AMD Releases Open Source Driver For New ATI Graphics Processors

[M Daniel R Magarzo]

El mar, 18-09-2007 a las 15:01 +0530, Rahul Sundaram escribió:
> Hi
> 
> Just in case you have been living under a rock, specs as well as drivers 
> have been published now.
> 
> http://airlied.livejournal.com/50613.html
> 
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-radeonhd/
> 
> http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/09/07/amd-releases-open-source-driver-for-new-ati-graphics-processors/
> 
> "Graphics drivers are important because they are a critical part of the 
> user experience. The goal of Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is for 
> all hardware to “just work” out of the box. Since binary drivers can’t 
> be included in these distributions, support for graphics hardware 
> requires open source graphics drivers"
> 
> Rahul
> 

This complements the above, this is a fact:

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux64/linux64-radeonhdd.html

This is another, a short history:

I emailed to ATI-AMD Support asking (claiming I'd say..) for a Linux
driver (I do not care about "proprietary" issues here..) for the new
generation of ATI graphics cards, this was just a few weeks ago. Just
some minutes later someone replied saying that I would better go to ask
for help to my Linux community. Typical, formal easy reaction as answer.
However, we could see that the equivalent Windows driver there was
available in its website since the beginning, that is.. the same sad
history about Linux drivers known until now..

The funny thing is that when I had to go to the shop in order to buy a
new graphics card, the only requisite I had clear, it was that it must
be PCX (PCI-express), you know.. :-) nothing to do with frikkies
behaviours, it was just that I was forced to get a new motherboard, and
consequently some other pieces of new hw like this. 
Another must was that I shouldn't spend a serious amount of money at
all. 
And finally, that I didn't want to spend my time too much either.. :-)

I made a short list of 3-4 models, all them brand ATI, for me acceptable
(price, etc..). I chose one. 
Since I was not conscious that I was buying the latest, but just a
common cheap card, maybe one between a million of models...then at home
came the surprise.., was there when I realized the issue. 
It seemed that I had an item of a "new generation" of graphics
cards!!! :-)) In Linux, we all know that such a thing MEANS.. PROBLEMS.

Therefore, the system has been working with the generic vesa driver at a
conservative display resolution, none problem either.

Well, now it seems that ATI(-AMD) has improved its reflexes..:-) Their
Linux drivers, both i386 and x86_64 platforms, for the RADEON HD2400
series, HD2600 series, and the HD2900 series are currently all them
available.

The card in question here is a (Sapphire) ATI Radeon 2400PRO PCX, an
item (intended) for the masses. About 45 €. 

Daniel