A Revived Linux Driver To Be Attempted For The ATI RAGE 128

[kpedersen]

wizard69, I agree completely with all that. We are in a very poor state of affairs. But given no other alternative, something is going to have to be produced. Unless the FOSS world just gives up and puts its mind to growing potatoes.

That said, fabricating something we see as modern today will be extremely hard but going all the way back to basic (which my first post was about) and fabricating something akin to the Apple II era hardware, is a lot more realistic. And if nothing else is available for the FOSS community, I can absolutely guarantee we will all be using it. Perhaps as a hobby at first but given time (20-30 years?), it will enter the industry as a whole. But once it does... I believe that will spell the end for anything proprietary as far as software and hardware goes.

In any event iPhone is only locked down to a certain degree. As a developer i can load whatever i want on the machine that makes sense on the platform..

You can't just load it on. You need to request a device specific provisioning profile. So you need access to their servers, internet, DRM and all that crooked stuff.

If they shut down their servers (or for that specific version of your device)... it is effectively bricked. An ancient ATI Rage 128 that is working, is far more useful than a bricked iPhone, no matter which way you look at it.

[Apopas]

Say what you will, but those rage 128s are like cockroaches. There's every chance they'll be the last GPUs in the world after the bombs fall.

You'll be glad to have the driver's then

I laughed so hard, I spat spittle and snot all over my Ultrasharp monitor that is not so sharp anymore. Hahaha kudoz bro
...

[rene]

If crap did indeed hit the fan i really doubt many would be worried about their computers. People in the cities would be wiped out. At best a few farmers in the country would survive and it wouldnt be easy for them.

I really don't see that happening. Frankly streaming is a terrible solution for reliable computing. Second there will never be enough bandwidth.

Baloney! As long as unlocked hardware exist it makes good sense to keep your systems current technology wise.


This is more ignorance than i can rational believe comes from someone familiar with computing hardware. First off many of us are buying iPhones because they are locked down. After all a cell phone is a critical communications device for many of us.

Beyond that you cant seriously compare hardware from the days of DOS with a modern cell phones hardware. The hardware in the iPhone runs rings around most of the hardware I've ever owned. That goes all the way back to a Vic 20. It is certainly faster than the Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and even the first NT machine i had and far better than those machine when i installed Linux from that era. I might also remind you that iOS is an OS lightyears ahead of what DOS was or even those early Windows variants.

In any event iPhone is only locked down to a certain degree. As a developer i can load whatever i want on the machine that makes sense on the platform. If i want i can make an app a free download on app store for everybody to download. If a developer follows Apples guidelines, anybody that downloads an app store app has a certain degree of confidence that the App will not compromise their iPhone. You can call that locked down but for many of us it is a bit of security.

In anyevent the point here is that whining about locked down hardware is nonsense if that is what the customer wants. This especially when unlocked hardware is freely available. The sky isn't falling yet so lets not claim it is.

what a nonsense, a "locked" down iPhone does not make it more secure, only makes sure you need to give Apple money and control. And you can also not "easily" retrofit it with Linux when you wish, in a year or two. E.g. for tinkering for embedded use or whatnot. Guess what is more secure, a locked down Windows, or an open source Linux, ..? hm ;-)

[Leopard]

Dudes , chill out


That is one guy , who is not related to AMD or any other company ; clearly doing this work without searching for real benefit and doing this because he is simply interested in to do it. Maybe because he is enjoying it?

That is just a simple showcase of how beautiful is open source ; you can do whatever you want. Even if it means trying to improve a stone age era gpu.

[audir8]

This really shows the strength of open source and the community. Some sort of a HardwareDB like Wine's AppDB would be great for showing interest in open drivers for old hardware and helping developers develop them. I have a Rage 128 and an R300 , even old scanners, a printer or two that would all work with AGP and USB connectivity if drivers existed. AGP is old, but quite usable if you have it paired with a dual-core processor as a low-end desktop.

Edit: So at the bottom he says he should have commit access to push his changes, seems like xorg's move to gitlab should help in this regard.

[oiaohm]

It does look fancy but seems to req. a lot more circuitry than PCI<-2->PCIe solutions. And:
"Requires driver installation"
This made me a little afraid. I might check the kernel config for options, if I can find something there. Moreover - will this work on all mainboards already on low level?

It is a lot more complex if you want performance. Due to agp being a lot faster and lot more complex item to convert. There are groups that have done agp back to old original pci as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8sYzOmoPoY might be a better option with Linux ie PCI 2 PCIe with a agp graphics card in a PCI converter in that. Of course doing this performance of the agp card is going to be stuffed by pci bandwidth limitations.

Basically there there are ways to hook an AGP to a modern motherboard. Question is 1 or 2 adaptors and is performance important and does it suit the OS you are using. All paths basic vesa works so that bios works. If you can get any acceleration out the AGP card that is another problem. Of course old graphics card new windows old drivers to support graphics card will not install of course.

[coder]

True but ~r600 is still extremely complex to jump into the deep-end with. When the crap hits the fan, we really will need to start from scratch and build our way up again. It is going to be horrible!

Plus, I don't think modern GPUs will exist for the consumer to buy. I think you will have to stream everything to and from the "cloud". I would take a slower card over that any day, especially when offline haha.

Once the digital world locks itself down and regresses enough, the old stuff wont actually be at too much of a disadvantage. A good comparison is that even to this very day, you can achieve so much more productivity on Windows 3.1 or *DOS than you can on a locked down iOS.

Cool fantasy, I guess.

So, in this dystopian future you inhabit, will you even be able to connect your home-built VGA cards to any display devices? Or are you hoarding CRT monitors, also?

IMO, instead of assuming what's an easy starting point, why not ask a hardware design engineer? There's a lot of junk in old cards that no longer makes sense, even if you were just building a GPU on a FPGA. Anyway, if you don't care about performance, modern GPUs aren't so hard to build.

[coder]

I still have a «brand new» pair of AGP ATi Radeon 200/300 video cards just before the period they get bought by AMD,

...because GPUs age like fine wine.

but no AGP motherboard available.

...makes them kind of useless, no?

[coder]

First off many of us are buying iPhones because they are locked down. After all a cell phone is a critical communications device for many of us.

And the credibility score of @wizard96 is now 0.

Do you also live somewhere that has foam padding on all corners, forbids scissors and knives, and won't let anyone enter or leave? I hear all of those things can be dangerous.

[coder]

That is one guy , who is not related to AMD or any other company ; clearly doing this work without searching for real benefit and doing this because he is simply interested in to do it. Maybe because he is enjoying it?

Um... I think this thread veered off into weeds some time ago.

The subject is now alternating between wizard69 and kpedersen 's paranoid fantasies of the future and present, respectively. It's only oiaohm and Adarion who are still talking about obsolete hardware.