Well, a few issues here. 1) Video card drivers for X for mostly user mode with a couple exceptions, the proprietary ATI and Nvidia drivers needs proprieteray closed source kernel module in order to make full use of the card. 2) If one does not care that their card is being fully utilized (both outputs working correctly, 3D animation working satisfactorily or even properly, etc), then one can use the free drivers included with Xorg. 3) ATI did release specs for some of their cards so that free drivers can be written, but that effort is slow going, and even many of the cards that the specs have been released for still have have a lot of driver issues, so situation #2 above for many people is still not an option. There are other issues as well, but these are the major ones. Intel does release specs and free drivers (including source) for Linux. Unfortunately Intel does not make PCI or PCI express video cards, in any configuration, that are available in mainstream retail. On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 12:12 PM, David Rosenstrauch<darose@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > David C. Rankin wrote: >> >> What I am pissed at AMD/ATI for is dropping all Linux driver support >> for all cards sold before 2007 (Everything before the 2400 series). This >> screwed a lot of loyal ATI users over and left a real bad taste in my mouth. > > Forgive me if I'm ignorant on the specifics of the topic. But in theory > shouldn't older model hardware drivers already be fully integrated into the > kernel (and supported by kernel developers), thereby making such a move a > non-issue? > > DR >
