VIA Releases FOSS Graphics Driver 153
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.
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
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Talk about a cookbook [youtube.com] answer...
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Not yet, but soon hopefully. As stated in the OP.
It is really cool to see more hardware vendors moving to open source. Drivers are one area where more eyes are needed to help make the bugs shallow.
Re:even more Obligatory (Score:2)
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Yes, but does it support -- World of Warcraft?
Actually, it did, until some dude on the dev team called Leroy Jenkins accidentally wiped out the code.
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We really need a mod for "citation needed".
May as well slap it "offtopic" for now, unless there's some connection I missed between video drivers and global warming...
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Whoosh!
I do hope this pans out... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I can trust that VIA video will actually work properly under linux, their boards become considerably more attractive for my purposes. The prospect of coreboot support for such boards would be gravy. I'd love to be able to put together some little linux widgets with linux burned right into the motherboard.
Re:I do hope this pans out... (Score:5, Informative)
Via really has no choice.
The intel 945G chipset for Atom is fully documented and has quite good open source 3d drivers.
Atom kills VIA in Price/Performance/Power ratio across the board.
Once Intel fixes the problem of their north bridge requiring 6x the power Atom does then via is in really big trouble
It's interesting to see via go from ruling the mini-ITX market to now desparately having to play catchup in such a short time.
Re:I do hope this pans out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Via really has no choice.
Agreed, everyone except for nVidia and maybe Matrox (side note: what a shitty company) is opening their specs.
The intel 945G chipset for Atom is fully documented and has quite good open source 3d drivers.
It sucks up 22W+ by itself though, and is very old. It's nothing compared to the VX800 or CN896.
Atom kills VIA in Price/Performance/Power ratio across the board.
-Price: Maybe. If you just want entry-level options (ie bare to the bone) and don't care about power usage, it's definately cheaper. Normal VIA parts are sold like boutique items. Except, strangely, their mATX boards go for 50$.
-Performance: Definately not, now that Nano has been released (but damnit sell 'em at retail!).
-Power ration: What? Nano desktop parts are what people have been measuring. Typical ULV C7s are like 4W-7W. Considering you get a chipset that ranges in that wattage too, and this is honest counting unlike Intel, VIA certainely has the upper hand.
Not to mention they don't need a P4 connector...
Once Intel fixes the problem of their north bridge requiring 6x the power Atom does then via is in really big trouble
Unlikely. Intel does not want to lose Celeron sales for the Atom. So their miniITX boards remain crap so they can sell whatever 945G boards they have left over that failed their low-voltage tests.
It's interesting to see via go from ruling the mini-ITX market to now desparately having to play catchup in such a short time.
I wouldn't call it catch up, but it's nice to see Intel and VIA compete. The only thing is I hope it drives down the price of VIA parts, at least within the 90$-150$ range, otherwise it's been a waste of time.
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I am surprised that VIA still actually exists. Probably it'll be a case of "too little, too late", but who knows.
And NVidia is not completely free of trouble now that ATI/AMD got the performance lead once more, and NVidia allegedly has serious problems (low yields) on several recent GPU chips (9600 GT, among others). As for Matrox, wow, they're still in business?
Re:I do hope this pans out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then something happened. I don't know what: brain-slugs, possibly. They yanked everything, even the specs for older hardware, and stopped communicating. What a bunch of dicks.
Re: Matrox (Score:5, Informative)
On top of that, they fell behind badly in terms of performance, and the great signal quality from their cards is mostly meaningless in the age of DVI.
Looks almost like a case of corporate suicide, as in "nobody can be THAT stupid, so it must be intentional" ;-).
Re:I do hope this pans out... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I do hope this pans out... (Score:5, Informative)
The intel 945G chipset for Atom is fully documented and has quite good open source 3d drivers.
Our company works with almost a dozen hardware vendors, and none of them are so hard to work with and so open source hostile as intel. Try getting the documentation for the RAM controller of the chipset you mentioned.
I'm sorry, what did you just say? (Score:3, Interesting)
Atom kills VIA in Price/Performance/Power ratio across the board.
Once Intel fixes the problem of their north bridge requiring 6x the power Atom does then via is in really big trouble
?? Didn't someone just do a watt/performance comparison of the atom _platform_ against an amd64, and it lost in both wattage and performance?!
I doubt if Intel would improve their northbridge much as they don't want this to be a viable platform against their celerons.
Might already be there, depending on purpose (Score:2)
TFA says VIA has already released a 2D driver. If that works well, it should do for routers/firewalls/servers. And that is where I can see a small VIA based PC being used.
