It's Official... ATI going open source

[igknighted]

http://www.linux.com/feature/119049

In four days the code (or at least specs) will be available!

EDIT: Congrats to AMD for turning around ATI. Between this and the most recent drivers and the news of AIGLX coming soon, they have really done a bang up job.

[@trophy]

One step closer to total world domination.

I hope the Dell thing is responsible for this, and I hope ATI is just the first domino to fall...

[timcredible]

that's good news, because ati card linux drivers are not good now. i guess i can put ati back on my list of products i'll buy.

[aks44]

Duplicate thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=543388).

[Kingsley]

I'm not sure of how to interpret this news. Does this mean all the Radeon Xpress cards will have better performance in the future? I'd like to be able to use Compiz on my Radeon Xpress 200 without the choppy XGL some day.

[igknighted]

Duplicate thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=543388).

These are different news items. The thread you linked is about the recent 8.41.x driver and the great improvements there in. This is about the impending release of the 2d driver code and the specs for writing proper 3d OSS drivers within the next week. Same company, same time frame, different news.

Unless I missed something in the other thread, but I've been following it pretty closely, so i don't think so.

[igknighted]

I'm not sure of how to interpret this news. Does this mean all the Radeon Xpress cards will have better performance in the future? I'd like to be able to use Compiz on my Radeon Xpress 200 without the choppy XGL some day.

AIGLX should be available within the next month in the proprietary drivers. This is from the other thread. This open-sourcing means that once drivers are fully written, they can be distributed with the kernel like intel's drivers. There will be no need to install any proprietary drivers or anything else after install. Possibly as soon as 8.04 (extremely optimistic) ATI cards could be fully capable for Compiz-Fusion right out of the box.

[aks44]

These are different news items. The thread you linked is about the recent 8.41.x driver and the great improvements there in. This is about the impending release of the 2d driver code and the specs for writing proper 3d OSS drivers within the next week. Same company, same time frame, different news.

I knew I read that news on phoronix.com yesterday, but I didn't remember it was one click away from the article linked in the other thread. So I guess, my bad, this news indeed isn't part of the very article that was linked...

[igknighted]

I knew I read that news on phoronix.com yesterday, but I didn't remember it was one click away from the article linked in the other thread. So I guess, my bad, this news indeed isn't part of the very article that was linked...

:D its all good, both are great news

[aks44]

:D its all good, both are great news

Indeed, as a 9600 owner I'm tired of having to choose between performance (radeon OSS driver) and "stability" (fglrx, although their stability is quite discutable too).

I'm eager for those new OSS drivers.

[Anthem]

Possibly as soon as 8.04 (extremely optimistic)
You think? Given the amount of interest, I would be the cards have solid 3d drivers by Christmas. They'll be improved over time, of course, but if we really get specs on Monday I'm betting there will be working 3d by the end of the year.

Next up is nVidia. The dominos are starting to fall. It's a very good day for open source.

[igknighted]

You think? Given the amount of interest, I would be the cards have solid 3d drivers by Christmas. They'll be improved over time, of course, but if we really get specs on Monday I'm betting there will be working 3d by the end of the year.

Next up is nVidia. The dominos are starting to fall. It's a very good day for open source.

Within the next week there should be a driver (of pre-release quality, of course) out there. Now, it will be a long process to get it fully working, but I would hope that by 8.04 (remember, it would have to be in before the feature freeze in like January or February) there is a driver that is sufficient. That would be great timing for Ubuntu to get something major like that in time for an LTS release.

Gamers will still need to use fglrx for top level 3d performance, but compiz should run fine on the OSS driver. It is unclear whether this is only for x1XXX cards and newer, or if cards not fully supported (*cough*x200*cough*) will see benefit as well.

This is going down much quicker than I expected, I am very excited. Hopefully the community gets behind this, because we really do need to flock away from nvidia fast enough that they see a real need to follow suit or lose linux business.

[CarpKing]

This is great! It's been so much of a problem before choosing between the proprietary and open source drivers. Both have some strengths, but neither makes you feel that you got your money's worth on the hardware. Hopefully we'll soon be able to use all our cards' features to their fullest on the operating system of our choice.

[Polygon]

woo and yay! i bet there are loads of people just waiting for that to be released so they can start hacking away at the drivers :D

[user1397]

Great news, but a personal disappointment to me...the only computer I had with an AGP slot recently died, and now my ati card is useless!! :(

[forrestcupp]

The way I understand it is that they are only releasing the 2D part of it and we are still left to figure out the 3D part. So how is it really going to help things, seeing we already have open source ATI drivers that do good with 2D?

[WishingWell]

The way I understand it is that they are only releasing the 2D part of it and we are still left to figure out the 3D part. So how is it really going to help things, seeing we already have open source ATI drivers that do good with 2D?

From the article:


They confirmed the rumors reported earlier on Slashdot, that everything necessary for community-driven and -maintained 2-D and 3-D drivers for ATI Radeon X1000 and HD 2000 graphics will be made available next week.

[forrestcupp]

From the article:

Nice

[Dimitriid]

WIll it work with my notebook's mobility x1100? I sure hope so, strangely enough its detected as x200 on the restricted drivers right now :confused:

[juxtaposed]

or if cards not fully supported (*cough*x200*cough*) will see benefit as well.

I hope very much.

