"Unsupported and bitter" Open Source Editorial @ DH

LincLinc OwnerDetroit Icrontian
edited February 2006 in Science & Tech
DriverHeaven recently posted an editorial about ATI's lack of support for Linux users.

View: Pete's Open Source Journal "Unsupported and bitter"
ATI's stance in the whole subject reminds me of the whole SLI debate when it was re-introduced by nVidia, also known as burying your head in the sand. At first, ATI tried to downplay its importance, telling people left and right that it is practically useless, that they don't believe it will catch on, or that it will interest/benefit consumers. Do you know what happened after one year? - Crossfire. ATI saw the market, saw nVidia walking away with an easy victory, regrouped, and presented an alternative. Well ATI, guess who's walking away with an easy victory in the Linux front for the past years. Guess which company is preferred by people who are interested in running Linux, not only as their main operating system mind you, but even as a casual alternative in a dual-boot system.
Source: Driver Heaven

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    No disrespect from me to Linux or Linux users. But really, the PC Linux user base that games has got to be a really insignificant part of the market, perhaps less than 1% of the video card upgrade market?

    If you want a hobbyist operating system for your PC, don't complain because a for-profit manufacturer finds it economically expedient to ignore you. If ATI finds it to their economic benefit to write Linux drivers, then I'm sure they will. Missing SLI was a dumb call on ATI's part. They are probably correct though, in assuming that the Linux home users are very small market.

    I think Linux is just fine, if you want to play with it. If you can make real use of it, all the better. You can't expect all the manufacturers to write drivers for desktop Linux simply because it exists. If Linux ever builds the user base that its proponents have predicting (for year after year), then there will be no problem driver availablity.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited February 2006
    Leonardo wrote:
    No disrespect from me to Linux or Linux users. But really, the PC Linux user base that games has got to be a really insignificant part of the market, perhaps less than 1% of the video card upgrade market?

    If you want a hobbyist operating system for your PC, don't complain because a for-profit manufacturer finds it economically expedient to ignore you. If ATI finds it to their economic benefit to write Linux drivers, then I'm sure they will. Missing SLI was a dumb call on ATI's part. They are probably correct though, in assuming that the Linux home users are very small market.

    I think Linux is just fine, if you want to play with it. If you can make real use of it, all the better. You can't expect all the manufacturers to write drivers for desktop Linux simply because it exists. If Linux ever builds the user base that its proponents have predicting (for year after year), then there will be no problem driver availablity.

    what he said.

    I agree completely. :rockon:
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I wonder what it costs to pay a driver development team to write comprehensive and high performance drivers from scratch for a new OS. I would guess in the mid six figures.

    //edit:

    also, bear in mind that there is no "directX" for Linux. They not only have to write the drivers, but also lower level system support for said drivers. Not to trivialize the programmers' jobs, but writing a driver for a well documented and extremely mature API is probably easier than writing one for something as hugely general as "linux".
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I truly admire the Linux pioneers who volunteer their time in developing desktop OS that may someday be as friendly as OSX or WinXP. But said pioneers should have more than enough software skills to be able to dual boot Linux as well as Windows. But of course, I would dare not ask them to use Windows for anything other than gaming. :nudge:
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I'm a Linux gamer. I tried to play Unreal Tournament 2004 on a reasonably modern computer (dual Athlon 2100+ w/ Radeon 9800 Pro) and the performance is abysmal. The same computer can run the same game at nearly max detail in Windows no sweat. I'm only buying nVidia from here on out until ATI pulls it's head out of its butt on the Linux driver front.

    prime, Linux uses OpenGL and Mesa. ATI just steadfastly refuses to code any decent drivers for GLX (OpenGL Extension to the X Window System) or DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure). Additionally, they aren't keen on releasing the specs on their cards so that Linux developers can code their own drivers. Their control panel applet depends on qt and as such only works in KDE. I sure as heck haven't gotten it working in Gnome even with the qt libraries.

    The free radeon driver has excellent performance but only supports 3D acceleration on up to R250 cores. Work is proceeding on reverse-engineering the newer cards but I'm not holding my breath. My FireGL8800 is supported (R250) by the radeon driver and has acceptable performance at gaming.

    On the other hand, nVidia's kernel module plugs right in and provides 2D/3D acceleration through OpenGL, GLX, and DRI. Their configuration applet functions in Gnome, KDE, and presumably other WMs as well. Performance is comparable to their Windows drivers.

