On Mon, 30 Jun 2003, Alex Deucher wrote: >Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 09:55:44 -0700 (PDT) >From: Alex Deucher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >Subject: Re: Dell C400 fix applied to 855GM? > >why aren't the windows drivers affected? they must be a way around it >without needing a new bios... The same thing was claimed the last time >around with the 830s and dell never fixed the bios, but someone came up >with a work around.
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 _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
