Originally posted by Ansla
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Ryan Gordon Criticizes Open-Source Drivers Again
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Originally posted by bridgman View PostYep, that looks right. You'll need one of the distro versions that was around when that driver was released, something like Ubuntu 8.10 would probably be a good bet.
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Originally posted by Sidicas View Post
Try to do a non-destructive install if at all possible - most of the Linux driver testing was on FireGL/FirePRO discrete GPU cards at the time so can't promise it is going to work on every laptop out there - but if you can try it out without losing what you have (or if you were planning to nuke the drive and update anyways ) it might be worth a try.
Also, it's worth reading the install instructions very carefully, including the need to run aticonfig --initial before starting X. There are two different ways to install the driver -- "native installer" or building packages -- and they don't mix very well.
Building a package then installing via your package manager will allow your package manager to know what's going on -- the native installer puts the files in but your package manager won't know anything about it.Last edited by bridgman; 09 August 2011, 07:14 PM.
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Originally posted by bridgman View PostNot sure I agree with your use of the word "still". The X700 was a 2004 product (the last mobility variant came out in Jan 2005 IIRC), and the Catalyst drivers supported it until Apr 2009.
Laptops are frequently a special case because the OEMs often want customized drivers and as a consequence end up deciding that managing driver releases and updates themselves is the way to go, but AFAIK that has historically only applied to Windows drivers. Did you try the later Catalyst Linux drivers from ati.com / amd.com and run into unsolvable problems, or did you only try the OEM-supplied (Windows ?) drivers ?
If there is Mobility X700 Catalyst drivers for Linux, then I've gone 5 years without knowing about it, and you're getting me all excited now..
Edit: Even when I select "Linux" to download the drivers, it wants to send me off to HP's website.. Where there are no Linux drivers.. Any suggestions greatly appreciated..
EDIT: HOLY SMOKES, I found it!
Last edited by Sidicas; 09 August 2011, 06:44 PM.
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Originally posted by Sidicas View PostI didn't mean to suggest it was bad at all.. Having open source drivers is a very great thing to have.. But when it starts getting past 5 or 6 years after the hardware has been manufactured, and the hardware is still not fully supported on a platform, then I think something is wrong.
Laptops are frequently a special case because the OEMs often want customized drivers and as a consequence end up deciding that managing driver releases and updates themselves is the way to go, but AFAIK that has historically only applied to Windows drivers. Did you try the later Catalyst Linux drivers from ati.com / amd.com and run into unsolvable problems, or did you only try the OEM-supplied (Windows ?) drivers ?
IIRC the Omega-modded drivers were Windows only, weren't they ? AFAIK we have always tried to include desktop and mobile consumer device IDs in the Linux drivers although the testing focus has always been on the FireGL/FirePro workstation products (that's where the fglrx name comes from).
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Originally posted by Luke_Wolf View Post+1 Although I already suggested basically the same thing 4 posts above yours. The only real solution to this problem is open source engines, Distros can package the software but eventually it will break, If instead we're running engines and dropping in content, the games will last forever so long as the engine remains up to date. On top of this if the game engine is opensource you don't have to worry about putting in the effort to making it crossplatform, because guess what? It'll do it itself.
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Originally posted by bridgman View PostIn fairness, you don't have viable alternatives to the open source drivers because we are providing support for older hardware through those open source drivers. That said, it's not clear how this suddenly became a bad thing.
The Catalyst drivers are also very great thing to have since it supports all the features, but hardware has fallen through the gaps there, and I don't think that was a good thing as some people do run hardware for a very long time for various reasons and are still waiting for their features..
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Originally posted by blackiwid View PostBut I thought you dont care if your driver is open, then you have more features with newer closed drivers fglrx or windows drivers.
That's interesting thinking though.. What would happen if major game companies came in and put "closed source drivers only" as a requirement to play their games. It's hard to say whether that would be popular or not within the existing Linux community. Some people in the Linux community really care about that kind of thing, while some people don't, so it's very divided..
Originally posted by blackiwid View Post
so why do you then need so hardly higher opengl layers on this laptop just use it for surving and playing movies.btw, the new zacate based systems are great
Yea, I was looking at replacing one of my netbooks with a Zacate.. Would be great for Ubuntu 11.10Last edited by Sidicas; 09 August 2011, 05:24 PM.
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Originally posted by Sidicas View PostCorrect me if I'm wrong, but when I look through the features that Gallium3D supports, I look across and see that even on the new hardware they only support up to OpenGL 2.1.. Which is the same OpenGL level my existing hardware has.. So why buy new hardware if I can't use the features anyway? I've already been in that situation, and don't really see much purpose to go there again..
Originally posted by Sidicas View PostI have tons of other computers for other purposes and appropriate hardware to match what I use them for, some of which are high end PCs but I still use this laptop a lot..
UPDATE:
btw, I did buy a few years ago on ebay a x800 card with 2 dvi outputs, and also played sometimes with matrox cards because I wanted always much digital outputs and opensource drivers and the r300 driver was long time on a better state than the r500 drivers.(or was there another name for it I meand >= x1xxx cards and they were kind of more power efficient I believe. So yes I bought mainly for open source drivers older hardware when I think even x2xxx cards where out. So but because x800 cards did not support some dx9 features with blur or something what nearly each game at this time did use I someday moved on to a newer card and because this opensource drivers gets better.
But now I did stop try to make work all with one computer, I stop trying to get a power-saving and gaming pc in one. I think I will end at with a zacate powersaving pc with digital grafics output maybe a notebook ( lenevo x121e ) for all but gaming. and some kind of a gaming machine, important point is that on both s3 (suspend to ram) works so I can connect both of them on my 26" monitor. the notebook with only linux and the gaming machine only with linux and open drivers. So my dual-boot-system switches os with a 2 second wakeup of the sleep modi and a 1 second switch of the monitor-inputLast edited by blackiwid; 09 August 2011, 04:59 PM.
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In fairness, you don't have viable alternatives to the open source drivers because we are providing support for older hardware through those open source drivers. That said, it's not clear how this suddenly became a bad thing.Last edited by bridgman; 09 August 2011, 04:37 PM.
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