    Further reading:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_3D
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLX
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Rendering_Infrastructure

    -drasnor :fold:
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Hey drasnor... got any desire to write a Linux piece for SM? Check da' sig :cool:
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I'm only buying nVidia from here on out until ATI pulls it's head out of its butt on the Linux driver front.
    If you could convince a large enough block of Linux users who purchase video card upgrades to take your stance, maybe ATI would listen. Corporations are typically spineless (no soul, few principles). Even a hint at an attack on their market share is often enough to get the shareholders scolding the board members.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    I don't know Leo, every Linux user I know already shops exclusively nVidia so it's kinda like preaching to the choir. Maybe if we were more vocal...

    -drasnor :fold:
  • madmatmadmat
    edited February 2006
    I think the point is that if you want to do anything in Linux that involves 3D, not just gaming, that you're hugely SOL if you own an ATI card. I was browsing through a open source 3D GUI for Linux (well looking over the shoulder of a friend of mine as he was browsing it) and you simply cannot run it on any ATI card, you have to run an nVidia card of some sort and this is simply because ATI refuses to make drivers for Linux.

    Without support from hardware MFGs Linux will never take off as an alternative to windows which is sad. There is an interface for playing windows based games with no penalty in Linux BTW, so it is possible to do away with M$ altogether. Just in case you're wondering, it does allow D3D games to run in Linux.

    Heres a link to a blurb about Cedega
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Without support from hardware MFGs Linux will never take off as an alternative to windows which is sad.
    I agree. Proprietary OSes from Microsoft and Apple need competition foster innovation and to lower prices. Unfortunately, Linux is in a Catch 22 situation: manufacturers won't support Linux if they don't see a large enough user base, but most PC users won't be interested in Linux if it's not easy to install and is as flexible and universal as Windows. I fall into that category. I really am not interested in another computer hobby. I already spend enough time on the forums and puttering around with hardware. I just don't want to allocate time for a less-than-mainstream OS, regardless of its merits. I do though, applaud all the people who are constantly working on the various Linux distributions and improving them. There is hope.
  • JengoJengo Pasco, WA | USA
    edited February 2006
    Leonardo wrote:
    No disrespect from me to Linux or Linux users. But really, the PC Linux user base that games has got to be a really insignificant part of the market, perhaps less than 1% of the video card upgrade market?

    If you want a hobbyist operating system for your PC, don't complain because a for-profit manufacturer finds it economically expedient to ignore you. If ATI finds it to their economic benefit to write Linux drivers, then I'm sure they will. Missing SLI was a dumb call on ATI's part. They are probably correct though, in assuming that the Linux home users are very small market.

    I think Linux is just fine, if you want to play with it. If you can make real use of it, all the better. You can't expect all the manufacturers to write drivers for desktop Linux simply because it exists. If Linux ever builds the user base that its proponents have predicting (for year after year), then there will be no problem driver availablity.

    You are wrong. I game in linux all the time, i play UT2k4 and other games all the time, and i make good use of linux. I even run Steam in linux using an app called Cedega. More and more people are turning to linux because of the dissapointment windows is causing. and year by year linux gets easier to use, and year by year more people start using it. Continuing to ignore linux just because not as many people use it to game is just ridiculous. there are more then 1 million people using linux for all sorts of tasks, and ignoring it now and in the future is just foolish. But hey.. if ATi is under fire.. im glad.

    the problem is... many people have ATi Cards and many people who hear about linux and want to try linux and even want to try gaming in linux are S.O.L. because some prick company decides they dont want to spend a little extra money to make drivers for linux.

    Would i Be upset if i was a linux programmer? HELL YES. but im not.. so.. my small insignificant opinion doesnt really matter.

    oh and leo.. just to let you know, Many linux distros are easier to install then windows XP. perhaps you are behind in your knowledge of linux. Oh and most hardware installs by itself and/or configures itself. Including Nvidia Video cards. I wish i could say the same thing about ATi, While i do game in linux with an ATi Card, it was a pain in the royal ass to get it to work, something wich would have only tooken me about 15 minutes to fix if i had an nVidia card took me about 3 hours. Was i happy? NO.

    I hate ATi
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited February 2006
    This has never been an issue about programming for linux. It's about programing for OpenGL, which is not only the property of linux. The battle is OpenGL vs Direct3d.

    As for market share they can't even measure it. Apple knows how many computers it's selling they can measure that. MS knows how many copies of Windows it's selling independantly or to boxed PC manufacturers. There are a handful of linux flavors that can track their market shares. But the reality is that there is almost no real way of tracking how fast linux is growing in the market share. If someone buys a Dell that's tracked as 1 windows install by Microsoft. But if that person later blows away windows an installs linux they can't track it.

