[F18][ATI Rage XL] Problems with install on ATI Rage XP video driver

[Felix Miata]

On 2013-04-03 13:54 (GMT-0700) Adam Williamson composed:

> Felix Miata wrote:

>> On 2013-04-03 11:48 (GMT-0700) Adam Williamson composed:

>>> There are
>>> limits to how long the F/OSS stack devs are able to work on extremely
>>> old hardware, they don't have infinite resources...

>> IOW, if you want to keep using old hardware, you need to participate in
>> keeping it supported. That means participation in testing upcoming
>> release versions so as to discover and report problems soon enough that
>> fixes might be provided when breakage is discovered.

> That always helps, but let's not kid ourselves that even all
> comprehensively documented graphics bugs are fixed. There just aren't
> the developers to fix them all, and 'likely prevalence of hardware in
> the real world' is one of the factors the devs use in prioritising bugs
> for fixing, which means bugs for extremely ancient hardware tend to go
> down the queue a bit. It's not that they never get fixed, but...

What I wrote wasn't meant to imply anything like a guarantee support would continue indefinitely for ancient hardware. Developers lacking the subject hardware obviously can't test on it. To do anything about a bug with 
scarce hardware requires devs know about the problem at an appropriate time, and get as much detail as possible about it from those who do have that hardware, if not in a formally filed bug, at least in similar form where 
devs who care might see it.

Such a time is least likely to be useful for already released software that the devs have passed by one or two releases already, e.g. F18. The best time is the time that requires the least amount of bisection to discover 
when the problem was created. The older the hardware you with to use, the more valuable your participation in testing. That includes upstream where necessary, such as Xorg drivers in particular.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/