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VIA Announces Open Source Driver Initiative

Posted by kdawson on Tue Apr 08, 2008 04:37 PM
from the itching-for-source dept.
Software Linux Technology
Aron Schatz writes "VIA has announced that they will start a new site (http://linux.via.com.tw — doesn't exist yet) specifically for the development of open source drivers. From their press release: 'Over the following months, VIA will work with the community to enable 2D, 3D and video playback acceleration to ensure the best possible Open Source experience on VIA Processor Platforms. 'To further improve cooperation with the community, VIA will also adhere to a regular quarterly release schedule that is aligned with kernel changes and release of major Linux distributions. In addition, beta releases will be issued on the site as needed, and a bug report and tracking feature will also be integrated.' Nvidia should be next."
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Submission: VIA Announces New Open Source Driver Initiative by aronschatz (570456)
[+] Technology: VIA Releases 16K-Line FOSS Framebuffer Driver 159 comments
billybob2 writes "VIA has released 16,434 Lines Of Free & Open Source code that enables Linux natively to use the framebuffer on VIA's graphics chipsets. This comes a month after VIA announced that it will provide Open-Source drivers and documentation on its Web site so that its hardware will work out of the box with Linux distributions. This gives VIA-powered systems that come pre-installed with Linux — such as the gPC, 15.4" gBook, CloudBook, and Zonbu — the ability to output graphics through digital connections such as HDMI, and probably makes them the best-supported framebuffers Linux has ever had. Look forward to documentation and X.org drivers from VIA as well in the near future."
[+] Technology: VIA Releases FOSS Graphics Driver 153 comments
billybob2 writes "VIA has released a 113,800 line open source graphics driver with full mode-setting support for CRT, LCD, and DVI devices along with 2D, X-Video, and cursor acceleration. Harald Welte, VIA's open source representative, states that the next step is to add 3D (see preview), TV-out, and hardware codec support while integrating this work with existing open source projects. VIA has pre-installed Linux on a significant portion of the company's latest products, including the EVEREX gPC2, 15.4" gBook, and CloudBook. It has also helped port the open source CoreBoot BIOS (previously LinuxBIOS) to several of its motherboards." VIA seems to be making good on the promise of its open source initiative announced last April.
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  • Already big in little markets (Score:4, Informative)

    by dotancohen (1015143) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @04:41PM (#23005774) Homepage
    For those who don't know, the Zonbu is really a rebranded VIA Artigo: http://what-is-what.com/what_is/zonbu.html [what-is-what.com] (disclosure: my site)

  • This is good timing. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mr_mischief (456295) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @04:44PM (#23005814) Journal
    They've timed this to fairly well coincide with a new processor design [via.com.tw] that promises better performance than what they've had to date. Hopefully not just drivers but optimizations for their CPU will take off in maturity alongside the growth of their deployed footprint.

  • Nvidia have already open sourced what they can (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2008, @04:45PM (#23005828)
    NVidia use a whole lot of IP from other vendors, and they CAN'T make everything open source because of that. NVidia has made massive efforts in helping their products work on linux as smoothly as possible, and should be praised for their efforts, not berated.

    If Via own all the IP they use, great! They'll be able to open source the lot. NVidia doesn't, so can't, so why give them a hard time after all their efforts to open source as much as possible?
    • Because no one asked for their IP. All anyone wants is details on the API. They can keep their drivers.

      Nvida has also not open sourced "as much as possible" They got dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way. They didn't assist with open sourced drivers for their on board chipset devices until the open source folks reverse engineered the NVidia's drivers and did a better job than NVidia did.

      Intel can do it. ATI has promised to do it and now so does VIA. Why is NVidia different?

      I'm about 4 months from my next video card purchase and I will be taking a hard look at who has the best Linux support. A 10 FPS difference is not worth drivers that seem to need reinstalling every reboot (thanks NVIDIA).

      • Re:Nvidia have already open sourced what they can (Score:5, Informative)

        by pc486 (86611) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:07PM (#23006052) Homepage
        > Intel can do it. ATI has promised to do it and now so does VIA. Why is NVidia different?

        ATI hasn't just promised, they did:

        http://ati.amd.com/developer/open_gpu_documentation.html [amd.com]
        http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=842&num=1 [phoronix.com]

        • Getting closer, but still no cigar:

          However, this new driver does support the Radeon HD 2000 (R600) family... Don't expect any miracles from this driver just yet. At this point, the RadeonHD driver is really targeted for developers and those wanting to use the experimental driver whether it is due to problems using the fglrx driver on the system or just wishing to test out the driver to see if it works for you. As long as AMD sticks to their word on delivering the rest of their documentation, there will not

      • Intel can do it. ATI has promised to do it and now so does VIA. Why is NVidia different?
        Since September, ATI is really far along, to the point where the free drivers are already improving with the published specs. ATI isn't only promising, they are delivering.
      • Well, I can't say that is too terrible.