For gaming, I'd still prefer a full size PC with AMD or Intel dual core CPU and a separate ATI graphics card (NVidia binary drivers are acceptable, but now ATI is more attractive thanks to its Open Source program).
Re:Might already be there, depending on purpose (Score:4, Insightful)
wtf are you on about, why would a firewall need a fast blit ?
I would guess you don't know shit about what a vga card does.
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Even a server or firewall needs some configuration. With the driver VIA has just released, there is an Open Source driver that can display text and 2D graphics. Which will do nicely for a typical GUI (Ubuntu?), so you are not limited to the console.
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Yes, but that's what HTTP interfaces are for.
Re:Might already be there, depending on purpose (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to say it, but do you understand the concept of a firewall? You know, a hardened box running the minimum software necessary to inspect and pass/stop traffic?
Typically, it does not include a gui for a pretty interface.
Just saying.
routerlogin.net anyone? (Score:2)
Even a server or firewall needs some configuration.
What configuration user interface does a typical home or small business firewall need that a built-in web server can't provide?
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of that I'm mighty glad
Almost unbelievable (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not saying they did such GPL crime but, if you look at https://www.helixcommunity.org/ [helixcommunity.org] , don't you feel it is a bit surreal?
Such things happen. I call it "nerd coup" ;)
Re:Almost unbelievable (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously their motive is profit. They went the route of stealing code (although that might not have been management, just some rogue coder taking the easy way out) and it didn't work. VIA understands that there is a large and growing Linux community and that there is money to be made from being Linux-friendly.
Just because their motive isn't selfless doesn't mean Linux supporters shouldn't welcome VIA with open arms. This is the sort of support we've wanted for many years.
Re:Almost unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they wronged the open source community in the past, maybe they didn't (I personally don't know). Let's show them that we are forgiving of past mistakes and fully welcome them and their donated code into the FOSS world. They made things right, let's not dwell on the past.
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They made things right, let's not dwell on the past.
I'm trapped in the past, you insensitive clod!
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They made things right, let's not dwell on the past.
I'm trapped in the past, you insensitive clod!
Then for you it's the present, stop complaining.
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Still running Windows 95?
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Windows 95? He's still on DOS 3.3, you insensitive clod!
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When they get things up to speed. At the moment, as much as I want to support burgeoning FOSS movements, their Linux drivers are still pretty weak. I'm working on a project now which will require a mini-ITX board, so my first natural choice to consider was VIA. While I don't need super-beefy hardware, TV-out and 3D (and Linux) needs to be supported for what I'm doing. I'm right now looking at mini-ITX boards with Intel chipsets, or I'll even consider closed-source nVidia drivers - but sadly VIA is still
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Maybe they wronged the open source community in the past, maybe they didn't (I personally don't know). Let's show them that we are forgiving of past mistakes and fully welcome them and their donated code into the FOSS world. They made things right, let's not dwell on the past.
I'm not familiar with VIA, but one also needs to consider the strong possibility that the people involved with copying GPL code years ago probably aren't the ones making the current decision. Companies usually evolve through attriti
Re:Almost unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
It is likely they went through a process of discovery. The discovered that keeping the software open source has very little impact upon maintaining competitive advantage on the hardware or making innovative leaps in hardware design and keeping those proprietary. For hardware producers, software is just another overhead and working to minimise that cost makes sense.
There is a real push to achieve low cost ubiquitous computing, UMPC's, smartphone/PDA etc. and every cost saving makes it far more achievable and obviously maintains reasonable profit margins for the hardware manufacturers.
At the moment hardware manufacturers find their profit margins squeezed while their products are carrying closed source proprietary software with 10 times the profit margin, it makes absolutely no business sense as a hard ware manufacturer to put up with this. I am sure most hardware manufacturers thought that M$'s idea of free hardware and 'renting' the software was a load of B$.
Re:Almost unbelievable (Score:4, Interesting)
The discovered that keeping the software open source has very little impact upon maintaining competitive advantage on the hardware or making innovative leaps in hardware design and keeping those proprietary
I've made it a point to mention the open source driver problem in just about every other e-mail to my Via rep. My guess is a few hundred other developers were doing the same thing. I've also made it a point to express gratitude on each win. Yes, it's good for them, they should have done it anyway, but it's going to make my life a bunch easier too.
Re:Almost unbelievable (Score:4, Insightful)
If they open source the drivers, there's a chance that they can cut costs - there's a significant chance someone _else_ (redhat, suse, ubuntu, etc) might end up doing the work of keeping the drivers for the _old_ hardware working with the various Linux kernels out there.
