Radeon HD 7000 Series Linux Driver Support

[bridgman]

The ones that were just canceled?

No.

That's the turnaround time in doing work behind closed-doors first, then clearing AMD's legal review, publishing of the hardware enablement code and other features, and then repeating the process. Unlike Intel, AMD doesn't publicly work on their next-generation open-source driver support code. They push when it's ready and when the higher-ups tell them that it's okay.

Actually I was talking more about the fact that it usually takes as much or more work to get a new 3D engine up and running with any kind of acceleration than it does to go from "OK, I guess it runs but it looks awful" to "hey, it works pretty well".

[gpuhackr]

HD 7xxx ISA manual

Just out of curiosity anyone here know when the ISA manual and 3D register reference will be released for the upcoming vector 7xxx series?

[Drago]

Just out of curiosity anyone here know when the ISA manual and 3D register reference will be released for the upcoming vector 7xxx series?

Most likely after the chips start shipping, and initial FOSS support lands in the kernel/mesa.

[dacresbu]

help with linux graphics drivers

where do start with linux graphics driver dev? what kind of science (compiler theory?) or math (linear algebra?) do I need to know to help? I can't seem to find any documentation between register guides and diagrams.

[smitty3268]

where do start with linux graphics driver dev? what kind of science (compiler theory?) or math (linear algebra?) do I need to know to help? I can't seem to find any documentation between register guides and diagrams.

It depends on what parts you want to work on.

If you're looking to work on the OpenGL Mesa side of things, the devs have said you mainly need to be very familiar with OpenGL. Create some 3D apps, make sure you understand how that API works, and you should be able to dive right in. Compiler theory and matrix math is probably very helpful background, but if you can create some non-trivial OpenGL apps you probably know enough to work on Mesa.

If you're looking more at enabling features in the hardware, that's more likely to be inside the kernel and is tougher to get started in. You should probably look at a few of the simpler kernel drivers, maybe try submitting a patch or 2 for another driver first, something simpler than graphics. Once you get the hang of kernel development, working with the gpus isn't much different than any other piece of hardware.

[dacresbu]

thank you

thanks, this is enlightening. perhaps a usb driver? I had this idea to make a "target disk mode" for linux. that would require making a computer behave like a slave type usb device (usb is slave/master pattern protocol right?) Theres documentation for making usb drivers for interfacing with usb devices but I cant find docs for making usb linux devices to serve content via usb.