ATi Support on infinityOS

[Armin]

Perhaps, ATi should make their drivers (both the Radeon drivers and flgrx) available on a Launchpad PPA to make it easier for users to update to the latest versions of their drivers.

https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

here is the repo u were asking for. This repo is btw not exactly a recent invention ... :-)

[darkphoenix22]

The drivers are open source so distros can (and do) roll their own updates. The proprietary driver installer includes package builder scripts for a number of different distros.

I honestly believe ideally that developers should handle packaging their drivers/software and testing.

Distributions should be focused on making sure the ensemble works and making it as easy as possible for developers to package their work.

I realize that this is a complete 360* from the system is currently used with Linux, but I feel that my semi-rolling release system will end up being much better for both users and developers. It allows for users and developers to directly talk to each other, instead of having to go through a middleman distribution.

[darkphoenix22]

https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

here is the repo u were asking for. This repo is btw not exactly a recent invention ... :-)

Do I have to update all of xorg to use the latest drivers on that PPA though? I was about to try out that PPA but decided not to for that reason.

I can't ask my users to update their xorg-server or to use an untested beta version of it as it is such a core part of the OS. The Nvidia VDPAU drivers available on their PPA work on the base Karmic install, same with the versions of network-manager and ALSA I include in testing-drivers.

[bridgman]

If all distros used the same packaging system I think that could work, and might even be an improvement on the current system.

Today, however, that is going to be a really tough sell since distros use a variety of packaging systems, each with their own quirks, each evolving independently, and don't even put their files and folders in the same location.

The value-add of a distribution is exactly what you want to avoid - eliminating the MxN explosion of developers-to-user interaction on distro-specific issues.

[Armin]

Do I have to update all of xorg to use the latest drivers on that PPA though? I was about to try out that PPA but decided not to for that reason.

I have no clue. I don't use Ubuntu, I use Archlinux which is a rolling release distribution! But with Arch it worked quite fine to only update kernel, libdrm, radeon and mesa (just for the record: the whole mesa stack, I used a hand made PKGBUILD).

BTW, you should take a look at Archlinux. This distri has already all the benefits u advertise with your distri, but without the struggle of using Ubuntu and it's ppas as a somewhat of a middlelayer. Arch also ships the long term support (LTS) kernel as an option if u prefere that.
Just a hint and without warranty.

[darkphoenix22]

I have no clue. I don't use Ubuntu, I use Archlinux which is a rolling release distribution! But with Arch it worked quite fine to only update kernel, libdrm, radeon and mesa (just for the record: the whole mesa stack, I used a hand made PKGBUILD).

BTW, you should take a look at Archlinux. This distri has already all the benefits u advertise with your distri, but without the struggle of using Ubuntu and it's ppas as a somewhat of a middlelayer. Arch also ships the long term support (LTS) kernel as an option if u prefere that.
Just a hint and without warranty.

Actually, after double checking that PPA, you do have to update everything, which is unreasonable for an end user. I can not and will not ever ask my users to upgrade core components of their OS, such as xorg and the kernel.

I probably will try Arch eventually. But my main concern is giving my end users the bug fixes and new features available in the newest versions of the ATi software. Putting up a Launchpad PPA for all Ubuntu/Ubuntu-based distros to use would help emmensely with this.

[jrch2k8]

my advices would be:

1.) tag any support for Ati as experimental very big in your site for now
2.) make the packages yourself in case you want to avoid core dependencies upgrades to unstable version, i do it every 15 days and is very easy men. aka you can git mesa, ddx, drm thats all you need

about tag ati as experimental i think is needed, cuz well see this list from my latest testing 2 days ago.

OSS

* excelent uber 2d
* almost perfect video playing
* nice enough composite desktop
- slow or missing 3D for now in some cards

FGLRX

- better 2d accel but still not good as nvidia or intel/radeon
- all sort of video play issues (tested with Xv, all sort of GL output and va-api)
* better optimized 3D
- hard as hell to use with wine for gaming. aka most games that works perfectly with nvidia fails or have serious glitches with fglrx (several threads about this around just dig a bit, so far seems 50/50 wine and fglrx issue)
- fglrx for some reason crash with sigsegv many wine 2d apps too randomly (i still can't make flash cs4 works like in nvidia or radeon drivers )
- lots of straces around in dmesg too (not as many as before but i still get a bunch of fails but the driver recovers almost always, so beside some black frames for some second it feels more stable"ish")
- a really weird acpi behavior, all the machines i tested with fglrx stop hibernating correctly and shuting down properly (aka take ages to shutdown like 8mins)
- fglrx provoke some issues with ndiswrapper in 2 of my systems, so i need to pass acpi=noirq to get both to work, not sure whos faults it is here
- savages 2 latest update render fine and fast but with fglrx the sound gets corrupted, just switching to my old 8800gtx with the blob and the audio is perfect again in the game
- EVE online is giving me headaches too, need more testing to be sure is fglrx
* crossfire can be turned in x2 cards now without a big fat hang up, not as fast as windows version but well at least i dont have 3200 cores only as a heating device
* opencl implementation is still very alpha, but that is announced when you download the sdk so no problem there

well those are the important enough, so with any choose you take here, you will get a poor support in one area or another. maybe the smartest choice should be to wait your next release or q4 this year to include full support for ati in your distro. i think in q4 the gl implementation in the OSS drivers should be very usable and fglrx maybe more close to nvidia perhaps