Then their in-house coders can do the presumably more "interesting" stuff like write drivers for the newer hardware (esp pre-release hardware - in the initial stages you might end up having to change specs, after release you can send it to the open source bunch).
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Some people find writing drivers interesting (believe it or not...), like writing emulators. Getting open specs or at least open drivers (and best if it's both!!) gives them a chance to tinker with it. It becomes in their hands to maintain it and add features.
So now VIA no longer has to write drivers. They mail a copy of the specification (a minimum of 2D) to whoever is on their list, and these people can hack the drivers and keep it together for them. And why not? This is a big help for groups like OpenChr
Now show them why OSS is good (Score:5, Insightful)
As an act of faith, we should build something cool out of this - not to mention promote them to non-gaming computer users.
If we can optimize a graphics driver or do new things with it, they can sell more hardware and everybody wins. God knows ATI isn't making any money off of their drivers.
Hopefully we can use this to drive the point home.
Re:Now show them why OSS is good (Score:5, Insightful)
But the question is, what?
Re:Now show them why OSS is good (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I think a simple start would be to come up with a nice polished compiz theme and desktop (like a good avant [wikipedia.org] dock with some nice icons) that uses this driver to its fullest. We are now at the point where a Linux Desktop can look as good as, if not better than, Windows or the Mac.
Give the average Joe Bloggs a PC running Linux that is relatively immune to viruses and auto-updates Firefox, Flash, Java, GNOME/KDE and VLC when its not being used and you have one happy computer user.
Build computers that use VIA chipsets for all the family that you run tech support for and lets start driving Linux adoption up! The drivers are here.
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Wobbly windows FTW!
Arrghhhh (Score:5, Informative)
Now, a year later, nVidia is looking ridiculous by clinging to closed-source binary drivers while the rest of the industry (including ATi, for pete's sake) go open. And the fact that freaking VIA is more open than nVidia really makes me feel...frustrated. Sorry nVidia, but I can't recommend you as long as you lag like this.
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Now, a year later, nVidia is looking ridiculous by clinging to closed-source binary drivers while the rest of the industry (including ATi, for pete's sake) go open. And the fact that freaking VIA is more open than nVidia really makes me feel...frustrated.
Don't feel frustrated... if your video card is a year old then it's time to get a new one anyway. :)
When I first read the summary, I thought it did say nVidia.. I'm sure I would have spit out my milk if I were drinking any. Ah well, not quite as exciting, but still very welcome indeed.
Re:Arrghhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, there are several companies doing that already, never mind.
I buy graphics cards for their hardware, and I expect the software to utilize the hardware as best it can, and if anyone can help with that and with fixing bugs etc then all the better.
On the specific point of arguing "IP" politics though, do you honestly think the world has better graphics hardware right now because of the closed nature of graphics drivers? Because guess what, it's usually competition which spurs the development of better technology, competition which drives innovation in the world, so to tell me with a straight face that without the secrecy and closed nature of Nvidia's and ATI's graphics drivers, graphics technology would be further behind than if it were more open and there was more competition for making better hardware instead of screwing around with driver secrecy, that'd be a feat. I believe that most all patents and secrecy now days is nothing but harmful. In a world that's so inter-connected, there are very few examples I can find for justifying monopolies on ideas. They most always serve only to make the rich richer and poor poorer. (See Microsoft's patent FUD, for example, and try to tell me that did any good for the rest of the world.)
Re:Arrghhhh (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole argument for FOSS 3D video card drivers is just silly in my opinion. Very very very few people have the skills necessary to write good drivers for these chips (others can learn, but that takes months or years to do). The people who write these drivers do it as a full time job, and the drivers are some of the most important IP in a graphics card (if they were released under a gpl like license, it would be much easier for a new competitor to develop a product).
What about the SuSE radeonhd developers? They work full time. You speak as if programming 3D graphics is rocket science. It is rocket science, if you don't have the specs. Otherwise, it would have been done YEARS ago.
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Plan 9 has a fully paid full time driver writing team. Sadly it's just one guy and he does other stuff too. :)
But my EPIA runs 1280x1024 so I was happy already
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With the Specs it is rocket science.
RadeonHD? You do know that ATI has contributed A LOT of that code right?
Intel's FOSS driver? Written mainly buy Intel.
FOSS drivers are great but they are almost always written with a lot of help from the manufacture. A lot more than just the specs.
