The Windows driver does full mode programming including all the external digital components from many 3rd party companies. The open source XFree driver sets modes by using the video bios. That way it does not have to have full programming capabilities for 3rd party components. The XFree driver is therefore limited to what the vbios can do while the Windows driver is not.
-Matt -----Original Message----- From: Alex Deucher [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 12:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM? well, yeah. My point was that intel should just release a patch to fix the driver (or specs to let us fix it) rather than "fixing" the bios and making us wait for dell to (possibly) update the bios. Alex --- "Mike A. Harris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Simple. Because the Windows drivers have workarounds built into > them which manually program the chipset to do what the BIOS > should, but is not doing. Why do they just work in Windows? > Because 95% of the desktop market is Windows, and the various > companies involved have a lot of money tied up in making sure > things just work the first time they hit the public eye the > majority of time. As such problems like this are fixed in > Windows-land long before end users ever realize there was a > problem that needed to be fixed. > > In the land of OSS however, we do not have that same status. We > get specifications for hardware long after the fact if ever from > the majority of video hardware companies, and when someone > releases hardware with a broken BIOS that needs software driver > workarounds, someone needs to know what the exact problem is, and > then also have access to the specifications to know how to code > those workarounds, and also have the hardware in question in > order to test it. > > So it is no surprise that what works in Windows is not any form > of indicator of what works in XFree86. They are 2 different > environments, not privy to the same amount of technical > information as each other, and with very different number of > manpower working on each, and with IHV pressure also being quite > different for each. > > > > -- > Mike A. Harris > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
