I am guessing that the ATI-supplied driver is needed to use Compiz and all that, right? The X.Org RADEONHD driver cannot be used? Too bad ATI dropped support for the FireGL V3300. Is my only option to get a newer card? -- Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Office: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
I am guessing that the ATI-supplied driver is needed to use Compiz and all that, right? The X.Org RADEONHD driver cannot be used?
Too bad ATI dropped support for the FireGL V3300. Is my only option to get a newer card?
Roger, I'm still working on this as well. I have probably 6-8 computers with what were excellent ATI cards until ATI shot the middle finger at all ATI cards more than 2 years old. If you are running 11.0, the 8.9 driver is Excellent! for older cards. Some even get good results with the 9.3 driver (my box doesn't). If you are running 11.1, you are stuck with the 9.3 driver (you can also run the 8-12, 9.1, and 9.2 drivers if they work on your hardware) As for compiz with the radeon driver, I have an Arch box that I am running the radeon driver on because ATI never put out a driver for that distro. So far I haven't had any luck with indirect rendering (AIGLX) enabled with the radeon driver. I'm not sure whether the issue is the driver or whether I haven't hit on the magic combination of driver options and GLX/AIGLX options. I'll post back when/if I hit on a solid combination that works. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to run compiz with the radeon driver. Hell, I can run compiz on the stock intel driver, so why not the radeon driver?? Anyone else who know more, please chime in and let us know. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, 2009-05-05 at 23:30 -0500, David C. Rankin wrote:
Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
I am guessing that the ATI-supplied driver is needed to use Compiz and all that, right? The X.Org RADEONHD driver cannot be used?
Too bad ATI dropped support for the FireGL V3300. Is my only option to get a newer card?
Roger,
I'm still working on this as well. I have probably 6-8 computers with what were excellent ATI cards until ATI shot the middle finger at all ATI cards more than 2 years old.
If you are running 11.0, the 8.9 driver is Excellent! for older cards. Some even get good results with the 9.3 driver (my box doesn't). If you are running 11.1, you are stuck with the 9.3 driver (you can also run the 8-12, 9.1, and 9.2 drivers if they work on your hardware)
I'm running 11.1. According to http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Hardware my chipset lost support as of the 8.40.4 release of the driver. So I guess I would need one from before that. Any suggestions about a good release?
As for compiz with the radeon driver, I have an Arch box that I am running the radeon driver on because ATI never put out a driver for that distro. So far I haven't had any luck with indirect rendering (AIGLX) enabled with the radeon driver. I'm not sure whether the issue is the driver or whether I haven't hit on the magic combination of driver options and GLX/AIGLX options.
I'll post back when/if I hit on a solid combination that works. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to run compiz with the radeon driver. Hell, I can run compiz on the stock intel driver, so why not the radeon driver??
I have just installed Linux on the box in question, so I have not fiddled a lot. But I am surprised that even things like Xvideo do not seem to work. The module is loaded. The X log file makes no complaint. xdpyinfo lists: XVideo But xvinfo tells: X-Video Extension version 2.2 screen #0 no adaptors present Also, one of the tests for indirect rendering seems to be that glxinfo does not list: OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project which mine does. This is from http://en.opensuse.org/Ati#Installation_-_Get_and_Install_ATI_Drivers in the section called Testing.
Anyone else who know more, please chime in and let us know.
-- Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Office: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
I'm running 11.1. According to http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Hardware my chipset lost support as of the 8.40.4 release of the driver. So I guess I would need one from before that. Any suggestions about a good release?