Re:Arrghhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
And in five years' time, when they've stopped supporting your card in the latest kernel version, you do what?
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And in five years' time, when they've stopped supporting your card in the latest kernel version, you do what?
I have a new card in my gaming rig and buy the cheapest discrete card I can for my alt? No wait, that doesn't fit the slashdot agenda. A laptop then, well then maybe I'll stick with the latest supported distro for that kernel version which should hopefully give it another three years of distro support. After that if it's not broken in eight years, maybe I could oh say stick with it and realize it probably doesn't run the latest eyecandy anyway? Or use the open source nv driver that'll give me an unaccelerat
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There's a reason why you don't run old distros, you don't want to get behind for other packages, and then get wacked by vulnerabilities in your browser.
Some of us can't add in new cards when the old one goes unsupported. What about those of us with those slimline PCs OEMs love? nVidia/ATI is going to make me a PCI HD3450?
Please.
Free software drivers are the most important aspect of a free software kernel. Linux without radeon/intel/nv/radeonhd is not worth using. So fucking what if it means I only get 2D ac
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That's interesting, my drivers "just work" in OSX, and last time I checked they were proprietary. Seems to me that you're just spreading FUD. Phil
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How does the HD4870x2 work under OSX?
What about R100/R200/R300 cards?
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Linux without radeon/intel/nv/radeonhd is not worth using.
The nvidia binary blob is not ideal but I compromise, which is why I am running Linux, and I will pick a better alternative when it becomes available. But most people, and I'm guessing a 90-10 split or more, will not deal with 1998 performance over ideology. I wouldn't accept it if my CPU had to run in real mode, I wouldn't accept it if I had the 640k memory limit, I wouldn't accept it if my disks had to run in PIO mode either. You don't need graphics in any meaningful way? Good for you, have a cookie but i
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Good for you that freedom takes a second spot in your life.
I for one want the freedom to solve my problems when things break.
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And in five years' time, when they've stopped supporting your card in the latest kernel version, you do what?
Either the same as they do now with their closed driver card and buy a new one, or get the source and compile it themselves.
If the driver is open, then it is in the wild, and doesn't get dropped off the face of the earth when the OS changes. Ever upgrade to a different version of Windows? How much hardware didn't have drivers for the new version. Linux isn't 100%, but what OS is.
All the drivers are not included in the kernel by default. Which is why some hardware is automatically picked up by one distro, bu
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Re:Arrghhhh (Score:4, Interesting)
Good for you. For me, I dropped $600+ on two cards in order to drive 4 monitors - all based on this supposedly great support they had for linux.
The drivers didn't effing work and the 'support' was completely worthless, little better than "did you plug in the cable" level.
I had to pay another ~$200 for two gefen "dvi doctors" in order to fix an obvious bug in nvidia's driver, a bug I could have fixed myself faster than it would have taken to recompile the drivers if I had source.
Three years later, their drivers still lag without full support for randr.
Your personal experience doesn't mean shit.
never forget quack.exe (Score:5, Informative)
It was found that renaming quake.exe to quack.exe
would affect performance. The reason is that the
driver purposely degrades the quality for stuff
that is used in benchmarks. This is dishonest, and
it is a filthy hack. It's damn obvious why video
drivers are a major cause of crashes; they dig
around in kernel memory (totally undocumented) to
enable dirty hacks.
Open Source fixes this problem automatically.
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It makes excellent sense if your whole world is not limited to X.org. There are lots [syllable.org] of [haiku-os.org] other [reactos.org] platforms [directfb.org] that can benefit from Open drivers.
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You forgot us [9fans.net] :)
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Closed source development, compared to the open source one, sucks the monkey's ass.
ATI released the specs, at least partially, and this is the result [x.org]. That's why I didn't buy Nvidia.
I'm currencly using the binary driver from ATI, while waiting for the open source radeonhd to be completed.
Kernel debugging; "intellectual property" (Score:3, Interesting)
The whole argument for FOSS 3D video card drivers is just silly in my opinion. Very very very few people have the skills necessary to write good drivers for these chips
Here's how the Ubuntu restricted drivers installer explained it to me: If the developers of other kernel or X components can't use their debuggers to trace execution through a kernel module (or a user-mode process that has equivalent hardware access to the kernel), they can't provide support for a system that includes such a module, other than "go back to VESA". So it isn't as much a license issue as the ability to see what the code is doing and how it is interacting with other code on the same machine; eve
CRT? (Score:2)
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It makes sense for VIA to love FOSS (Score:2)
It makes sense for ESA and MPAA not to love FOSS (Score:2)
In a FOSS world, processor instruction set is of relatively minor importance.