    In the corporate world linux is directly battling it out with windows on the server side and taking a much bigger fut hold then MS would like to admit. ON the desktop side it's gaining ground as office apps like Open Office are directly competing with MS Office. Also as business apps are developing more and more are being designed so that they will run on any platform. The reality if you look a little bit beyond the figures being provided is that Linux and OSX are taking chunks out of the MS's previously universal grasp. If ATI doesn't want to acknowledge that fact, it's their descision. But to simply wave of linux like some tag along brother they are fooling themselves.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    primesuspect wrote:
    I wonder what it costs to pay a driver development team to write comprehensive and high performance drivers from scratch for a new OS. I would guess in the mid six figures.

    //edit:

    also, bear in mind that there is no "directX" for Linux. They not only have to write the drivers, but also lower level system support for said drivers. Not to trivialize the programmers' jobs, but writing a driver for a well documented and extremely mature API is probably easier than writing one for something as hugely general as "linux".

    As Drasnor said, this is wrong, also, writing documentation and such isn't hard, if you're using a distro that uses a packaging system then chances are that will tell you how to install the stuff anyway, plus linux is general because they all run the same "kernel" which is all the graphics company has to work on supporting, not the distro.

    It works like this, Linux is purely the kernel, that's it.
    The distro is then how the system is setup, where certain things are kept, the way the package manager works if it has one, the base system utilities, etc.
    Next is the Window Manager or Desktop environment which are distro independant. Programs aren't limited to a particular distro or WM (unless it's some critical thing like the package manager or such [portage for Gentoo, apt-get for Debian, etc]. I mean when I see people complaining that they can't get their soundcard working with something, or others working with another, those things should be distro independant and setup regardless, same applies for graphics-card drivers.

    To install nvidia's drivers in Gentoo you just type one command to the package manager and poof, same applies for Debian, etc etc. To install it manually just involves uncompressing them, typing a few commands and that's it. That doesn't require a package manager and would work on any distro. The ONLY thing the graphics company need to work on is making a kernel module that lets OpenGL and everything else access the card, just like nVidia have been doing for quite some time.

    The reason people are so pissed off is because ATi won't make any remotely usable drivers and they wont release any information to let anyone else make them either.

    I bought an nVidia card last time because of this and I don't intend to buy from ATi again until they do something about it.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    perhaps you are behind in your knowledge of linux
    I probably am. ;)
  • Unknown
    edited February 2006
    yeh, over the past year ive installed fedora, gentoo, and ubunto/kubunto. The installs were easier and faster than windows ever thought about being (excluding gentoo, which had a lot of customization to do.) I had linux running on my p3/600 system, but i regret to say that either the mobo or proc has died (most likely the mobo) but i intend to get a sempron system up for linux. I really like linuxs gui much better than windows, linux just needs suporters and endorsers to be a real player in the market, after that, i think that everyhting will fall into place, and i look for it to happen in the next 10 years.
  • Unknown
    edited February 2006
    ^^ that was my post. ^^ I hate the way the new front page works
  • Unknown
    edited February 2006
    ^^ that was my post. ^^ I hate the way the new front page works
  • Unknown
    edited February 2006
    ^^ that was my post. ^^ I hate the way the new front page works
  • Unknown
    edited February 2006
    i apologize....my browser is freaking out
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    wrote:
    yeh, over the past year ive installed fedora, gentoo, and ubunto/kubunto. The installs were easier and faster than windows ever thought about being (excluding gentoo, which had a lot of customization to do.) I had linux running on my p3/600 system, but i regret to say that either the mobo or proc has died (most likely the mobo) but i intend to get a sempron system up for linux. I really like linuxs gui much better than windows, linux just needs suporters and endorsers to be a real player in the market, after that, i think that everyhting will fall into place, and i look for it to happen in the next 10 years.

    Yeah, the point in Gentoo is that you just customise everything the way you want and then you never have to really reinstall it or whatever. My server is still running the same copy of Gentoo I installed 3 years ago, yet it is actually now running the latest version of Gentoo without me having ever reinstalled the OS or installed any form of service packs. Very nice having a modular OS that is constantly updated :)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    The installs were easier and faster than windows ever thought about being
    Wow, I really haven't kept up with developments. Egg on my face. I almost see myself as one of those uninformed bozos that maintains AMD systems are unstable because of terrible third party chipsets....seven years ago.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    alright, i have to lay claim to the post above, by browser (or my mouse clickin finger) was freakin out. so yeh, and how come when you post from the front page, it wont show your username?