Uuhh -- your screwed... Also, What is you card again?? You have to be careful with what you are calling the driver version and driver release. ATI Driver Releases are named by [ 1 digit year ]-[2 digit months]. Example 8-12 Release is the December 2008 release, but the 'version' was 8.561. The mostly track the following: Rel. Vers. 8-8 8.522 8-9 8.532 8-10 8.542 .... 9-3 8.593 I remember the 8.40.4 driver and I think that was the Jan or Feb 08 release and it was one of the first drivers that worked with 10.3. You can check details at: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/previous/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx Just check the Release notes for the driver to see what xorg version is supported. None of the ATI drivers pre 8-11 release (November 2008) support xorg 7.4 so you are out of luck. That's the basis for the whole hubub over the state of the ATI driver up through the 9.3 release (When ATI dropped all support for most of it cards) because there were still a whole lot of cards out there that the 9.3 driver doesn't even work for and now ATI has abandoned its entire customer base that bought its video cards in all but the past two years (even some of those have been abandoned). That's why, at least for my hardware, there is no upgrade path to 11.1 for my laptop with an ATI card -- no driver support. I'm working with the radeon driver on my Arch install on the box, but so far other than simple 2D (which it is fine for) nothing else works. That means no compiz, etc....
I have just installed Linux on the box in question, so I have not fiddled a lot. But I am surprised that even things like Xvideo do not seem to work. The module is loaded. The X log file makes no complaint. xdpyinfo lists:
XVideo
But xvinfo tells:
X-Video Extension version 2.2 screen #0 no adaptors present
Also, one of the tests for indirect rendering seems to be that glxinfo does not list:
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
which mine does. This is from http://en.opensuse.org/Ati#Installation_-_Get_and_Install_ATI_Drivers in the section called Testing.
Sheesh! I hope we don't have to start building X/dri/mesa by hand again just to get hardware to work. I haven't done that since 10.3 and I don't want to do it again. It wasn't that bad. The most painful part was just learning how to do it for the first time. (Wait a minute... is this really 2009! or did we somehow go back a decade in time?, wait.. reality check..., fatter, 3 kids, no vacation in 4 years..., nope it is definitely 2009 all right!) The ATI middle-finger to its older card holders will probably be looked at as one of the biggest setbacks for Linux's migration to a mainstream desktop alternative for the next several years. Just stop and think for a moment of the sheer number of users that are left without a realistic migration path to an X desktop now. This is especially acute since the new desktops like KDE4, etc. rely on advanced card capabilities.... What on earth could cause ATI to just drop all support for a majority of its cardholders??... I wonder... Ah, screw it, I don't care anymore, I've already made the change to buying NVidia exclusively and my ATI cards will filter their way out of my systems once and for all in the near future ;-) -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Wed, May 06, 2009 at 07:11:37PM -0500, David C. Rankin wrote:
The ATI middle-finger to its older card holders will probably be looked at as one of the biggest setbacks for Linux's migration to a mainstream desktop alternative for the next several years. Just stop and think for a moment of the sheer number of users that are left without a realistic migration path to an X desktop now. This is especially acute since the new desktops like KDE4, etc. rely on advanced card capabilities....
What on earth could cause ATI to just drop all support for a majority of its cardholders??... I wonder... Ah, screw it, I don't care anymore, I've already made the change to buying NVidia exclusively and my ATI cards will filter their way out of my systems once and for all in the near future ;-)
I was just going to propose that you and Roger give ATI the big middle finger and buy NVIDIA. NVIDIA are still supporting some darn crufty cards with their legacy drivers. Kurt -- The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. -- Elizabeth Taylor -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Wed, 2009-05-06 at 19:18 -0700, Kurt Wall wrote:
On Wed, May 06, 2009 at 07:11:37PM -0500, David C. Rankin wrote:
The ATI middle-finger to its older card holders will probably be looked at as one of the biggest setbacks for Linux's migration to a mainstream desktop alternative for the next several years. Just stop and think for a moment of the sheer number of users that are left without a realistic migration path to an X desktop now. This is especially acute since the new desktops like KDE4, etc. rely on advanced card capabilities....
What on earth could cause ATI to just drop all support for a majority of its cardholders??... I wonder... Ah, screw it, I don't care anymore, I've already made the change to buying NVidia exclusively and my ATI cards will filter their way out of my systems once and for all in the near future ;-)
I was just going to propose that you and Roger give ATI the big middle finger and buy NVIDIA. NVIDIA are still supporting some darn crufty cards with their legacy drivers.
