATI drivers have, after all its free advertiseing for them and Nvidia, their biggest hope is that ATI continues to stumble and make more users leave
their ATI cards in a junk heap and so many have done.

[yoshi314]

yeah, they should ask something like "where do you wake up next morning after the day ati releases next mediocre fglrx version?" next time an nvidia employee interviev comes up.

[ageha]

AMDs own site advertises nVidia products
http://shop.amd.com/gb-en/promos/nvi...dia_promo/mod1

"Ground-breaking graphics and media solutions from NVIDIA give you a better computing experience..."

[fanATic]

After months of struggle with ati drivers and linux distros,I switch back to xp crap (not for long ). And what i get? New 7.8 drivers supplied with "Free games offer" and "Steam" adware.And this:

Could not load assembly...NET framework catalyst issue

I don't care if drivers are open or not. I expect them to work. Nvidia is way it's meant to be played. They have drivers even for BSD's and Solaris. And ATi can't make linux drivers? Did I expect to much from them? So what's next. In the end of this year, ATi will propably put AIGLX and also R600 support (maybe ). The truth is ATI don't know how to make drivers. This is same old story from them. This is last ATi card (1950pro)in my computer. Did I tell how is screen scrambled on some distros (Pardus linux) on boot? This is not an issue with nvidia cards.ATi will allways be number two.AMD need to do something, before it would be to late.But I am not so surprised for all that linux stuff.Xbox360 got ATi chip.Vista drivers is more important than some linux drivers. If they want to loose linux market, it's their (ATi,and now AMD "dumber choice")problem.

[Michael]

The truth is ATI don't know how to make drivers. This is same old story from them. This is last ATi card (1950pro)in my computer. Did I tell how is screen scrambled on some distros (Pardus linux) on boot? This is not an issue with nvidia cards.ATi will allways be number two.AMD need to do something, before it would be to late.But I am not so surprised for all that linux stuff.Xbox360 got ATi chip.Vista drivers is more important than some linux drivers. If they want to loose linux market, it's their (ATi,and now AMD "dumber choice")problem.

Your comments about ATI not knowing how to make a driver simply isn't the case. It is not the developers themselves who are causing the problems but upper-management at ATI/AMD.

You may be surprised how long this new driver has been in development, since at the same time they have had to continue maintaining the existing driver with monthly releases.

Additional comments will be revealed in our articles on the new driver later this year.

[fanATic]

Your comments about ATI not knowing how to make a driver simply isn't the case. It is not the developers themselves who are causing the problems but upper-management at ATI/AMD.

You may be surprised how long this new driver has been in development, since at the same time they have had to continue maintaining the existing driver with monthly releases.

Additional comments will be revealed in our articles on the new driver later this year.

I am aware of that.But I cannot forget great nVIDIA detonator drivers, they were somehow the reason for ATi's response for making something like Catalyst, if I am not mistaken.But all is moving to slow,to damn slow. And you got that right. This is not the first time that upper-management fatso's are making bad moves. Not to mention PR-marketing scum. Something have to be done, very quickly.

They are "reviewing Linux strategy".Give me a break.Only idiot can't be aware of loosing market.They still think it's 90's ? And GNU/linux is not big player in business? It's their call, maybe they won't like to be in Dell laptops with Ubuntu. But the biggest looser would be AMD.They spend big money for getting ATi.I don't think it's good idea to behave like that after all.Somebody need to be fired for bad strategy if you ask me. This is computer business, everything is happening fast.You cannot be slow.Be quick or be dead.

[Svartalf]

Your comments about ATI not knowing how to make a driver simply isn't the case. It is not the developers themselves who are causing the problems but upper-management at ATI/AMD.

Yep. It's the upper management. More from the old-guard from ATI than AMD.

You may be surprised how long this new driver has been in development, since at the same time they have had to continue maintaining the existing driver with monthly releases.

I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Additional comments will be revealed in our articles on the new driver later this year.

I can only hope you're right on the delivery date- for ATI/AMD's sake, more than anything else. They cannot afford a lackluster save at this point and that would be what getting something usable out this year would constitute. Anything other than a largely usable driver will hurt them worse than they already have at this point.

[ageha]

Yeah, the day I realised their Windows XP drivers are relying on Microsoft's .NET framework I lost the hope. Why do they force me to install that if I want you use their control center? I don't care whose fault it is, in the end it's the entire company. They can produce the finest silicon but without proper software it's just overpriced junk.

How long did it take them to develope the R600? 2 years, 3 years, 4 years? I mean that should be enougth to develope great drivers... Anyway it doesn't really matter because their biggest competier proves it's doable.