Useless ATI drivers (fglrx)

[H_TeXMeX_H]

The free (as in freedom) ati driver isn't that bad, especially if you have a radeon <= 9600. There is no free driver for nvidia cards. Intel release their drivers under a free license, for some of the cards.

So if you wanna have decent free drivers available, ati isn't so bad. Plus fglrx and the nvidia driver are of questionable legality too

Plus, a lot of people reckon AMD will release the code of the ATi drivers, if they do we'll have a kick ass free DRI driver, stable with all ATi/AMD cards, after a few months.

my radeon 9600 is running well, with the free driver. I've never setup fglrx

I'd have to disagree with this. The ATI drivers for Linux are a real pile of bullshit (as they are for Window$ as well). True, I'd really like to see the nVidia drivers be released under GPL, but who knows if that will ever happen. I don't see what you would do with the source either. You can actually access the source code for the proprietary nVidia drivers if you know how, you just can't use it or distribute it or they may sue you. If you want to run games on Linux you have no business buying an ATI card. (Also, if you want a reliable card that won't give trouble, you don't want ATI). Furthermore ATI's support for their drivers is absolutely horrible.

[piratePenguin]

Am I the only person who's properly tried the free DRI driver for ATi cards?

I've had no problems playing bzflag or Enemy Territory (which runs unbelievably fast, I can't believe the card can handle it!). In some benchmarks posted to one of the mailing lists (dri-users probably) the free drivers beat fglrx (and (more often, especially on later cards) vica versa).

compiz also runs without a hitch. In fact, I can't remember the last time I found a shortcoming using the free driver.

Then again, all I have is a shitty out-dated radeon 9600 that's good for nothing except playing games that don't have the shitty effects and detail that adds so much to gameplay (but at least it, as well as the bloated software, keeps the US in business, so they can take good care of the rest of the world (and the solar system too)).

[H_TeXMeX_H]

I thought you need to run a 2.4.x kernel for DRI ... I don't like doing that.

[piratePenguin]

I thought you need to run a 2.4.x kernel for DRI ...

Um, you don't.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Well, I've never actually gotten the DRI drivers to work, so I wouldn't know how good they are. Do they come standard in most distros ... or do you have to install them yourself ? If so, is there an easy way to install them ?

[piratePenguin]

Well, I've never actually gotten the DRI drivers to work, so I wouldn't know how good they are. Do they come standard in most distros ... or do you have to install them yourself ? If so, is there an easy way to install them ?

Since the ATi driver is only coming along, it hasn't been enabled in many not-new distros. Ubuntu 6.06 had it setup by default, which was nice. I could just install bzflag and play! I was amazed. No going to ati.com or nvidia.com to download what Ubuntu can't distribute of theirs.

The drivers would still have come along since then (June 1st), I added these two lines to my sources.list so I get pretty-new ones:

Code: [Select]

deb http://xgl.compiz.info/ dapper aiglx
deb http://xgl.compiz.info/ dapper main(I would've followed the compiz on AIGLX tutorial on the ubuntuforums to add them lines)

[WMD]

The free DRI driver for ATI cards only works with older cards.

[piratePenguin]

The current free 2d driver can't even bring up X with the latest ATI cards.

Looking at http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon  :

R500 series chips (X1300, X1800 etc) do not have a Radeon 2D core, so are only supported by the vesa driver (no acceleration).

Looking at http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/R300_20Benchmark things must be going pretty alright in the X700LE direction too.

The free DRI driver for ATI cards only works with older cards.

I see that now.. Well I know I'll hopefully never buy another card without workable free drivers, that rules out NVIDIA completely and only the ATi cards in the higher-end which I shouldn't feel much need to touch anyhow. Eventually, it'll be my turn to laugh anyhow, when I get 3d acceleration outta the box on every half-decent OS (something people with Intel graphics cards already enjoy). You'll never get it with the non-redistributable drivers (and not on my OS for sure ).

On the legal thing, see http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2006/08/why_binaryonly_linux_kernel_mo.html
There's nothing illegal about what NVIDIA's doing (I've no idea what way fglrx is distributed - never installed it in my life thankfully), but people packaging drivers linked to the kernel have to apply the GPL terms to the package. Recently, Novell stopped redistributing non-free modules:
http://news.com.com/Novell+bans+proprietary+Linux+modules/2100-7344_3-6100659.html

[RaZoR1394]

My 7900gtx is a dream. Drivers work perfectly in both Windows and GNU/Linux. Temperature is much lower (30C on idle and 34C on load), more Cedega games and features work, It's much faster, doesn't lockup in GNU/Linux when logging out, control panel is very useful etc, composite and XVMC works and it doesn't randomly lockup the comp like my ATI card did.