I have always used Nvidia when I have a choice. In the computer in question, it came with an ATI card (FireGL V3300). So I thought I would see how it worked. Can't say I am impressed with support. I guess I will be switching to Nvidia. I wonder how far back Nvidia support goes? I recall a legacy driver that kept support for older cards at some level. Of course, that means that the cards were at least still supported at a level equivalent to when they were purchased. ATI, OTOH, simply dropped their 'older' cards altogether. -- Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Office: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
I wonder how far back Nvidia support goes? I recall a legacy driver that kept support for older cards at some level. Of course, that means that the cards were at least still supported at a level equivalent to when they were purchased. ATI, OTOH, simply dropped their 'older' cards altogether.
Nvidia support goes way way back. NVidia is to be commended for its driver effort. Sure they have a hicup with a botched release every know and then, but they always seem to get it fixed. The current driver supports back to the FX5200, the legacy driver supports the MX4 Series (That's way back ~ late '90s, the prehistoric times in computer terms) I still have a couple of AGP MX440's that came from God knows where, but they still work just fine for 2D word processing... -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 07:36:29AM +0200, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
I wonder how far back Nvidia support goes? I recall a legacy driver that kept support for older cards at some level. Of course, that means that the cards were at least still supported at a level equivalent to when they were purchased. ATI, OTOH, simply dropped their 'older' cards altogether.
This page says all the way back to TNT and GeForce 2: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_32667.html But, for well south of $100 US, you can get a highly serviceable NVIDIA GPU that is "modern" and doesn't need legacy support. Kurt -- America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. -- John O'Hara -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/05/07 07:36 (GMT+0200) Roger Oberholtzer composed:
I wonder how far back Nvidia support goes? I recall a legacy driver that kept support for older cards at some level. Of course, that means that the cards were at least still supported at a level equivalent to when they were purchased. ATI, OTOH, simply dropped their 'older' cards altogether.
You guys seem to have a funny notion of the meaning of legacy support. Why should ATI provide proprietary driver support for old chips when the open source drivers get the job done? OTOH, you NVidia users ought to check for *real* legacy support. Which, if any, of these are supported by your NVidia card?: 109h 132x25 text 10Ah 132x43 text 10Bh 132x50 text 10Ch 132x60 text Unless using a "legacy" card, likely none. In contrast, ATI had proprietary 132 column text modes before the VESA spec offered any, and every ATI card I've checked continues to support both its proprietary modes, and at least one of the VESA modes. I run a DOS spreadsheet in 132 column mode 24/7. Without ATI, I doubt would be able to with a PCIe card. For support from anything other than ATI I'd have to have a PCI slot or an ISA slot for the gfxcard. http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/svga132c.html -- "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, 2009-05-07 at 03:49 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2009/05/07 07:36 (GMT+0200) Roger Oberholtzer composed:
I wonder how far back Nvidia support goes? I recall a legacy driver that kept support for older cards at some level. Of course, that means that the cards were at least still supported at a level equivalent to when they were purchased. ATI, OTOH, simply dropped their 'older' cards altogether.
You guys seem to have a funny notion of the meaning of legacy support. Why should ATI provide proprietary driver support for old chips when the open source drivers get the job done?
But they don't get the job done. I cannot use any of the card's 3D features. So no Compiz at all. The card does, I think, have the required hardware. But it is, I am guessing, sufficiently different from newer ATI hardware, requiring a different implementation of the driver. So, ATI have decided to support one hardware line to the exclusion of other ones. As a minimum, perhaps they could open source the older driver that they no longer want to support. Or at least enough of it to let the X.org radeonhd driver add 3D support. But I guess that is not going to happen any time soon.
OTOH, you NVidia users ought to check for *real* legacy support. Which, if any, of these are supported by your NVidia card?:
109h 132x25 text 10Ah 132x43 text 10Bh 132x50 text 10Ch 132x60 text
Unless using a "legacy" card, likely none.