Even if it doesn't work for my graphics, this is still great news.

[Billy_McBong]

cool
i don't have an ATI card but still good news

[Dapilot1]

So, will my 9800XT benefit from this or is it only for new cards?

[Rhapsody]

Assuming that all new ATI cards end up with stable, open source drivers that can handle serious 3D, and that NVIDIA doesn't follow suit, then I'll be switching back to ATI for my next PC. This PC will remain with NVIDIA graphics, but nouveau should eventually take care of open source drivers in that case.

[Lux Perpetua]

Indeed, as a 9600 owner I'm tired of having to choose between performance (radeon OSS driver) and "stability" (fglrx, although their stability is quite discutable too).

I'm eager for those new OSS drivers.Apparently only R500 and later cards will have open specifications. I'm in the same boat as you with my X600 clone. I wasn't sure about the timeline, but here's a nice list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_Graphics_Processing_Units

Lest I come across as overly unhappy about this affair: this is still wonderful progress for the open source movement.

edit: Oops, it looks like the specs won't be open; only the driver will be, anyway. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=826&num=1

[pay]

I wonder what the new driver will be named..

[blackhowling]

should be nice can go back to ATI instead of Nvida

[samb0057]

This is great! We should all show support for ATI/AMD by choosing them over other brands if this really comes through.

[aerials]

Yeah great, just when Lenovo finally switched to nVidia cards for ThinkPads. I even ordered my new machine with intel graphics for the sake of drivers.
But I still get better battery life with intel than with an ATI or nVidia card :)

[Lord Illidan]

Assuming that all new ATI cards end up with stable, open source drivers that can handle serious 3D, and that NVIDIA doesn't follow suit, then I'll be switching back to ATI for my next PC. This PC will remain with NVIDIA graphics, but nouveau should eventually take care of open source drivers in that case.

Same here.

[stuh84]

Doesn't look like they'll be sorting out my laptop's card (200M), but I'm still quite happy about this, opens up what I can choose for when I eventually get a new PC for Linux-only, I don't have to think about Nvidia only.

Or I can just steal my Dad's PC when he isn't looking :P

[K.Mandla]

I'll be switching back to ATI for my next PC.
+1

[tbroderick]

Interesting that Novell is writing the driver.

[nowshining]

that makes me feel sad, as I should of bought an ATI card or is the Gforce fx5200 better?? who knows??

[Anonii]

Aw man, after reading this on digg (Yeah a bit late, but I just came back from my vacations), I thought that ubuntuforums would already have an 18-page thread discussing it, but I just see two 4-page threads.. Pfff..

Aw well, freaking great news, if this goes well, I may consider getting an ATI instead of an nVidia for my next PC (The following January).

[K.Mandla]

Interesting that Novell is writing the driver.
I noticed that. I'm not sure how I feel about it. ... :-k

[dptxp]

When is ENE going to fall in line ? The drivers for their card readers.

[mech7]

:guitar: Great news lets hope nvidia will follow :D

[miggols99]

I'll put ATI back onto the "good graphics card" list :) Next month comes AIGLX...woot!

[mips]

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2568321546.html

[yimmmy]

THIS IS AWESOME ive bbeen trying to get compiz fusion to work for the longest time now with my ati mother board im going to pimp it the heck out now
THANKSS AATI
and for the longest time i thought they sucked :lolflag:

[forrestcupp]

I'm glad they're doing this, but I'm not just going to ditch nvidia because of this. Nvidia has always been great about supporting Linux and getting us quality drivers that support all of their features. Even if they have been proprietary, they have been very good to us. I'm not just going to jump ship and switch to a company who has been pretty crappy to us because of this one instance of goodness when nvidia has been good to us all along.

[mips]

I'm glad they're doing this, but I'm not just going to ditch nvidia because of this. Nvidia has always been great about supporting Linux and getting us quality drivers that support all of their features. Even if they have been proprietary, they have been very good to us. I'm not just going to jump ship and switch to a company who has been pretty crappy to us because of this one instance of goodness when nvidia has been good to us all along.

The only thing I can hope for is that nVidia follows suite and also makes the spec (&maybe some code) available as well. Then you would basically have 3 options for oss drivers, Intel, ATI, nVidia.

[Lord Illidan]

If the 3D card manufacturers will do their utmost to support Linux, one can only hope that games manufacturers will do the same..

[Perfect Storm]

I'm glad they're doing this, but I'm not just going to ditch nvidia because of this. Nvidia has always been great about supporting Linux and getting us quality drivers that support all of their features. Even if they have been proprietary, they have been very good to us. I'm not just going to jump ship and switch to a company who has been pretty crappy to us because of this one instance of goodness when nvidia has been good to us all along.

Ditto.

Every year I've heard the old same story that the next release of the ATI would be great and much better than Nvidia without it ever happen.

I've heard the story so many times that I need to see it before I believe it.

[the.dark.lord]

Sorry to go off-topic, but I've got a related question to ask:

The drivers I installed from 'Restricted Drivers Manager' for my ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 are open source, right?

[forrestcupp]

Sorry to go off-topic, but I've got a related question to ask:

The drivers I installed from 'Restricted Drivers Manager' for my ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 are open source, right?

No. The drivers you had before you used the Restricted Drivers Manager were open source. The purpose of the RDM is to install Restricted proprietary drivers.