Re: radeon driver heading in wrong direction :-(.

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On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 19:38:39 -0500,
  "Kevin J. Cummings" <cummings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> I think you are missing the point here.  Fedora is admittedly a bleeding
> edge software distribution that does not support the bleeding edge of
> video hardware.  How ironic is that?

I sure there is plenty of hardware that Fedora doesn't work on.

> And what you are saying is that someone can't get support for the video
> card in his/her brand spanking new computer that they just bought at the
> computer store....assuming it has the latest and greatest video card
> from whatever manufacturer.  Weird.

I am saying people should not recommend buying nVidia hardware to people that
want to run Fedora, esepecially people new to linux.

> When I bought my laptop, I didn't worry about video.  It was all
> supposed to "just work".  I got stuck with a Radeon Mobility card.  At

If you buy computers without knowing what parts get used, you should expect
to get hosed. There are all sorts of crap parts that can get used. In
particular modems, graphics chipsets and wireless chipsets can all be
problematic under linux.

> driver!  So, now it works.  It only took 3 plus years to get support for
> a video card which was "old" when I bought it!  What *is* the

Yes, Fedora 3d graphics has sucked since around F6 until F12. And there
are still issues with only limited opengl support.

> mean-lifetime of computer equipment these days?  I can't say that I've
> ever used (for very long) a computer much older than 3 years old at work
> before it was declared unusable (too slow) and I got a newer replacement
> for it.

At work we have about a 3 year cycle, though I tend to go 5 but get better
stuff to start out. At home I use computers that are all over 5 years
old. (Though my wife has a newer one.) I even have a couple of Pentium 90
laptops I used last summer and may use again this summer.

> If Fedora wants to be taken seriously, its open source video drivers
> must support video cards for what they are designed for:  each new one
> is faster and more capable.  If we can't use the newer cards
> capabilities within the limited lifetime of the hardware, it is a waste
> of time.

Personally I don't see a lot of need to support people who buy $1000 video
cards every year. Those people are going to want to use Windows to play
video games.

I do think we need better support for video cards in general. And using
proprietary drivers doesn't get us there.

> The next capability I will want to use in a video card is VDPAU video
> acceleration, for which there is *no* support in any of the open source
> drivers, and is not currently a priority with the open source driver
> people.  In fact, its not even on ATI's proprietary road map, yet.  So,
> that means my next card will be a mid-high end nVidia card, and I'll use
> their proprietary driver, and I'll be able to watch high end digital
> video (H.624 and hi-bitrate mpeg4 stuff) on ATOM class processors!  I
> can't do that today with today's hi-mid-range CPUs, but I can do it
> tomorrow on today's low-end CPUs with the new video cards.

That's going to be a whole different battle. The MPAA isn't going to want
people to have access to their valuable IP, so that stuff is going to have
big problems in Fedora.

> I don't need to play any high end Windows games.  That's not why I want
> high-end video support.
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