Re: Debian on new 15" AlBooks?
On Wed, Sep 17, 2003 at 02:58:50PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-09-17 at 09:26, Sven Luther wrote:
> >
> > Well, DRI won't work on the Radeon mobility 9600 included in this one. I
> > think we should start a petition or other such to ask ATI about either :
> >
> > - providing docs for the DRI project to have someone start working on
> > the R300 core (even if it is only later, when R400 or something is
> > released.
>
> What good are docs when there's nobody to work on it? I believe that if
> there was a serious effort to produce working drivers (like for the R200
> core, when The Weather Channel hired Tungsten Graphics to do it), docs
> wouldn't be a problem. A sufficiently large group of willing and
> competent volunteers might work as well, but who would that be? I think
> the key is that ATI needs confidence that providing the docs actually
> yields a working result.
Well, that is another problem altogether, but i am under the impression
that starting from R300 core, ATI is no more willing to release docs,
because they can't find people wanting to work on it.
Another solution would be to go the Transgaming way, and setup a
donation area or something, and once the money is enough (an before hand
agreed upon sum), then hire Tungsten Graphics or someone else to do it.
That said, even if this was the case, it is not sure ATI will provide
such docs.
> > or
> >
> > - make a powerpc build of their proprietary drivers.
>
> As a minority of a minority, I'm not sure we have the market force to
> make such demands.
Well, the aim of this petition (or maybe more of a survey) is to
register more exactly how big we are as a market, and if ATI finds out
it is a big enough market, they may go for it, altough maybe not, since
all of us would already have bought the hardware, so there would be no
immediate benefit to ATI.
That said, we are a minority of a minority in both ways (first linux,
then ppc, or first ppc, then linux), but until we have a fiable way of
counting ourselves, there is no chance this will change.
Seriously, how many user buy apple laptops to run linux on them, either
partway or fully ? I personnally know many of them (you, Branden,
Stefano, Jerome, to name only a few), so the number of linux/ppc users
are not so small as some may think.
> > Hoping that they are endian clean, and not too messy.
>
> Which I tend to doubt.
Me too, especially since the mac driver doesn't seem to use the same
code base as the linux ones.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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