        The only time I reboot is when I recompile the kernel. Which will require rebuilding/installing the nvidia-drivers package anyway.

      • Re:Nvidia have already open sourced what they can (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2008, @06:39PM (#23006880)
        > Intel can do it. ATI has promised to do it and now so does VIA. Why is NVidia different?

        I'll probably get suicided for telling you this, but i cant stay quiet any more.

        the driver would reveil that it only has two parameter: maxfps and minpowerreq. Those parameter, on the other hand, is set from a simple jumper on the GFX-Card - the GPU isself has been the same from the first GForce almost a decade ago to the newest 9900 Models they are going to "invent" next year. All GPU's have the same Core, reverse engineered from a UFO that crashed in Fairbanks, New Mexico. They would release the new Models now, but Sam Carter is in another galaxy and is only one who has a signature-key for the Asgarth compiler. So, sorry, no opensource drivers for you! ... ... what's that humming in front of my windows....?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kjella (173770)

        A 10 FPS difference is not worth drivers that seem to need reinstalling every reboot (thanks NVIDIA).

        Are you living on the bleeding edge of daily recompiled kernels or something? I checked the box in restricted-manager once, and I've never had to worry about it again. I suppose we'll see how it goes with the pending Hardy upgrade soon, but at least for close to six months now it's been a complete non-issue. I do wish the LCD TV I have on the second DVI port would work right though...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by TheDugong (701481)
        "A 10 FPS difference is not worth drivers that seem to need reinstalling every reboot (thanks NVIDIA)." Let me guess, you use Ubuntu and have the restricted drivers installed? I haven't looked at this for 1 or 2 years, but the restricted drivers (including the nvidia drivers) are copied to a ram disk mounted somewhere in the kernel module directory tree (can't remember where) at boot time (no idea why). So, if you have the restricted drivers installed and then install the nvidia drivers from nvidia's web

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by TheDugong (701481)
            nvidia module is probably not loaded at boot time. I guess the nvidia installer loads it when the driver is installed.

            See:

            http://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#head-6cb9442ef3215e7aa8e2e1a13c73a7819a9e9890

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by corvair2k1 (658439)
        It's likely that your reinstall on every boot is necessary because your distribution includes several open source replacement drivers which interfere with the one you installed. This can be fixed via adding

        DISABLED_MODULES="nvidia nvidia_legacy nvidia_new"

        to /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common , or something like it.
    • The real meat of it for me is the video playback.

      From what I can find online NOBODY has h.264 accelerated playback in Linux, and the best solution is to use a hack that loads a commercial software decoder made for Windows.

      Until I read this I thought my next HTPC would be ATI if things ever came to be, but now it may be VIA.

      I will build my next PC as soon as I find a fairly inexpensive card/chipset that will do HDMI out, and hardware H.264 in Linux. I don't care whether it is good closed source (like Nvidia graphics)or open source support either, Just that it works well and is fairly low power usage (pegging a fast multi-core CPU does not count).

      Until Nvidia offers feature parity with Windows on Linux or enough is opened for the community to do it themselves they deserve a hard time.

      If someone knows a good solution for this let me know so I can stop waiting.
  • We're seeing more and more VIA CPUs in Linux-based "low-end" laptops. I think this really bode well for Linux. If we establish a presence in these internet-as-an-appliance devices, we can use it as a staging point to move into the desktop market.
    • That's total BS. Once more, it is not the year of the Linux Desktop- OR portable.

      It is the year of the rat:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_(zodiac) [wikipedia.org]

      Learn your lunar calendars, Slashdot.
    • There's a reason (two, actually)
      1: VIA chips, although they aren't known for stellar performance, are usually pretty low-power (but nowhere near ARM-based stuff)
      2: VIA produced something called the Nanobook, a reference design for the subsub-notebooks. Two machines have been released under this design: the Everex Cloudbook and the Packard-Bell Easynote XS

    • Re:Year of the Linux.... portable? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by turing_m (1030530) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @08:11PM (#23007546)
      You are right. The rise of the low cost computer is the beginning of the end for high profit margins on Windows. The only real way they have of combatting FOSS is to release Windows for next to nothing and hope to extract some sort of money with Office. But that is a losing tactic as well. As capable computers approach the cost of a VCR, consumers will have the choice of getting something that does the job, or something that does the job and costs twice as much.