A world of high-performance video is a world of games and high-definition feature films. In such a world, some would say FOSS is of relatively minor importance. Since when has a major retail video game been based on a Free engine?[1] Or since when has a Free film got a nationwide theatrical release?
[1] I mean Free when the game is first published, not half a decade later like id Tech.
...aren't available to the public (Score:2)
That's beside the point unless the machines in the Pixar render farm use VIA chipsets. True, Pixar uses Linux in the render farm, but the DVD-ROM special features on Disney DVD retail titles aren't designed for Linux. Nor is the motion picture itself free [freedomdefined.org]; in fact, it is under digital restrictions management and patented codecs. So let me rephrase:
A world of high-performance video is a world of games and high-definition feature films. In such a world, some would say FOSS on home hardware is of relatively m
Alt-Left-Click Message on Everex 7" Laptop (Score:3, Insightful)
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done a dozen years ago (Score:3, Informative)
Some way for X to detect that there is no way for a window to fit on the screen and add some scrolly bars to it to make everything accessible. Perhaps it's purely the fault of the window manager or library though and not X, or maybe it's both?
The original FVWM ("Feeble Virtual Window Manager") did this. FVWM is still a rather nice window manager, assuming you don't mind editing ~/.fvwmrc to adjust it.
VIA has to support Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
VIA is actually in the embedded x86 space. Home routers, MIDs, and other appliance-like consumer devices seem to be appropriate uses of VIA's chips. Companies there are mainly using Linux(there are exceptions), so I don't see any other choice for VIA but to start improving their Linux support and releasing open source drivers. VIA's cpus can't really compete with normal consumer desktops. Intel's integrated graphics and low power cpus are much more capable, but not as cheap or quite as low power (yet).
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Maybe not the C3 or C7 but definately the Nano is more than capable. The C3 has the advantage of being extremely low power, like 5W for its biggest consumption IIRC, and the C7 was a bit lackluster but has Padlock that the nano inherited so you can encrypt the filesystem without slowdown.
Of course I've been eyeing the Geode NX. From what I hear it's an ultra-low-voltage tiny version of the Athlon XPs. Too bad nobody will sell it with an ATI chipset like the mobile 690V/690G. Or even a 780G. Or better yet fo
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VIA's cpus can't really compete with normal consumer desktops. Intel's integrated graphics and low power cpus are much more capable
I'm just speculating here, but I don't think Intel is VIA's only concern. Intel is everyone's concern because they're the 800lb gorilla of the market, but in terms of the low-power/notebook market which is VIA's bread-n-butter, there is I think another threat developing. I would bet VIA is even more worried about what AMD is now up to.
AMD has bought ATI and is integrating their GPU technology into their own platform. With ATI being part of AMD, AMD's more open-source friendly philosophy is now taking roo
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The Nano and Atom are not for the "notebook market". They are for the MID/UMPC market. Core 2 and beyond are for the real notebook market. VIA is no longer a real competitor in the notebook market. You can call it a micro-notebook market if you don't like the acronyms.
AMD is still not a serious threat to anyone in the low power space. They will have to come out with a revolution to really make a difference to VIA. AMD also needs to get their financial house in order before we can take the possibility of new
can anyone compile it? (Score:2)
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complains I don't have packages xorg-server, xvmc adn fontsproto. None of which are in the repos.
The driver/configure script are written for building on pretty much any distro that includes x11/xorg, so those are the X11/xorg names for the packages. The package names in your particular distro will be different.
F.ex. to find fontsproto, search for "x11 dev fonts".
For Ubuntu8.04:
"xserver-xorg-dev"
"libxvmc-dev"
"x11proto-fonts-dev"
You might also need some other -dev packages, but the error messages from configure and some searching with synaptic will find them. In fact, installing the "xorg-dev" meta-packa
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Now 4 drivers? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this now brings the total drivers for the Chrome chipset to 4. There's already:
- Via proprietary binary drivers (support some 3D acceleration and TVout, but only available for specific distro/kernel combinations)
- Unichrome drivers (focus on code quality rather than features, so no 3D accel and TVout)
- Openchrome drivers (used in most distros, support some of the features, but imperfect and seem not to support Compiz)
- The new Via FOSS drivers (2D only at present)
Why couldn't VIA just contribute to one of the existing projects or send them docs and maybe funding? That would have been truely embracing open source.
I'd be interested to know if Via tried to contact any of the uni/openchrome developers.
