If the AMD proprietary drivers are approaching feature parity with MS platforms, that sounds like good news for that set of Linux/Xorg users.
I admit not having followed the very latest goings-on since I'm not personally comfortable depending on manufacturers for closed-source drivers, although comparing feature sets and performance between Linux and MS platforms may be interesting.
OSS driver support however is what interests me and I'm glad that gains are being made and more older and some recent cards/chipsets have become quite usable under cutting egde settings. Throwing docs out there has certainly helped, but AFAIK Intel's OSS support remains well ahead (although not flawless by any means). The fast-moving graphics tech isn't ideal for purely volunteer-based development without significant input from the manufacturers (and their full-time team who have early access and advantage of grokking the whole ball of hair better).
I do find the following statement quite disheartening.
"The open source drivers are not supposed to replace fglrx, they are supposed to make it easy for distros to offer a great experience when installing..."
If that is AMD's official approach I'm afraid they're missing the actual point of OSS.
That said it'd be interesting to see reviews comparing OSS graphics support (performance, features, power mgmnt etc.) by both Intel (G3x/G4x/HD) and AMD (IGPs and 4xxx/5xxx/? cards) with the straitjacketed Catalyst driver also thrown in.
I admit not having followed the very latest goings-on since I'm not personally comfortable depending on manufacturers for closed-source drivers, although comparing feature sets and performance between Linux and MS platforms may be interesting.
OSS driver support however is what interests me and I'm glad that gains are being made and more older and some recent cards/chipsets have become quite usable under cutting egde settings. Throwing docs out there has certainly helped, but AFAIK Intel's OSS support remains well ahead (although not flawless by any means). The fast-moving graphics tech isn't ideal for purely volunteer-based development without significant input from the manufacturers (and their full-time team who have early access and advantage of grokking the whole ball of hair better).
I do find the following statement quite disheartening.
"The open source drivers are not supposed to replace fglrx, they are supposed to make it easy for distros to offer a great experience when installing..."
If that is AMD's official approach I'm afraid they're missing the actual point of OSS.
That said it'd be interesting to see reviews comparing OSS graphics support (performance, features, power mgmnt etc.) by both Intel (G3x/G4x/HD) and AMD (IGPs and 4xxx/5xxx/? cards) with the straitjacketed Catalyst driver also thrown in.
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