In contrast, ATI had proprietary 132 column text modes before the VESA spec offered any, and every ATI card I've checked continues to support both its proprietary modes, and at least one of the VESA modes.
OK. Perhaps ATI wins the 132 column race. But how many of their customers bought things like FireGL cards for that express purpose? I am guessing most did so for faster graphics. And 3D hardware support. Also, as useful as I am sure it is to be able to run DOS apps, I am interested in running Linux apps. Like Compiz.
I run a DOS spreadsheet in 132 column mode 24/7. Without ATI, I doubt would be able to with a PCIe card. For support from anything other than ATI I'd have to have a PCI slot or an ISA slot for the gfxcard.
http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/svga132c.html -- "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- Roger Oberholtzer
OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Office: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/05/07 10:11 (GMT+0200) Roger Oberholtzer composed:
OK. Perhaps ATI wins the 132 column race. But how many of their customers bought things like FireGL cards for that express purpose? I am guessing most did so for faster graphics. And 3D hardware support.
Some people just buy computers, and use whatever video comes in them.
Also, as useful as I am sure it is to be able to run DOS apps, I am interested in running Linux apps. Like Compiz.
For me a computer is a tool, not a toy. I don't think I've ever failed to uncheck the desktop effects checkbox during installation. My display has only two functional dimensions. No one has ever demonstrated to me how pretending it has 3 helps me get my work done better or faster, while it is clear that 3D is anything but fully supported no matter what hardware is on hand. Were it not for this 3D nonsense, we probably would not have Intel drivers that are perpetually buggy preventing users from successfully upgrading from older versions to 11.1, or other distros' current versions (Fedora 10, Ubuntu 9.04, Mandriva 2009.1, Debian 5.0, etc). The video driver situation is just an awful mess. -- "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, 2009-05-07 at 04:51 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
Were it not for this 3D nonsense, we probably would not have Intel drivers that are perpetually buggy preventing users from successfully upgrading from older versions to 11.1, or other distros' current versions (Fedora 10, Ubuntu 9.04, Mandriva 2009.1, Debian 5.0, etc). The video driver situation is just an awful mess.
I can agree that it is eye candy - today. But isn't the real goal to move to having all the drawing be via the 3D hardware? Not just the fancy frills we see today. The reasoning is, I think, that this will result in a faster X because it gives over much to hardware rendering that is done in software today. I would imagine that one major stumbling block is vendor support. How to do this if cards keep being made obsolete? I do not think anyone wants to find X in the position of only running on the latest greatest. So the issue of advanced card support and the duration of that support does impact on how X develops in general. -- Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Office: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
In <4A02A100.2040805@ij.net>, Felix Miata wrote:
My display has only two functional dimensions. No one has ever demonstrated to me how pretending it has 3 helps me get my work done better or faster, while it is clear that 3D is anything but fully supported no matter what hardware is on hand.
For identical pixel output, the 3D drawing pipeline is faster (than the 2D pipeline) on modern ATI and NVidia card. I'm not sure about Intel "cards". Those seem to be the only 3 brands that matter to anyone anymore. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
On Thu, 2009-05-07 at 06:47 -0500, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
In <4A02A100.2040805@ij.net>, Felix Miata wrote:
My display has only two functional dimensions. No one has ever demonstrated to me how pretending it has 3 helps me get my work done better or faster, while it is clear that 3D is anything but fully supported no matter what hardware is on hand.
For identical pixel output, the 3D drawing pipeline is faster (than the 2D pipeline) on modern ATI and NVidia card. I'm not sure about Intel "cards". Those seem to be the only 3 brands that matter to anyone anymore.
