Re: Don't use Matrox cards (Was re:dosemu)
On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Richard G. Roberto wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, Shaya Potter wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 17 Aug 1996, Miro Torrielli wrote:
> >
> > > Well, I'm currently using a Cirrus Logic GD5434, which works fine
> > > with XFree in 8 bit mode, but produces streaks at higher bpp's. Anyway,
> > > I'm getting a Matrox soon, a real speedster. Thanx for your time...
> >
> > IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
> >
> > If you plan to continue to use XFree, then I hope you don't buy a matrox
> > video card. They do not work with XFree and probably never will.
>
> I'm not sure this is true. What source gave you that
> information?
>
Put it this way, from what I have read on usenet, and have been told from
friends who have called Matrox, they do not intend ever to give out the
information needed to program their cards without a non-disclosure
agreement. However, they could do the samething Diamond did after many
people complained to them about the practice and change their policy
toward Linux. But as I said before, Matrox seems pretty set in their
ways right now.
> >
> > They don't give away the information on how to use their cards, so the
> > only way XFree could use their cards would be if XFree signed a
> > non-disclosure agreement with them, which is kind of hard when you give
> > away the source code to your product.
> >
> > If you are willing to buy a commercail X server from X inside or Metro X then
> > it shouldn't be a problem. But then again you will have to install it by
> > hand, because their is no debian package for it, and dpkg won't know
> > about it.
> >
> > What might be good for you, is that if someone ever comes up with a
> > rpm --> deb utility, you can buy a redhat cd, from cheapbuytes for around
> > $30-40 and it comes with Metro X. But if you wan't to be able to get all
> > the source code for your programs you are still stuck.
>
> Now I'm pretty sure this is not true. Last time I checked,
> redhat linux came with a beta version of the Metro X
> software that was pretty buggy and very slow. The same beta
> was available from Metro X directly as well. You don't have
> to get it in .rpm format. Accelerated X has a demo of their
> server available too, and I don't think theirs is beta.
>
This I didn't know. However, is the demo of Accelerated X fully
functioning, or is it really just a demo.
> > Hope this helps,
> >
> > Shaya
>
> You may be right on both counts, but I'd still like to be
> sure. Please let us know.
>
> Thanks
>
> Richard G. Roberto
> richr@bear.com
> 201-739-2886 - whippany, nj
>
>
Shaya
--
Shaya Potter
spotter@itd.nrl.navy.mil
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