ARK Logic X.Org Driver Sees 2023 Update For 90's PCI Video Card

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ARK Logic X.Org Driver Sees 2023 Update For 90's PCI Video Card

A week after seeing X.Org display driver updates for old Trident and S3 Graphics hardware, a new release of xf86-video-ark is now available that provides the open-source UMS display driver support for old ARK Logic hardware. ARK Logic only lasted through the 1990's as a purveyor of PCI video cards...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/xf86-video-ark-0.7.6

[schmidtbag]

Just let it die already... I know personal anecdotes don't mean much, but ARK GPUs are some of the very few I've never encountered anywhere. So, why are we continuing to support a 30 year old device that wasn't popular even when it was new?

[Lycanthropist]

Just let it die already... I know personal anecdotes don't mean much, but ARK GPUs are some of the very few I've never encountered anywhere. So, why are we continuing to support a 30 year old device that wasn't popular even when it was new?

The code being there doesn't hurt anyone.

[kpedersen]

but ARK GPUs are some of the very few I've never encountered anywhere.

Never too late to catch up on missed experience.

And now with these updates, the experience you do have will be the best yet

(Although I am quite a fan of old shite and strangely I have never had one of these cards either.)

[schmidtbag]

The code being there doesn't hurt anyone.

Actually it kinda does, in the sense that it has to be maintained. One of the reasons for Wayland's existence is because of older technology holding back newer devices.

Never too late to catch up on missed experience.

And now with these updates, the experience you do have will be the best yet

(Although I am quite a fan of old shite and strangely I have never had one of these cards either.)

But that's the thing - if I wanted the "old shite experience", I'd rather have an old kernel and distro to go with it. And even then, I'd rather have something like a Riva, Rage, or Voodoo card, since at least then the user experience is somewhat enjoyable.

[kpedersen]

But that's the thing - if I wanted the "old shite experience", I'd rather have an old kernel and distro to go with it.

Yeah makes sense. Though I don't believe there are any "old kernel" forks that have gained much momentum. Perhaps if they were, this driver would have ended up in there instead?

[caligula]

The code being there doesn't hurt anyone.

Actually it does. UMS is a significant attack vector. Should be disabled completely.

[syrjala]

Ah, ARK2000PV brings back some memories. Bought my first Pentium machine with a Diamond Stealth64 explicitly because I knew S3 to have decent support in XFree86. But to my dismay the marketing people had already taken over Diamond's product naming team and they had started to sell Stealth64s with both S3 and ARK chips. Naturally I got the wrong one and XF86_SVGA didn't yet have support for it. Fortunately the support did materialize eventually, but it was a bit of a rough entry to the Pentium era for me.

[mangeek]

I messed around with a lot of hardware back in the day; I don't think I ever had an ARK GPU.

[Lycanthropist]

Actually it does. UMS is a significant attack vector. Should be disabled completely.

Nobody forces you to use it if you think it's to insecure for you.