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VIA Releases 800 Pages of Documentation For Linux
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Jul 27, 2008 07:13 AM
from the why-thank-you dept.
from the why-thank-you dept.
billybob2 writes "VIA has published three programming guides that total 800 pages in length and cover their PadLock, CX700, and VX800/820 technologies. The VIA PadLock provides a random number generator, an advanced cryptography engine, and RSA algorithm computations. The VX800 chipset was VIA's first Integrated Graphics Processor, while the CX700 is a System Media Processor designed for the mobile market. This is another step in VIA's strategy to support the development of Free and Open Source drivers under Linux, which comes pre-installed on VIA products such as the Sylvania NetBook, HP Mini-Note, 15.4" gBook, gPC, CloudBook, Zonbu, and VIA OpenBook. Earlier this week, VIA hired Linux kernel developer and GPL-Violations.org founder Harald Welte to be VIA's liason to the Open Source community."
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Via what method? (Score:2, Funny)
Guh?
800 pages in length (Score:4, Funny)
How many pages in width?
Re:800 pages in length (Score:5, Funny)
700, with a depth of 300.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
How many pages in width?
Only one, certainly.
Re:800 pages in length (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing disappointing is that we still don't have PadLock[esque] instructions in AMD's and Intel's mainstream CPUs. You need to max out a modern 2-core highly clocked CPU to match a fanless C7 1.2GHz CPU in SHA and AES performance. What the hell is the problem? NIHS?
XSHA for teh wins already!
Parent
Re:800 pages in length (Score:5, Insightful)
>A single core on a 3Ghz Core2 can match the performance of Padlock.
Which of course, is pathetic, all things considered. It's like hammering in a screw. Yeah sure, with a big enough hammer it'll go in...
>There is nothing magical about this
Who mentioned magic? I sure as hell didn't.
>The fact that the Core2 can keep up says volumes about the poor implementation of the C7.
Yes, an Intel 3.0GHz Core2 CPU at 100% load keeping up with a ~12W fanless CPU. I can see how you'd consider that a loss for the VIA implementation, if you're on drugs.
I don't know what the hell the point of your comment was, I seems to be argumentative just for the sake of it. The facts are simple: If Intel and AMD worked together on a cryptographic instruction set, we'd get FANTASTICALLY BETTER performance in these scenarios. We're talking 10-20x the performance of just bruteforcing it, spending CPU time that could be used for something better.
If you want to argue against that, I suggest you visit the local bar. I believe its name is /dev/null
Parent
state of integrated graphics (Score:5, Insightful)
makes you wonder, what with intel and via and amd/ati opening their documentation etc, if it will get to the point in the near future where nvidia will be the only binary blob in regards to video drivers.
come to think of it, this trend is something similar to what happened with wifi a few years back. Everyone was using binary blobs, then atheros, ralink etc release specs and oss drivers. let us hope this pressures the remaining vendors to do the same.
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and also the only one with fully accelerated 3d
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Re:state of integrated graphics (Score:5, Informative)
It is cheaper and easier to not use ancient crap.
That all depends on who's buying the parts...
Your mindset considered, you'd better not look too closely into industrial control systems.... your head might explode.
Parent
Re:state of integrated graphics (Score:5, Interesting)
They need serious competition from ATI and Linux fans choosing ATI because of document availability.
Same goes for Via too.
The pressure can only be done via free market and people's reason for choosing a product. Lets say, a huge customer like a country Army chooses ATI for their computers over NVidia just because ATI is documented. I tell you to count days (not weeks!) before Nvidia does similar move. Just watch the governments after the documentation of VIA, the salesman will have a real hard to beat argument: "It is open!"
Does the security agencies, armies still buy Nvidia while choosing Linux/BSD because the source is open? It really makes no sense to have binary thing running in supposed to be open and secure OS.
Parent
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That said, I think that it is great that VIA is opening up docs, and I can't wait for nVidia to do the same, compiz cubes for everyone!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Now it is open, some very advanced developer may pick it and make that cheap hardware integrated graphics become the fastest performing integrated graphics in that class. They are very much tied to software/driver you know.
You know, such things happened, some people fixed Creative's advanced sound drivers to work fine in Vista I heard.
I got an impression that even big name guys like NVidia and ATI aren't performing the way they should because of drivers. Especially on OS X/Leopard I notice it. 70% of bad f
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I'm sorry, but I'm not picking ATI just yet. I want to see results, not just "useless" specs as I will NOT be writing a video driver just because there is some specs for it.
nVidia cards just work with any modern kernel. And they will work for conceivable future.
ATI cards circa 2000 had some dev(s) working on them and ATI was co-operating or so was the word. That was when I chose the ATI card 7200 with 64MB, VIVO etc. And guess what? The drivers sucked and continued to suck. Then ATI discontinued Linux suppo
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I hope the linux people will buy ATI/AMD otherwise they will die soon, very soon.
