Standard Radeon vs. fglrx

[gsnoorky]

Getting fglrx to work on newer Radeon graphics cards (newer than the 9800 level) is increasing in the hassle factor. On the other hand, ATi makes it painfully clear that older cards aren't supported for fglrx at all in the newer distros (9.04+)--the convenient ol' "phase out of support." The 9.10 (Karmic), community-supported "valid" version only allows one resolution, 640X480, for my 4550....

I hate to say this: The traditional Linux techies really can't resort to dismissing such issues anymore. Their convenient "Pontius Pilate" response--washing their hands of proprietary driver issues--is annoying and insulting. The standard driver is so clumsy, stupid, and laughable that it's ignored by most of us who use Radeons--it's simply a flawed stepping stone to fglrx. Really, fglrx is essential for most "modern" Radeon cards. Dismissing it as inferior--and not deserving of any attention--insults our collective intelligence, right?!

I think developers should make certain that key issues in the usable video driver area are fixed and ready for the next version before releasing new distro versions--why so many new releases anyway (Yippee!)? What good are upgrades in other areas if we can't see them or even the screen? Maybe developers should "key" distro versions to Radeon, nVidia, and other (modern) video chipset cards: Developers act like video and graphics aren't very important. Unfortunately, they're key: Such issues generally are far more important than the other stuff they work on.

If Linus Torvalds on down hate proprietary software so much, why do they let Cyberlink sell software in order to get past codec and DRM issues? (At least that's true on Ubuntu.) We may end up paying for decent video drivers and support--maybe it's worth it. (I see a slippery slope.) It's clear that the Linux techies really can't deal with this effectively....

[Hephasteus]

User mode setting is leaving. Kernel mode setting is coming in. It's alot of work. Proprietary drivers are being abandoned. Sucking ways to use the GPU is being sucked into the kernel like a vaccuum cleaner. Direct compute, or linux's version, OpenCL doesn't happen till this happens. It sucks. We're smack dab in the middle of it. There's a bout a billion things that happen on this planet every day that serve no higher purpose at all. Haiti releif is being stolen. People are dying to protect buttheads because they can't understand gang dynamics. Of all the stupid moronic things going on in the world. This switchover in how linux works is NOT one of them.
It came from where it came from. It's going to where it's going. Either roll back to an old linux and live in the past and then jump in when the pools ready or don't. Nobody is forcing you to run the latest version of whatever linux distro you are using. Go back to fedora 10 and proprietary drivers or Ubuntu 9 and come back when you want to.

[yotambien]

Grmph, OK

\ /

PS. I'll see you in the main street when the sun touches the mountain.

[pingufunkybeat]

I have something to say!

You're doing something terribly wrong

[yotambien]

Haha, you sound pathetic now, reaching for straws. There was no otehr outcome, was it? Look, since you run out of arguments, I left a typo for you to chew on.

You don't impress me calling me names, but it gets boring. Please wake me up when you have something to say.

[pingufunkybeat]

A masterful troll! This is fun!

Your efforts to justify yourself, now just limited to the resolution problem (glad to see you backing down), demonstrate that you perfectly understand what hypocrite means and why I'm calling you so. But you keep failing, unless you honestly find astonishing that somebody may have this sort of issues with a modern card, running a yet-to-be-finished driver that, in your own experience, couldn't handle a 10 years old game engine. Your implicit admission of actually knowing about resolution problems with the driver doesn't score you points though.

And STILL none of this would make me a hypocrite

QuakeLive was released in 2009 and uses an upgraded engine, BTW. It's exactly this upgrade that made it slow. The 10-year old Quake3 engine was one of the first things that worked on the free driver.

But the fact that you don't know this doesn't make you a hypocrite. It simply makes you ignorant

[yotambien]

Your efforts to justify yourself, now just limited to the resolution problem (glad to see you backing down), demonstrate that you perfectly understand what hypocrite means and why I'm calling you so. But you keep failing, unless you honestly find astonishing that somebody may have this sort of issues with a modern card, running a yet-to-be-finished driver that, in your own experience, couldn't handle a 10 years old game engine. Your implicit admission of actually knowing about resolution problems with the driver doesn't score you points though.

[pingufunkybeat]

I was surprised that he couldn't get any resolution other than 640x480 using the free driver. Because this is a very rare condition, and one that has been fixed in git a long time ago. So he was doing something wrong

I wasn't surprised that he wasn't playing QuakeLive or Unigine Heaven on it.

There was a huge leap you made there with your knee jerk reaction, and your attempts to rationalise your way out of it are entertaining. Keep them up

I still never professed to hold a belief that I didn't, nor did I expect him to do anything that I'm not willing to do myself. In fact, I expected him to do the exact same thing I am doing -- get the latest driver and show appreciation for the open source developers.

Insulting my education won't make you understand that word better

[yotambien]

Nice try.

I use the open source driver on a HD 4550 and I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

You're doing something terribly wrong.

Linus and the rest of his rant doesn't have anything to do with the part you were replying to. If you use the OSS driver and have absolutely no idea about what he is saying, you are implying that the driver works perfectly for you, to the point that you can not even conceive what he is talking about. Not only that, but given that what is true for you must be true for the rest, the only explanation is that this user is doing something terribly wrong. That's bad enough. However, you did positively know that the OSS driver is under development right now and that you only get certain features or basic support for newer cards by grabbing the latest bits from source. That didn't stop you playing the surprised guy who can't understand how on earth is it possible that it doesn't work for other users. And that's hypocrisy. If you can't see it after reading a couple of times the definition you may want to ask the money back from your secondary school.

[pingufunkybeat]

Yet you have the courage of acting surprised and claim to "have absolutely no idea what [he's] talking about".

He said that the radeon driver doesn't support anything but 640x480 and blamed Linus Torvalds for it. I really had no idea what he was talking about.

Where exactly did I profess beliefs I did not adhere to?

Don't try to wiggle your way out of this by making it into a "nobody's ever had a problem with drivers in Linux" argument and similar strawmen. You didn't know what "hypocrisy" means