On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Markku Kolkka wrote: >Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 02:04:30 +0200 >From: Markku Kolkka <markku.kolkka@koti.soon.fi> >To: psyche-list@redhat.com >Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" >List-Id: Discussion of Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Psyche) <psyche-list.redhat.com> >Subject: Re: Video Card recommendation > >Viestissä Keskiviikko 20. Marraskuuta 2002 13:12, Mike A. Harris kirjoitti: >> Again, "Built by ATI" are the only cards tested, officially >> supported, and likely to work without trouble. > >So Red Hat is only officially supporting North American customers and the rest >of the world (who can only buy "powered by ATI" cards) is left stranded? No, you totally completely did not understand what I am saying. Red Hat does not own the XFree86 project. XFree86.org is its own organization, and its own project, and the work done by XFree86.org developing XFree86 is made publically available under the MIT license (similar to the BSD license) for anyone to use. Red Hat, like all other distributions, ships XFree86 with our Linux distribution. If XFree86 source code does not contain any support at all for a given video card, then that video card is _unsupported_ period, both at the XFree86 level, and also at the Red Hat level. You can try every Linux distribution available on the Internet, and you get *no working video* period. The ATI video drivers are developed and maintained by several people including but not limited to ATI, Marc Aurele La France, Kevin Martin, Keith Whitwell, and various other contributors, bugfix contributors, etc. Pretty much *ALL* of the developers working on the ATI drivers, are using real "Built by ATI" hardware. That means that "Built by ATI" hardware is the most tested hardware, and is the hardware developers have when bugs get reported. "Powered by ATI" hardware produced by 3rd party vendors, may follow ATI's own board designs faithfully, or they may drift off on their own, use cheaper memory, or make other modifications. It is possible that those modifications may be different enough that it warrants changes to be made to video drivers in order for the driver to work with the given video card. Without video driver modifications, a given board may not work at all, or may possibly just have some weird glitches, or perhaps unstable video output due to bad timings. As such, until the video drivers are MODIFIED, such hardware WILL NOT WORK. You can use any Linux distribution you like, and you will get the same result - non-working video. How can these cards be supported then? Well, first of all, some of them DO work, and if they do, that is great. But developers generally do NOT have these boards, and there are many different manufacturers producing them, so it is not easily possible to obtain every single possible board out there and make it work. Ultimately, it is up to the hardware vendor to submit patches to XFree86.org to make their hardware work. They KNOW their hardware, and what modifications are needed to video drivers to work properly. We, do not. In order to make a video card work, you need to have that card, and have the specs for it. In the case of clone cards, knowing what specific differences the vendor has made to the design may be sufficient. In any case, support doesn't just fall out of the air, and people are not able to just write support for something without the proper details. As such, if you want a good chance at having working ATI card, then I suggest you get a "Built by ATI" card, as I KNOW that pretty much all ATI built video hardware works. For "Powered by ATI" hardware, I have indeed received bug reports, and there is NOTHING that I can do to fix the problem currently. I do not have the problem card(s), nor the details required in order to add support. They may or may not work, it is entirely a dice roll that the end user makes. If and when enhancements become available that support cards that do not work, then they will be added to Red Hat Linux at some point as well. >Should I switch to some European-based distro? That would just get you a European based Linux distribution that also does not support the exact same video hardware, and for the exact same reasons specified above. >What's Red Hat Europe doing? Working on Red Hat Linux, the same as the rest of us. I *KNOW* that some of the Powered by ATI cards do not work, and if I could fix them easily, then I would of course - as would anyone. Since that is not easily possible at this time, I do my best to INFORM our users what hardware to be a bit wary of, so they can avoid purchasing a video card that can only be used as a doorstop. And what do I get in return? People threatening to use some other distribution that also does not support the same hardware. Oh well, I guess that is the price one pays to try to help someone. <shrug> -- Mike A. Harris ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris OS Systems Engineer XFree86 maintainer Red Hat Inc. -- Psyche-list mailing list Psyche-list@redhat.com https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/psyche-list