[darkphoenix22]

If all distros used the same packaging system I think that could work, and might even be an improvement on the current system.

Today, however, that is going to be a really tough sell since distros use a variety of packaging systems, each with their own quirks, each evolving independently, and don't even put their files and folders in the same location.

The value-add of a distribution is exactly what you want to avoid - eliminating the MxN explosion of developers-to-user interaction on distro-specific issues.

I think Ubuntu and its derivatives have at least 50% market share for Linux distributions at this point. So putting up a Launchpad PPA would allow you to reach 50% of your market .

My main concern with my distribution is to ensure the core OS and default install is bulletproof. I will add additional software my repos (such as Texmaker or Firefox), make it works and give it a general run through, but nothing more. My goal is to bring the idea of the iTunes App Store, and its testing and distribution methods (perhaps not so much the cost aspect ), to the Linux repository.

My users should never have to go to an external site to get software, or update it to the latest versions. It should all be handled internally by the OS by its package system, for usability and security reasons.

[darkphoenix22]

my advices would be:

1.) tag any support for Ati as experimental very big in your site for now
2.) make the packages yourself in case you want to avoid core dependencies upgrades to unstable version, i do it every 15 days and is very easy men. aka you can git mesa, ddx, drm thats all you need

about tag ati as experimental i think is needed, cuz well see this list from my latest testing 2 days ago.

OSS

* excelent uber 2d
* almost perfect video playing
* nice enough composite desktop
- slow or missing 3D for now in some cards

FGLRX

- better 2d accel but still not good as nvidia or intel/radeon
- all sort of video play issues (tested with Xv, all sort of GL output and va-api)
* better optimized 3D
- hard as hell to use with wine for gaming. aka most games that works perfectly with nvidia fails or have serious glitches with fglrx (several threads about this around just dig a bit, so far seems 50/50 wine and fglrx issue)
- fglrx for some reason crash with sigsegv many wine 2d apps too randomly (i still can't make flash cs4 works like in nvidia or radeon drivers )
- lots of straces around in dmesg too (not as many as before but i still get a bunch of fails but the driver recovers almost always, so beside some black frames for some second it feels more stable"ish")
- a really weird acpi behavior, all the machines i tested with fglrx stop hibernating correctly and shuting down properly (aka take ages to shutdown like 8mins)
- fglrx provoke some issues with ndiswrapper in 2 of my systems, so i need to pass acpi=noirq to get both to work, not sure whos faults it is here
- savages 2 latest update render fine and fast but with fglrx the sound gets corrupted, just switching to my old 8800gtx with the blob and the audio is perfect again in the game
- EVE online is giving me headaches too, need more testing to be sure is fglrx
* crossfire can be turned in x2 cards now without a big fat hang up, not as fast as windows version but well at least i dont have 3200 cores only as a heating device
* opencl implementation is still very alpha, but that is announced when you download the sdk so no problem there

well those are the important enough, so with any choose you take here, you will get a poor support in one area or another. maybe the smartest choice should be to wait your next release or q4 this year to include full support for ati in your distro. i think in q4 the gl implementation in the OSS drivers should be very usable and fglrx maybe more close to nvidia perhaps

I put up a FAQ on my site detailing the ATi support. It doesn't go into much detail or specifics though as its intended as an overview (though it does cover much of what you said). To be as transparent as possible, I also linked to this thread. My policy with my users is full disclosure whenever possible.

https://answers.launchpad.net/infinityos/+faq/1041

[bridgman]

So here's the problem - it sounds like you don't really want "the bug fixes and new features available in the newest versions of the ATi software" since that requires a kernel driver update as well. Ubuntu does want that and so they are picking up *all* of the changes including a new kernel driver and moving from user modesetting to kernel modesetting.

What you really seem to want is a cherry-picked *subset* of the new features, focusing only on the ones your distro needs. That's not what Ubuntu are doing - they are keeping the existing functionality for Karmic and moving to all new functionality with Lucid.

So... do you really want the same as Ubuntu ? It sounds like you want something significantly different.