First Atheros and now this? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just a coincidence they came one after another, but I think companies are going to quickly realize that there's no benefit to keeping things locked up.
Suddenly they won't need to pay to write drivers, just release the documentation to write them (of course, it would be nice if they gave us a base). The OSS community will make the drivers more stable, cleaner, and faster. We will use the drivers for things they didn't imagine. All of this will save them money and sell their hardware (features added for free? added incentive to buy my stuff? sign me up!)
I think we may have reached critical mass, at least on the driver side.
Re:First Atheros and now this? (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) Companies lose control if they open source their drivers. Examples: Dell recently killed certain features from their sound drivers, and a ways back Creative was upset at someone who hacked up features into their Vista drivers which were purposefully absent (but present on their XP drivers). Both Dell and Creative "lost" here even with closed source drivers - they'd have never stood a chance to screw over their customers if the drivers were open.
(2) Many companies, which should focus on hardware, still worry others stealing their technology from open sourcing their drivers. nVidia is the biggest example here.
(3) Managment people are stupid and can't seem to comprehend how giving away this information can benefit them.
Slowly things are going the right direction, but it'll be quite a while yet. For the time being the F/OSS community will just have to remain in the weird flux of having some things work better than their closed source counterparts (rt2570 works sooo much better on Linux), while some things are worse (x264 acceleration).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
a ways back Creative was upset at someone who hacked up features into their Vista drivers which were purposefully absent (but present on their XP drivers). (...) Creative "lost" here even with closed source drivers - they'd have never stood a chance to screw over their customers if the drivers were open.
Creative licensed certain features for XP, that they didn't want to pay for in Vista. It wasn't that Creative was trying to force customers to buy more expensive cards, it was that Creative itself would have to pay an obscene sum to a third party for Vista support. Not getting permanent rights sounds like short-term cost saving on Creative's part but whoever cashed his bonus back in 2001 probably doesn't care. Whoever owned the rights probably knew they had Creative by the balls and got too greedy, so they
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_3D [wikipedia.org]
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That's really great that some developers take the modular and API structural systems to heart. The divisioning of work is a great feature that allows for much easier development among other things. I hope the Linux kernel also becomes more modular and flexible in the future, and all software really. I think due to competition you'll see this kind of thing more and more, because the huge unmodular software stacks will become more ignored because they are more difficult and less
How reliable is their random number generator? (Score:3, Insightful)
I see that one of the chips in question is for a random number generator. Despite providing documentation/specs on how this chip runs, to make it possible to write free drivers, it's not the same as having the actual source code for the chip. With any other type of chip this would be well and good, but with random number generators, you can't really test them, and will need to rely on examination of the source code to prove that it works. Even then, it would not be that easy --see the Underhanded C Conte [xcott.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
According to them, it's quantum-effect based:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/padlock/hardware.jsp [via.com.tw]
in short, it's a set of free running oscillators, where the exact frequency of each is affected by thermal noise. the instabilities generate an easy to detect "beating", turned into bits and accumulated in hardware registers.
there's very little 'source code for the chip' to read and validate; but there are several tools to statistically verify random distributions.
(this one looks nice: http://csrc.nist.gov [nist.gov]
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Your network driver or even an encryption chip, well, not quite the same as a 3D driver.
Only the ignorant will say that a company will not need to write their own OSS drivers for 3D cards just because they've released the specs. It doesn't work like that.
Unichrome Pro support (Score:5, Interesting)
Next step: Release the documentation for the display adapters please.
The open source drivers mostly can't handle the mpeg2/mpeg4 acceleration, and without that the Epias collapse when you try to watch some higher resolution video. That makes them quite unsuitable for living room usage, which is a shame because they could make excellent HTPCs. With better drivers the better Epia boards could handle HD video just fine..
Re: (Score:2)
Amen!
They may even expirience a small sales boost when all the linux enthusiasts and integrators can finally build their HTPCs around VIA-boards.
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Just about time - now for the other solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm trying to run Ubunu on a VIA epia for some time now, but their graphics solution is as unstable as hell. There is either the binary driver from VIA itself, or the OS one, but both are not quite what you would expect. Now the question for me is: will it also affect the CN400 chipset (and especially the graphics driver)? Because 5 minutes of average uptime before the machine freezes is not workable. I do think the UniChrome Pro support packages are most important for VIA, the rest already seems to work pretty well.
It seems that each time that a company is on the ropes, they pledge OS support. It would be a good idea for companies to do something when they are not on the brink of extinction. VIA is in a tight spot. They're moving out of the chipset business, and since the eye of Intel is currently on the mobile CPU/chipset business, they can expect the Nazgul to come riding in pretty soon (I don't know too many old testament stories, which seem more appropriate for VIA).
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> I'm trying to run Ubunu on a VIA epia for some time now, but their graphics solution is as unstable as hell.