Exactly. And so 3D support in the drivers is a good thing, not just for eye candy. And I guess it is planned to become even more important as X uses more and more of the 3D pipeline for things. Perhaps that means that on Linux, it will be more and more Nvidia and intel, and less ATI for graphics. Then again. maybe people are happy to get a new ATI card when ATI decide they should do so. -- Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Office: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/05/07 14:03 (GMT+0200) Roger Oberholtzer composed:
Then again. maybe people are happy to get a new ATI card when ATI decide they should do so.
Some people don't get a choice. Ever shopped for a laptop? Ever had your employer choose your laptop for you? -- "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, 2009-05-07 at 09:34 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2009/05/07 14:03 (GMT+0200) Roger Oberholtzer composed:
Then again. maybe people are happy to get a new ATI card when ATI decide they should do so.
Some people don't get a choice. Ever shopped for a laptop? Ever had your employer choose your laptop for you?
Indeed this is a concern. And it is another reason I think ATI's obsoleting things only, say, two years old is a bad thing. When they do things like that, it makes it more difficult for the X folk to move forward, as I am sure they fully want you to be able to use that laptop, despite ATI's dropping support. I also read 'somewhere' that '2D hardware' in graphics cards may start to go away. The major graphics chip software developers (which includes MS, Apple, X.org) will focus their development on such 3D-only cards. I suspect it is more wishful thinking than anything else. But I don't know that it is only wishful thinking. -- Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Office: Int +46 8-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/05/07 06:47 (GMT-0500) Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. composed:
For identical pixel output, the 3D drawing pipeline is faster (than the 2D pipeline) on modern ATI and NVidia card. I'm not sure about Intel "cards". Those seem to be the only 3 brands that matter to anyone anymore.
With any reasonably modern gfxchip, I have not considered gfxcard speed to be an issue since pre-800MHz CPU days. I have used KDE virtually exclusively as my DTE the whole time since pre-400MHz CPU days. -- "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
In <4A02A100.2040805@ij.net>, Felix Miata wrote:
My display has only two functional dimensions. No one has ever demonstrated to me how pretending it has 3 helps me get my work done better or faster, while it is clear that 3D is anything but fully supported no matter what hardware is on hand.
As an addendum to my previous reply, your video card actually pretends to have 4 dimensions for most of the pipeline. The math works out better that way, which ends up making the design and engineering also work out better. -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
Felix Miata wrote:
On 2009/05/07 10:11 (GMT+0200) Roger Oberholtzer composed:
OK. Perhaps ATI wins the 132 column race. But how many of their customers bought things like FireGL cards for that express purpose? I am guessing most did so for faster graphics. And 3D hardware support.
Some people just buy computers, and use whatever video comes in them.
Also, as useful as I am sure it is to be able to run DOS apps, I am interested in running Linux apps. Like Compiz.
For me a computer is a tool, not a toy. I don't think I've ever failed to uncheck the desktop effects checkbox during installation.
My display has only two functional dimensions. No one has ever demonstrated to me how pretending it has 3 helps me get my work done better or faster, while it is clear that 3D is anything but fully supported no matter what hardware is on hand.
Felix, You are probably using an LCD display, The 3rd dimension to monitors has practically disappeared in the past 4-5 years. It's still there, just smaller;-) Here I have somewhat mixed emotions about your sentiments on unchecking the desktop effects box. Granted, once I was running Lotus Magellan on DOS 4.1, I too thought "why bother with desktop effects, I can do everything from right here." But despite my reservations, we moved to a graphical environment and found that it offered some real advantages over the year. Then new gee whiz things started finding there way onto the desktop, and still "ho, hum..." But again, we waded into the water to find, "Hey, some of this stuff is useful too" And then video cards got faster and new tools evolved -- same water. The problem/benefit now is there is some really useful stuff out there that relies on the advanced features of the gfxcard/driver combination. Compiz Fusion is one of the fantastic apps that really provides a great deal of extension to core desktop functionality -- and is one of the real benefits provided by Novell funding part of the project. I couldn't give a RAT (short for Rat's Ass Tail) about painting fire on my screen or watching snow on my display (hell it took 10 years to get rid of the snow on VGA, who wants more), but many of the effects (opacity, rotate, expo and scale to mention a few) really bring new functionality to the desktop that dramatically allow new users to intuitively handle multiple desktops, etc.. Not to mention reflection & deformations, wobbly, shift switcher, application switcher and crash handler are pretty cool too ;-) Thus the ATI driver conundrum. All of this is lost without a functional fglrx driver. Yes, a display will never be more that 2D no matter how hard they try [1], but some of the water that has been waded into has pretty much become a standard part of expected desktop functionality... Footnote [1]: with slight qualification depending upon string theory and/or proof of existence of the Higgs Boson... See: http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2009/04/higgs-boson-found.html; publication date April "1", 2009. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 2009/05/08 00:22 (GMT-0500) David C. Rankin composed:
Felix Miata wrote:
My display has only two functional dimensions....
