Graphics driver support in F21+

[Basil Mohamed Gohar]

On 08/28/2013 10:41 AM, Solomon Peachy wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 10:13:09AM -0400, Basil Mohamed Gohar wrote:
>> Sorry to come out of left field like this, but would the system profile
>> info we collect on install be useful in determining the weight of the
>> need for some of these drivers?  For example, if there is still a bunch
>> of SIS video adapters out there, we might prioritize support for that
>> driver, but then not for others that don't show-up in our hardware surveys.
> 
> Another way to look at it is the platform capabilities of these graphics 
> devices.  For example, Fedora 19's release notes claims a minimum of 1GB 
> RAM is required.  Were there any pre-PCIe platforms capable of 
> supporting this much RAM?

Plenty!  The common limitation in the pre-PCIe era was 2GB or 4GB (e.g.,
common 32-bit architecture memory limits).  I have several that are
non-PCIe and have 2GB of RAM.  They run Fedora just fine.  They do,
however, have more modern AGP-based video cards installed, however.  I
haven't bothered with the embedded video adapter on them, so I cannot
speak to their suitability for running Fedora 19.

> 
> Ditto on the embedded graphics (eg SiS or i810 etc) -- many of those 
> platforms had serious RAM limitations too.  I have a pile of old P4+i845 
> boxes stacked in a corner that max out at 512MB (due to chipset 
> limitations) which isn't even enough RAM to boot the Fedora installer in 
> text mode.
> 
> On the other hand, graphics chips that were available on PCI add-in 
> cards could theoretically be used on modern systems, so those may be 
> worth continuing to support.
> 
>  - Solomon

I just wanted to comment about the memory issue.  I cannot say much else
about the rest here.

-- 
Libre Video
http://librevideo.org