Sure if the free radeon drivers work ok then sure older cards may be fine. However last time I tried with my 9800xt the performance was awful. So if you want to game higher end in GNU/Linux then ATI is a no-go.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

I'll hopefully never buy another card without workable free drivers, that rules out NVIDIA completely

Well, I have a question (ok, many questions):

Why do you not want non-free drivers ? I mean say the nVidia drivers went open-source tomorrow ... would you instantly change your mind just cuz they're free ? What would you do if the nVidia drivers were free ? How would you take advantage of this ? I mean would you try to modify the driver code ? or something else. What benefits would open-source nVidia drivers offer to YOU over the current proprietary licencing ? As I said before you CAN access the source code for the nVidia drivers and even modify it yourself, you just can't redistribute it modified or not. I just don't see the benefits open-source nVidia drivers would offer you and how you could take advantage of them in a meaningful way, that you cannot do now.

[GenuineAdvantage]

DRI, no comment... I think people are just afraid that nvidia will somehow taint the open source frame. The humongous Microsoft set out specifically to take down linux! A little driver will do it by trying to run well? I don't see it.

[piratePenguin]

Well, I have a question (ok, many questions):

Why do you not want non-free drivers ?

Because I don't need them.

I mean say the nVidia drivers went open-source tomorrow ... would you instantly change your mind just cuz they're free ?

That would mean my next graphics card would almost definitely be an Nvidia one (but still not my soundcard lol. Their sound drivers are shit-old). Not only because free drivers are available, but because Nvidia gave us free drivers. Noone would've needed to kill themselves reverse engineering the cards like they basically do with the ATi cards.

What would you do if the nVidia drivers were free ? How would you take advantage of this ? I mean would you try to modify the driver code ?

Not likely. I might peek at it, or try to fix simple bugs but still that's not likely.

My OS, whenever I ever make it, will be able to offer 3d acceleration for Nvidia cards outta the box. Same with Ubuntu, SUSE, etc. It would be the neatest thing in a long time. I'd be able to play whatever I want outta the box on any half-decent OS on all Nvidia cards, something I already kinda enjoy, but not-thanks to ATi.

As I said before you CAN access the source code for the nVidia drivers and even modify it yourself, you just can't redistribute it modified or not.

Isn't it just the smallest possible part of the source code that's distributed?

I just don't see the benefits open-source nVidia drivers would offer you and how you could take advantage of them in a meaningful way, that you cannot do now.

Other than what I've mentioned, there's a pretty big effort to get those free ATi drivers developed and working. I'd far rather use whatever they produce as long as I can, and report bugs when I can etc.


Even if Opera had Firefox's extension system, with the extensions I basically depend on for web-development (firebug, livehttpheaders, tamperdata, and the web-dev toolbar (which I know is available on Opera (and IE) in some shape or form)), and even if it did everything plain-better than Firefox (which it does not.. in particular Firefox 2 got session-restore right - much better than Opera), and had the auto-update feature too, I would still not use Opera (as my primary browser) as long as it remains non-free, until using i.e. supporting Firefox is a major inconvenience.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Hmmm ... well I guess you're set on using only truly free software. Well, that's fine I guess. I don't quite see a reason not to use non-free drivers as long as they are available free of charge.

Do you use non-free codecs ? If you do ... how do you explain yourself ? How do you watch pr0n ? ... hehe

[piratePenguin]

Hmmm ... well I guess you're set on using only truly free software. Well, that's fine I guess. I don't quite see a reason not to use non-free drivers as long as they are available free of charge.

Do you use non-free codecs ? If you do ... how do you explain yourself ? How do you watch pr0n ? ... hehe

I dunno which codecs are free and which aren't.. Some packages won't be packed in distros like Ubuntu 'cause of software patents, which don't hold in the EU. So my OS will pack them (as long as they're free software), and my OS will proudly be illegal in the US

I know I have at least the w32codecs package installed here, as well as Opera (for testing web-pages) and Enemy Territory (won't be playing that anymore though) and Skype (I'll try and use OpenWengo before sticking to Skype (which I've yet to use) though).

I'm gonna compile an LFS install someday soon to see what file formats are/aren't possible to be used on a completely free system, since I've no idea. Didn't Real say they're gonna provide an open-source way to decode WMV? That would be real cool of them, if other programs could use their free library.

If I knew of an effort to reverse engineer every audio/video format out there, and if the results of their efforts were pretty good for what I need, then it'd be a different story.

[cymon]

The free (as in freedom) ati driver isn't that bad, especially if you have a radeon <= 9600. There is no free driver for nvidia cards. Intel release their drivers under a free license, for some of the cards.

So if you wanna have decent free drivers available, ati isn't so bad. Plus fglrx and the nvidia driver are of questionable legality too

Plus, a lot of people reckon AMD will release the code of the ATi drivers, if they do we'll have a kick ass free DRI driver, stable with all ATi/AMD cards, after a few months.

my radeon 9600 is running well, with the free driver. I've never setup fglrx

That would be nice if they did, though that's not going to peel the 'Intel Inside' sticker off the front of my box. That would be great to see free ATi drivers, I'd take a shot at making them better. ATi has great hardware, it's a shame to see them with mediocre Unix support.