On 23 Jul 2002, Jim Hayward wrote: >Date: 23 Jul 2002 10:12:19 -0700 >From: Jim Hayward <jimhayward@earthlink.net> >To: xfree86-list@redhat.com >Content-Type: text/plain >List-Id: Red Hat XFree86 list <xfree86-list.redhat.com> >Subject: Been a little quiet around here lately so...... > >Hello Mike, > >Any idea when we can expect to see early support in XFree86 CVS for >ATI's new Radeon 9xxx series? The specs on the 9700 look pretty >impressive. <drooooooool> No idea about that one. In general, every time ATI has new hardware, they also have written new XFree86 driver code for it that is at least 2D supported, and usually supports Xv and other things too. They generally target this for XFree86 CVS, and send us a copy too. I haven't received anything yet, but I presume ATI is working on it still, and knows that the XFree86 4.3.0 codebase is a ways from release yet, so they're probably planning on submitting it all at once. Our current rawhide is XFree86 4.2.0 based, since 4.3.0 is way too far off yet, so the next release of RHL will not have support for these new ATI cards by default. As soon as I can obtain the code however and hardware to test with, I'll evaluate how stable the support is at the time, and consider it for possible erratum - if not, then for our next release at the time. >I haven't had time to play with XFree86 CVS lately, but I saw something >about Mesa 4.x being used in the next release. Is this true? Yes, Mesa 4 is in XFree86 CVS currently. >From some of the posts to the xpert list at XFree86, it looks like the >Radeon driver has undergone a lot of improvements since the 4.2.0 >release. Can we expect to see this new driver in the next Red Hat >release? I am using the Limbo beta now. Yes, the Radeon driver has gotten a lot of work done on it since 4.2.0 including TCL support for Radeon R100 and some other families. R200 3D support is currently being worked on also. The new Radeon code has not stabilized yet, and is very much developmental. Once there is a new official XFree86 release out with this new code, I will begin packaging up 4.3.0 and if support for the new hardware is available in that release, or as stable shippable patches, it'll be supported in some future Red Hat Linux release. Right now, anything is just speculation though. -- Mike A. Harris Shipping/mailing address: OS Systems Engineer 190 Pittsburgh Ave., Sault Ste. Marie, XFree86 maintainer Ontario, Canada, P6C 5B3 Red Hat Inc. http://www.redhat.com ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
