[NTLUG:Discuss] Thoughts about AMD and ATI Video Drivers/Control Panel

[Chris Cox]

David Simmons wrote:
> 
> At the LinuxFair - I overheard a comment that "There's nothing good
> for Linux about the ATI/AMD merger"....then I read this:
> 
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=671&num=1
> 
> While it seems like a step in the right direction - I really
> didn't see a complete discussion about speed....and seeing that this
> driver/control panel doesn't even support dual-head, I have my doubts that
> this really is 'linux news'...BUT, was hoping to hear other's thoughts
> and/or flamebait remarks...grin

It could of been me saying something like that.  AMD has long been
a champion in Linux circles.  It's the rebel chip for the rebel OS!
So when AMD, arguably made successful by Nvidia, purchased ATI
there was much confusion.  However, everyone believe that it MUST
be because AMD will take the ATI drivers and free them up.

BUT... that didn't happen and the AMD/ATI platform is no longer
the powerhouse Linux friendly platform that the AMD/Nvidia platform
was.  So... at least from my perspective, it's a big mistake so
far.

With regards to progress on the ATI driver front... yes... it
has gotten better in many ways, but it is SO far away from
where Nvidia at currently.  The ATI drivers are only at
about 50% of where their Windows drivers are at performance
and feature wise.  Nvidia drivers for Linux on the other hand
are at about 90-95% of their Windows performance (which is
good enough).

Last time I tried the ATI drivers (it's been many months now),
it had some dual head support... in fact, I think I may have
even tried it (???).  Can't remember.  One other problem with
the ATI drivers is that they have a much smaller range of
supported devices than Nvidia.

Listening to the Xorg developers... future versions of Xorg,
especially 7.3+ will take the driver development BACK into
the core instead of the hacked up plugin architecture they
have today.  This kind of goes with the current "blackmail"
spirit we're seeing throughout the free software community.
Of course, this is NOT going to make ATI or Nvidia open
up their source (and it's NOT as simple matter btw.. in
case you think it's merely a paradigm choice)... so it could
be that we're living in a time of transition and that shortly
we'll go through a long/short dry spell without high performance
accelerated graphic cards (the alternative is for Nvidia/ATI
to ship entire support Xorg packages... which may be asking
too much).

The future??  Who knows.  IF Intel gets their act together
and puts together a graphics platform that actually performs
competitively with Nvidia/ATI, then we'll all be running
Intel boards in the future since Intel has promised to support
ALL of their hardware on Linux PRIOR to GA of the product.

Btw... I get the idea that a lot of direction in Xorg is
being driven by Intel right now.... a conspiracy theorist
would read something into all of that...