Yep, same here. The rest of the board works quite well, but I had endless trouble with the built in graphics. With Ubuntu 8.04 it seems to work ok now, but the picture is still a bit fuzzy.
What are you doing with them? (Score:2)
Both of my newer via (C7) boards are being used as mini-servers right now, so I don't have much use for any graphics drivers, but prior to that I found that my Epia M and other unichrome-based boards worked fine with the via-provided, and later kernel-inherent drivers. They worked nicely for watching movies, some 3d games, etc, and no crashes. This was on a Debian-based system but being that Ubuntu is debian-based and the kernel is cross-distro I'd imagine they should be similar.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
p.s. also worth checking your X-Config too: here's my VIA video settings (tailored for TV-out...)
Section "Device"
Identifier "VIA Unichrome Pro II"
Driver "via"
Option "ActiveDevice" "TV"
Option "TVType" "PAL"
Option "TVOutput" "S-Video"
Option "TVDeflicker" "0"
#Option
Fighting the Atom? (Score:2)
I've been using Via boards for awhile in lower-power (as in watts) webservers and media machines. In terms of power return on low-consumption machines they rock.
One thing I've wondered is why the newer "lower power" rigs are using the Atom processor, which from I can tell in stats is inferior to - say - the C7 in terms of CPU-power-per-watt output.
Re:linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Now Linux drivers can be written for the hardware. Just like TFS says.
Parent
Re:linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, as one of the other respondants pointed out, once the docs are out there, it can benefit any operating system, but the point is that VIA wants Linux, in particular (and the technologies like X that operate with the Linux kernel) to better support their products. I think of the three, the one that is most likely to be directly used by the Linux kernel dev is the crypto engine documentation. I think there are kernel-space crypto block device drivers (LUKS - at least, I think it's kernel space; I suppose it might be implemented in user-space) which could be accellerated by the padlock engine. In fact, I think the kernel already has some support for the padlock - whenever I boot my laptop, on which I have used LUKS to encrypt my /home partition, I get a warning that the padlock engine was not found (of course, because I have an Intel Core2 Duo, so don't have padlock).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> but the point is that VIA wants Linux, in particular (and the technologies
> like X that operate with the Linux kernel) to better support their products.
It might be a lot more pressing than just "wants". It wouldn't surprise me if decent Linux support is now a requirement for VIA to get some of that "netbook" action.
c.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't you know? All The World Is Linux. Even X. Let's be honest, only someone smart enough to work on Linux could possibly be smart enough to understand the documentation anyway. Us thickos who work on other OSes will just have to try not to get drool on the screen.
Confession is good for the soul.
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What other operating systems NEED to write it's own drivers rather than depending on the vendor?
WHO CARES?
It's a really short list.
What other "non-X" developers are salivating over these docs?
REALLY?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, ReactOS, OpenSolaris, Haiku, Syllable, Plan9
Off the top of my head.
DirectFB, ReactOS, Haiku, Syllable, Plan9
Again, just off the top of my head.
It's O.K, we all know they're just wasting their time. Linux and X are perfect and there will never be anything better, so who else ever needs access to hardware documentation?
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don't feed the trolls
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I'm sure Linux developers love having their cake and eating it too!
Re:my family have a confectionery business... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure Linux developers love having their cake and eating it too!
The cake is a... yeah, you saw that one coming didn't you?
Parent
Re:font? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope they used a very tiny font!
I want to love Via, but they keep disappointing me.
ATI started off with 800 pages as well. They kept adding to it, to the point where ATI graphic chipsets are almost as well supported Intels, and even have budding 3D support in the free drivers. I have faith in VIA.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Disappointed for what? Do you expect a "10 PRINT HELLO WORLD" like thing in age of 2008?
Chipsets are way too complex stuff, they will indeed have 800 page documentation. People developing that kind of deep stuff actually uses all those 800 pages of documents.
Re:font? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:font? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I would say that hiring Harald Welte is a better indication of VIA's intentions than the release of documentation. Nobody in their right mind is going to hire the owner of GPL-Violations.org [gpl-violations.org] unless they are absolutely serious about Free Software.
Welte eats vendors for breakfast. Hiring him grants VIA instant credibility. If VIA drops the ball it is very likely to get crucified. Unless the executives at VIA have the intellect of fence posts this indicates a sea change for Free Software support from VIA.
Parent
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I just suggest that if you use Windows (any kind), give up MS manufactured drivers and get a WHQL certified chipset driver from Via instead.
For some reason (!) the Wintel manufacturer keeps shipping buggy drivers on Windows.
I tested this on a laptop and even a high end AMD based video workstation. Something really good happens right after installing them (hyperion or something) and rebooting. Instantly.
Of course, Linux like open source OS'es doesn't have such evil tricks etc.
That's just a mistake in TFS (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Via con Dios, hackers (Score:4, Funny)
Via con Dios, hackers.
Parent