      What other options do MS have? They can't kill/buy off Via or the other commodity PC manufacturers that will spring up as know-how increases. Import restrictions can't stop world trade, are not popular and take a long time to implement.

      Killer apps to increase future price of computers? The average human has only so many needs that can be filled by an increasing number of instructions per second, especially when those instructions must be executed in parallel. Computers are fast enough for our senses (HD video, sound) and communications needs (bottleneck is in the networking). Most of the killer apps are already here. Any extra functionality enabled by some sort of high powered Intel machine is a small percentage of total functionality provided by the current crop of computers.

      In this sort of environment, owning a computer that will do almost everything is an easy decision for $200, even if it means acquainting yourself with a different operating system. Ubuntu is easy to install, but even easier if it just comes pre-installed on your device with all drivers working. With understanding comes trust, acceptance and consideration for use in other spheres of life. If anything, the killer app is a small, very low power, solid state computer (hence silent while requiring zero maintenance) - for firewalls, NAS, HTPC, portables, general PC use and home gaming. There is no real margin in any of this (except games), and no ability to fund the survival mechanisms of an operating system and office suite monopolist. Only niche players will find the margins.

      With high profit margins comes the resources to lobby, to advertise, to muscle hardware vendors. Maintaining their monopoly has not been cheap, but while there was profit to be had it was a sound business proposition. Without the money coming in, the collapse will be reminiscent of the Soviet Union - without the resources to maintain the empire, the decay will accelerate rapidly and people will be surprised at how rapidly and pervasively it actually happens.

  • nVidia next? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneus (253617) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @04:48PM (#23005856) Homepage
    I think that would be terrific, but the announcement/article didn't say that... this is wild speculation as far as I can see.

    ATI pissed me off too often where I had ATI in my Dell laptop for quite a while. I watched friends with nVidia in their machines do all sorts of nice things under Linux that I couldn't do with ATI. It was annoying, so eventually I bought an nVidia card for my laptop to replace the ATI and I too was doing nice things under Linux that I couldn't do with ATI... then ATI announced they were going strong on releasing their hardware specs and stuff like that opening the door for completely OSS drivers for ATI hardware. (I haven't seen anything yet, but I haven't been watching since I switched to nVidia.)

    And now here I sit with nVidia hardware in my laptop... waiting for driver updates, features and bugs to be added... same-ole-same-ole. I'd love for the speculation that nVidia will essentially fold under the pressure, but at the moment, I don't see that they are showing any signs of pressure.

    • Re:nVidia next? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mike Zilva (785109) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:11PM (#23006080)
      I've got an intel G35 (integrated graphics) based board from Asus (P5E-VM HDMI) and im'm prety happy with 3D at 1600x1200 on ubuntu 8.04beta. I usualy don't like integrated devices, but I choose this board just bacause intel released open source drivers/specs and they deserve this choice.

    • Re:nVidia next? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kjella (173770) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:23PM (#23006216) Homepage

      then ATI announced they were going strong on releasing their hardware specs and stuff like that opening the door for completely OSS drivers for ATI hardware. (I haven't seen anything yet, but I haven't been watching since I switched to nVidia.)
      Released:
      2D specs for R300-R500, R600
      3D specs for R300-R500
      Not released:
      3D specs for R600
      TCore (graphics card simulation)
      Might be released:
      Low-end code from the fglrx driver

      In short, they still haven't released the specs on their latest generation and R700 is expected sometime this year. Yes, it's a promising development but if you want the latest and greatest, it's closed source whether you go with ATI or nVidia...

  • kudos (Score:4, Insightful)

    by immerohnegott (949338) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @04:50PM (#23005884)
    While not exactly a major powerhouse by my estimate, VIA still holds a pretty decent hunk of marketshare. Nice to see one more (relatively) large player see Linux as a valid enough market to make this kind of effort.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by compro01 (777531)
      they're not a force in the desktop, but unless i'm mistaken, they're pretty big in the embedded sector.

  • I'll believe it when I see it working.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by questro (802656) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @04:52PM (#23005898)
    I'll believe it when I see the drivers working on my Ubuntu system with desktop effects active. I've tried the OpenChrome drivers and other things and nothing works with the UniChrome Pro CN400/PM880 video card that I have. Via has been very disappointing so far.

    • I was also thinking this is too little, too late. After a few years of playing around with VIA systems, I've moved to Intel boards where opensource drivers just work.