You are probably using an LCD display, The 3rd dimension to monitors has practically disappeared in the past 4-5 years. It's still there, just smaller;-)
LCD displays have exactly the same number of functional dimensions as CRT displays - 2.
...I was running Lotus Magellan on DOS 4.1...
I had Magellan installed, but rarely used it. I found NC more useful, and still find FC/2, FC/W, FC/L & MC far more useful than any GUI file manager. The only reason I switched from DesqView to OS/2 was to facilitate internet access, which I managed to hold off until 1997. Even now I do more than half my work in OS/2, in part to run a DOS "swiss army knife" (Quattro Pro spreadsheet). I've sampled GUI spreadsheets, and found all grossly inferior to the 132 column monospace text modes. Linux I added much later, in part to work into an expected future migration from OS/2, in part to run Apache and host local file backups. I make good use of tools I already know how to use, and find little time to try to learn new ones. Productivity is job one. Bling is for kids. Back to topic: All my PCIe cards are ATI X600, nearly the last chip supported natively by good OS/2 drivers, and the only PCIe gfxcard class that supports my main productivity tool via its legacy BIOS components. -- "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Felix Miata wrote:
On 2009/05/07 07:36 (GMT+0200) Roger Oberholtzer composed:
I wonder how far back Nvidia support goes? I recall a legacy driver that kept support for older cards at some level. Of course, that means that the cards were at least still supported at a level equivalent to when they were purchased. ATI, OTOH, simply dropped their 'older' cards altogether.
You guys seem to have a funny notion of the meaning of legacy support. Why should ATI provide proprietary driver support for old chips when the open source drivers get the job done?
Felix, I hear where you are coming from. The problem is what ATI is calling its "legacy" driver (the last driver with support for Rev. R500 and earlier cards was released *broken* for a large number of the older cards, ATI knew it was broken, and then decided to "wash their hands" of the problem leaving hundreds of thousands if not millions of unfortunate ATI customers -- screwed. That's where the actual disservice was done. As for the radeon/radeonhd driver -- it provides limited or no support whatsoever for many of the features of the cards in question. Troubled or no support for APCI on many cards, no compositing, no hdmi or support for integrated sound just to mention a few. I'm not knocking the radeon driver, the developers have done a damn good job with it given the black box they had to work with, but the point to be made here is that it is *not* a replacement for the fglrx driver as far a providing functionality for ATI cards needed to work with new desktops like kde4. As I've said before, if you have a desktop ATI card, then you have an easy option of replacing the card, but on the other hand, if you are stuck with a laptop, some purchased as recently as 2007, you are hosed :-( AS with all consumer betrayals, the backlash will usually motivate a solution in the not so distant future. I still truly believe that where ATI screwed itself was in failing to split the driver in September 08 when they tried to shoehorn Crossfire support and support for the 2000 and 3000 series cards and support for xorg 7.4 into a one size fits all binary driver. For lack of better words it looked like ATI simply "lost control" of its own code and for whatever reason could no longer add support for newer cards without breaking support for older cards. C'est la vi.... -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (5)
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Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. -
David C. Rankin -
Felix Miata -
Kurt Wall -
Roger Oberholtzer