On Monday, 25 בAugust 2008, Omer Zak wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-08-25 at 19:56 +0300, Oron Peled wrote:
> > On Monday, 25 בAugust 2008, Amos Shapira wrote:
> > > Since there are always swings around about "best linux support" which
> > > I didn't follow, what's the order of the day? Should go with nVidia,
> > > AMD or maybe Intel? Any specific card families/models?
> [... snipped ...]
> > * My second choice today would be ATI cards:
> > 1. As someone else mentioned older (e.g: r300) chipsets have
> > pretty good support in the FOSS driver (including
> > simple 3D, compiz etc.)
> > 2. AMD/ATI released hardware specs last year and started
> > cooperating with FOSS community, which is significant for
> > the newer cards (http://www.x.org/docs/AMD)
> > 3. Because of (2.), there is better support for modern cards
> > on the pipe. Specifically, David Airlie (one of X.org developers
> > from Red Hat) already announced not long ago about major
> > improvements in r500/r600 chipsets. This is bleeding edge
> > source in his git repository, but it is reasonable to expect
> > this code to land within 6-12 months in fast paced distros
> > (Debian testing, Fedora, etc.)
> Sorry, but the 2nd and 3rd reasons to choose ATI exist in the future
> rather than today.
>
> If Amos Shapira can wait a year, then let him buy ATI a year from now.
> But if he needs a solution today, then several of the above promises are
> not relevant for him.
Bzzt. You oversimplify:
* Scenario I:
- Let's assume Amos buys today an old ATI (r300/r400 based)
because he cannot wait.
- He gets reasonable 3D today (One of my Pentiums began
doing compiz a year ago, after a regular update [ATI 9100IGP]).
- Items {2,3} *still* apply, because some of the future
updates would improve even those old cards. For example,
some of the updates Airlie work on, involve adding kernel
modesetting support for the old r300/r400 as well.
(this would help in monitor hotplugging, xrandr, etc.)
* Scenario II:
- Amos buys today an ATI r500/r600 cards.
- Can use FOSS drivers today (no 3D acceleration etc.)
- Or can use proprietary drivers today.
- But because of items {2,3} he would get an *improved*
FOSS drivers within the next year (cleanup, release engineering,
distribution roll out).
So with ATI we have an "installment plan" ("Tashlumim")
in two steps:
* Get working (but limited) solution today (either old
cards or proprietary drivers or no 3D acceleration)
* Get better support for the *same* hardware on the
next upgrade of your distro.
Where's the second step for nVidia cards?
Bye,
--
Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron
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