View it as a challenge (Score:2)
For whatever reasons, market forces have given open source a chance.
If Via turns around six months from now, and their driver is much improved by the community, this will encourage them in a big way to do this again in the future.
Video drivers could be an entrance for the open source community to the hardware market. Everyone needs them; most don't work so great all the time. There's room for exploration and excellence.
Harald Welte's blog: FAQ VIA open source drivers (Score:2)
the blog entry [gnumonks.org]
why hiring Harald Welte was the right thing to do on the technical side [wikipedia.org] and on the community and legal side. [wikipedia.org]
They've got Harald (Score:2)
I've met Harald once. If VIA got him, they are definitively serious about this.
Not only he is a very intelligent person, with deep knowledge of Linux internals, he is also a very strong OSS advocate.
Smooth Demo (Score:2)
The YouTube preview looks just as smooth as my nVidia card, and is probably much smoother on window resizes (my nVidia cards are rather bad in that respect). I'd be happy to build a computer around the VIA video system once the 3D finalizes.
Re:Uh, Via, makes gfx cards? Why that is NEWS to m (Score:5, Informative)
simply the fact that one of the largest video chipset manufacturers in the world is writing open source drivers is huge, and an awesome step forward for linux and foss in general
not everything related to the phase "video card" is about pcie cards in sli and their crysis benchmark
VIA aren't really one of the biggest video makers (Score:2, Informative)
By current units sold market share VIA is small. My understanding is that it's roughly 40% Intel, 30% NVIDIA, 20% AMD and everyone else is crammed into the remainder 10% (that's total shipments of both desktops and platforms, discrete and integrated cards). (Rummages around web) Here's a link to GPU units sold in the second and third quarters of 2007 [xbitlabs.com]. It looks like VIA sold almost 3 times less than ATI (but they seem to be on an upward progression).
It's the timing that makes this more interesting because In
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I could be wrong, but I thought most via cards were integrated into the motherboard. Meaning that you're not going to find a discrete card.
By your logic the fact that you can't find Intel cards at newegg would nullify an article about an Intel graphics chipset that doesn't suck.
I sincerely hope that being the only closed driver provider, that nVidia will follow, Intel, AMD and apparently Via's lead and provide open drivers.
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Re:I found VIA sub par! (Score:5, Funny)
The only problem on my part is that I find VIA products mediocre when it comes to gaming.
Well, what do you expect from an integrated video card? They're hardly speed demons.
Re:VIA stuff doesn't support 720p or 1080i (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, what?
NTSC ending doesn't mean we'll all be watching 720/1080. It means everything is digital, MPEG2 streams. We're all a looong way off from HDTV-to-the-door.
Their chipsets can certainly do 1080p. Look at the CN400.
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The only thing that's going away is over-the-air NTSC (and only analog at that; NTSC's resolution will come over the air digitally, not just HD). It'll be coming out of cable and satellite dish boxes for quite some time now, even if those devices are transitioning to direct digital out over HDMI.
Or that's my understanding of it, anyways. I haven't watched TV in several years now, if you don't count the BSG torrents.
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Yeah, pretty much.
But I've had a lot of channels cut from the analog plan due to a shitty cable co, so I'm pretty much stuck with their digital plan.
OTA transmissions in Ottawa are no good. If you live in Toronto/Buffalo you're one lucky SOB, because you've got all the channels you could want in 720p/1080i for free and unencrypted. For me, not so much.
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Huh. That is really interesting about Toronto/ Buffalo. But I guess any OTA region with decent channels would deliver quality media for management with a MythTV setup.
When I visted family in the states, I was appalled at how prevalent Dish network and DirectTV were, even beating out the local cable companies in user-prefs, (but I guess they really really suck). Thing is, you gotta jump through hoops via long google sessions to figure out the *only* way to get MythTV manage one of those boxes, is to google,
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Just give me one of your monitors and this problem will go away.
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Someone above said that VIA has a problem with 1080p so he better give his other monitor to me.
Thanks
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That's the money shot right there. They already added the encryption chip. It is annoying to know I have hardware mpeg on my $100 computer that I could be using for something I need my $500 box to do for me.
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Every VIA chipset has at least MPEG2 support.
Plenty of them have MPEG4, and should be able to do 720p/1080i easily. A fair amount can do DivX and WM9, but the newer ones do h.264 as well.
We need the specs for this, though. Everyime VIA has tried XvMC or other video accel, it's opened up security issues and could only run as root. Not cool.
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We even read your email!