Re: Warning to ATI's proprietary fglrx users using Testing / Lenny
On Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:08:11 +0100
Peter Hillier-Brook <phb@hbsys.plus.com> wrote:
> Andrew J. Barr wrote:
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> > Ananda Samaddar wrote:
> >> Slightly off-topic but does anyone know of any efforts
> >> to create Free Software drivers for the newer ATI cards like the
> >> Nouveau project is doing for NVidia cards? I'd me more than happy
> >> to lend a hand to such an effort.
> >
> > The radeon driver in X.Org is where such efforts will be going on. I
> > suspect you'll see an increase in activity for supporting post-r3xx
> > cards for two reasons: a) the 2D engine has changed and the radeon
> > driver doesn't support new cards _at_all_, and b) there are efforts
> > underway via the Linux Foundation's NDA program to get docs from
> > AMD/ATI so that the opensource radeon driver can support newer ATI
> > graphics hardware.
>
> Also slightly off-topic; I recently made the mistake of buying a
> Radeon X1550 which doesn't appear in ATI's list of supported
> products, although it is bracketed by the X1400 and X1600 which are.
> It functions alright with the VESA driver, but is limited to 1280 x
> 1024, stretched to fit the 1680 x 1050 screen.
>
> This must be a limitation within VESA, or the driver, but can anyone
> offer me any hope? I don't want to discard a perfectly adequate card
> unless I have to. For what it's worth, ATI "support" have responded
> to e-mail, but refuse to quantify the uniqueness of the X1550 and
> effectively told me to get lost. Maybe AMD will work on educating the
> ATI guys in the nuances of customer support :-)
>
> Peter HB
>
>
I'm sorry I can't really help you. I'd advise you to just swap it for
an NVidia. Although NVidia's Linux drivers are proprietary at least
they seem to work. I used them myself for about 3 years with Debian
and Ubuntu. There's also the already mentioned Nouveau project around
which in the long run should provide free drivers. I
personally would never get an ATI graphics cards again. I knew about
the issues with fglrx but still went ahead and got an ATI. I knew the
drivers were bad, but I didn't expect them to be as buggy and unstable
as they are.
Ananda
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