      Nevertheless, it would be nice to see this work for real. Competition is always welcome. Frankly, it's weird that VIA hardware is geared towards embedded/mobile use, while providing drivers mainly for the most power-hungry OS on the planet.

  • I like VIA's strategy (Score:5, Informative)

    by $random_var (919061) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @04:57PM (#23005966)
    They go out of their way to encourage the growth of an ecosystem in which their products can compete. Not too long ago I hadn't heard of any PC/laptop processors besides AMD/Intel, but thanks to VIA's encouragement of the Ultra-mobile PC market (or 'netbooks' as Intel likes to call them) they have suddenly become a player.

    VIA created the nanobook [via.com.tw] reference design for mini-laptops that use their low-cost, low-power chips. Already the CloudBook [wikipedia.org] has come out based on that design, and in other countries various similar laptops have been released from different distributors. Now they're stimulating essential linux development, which will continue to increase the value of their low-cost platform. This has "win" written all over it; we're all going to come out ahead thanks to their strategy.

  • Extend It To Crypto (Score:5, Informative)

    by SlashdotOgre (739181) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:02PM (#23006014) Journal
    I hope they consider extending it to their crypto accelerator. Even low end Via boards (like the C3 I bought two years ago for $60 from newegg) include a hardware RNG and low level AES routines, and it would be cool to get some proper support. I've used Sun's crypto accelerators on their T2000's and the difference on certain algorithms is stunning.
    • Support exists already. Run a version of make config on the kernel sources, and maybe you'll see this.

    • Re:Extend It To Crypto (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TeknoHog (164938) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:15PM (#23006118) Homepage Journal
      Umm, this has been in the vanilla Linux kernel for a while. I've tried it with the C7 with great success, too bad the rest of the motherboard wasn't particularly good with Linux.

    • Re:Extend It To Crypto - already done (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:17PM (#23006144)
      The Via H/W random generator is used as a /dev/[u]random driver in current kernels, and the AES engine is available as an openssl 'engine', so I'm not sure what else you need.

      Via really stuffed up, however, when they made repeated half-baked attempts at 'semi-binary' drivers which worked only on ancient versions like Redhat 9 and wouldn't provide any support or information on the MPEG decoding chip (in the CLE266 and above) which was essential to getting working DVD and DVB playback on the low power boards like the Nemiah.

      I won't hold my breath...

      • Via really stuffed up, however, when they made repeated half-baked attempts at 'semi-binary' drivers which worked only on ancient versions like Redhat 9 and wouldn't provide any support or information on the MPEG decoding chip (in the CLE266 and above) which was essential to getting working DVD and DVB playback on the low power boards like the Nemiah.

        I agree with the general sentiments on the VIA-Linux relationship. However, my old system with a 1 GHz Nehemiah [sic] and CLE266 played DVDs just fine without MPEG2 acceleration, using MPlayer.

  • Cool (Score:4, Interesting)

    by markov_chain (202465) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:06PM (#23006042) Homepage
    Hopefully they will officially GPL their wireless drivers too. They have source code for a nice, hackable, soft-MAC driver right now but no license.
  • VIA opened up their drivers? Is that a flying Porcine I witnessed this afternoon on the way home from work?

  • VIA Envy24 Audio Chipsets (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nbritton (823086) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @05:50PM (#23006432)
    What about the Envy24 audio chipsets? These chipsets are sweet but the documentation is locked up.

  • will work with the community eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rastoboy29 (807168) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @06:16PM (#23006680) Homepage
    Methinks "VIA will work with the community" translates to "VIA would really like the community to do all the work, and will be good enough to host it on their website", perhaps?
    • Methinks "VIA will work with the community" translates to "VIA would really like the community to do all the work,

      If they just publish the specs and stand back, I'm fine with that.

      If they also release some of their current code under a free license it's a nice bonus. ... and will be good enough to host it on their website", perhaps?

      ANOTHER bonus!

  • linux.via.com.tw -- no such host (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Big Jojo (50231) on Tuesday April 08 2008, @06:48PM (#23006962)

    Their press announcement arrived before any content, sigh.

    The PR says the website will start with: drivers, technical documentation, source code, and information regarding the VIA CN700, CX700/M, CN896 and the new VIA VX800 chipsets. It'd be good to see docs on their more widely used chipsets, like vt8235 and vt8237 ... detailed ones, including errata. I mean, currently they piss off almost everyone who uses their chipsets, so why would anyone want to buy NEW hardware with VIA chips if it's not even clear the current stuff can be made to work well?

    It's a nice idea, years overdue. But even at that, pre-announced.

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