VIA's Linux TODO List... Maybe Look Forward To 2011?

[RobbieAB]

Monopolies usually come into being because most people are convinced they are buying the best they can get for the money they're spending.
It's also like that with Intel netbooks. To buy something else purely because you don't want to support the monopoly is idealistic but foolish.
Buy something else because it is superior technically if you will, otherwise you'll be throwing your money away in my opinion.

Let me see... What did I want the netbook to do...
1) Run Pidgin.
2) Run Firefox.
3) Play music.
4) Run skype.
5) Run a text-editor.

Any machine which can do the above is acceptable. After that, it's all about choice. Yeah, maybe I would have amazing 3D graphics on an Intel netbook, but I don't care much as it's not something I need. For me, the VIA netbook was "good enough" (actually, I have only seen one Intel netbook I would even consider against the one I have, and it fails on the speakers front).

Most people don't want "the best", they want "good enough". A VIA based system may well be "good enough" for many peoples needs. Afterall, look at how many people use Windows? It's clearly not "The Best?"...

[JeanPaul145]

Except that if you have a netbook with a VIA core, you can't change your graphics card easily.

You could just say "Buy intel netbooks" but I personally chose a VIA based netbook specifically because I didn't want to support the monopoly. Given the purpose most VIA cards tend to serve, super special graphics aren't a major issue anyway, it's usable with Mesa, or current openChrome, and anything else is a bonus.

Monopolies usually come into being because most people are convinced they are buying the best they can get for the money they're spending.
It's also like that with Intel netbooks. To buy something else purely because you don't want to support the monopoly is idealistic but foolish.
Buy something else because it is superior technically if you will, otherwise you'll be throwing your money away in my opinion.

[RobbieAB]

People who currently have a VIA gfx card can get an infinitely better experience by spending $30,- on a new gfx card. VIA should just give up chasing dreams - they're not gonna get any serious market share the way they've been going.

Except that if you have a netbook with a VIA core, you can't change your graphics card easily.

You could just say "Buy intel netbooks" but I personally chose a VIA based netbook specifically because I didn't want to support the monopoly. Given the purpose most VIA cards tend to serve, super special graphics aren't a major issue anyway, it's usable with Mesa, or current openChrome, and anything else is a bonus.

[Ant P.]

not so fast. via cards run very well under linux, even better than on windows, so i hear.

That's really not much of an achievement. Last time I used a recent-ish VIA graphics chip in windows it couldn't even render basic OpenGL correctly, let alone at speed.

[L33F3R]

not so fast. via cards run very well under linux, even better than on windows, so i hear.

however if via cannot capture the linux market share, its hard to see what kind of market they have. It doesn't matter how good the nano is, manufactures just wont build nano netbooks. at least not very many. I think via is just falling into the dust. They lack much real innovation recently. In the end these are all opinions - only time can truly tell.

[JeanPaul145]

People who currently have a VIA gfx card can get an infinitely better experience by spending $30,- on a new gfx card. VIA should just give up chasing dreams - they're not gonna get any serious market share the way they've been going.

[bugmenot]

Open Source means more than just writing a driver. You have to update your driver for new kernel / x releases and so it's much work. Without a few developers this is not possible.

Via, you have to hire a few developers or you can give up in the linux marked share. Your closed driver don't work either here. Nobody can take you serious any more and that's bad.

If you are serious then hire luc and a few more devs and let them write in their blogs about what they are working on. Develop your drivers in the public, with a git repository on fd.org. It's clear that releasing documentation is an expensive business and that you don't want to spend much money on this. If it's relly impossible to release specs then only "your" developers can work on your drivers. But that's the only way sucessfull driver development on linux works.

I really hope you do something, although I'm sure you don't will.

[droidhacker]

I don't think I've ever seen a single via graphics device.
Whether they do or do not have open source drivers, does it actually affect anyone AT ALL?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: VIA's Linux TODO List... Maybe Look Forward To 2011?

Nearly two years ago at the Linux Foundation Summit in Austin was VIA's most recent announcement about becoming serious with open-source support. This was not VIA's first time they claimed to back an open-source strategy, which led a number of open-source developers to immediately call VIA's open-source strategy a bluff. To date this still is mostly a bluff, but they have produced some fluff. In 2010 it looks like this will still be the case, but VIA hopes to produce some code by the second half of 2010. This code, however, will likely not appear in most Linux distributions until 2011.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14467