Radeon HD 5850 with Radeon OSS success

[FunkyRider]

Got a piece of Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 yesterday and had some test.

Ubuntu Maverick x64 in default only supports KMS and no XV, no EXA, on OpenGL, no PowerSaving

Added xorg-edgers to repository and did an update, all works!

KMS: works
XV: works, tear free video playback
EXA: works
OpenGL: works, v-synced Compiz and simple GL applications, WebGL on Chromium, some texture corruptions though
PowerSave: works, echoing "low" to /sys/class/drm/0/power/power_profile results in card drop to 175 Core, 300 Mem, 0.95v and dead silent
Temperature via LM-Sensors: works, getting GPU temp idling at 45C

I am overall very happy with the result. Open source driver with almost* everything I want on an Evergreen GPU. Good work!

Almost = OpenGL is still very minimally supported but for the timeframe I couldn't ask for more I guess.

[FunkyRider]

At first I was not sure whether getting an Evergreen at this stage will give me any usable desktop but this page enlighten me:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

Only HD 6000 is not supported at this stage.

[FunkyRider]

It's not so hard to understand if you have dozens of cards in your hand. And let's not take it personally okay?

[FunkyRider]

Oh bugger, I DO have to install the 2.6.36 kernel too! forgot mentioning that.

The pre-built 2.6.36 Ubuntu kernel can be grabbed from here directly: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...6.36-maverick/

HD 5000 users using Ubuntu, give it a try, you won't be disappointed

[Mr James]

Oh bugger, I DO have to install the 2.6.36 kernel too! forgot mentioning that.

The pre-built 2.6.36 Ubuntu kernel can be grabbed from here directly: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa...6.36-maverick/

HD 5000 users using Ubuntu, give it a try, you won't be disappointed

Until you try to fire up a game.

[crazycheese]

Almost = OpenGL is still very minimally supported but for the timeframe I couldn't ask for more I guess.

Exactly. OpenGL opensource stack is delivering 1/6 of card possiblities at best.

Right now, when you buy AMD card, you pay for windows driver development.

There is no way of signaling them "Hey, I use opensource, please put my money from driver percentage from card cost to opensorce team, hire more developers".

[crazycheese]

there is a s3tc sourcecode to.

Sourcecode? I only know there is a binary library flying around the internets so far. Source code for libs3tc?

[xiando]

Exactly. OpenGL opensource stack is delivering 1/6 of card possiblities at best.

Right now, when you buy AMD card, you pay for windows driver development.

There is no way of signaling them "Hey, I use opensource, please put my money from driver percentage from card cost to opensorce team, hire more developers".

I do agree that

a) The OpenGL support in the free drivers is poor at best
b) AMD could and should spend more money on free driver development
c)

I do feel an immense desire to point out that:

a) RedHat contribes a whole lot to kernel development in general and driver development.
b) Ubuntu contribes nothing to any major project and in many cases only make precompiled packages (no source) available for their supposedly GPL addons
c) If Ubuntu had contributed anything near what RedHat does then we'd be alot better off
d) If Ubuntu had contributed as much as RedHat compared to their market share then we'd be doing great.

I'm just saying that if the major distros actually decided to work as much upstream as RAT (which fell 5% today for some reason) then AMD could probably dump the documentation and chill out with a cup of tea and we wouldn't need them to submit any code at all.

[Mr James]

Exactly. OpenGL opensource stack is delivering 1/6 of card possiblities at best.

Right now, when you buy AMD card, you pay for windows driver development.

There is no way of signaling them "Hey, I use opensource, please put my money from driver percentage from card cost to opensorce team, hire more developers".

Every now and then somebosy comes along and posts somethig valuable. I salute you.

[Mr James]

I do agree that

a) The OpenGL support in the free drivers is poor at best
b) AMD could and should spend more money on free driver development
c)

I do feel an immense desire to point out that:

a) RedHat contribes a whole lot to kernel development in general and driver development.
b) Ubuntu contribes nothing to any major project and in many cases only make precompiled packages (no source) available for their supposedly GPL addons
c) If Ubuntu had contributed anything near what RedHat does then we'd be alot better off
d) If Ubuntu had contributed as much as RedHat compared to their market share then we'd be doing great.

I'm just saying that if the major distros actually decided to work as much upstream as RAT (which fell 5% today for some reason) then AMD could probably dump the documentation and chill out with a cup of tea and we wouldn't need them to submit any code at all.

Directly, Ubuntu has done nothing for FOSS or the community as a whole but rather Ubuntu itself. Thier new font which is very nice is called Ubuntu. I'd like to see a Debian user installing a font called Ubuntu...
Undirectly, Ubuntu has brought people to Linux and this is what will eventually sway things in our favor.

Besides that, I hate Ubuntu - stability and being free of bugs is king with me. They never give you a bug fix but rather hold until the next release which will replace old bugs with shiny new ones.