AMD Publishes Open-Source "ATI Evergreen" Driver

Several readers have written to tell us that AMD has published their code to support the Radeon HD 5000 "Evergreen" graphics cards on Linux in an open-source driver. Unfortunately the driver isn't quite as complete as some might hope. The current offering doesn't promise 2D (EXA) acceleration or 3D support. "The DDX driver supports mode-setting on the Evergreen/R800 series GPUs with VGA and DVI connectors while the DisplayPort connectivity is still not working right, according to AMD's Alex Deucher who had written most of this code. These new AMD graphics cards have been around since September while there was no open-source support at that time. In December just before Christmas there was Evergreen Shader documentation that was made publicly available and around that time it was confirmed via our forums that initial VGA mode-setting was working with Evergreen internally on unreleased code. Since then the digital connector support has been added in and this code has finally cleared AMD's legal review. The revised target was to publish this code by FOSDEM, which is this weekend so AMD did hit the target this time."

Re:Baby Steps

[goldaryn]

Well what IS the driver going to do, then?

Run Nethack at 120fps?

Re:Baby Steps

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

A 16550 doesn't really count as a graphics card anymore...

Legal Review?

[markdavis]

>and this code has finally cleared AMD's legal review.

Has nothing in it that we feel might be secret or licensed....
Doesn't do 3D CHECK
Doesn't do 2D CHECK

Passes our legal review- let people enjoy it now!!!!

Re:Name Says It All

[Anonymous Coward]

i am the troll. thank you so much for feeding me. trolling would be SO DAMNED BORING if no one did that. thanks again, by showing that they will get responded to you have inspired me to troll some more. i might have gotten discouraged without you!