ATI graphics cards

[choasforages]

as for there binary drivers, it is true, the card has to be made  by ati, but i heard conjecture that ati might make a driver that supports them all

[Ice-9]

Ati released a driver that supposedly supports every card from Radeon 8500 and above.
http://mirror.ati.com/support/driver.html

Just select Linux as OS and choose your card.

edit : sorry, wasn't aware of the issue with the drivers, just read it on /.
I'll ask Ati benelux if they know anything about it and post the answer here.

[ November 29, 2002: Message edited by: Ice9 ]

[Ice-9]

Ok, I asked our sales rep for Guillemot to check this out.
He wasn't aware of the issue at all and promised to have their development team in France have a look at it.

He also told me that they plan to set up a dedicated team in France to work on Linux issues such as drivers for the Ati-based cards and the Kyro-based cards too.

Hopefully I'll be able to tell you more next week...

[Ice-9]

Looks like I won't even have to wait for Guillemot's answer  

Linux drivers for "Powered By ATI" Radeons released

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6491

ATI HAS RELEASED ATI Linux Driver Version 2.5.1 in response to a large number of complaints over "Powered By ATI" Radeons.

The previous Unified Linux Driver version 2.4.3 had multiple problems. Only computers with "Built By ATI" cards were able to install the drivers, which had been eagerly anticipated by the Linux community by some time. It was understandable why ATI made this decision, but it still upset many readers, many of whom wrote The Inquirer.

One reader wrote:

"Greetings -- your article was referenced on the general SuSE discussion list, and I thought I'd like to pass along a "caveat" that you might want use to amend your article.

"The drivers will detect the difference between "built by ATI" and "powered by ATI" and refuse to run on the "powered by" variants. This subtle difference between "built" and "powered" is ATI's clever way of distinguishing boards they design and build themselves vs. boards churned out of some Taiwanese factory   "

"In any event, I can understand why ATI would take this stance -- they are not 110% sure that the "third party" developer actually followed their specifications in building the board. However, as a "guru", I'm willing to accept a 90% assurance that it will "probably" work, so to that end I've e-mailed their support group asking for an "override" option to use "at my own risk" [I would encourage others with "powered by" boards to do the same, but my voice probably doesn't carry as well as yours   ]"

I'm sure that the many users who emailed ATI provided a lot of motivation. Other enhancements are also included in Version 2.5.1. The OpenGL Render now reports the product name accurately, the fglrxconfig program lists Radeon 9000 Pro and 9500 Pro properly, and there is now an updated config program for improved multi-monitor setup.

The following was posted by Rage3D, my own personal "Other Place":

Last week we posted a set of unified Linux drivers. These drivers were only loading up on "Built by ATI" cards. Through our various feedback mechanisms we have determined that there is a large community of "Powered by ATI" Linux users that did not benefit from our Linux drivers. At this point we are happy to announce an update to our Linux driver (ver. 2.5.1) which will work on both "Powered by" and "Built by". ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness and we greatly appreciate the feedback our Linux users have provided.