There Might Be An Open PowerVR Driver In Q3'11

[libv]

Is there any hope that this new driver might support the Kyro\Kyro 2 cards?? Cause I still use a Kyro 2 64MB card for my PC at the office and the driver they provide is only compatible for 2.4 kernels and XFree 4.3.
I remember back at those days I used to have a Mandrake 9.2 and the card was working almost full featured. But Kernel 2.6 released at the time ST micro was abandoning its Kyro graphic chips although there where a lot of rumors at that time that they were preparing a big hit for nvidia with the never released Kyro 3 cards. And because of that story we see since then the grande dipole or the race of 2 competitors which certainly is not as good for us as if there was the PowerVR side in the game with ST and Imtec not just make cellphone tiny graphic cards but fullfledged 3D graphics cards like they used to do.
It would be ideal for me to install a modern linux distro at my office PC and I cannot understand how difficult is to make the old 2.4 Kyro driver work for 2.6 Kernels?? I mean there is already the code, it just needs the modifications, or am I wrong here and needs to be rewritten from scratch with ST's licence and all of these legal stuff??

There has been at least one PVR generation between the kyro's and the SGX, and this was called the MBX. So you can pretty much forget it.

Those cards are about 10 years old. As far as most of the driver developers at X.org work today, you should be glad when a 5y old card works already and still, at the same time. I guess you will be much better off picking a 10EUR radeon off of ebay or so.

[libv]

What I would not mind seeing would be the tech data like AMD has provided, more than anything else. Yes, I know that this would be a long, time consuming process like it's been with the AMD parts, but we're now beginning to see the fruits thereof. If they can Open their drivers or portions thereof to kick-start the process, great. If not, don't put other impediments in the way like they've done in the past.

All it's going to take in this space is ONE player doing like AMD has done to change the landscape. There's a couple on the 1.1 ES end of the market that're toying with the idea right now. It's their choice.

You do remember that i was one of the guys who wrote the original proposal to AMD, and that i was one of the guys writing/fighting for the radeonhd driver at the time. And you do remember the crap politics and games played around this, and how little of the original intentions remain today.

In any case, if anyone is known to make such things happen, it's me. And that part of Nokia that i work for is on that line too, and we are pushing as hard as we can to get as much as we can. But sadly the situation currently is not the same as when AMD bought that almost bankrupt little graphics card maker, filled with people who didn't want to change their old ways, for more than it could afford.

[djdoo]

There has been at least one PVR generation between the kyro's and the SGX, and this was called the MBX. So you can pretty much forget it.

Those cards are about 10 years old. As far as most of the driver developers at X.org work today, you should be glad when a 5y old card works already and still, at the same time. I guess you will be much better off picking a 10EUR radeon off of ebay or so.

Well if you find an 10 euro AGP card let me know but I also don't want to change my Kyro card for that PC because it fully covers its usage needs and more. I do office jobs, I surf the net, I watch dvd's, I even play old 3D games or even newer less demanding, works without glitches, so why change it?
I just want to install linux there along with the XP and without a driver even for 2D I cannot do it, cause for those cards there is not even a 2D opensource driver whereas at 2.4 kernels the old driver could do miracles compared to ATI those days (or even one year ago!).

[chithanh]

Search eBay for Radeon 9500 or Radeon 9550 and you will get cards for less than 10 EUR. 9600 sells for 15-20 EUR. Occasionally you will see a X700 AGP for little money too.