    anyway, yeh, linux has gotten so much better even over the past 3 years. i think that linux is something to be considered as a viable os to be used in the comming years, because it it gaining a "fanbase", more coders are working on the projects, and the developers/supporters are gaining attention. the platform is there, like i said, all that is needed is supporters and endorsers. not just from hardware companies either, software companies need to start endorsing linux and unix. im not sure how hard it would be to port something from OSX to unix, but i supose its some work going from anything to linux. Adn open source software needs to be publicized. Their are some great program out there, it is just that everyone thinks of a clunky, buggy, un-reliable program (M$ Windows comes to mind?) when they think of open source.
  • madmatmadmat
    edited February 2006
    airbornflght wrote:
    alright, i have to lay claim to the post above, by browser (or my mouse clickin finger) was freakin out. so yeh, and how come when you post from the front page, it wont show your username?

    anyway, yeh, linux has gotten so much better even over the past 3 years. i think that linux is something to be considered as a viable os to be used in the comming years, because it it gaining a "fanbase", more coders are working on the projects, and the developers/supporters are gaining attention. the platform is there, like i said, all that is needed is supporters and endorsers. not just from hardware companies either, software companies need to start endorsing linux and unix. im not sure how hard it would be to port something from OSX to unix, but i supose its some work going from anything to linux. Adn open source software needs to be publicized. Their are some great program out there, it is just that everyone thinks of a clunky, buggy, un-reliable program (M$ Windows comes to mind?) when they think of open source.


    Don't you mean "Posts"?
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    OSX to Linux would require very little effort due to OSX being a port of Unix in the first place, the only things they would need to do would be to code in audio API support such as ALSA as OpenGL would already be setup.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited February 2006
    Enverex wrote:
    OSX to Linux would require very little effort due to OSX being a port of Unix in the first place, the only things they would need to do would be to code in audio API support such as ALSA as OpenGL would already be setup.

    Not quite as simple as that. There are a great many differences in going from a Universal OSX binary to linux. Even though OSX is based on bsd you can't even run all bsd compiled programs in OSX. There are still difference.

    That being said it's probably easier to go from OSX to linux then it is to go from windows to linux. So as OSX continues to gain a greater and greater foot hold I think by proxy we are going to see more commercial grade apps that can also run on linux.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited February 2006
    I think one thing that nobody takes into account for ATi's side of the story may be the manpower they have available to write drivers. If you remember back to the Ti500/Radeon 8500 (and before) days, ATI was always woefully behind in driver development cycles compared to Nvidia for video cards. Now in the last couple of years or so, ATI has finally caught up and surpassed Nvidia on Windows driver development (13 driver releases vs 4-5 for Nvidia last year) and it has payed off for them in increased performance for their video cards. Now to do this, I'm sure that they had to hire (or reassign) many more programmers to Windows driver development. That leaves fewer programmers available for non-Windows driver development. Add to this is the fact that Windows runs on 90% of the computers on the market and you can see where ATI's main concentration on drivers is going to go. But I also figure that with Apple adopting x86 architecture this year and a lot of their machines coming with ATI video cards, you will see quite a bit of driver development for OSX also. Since you all are saying that it would be easier to port ATI's OSX drivers than adapt Windows drivers, maybe there is hope for some Linux driver support from them in the future.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    OS X is a different story driver-wise because OS X uses a different approach to drawing windows and doing 3D rendering: Quartz. The hardware modes between the OS X and Linux drivers would be the same, but the API presented to the system is completely different between Quartz and GLX/DRI. Mac OS X has X Windows as part of Apple's development package but that version of X maps X function calls into Quartz which won't help on the Linux side.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    madmat wrote:
    Don't you mean "Posts"?


    yeh, i did...:rolleyes:

    anyway, yeh, i think its gonna happen. after all the stuff that people said "This will never catch on." and sure enough it did. when automobiles came out, people thought of them as expensive novelties, now they are part of everyday life, same with personal computers. Linux is gonna catch on. People just have to be willing to learn a different User interface, and there area few different ways of doing things in linux. its like going from driving on the left side of the road to the RIGHT side of the road. The process gives you the same results, its just that a few of the steps are changed.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Linux is gonna catch on.
    I sure hope it does. In my case, I just don't have the time for work, home responsibilities, community, my computer hardware hobby, and learning a new OS. There have to be many, many people with a similar attitude as mine: willing to switch, but waiting for a threshold for the OS adoption to be easier.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited February 2006
    You called that right, Leo. Like you, I just don't have the time to add learning a new OS to my already full plate. I would love to learn Linux but I just don't have the time to learn all the little tricks of the trade of Linux, so to speak. Since half my life is spent away from the house on the job at the rig wellsite, I have big interruptions in my overclocking and tinkering as it is. :(
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