<rant> What IS the deal with low refresh rate and no 3D? ATI Radeon has been out for quite a while, now, and new releases in that card family are simply not going to be spectacularly different from each other at the driver level... are they? Or do they have to re-invent the chisel, to re-invent the wheel, to re-invent the video driver from the ground up, for each slight revision of ATI product line? Howcum Red Hat can figure it out? Better yet, howcum Red Hat could figure it out months ago, yet SuSE has since kicked out an interim update, and STILL can't figure it out?? My buddy in our IT department has Red Hat 7.2 and is using his Radeon card with 3D games, right out of the box. Does ATI have some kind of exclusive arrangement with Red Hat for timely support of ATI cards in the distro? I've got a Rage 128 Pro-something in one machine, a card that's FAR older than the Radeons (year-and-a-half old?), and it wasn't in the 7.3 distribution either. Neither was the ATI 128 Mobility in my DELL laptop, that was built at least two years ago. I checked the SuSE web site for video-card support in December both were still listed as unsupported. Could it be because ATI is too insignificant a player in the video-card market? Or maybe it's because all those video names that DO appear in the SuSE supported list represent whatever obscure card is owned by the person who wrote drivers for free? Does SuSE rely exclusively on donated drivers for their video support? </rant> But hey, I did notice that they are catching up with the world in support for sound... /kevin (wanting to be loyal, but feeling the pull to Red Hat...)
-----Original Message----- From: M. Clark [mailto:m.j.c@strato.net] Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 12:46 PM To: Brian Durant; SuSe Subject: Re: [SLE] Newbie building PC
On Thursday 14 February 2002 09:47, Brian Durant wrote, in part:
I have been looking at the ATI Radeon 7500 as a possibility but am unsure of support in SuSE. As a newbie, I am also concerned about ease of install. I would prefer if I didn't have to download and install drivers, not to mention that I can't imagine doing an install if I can't get the monitor to work at startup.
Hi Brian.
I have the 7500, and have been through this myself. With the 7500 and 7.3 you have to do the following:
1. Install SuSE and configure the video as plain old VGA.
2. Download XFree86 4.2, and the sax2 update, from the SuSE site.
3. Install the downloads following SuSE's instructions.
4. Run sax2. It will detect your card and configure XFree86 4.2.
Alternatively:
Configure XFree86 4.1.x for the framebuffer device (instructions in the 7.3 Pro manual). You will be able to enjoy high resolution, but will also get some annoying flicker because of the low refresh rate. You will not have any hardware acceleration.
Or
Wait for SuSE 7.4, which will include XFree86 4.2 from the getgo.
On Thursday 14 February 2002 14:01, KMcLauchlan@chrysalis-its.com wrote:
<rant> What IS the deal with low refresh rate and no 3D? ATI Radeon has been out for quite a while, now,
[Snip the rant] Radeon and Radeon 7500 are two different things. The Radeon 7500 has only been out a few months. ATI, like many other companies, reuses trademarks because they have market recognition. This confuses and sometimes screws the user, but has nothing to do with SuSE or Red Hat. The low refresh rate I was referring to is how the framebuffer device is setup. That, I believe, is part of the kernel, and has nothing to do with SuSE. The framebuffer is something that alllows limited high resolution use of a new card that does not yet have XFree86 support. Again, not a SuSE or Red Hat issue, and nothing to do with ATI. BTW, XFree86 4.2, which supports the Radeon 7500 (and 8500), just came out a few _days_ ago. It only took SuSE a couple of days to get SuSE specific RPMs (including sax2) up for downloading. That's damn good service. -- Regards, Malcolm KMail l.3.1 -- KDE 2.2.2 -- SuSE Linux 7.3 Remove the dots to email me
Please excuse my question if it has already been answered: Will the Online Update option in YaST2 get me the updated XFree86 4.2 and SAX2 rpm's ? steve At 02:24 PM 2/14/2002, M. Clark wrote:
On Thursday 14 February 2002 14:01, KMcLauchlan@chrysalis-its.com wrote:
<rant> What IS the deal with low refresh rate and no 3D? ATI Radeon has been out for quite a while, now,
[Snip the rant]
Radeon and Radeon 7500 are two different things. The Radeon 7500 has only been out a few months. ATI, like many other companies, reuses trademarks because they have market recognition. This confuses and sometimes screws the user, but has nothing to do with SuSE or Red Hat.
The low refresh rate I was referring to is how the framebuffer device is setup. That, I believe, is part of the kernel, and has nothing to do with SuSE. The framebuffer is something that alllows limited high resolution use of a new card that does not yet have XFree86 support. Again, not a SuSE or Red Hat issue, and nothing to do with ATI.
BTW, XFree86 4.2, which supports the Radeon 7500 (and 8500), just came out a few _days_ ago. It only took SuSE a couple of days to get SuSE specific RPMs (including sax2) up for downloading. That's damn good service.
--
Regards, Malcolm
KMail l.3.1 -- KDE 2.2.2 -- SuSE Linux 7.3
Remove the dots to email me
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On Thursday 14 February 2002 14:35, Stephen H Carbin wrote:
Please excuse my question if it has already been answered: Will the Online Update option in YaST2 get me the updated XFree86 4.2 and SAX2 rpm's ?
I don't think so, although I'm not positive it won't. However, even it it will, I don't recommend it. There have been a number of posts lately regarding problems with the YaST Online Update (confusingly abbreviated YOU). I didn't pay much attention to the details, but when I tried to use it a couple of days ago, three separate attempts failed. In each case the connection got dropped (or YaST dropped it), and YaST froze up. In two of the cases, I was able to kill YaST and restart the process. The last time, my PC went to Gates Land and froze up solid. Nothing worked; the keyboard was gone. I had to do a hard reset. That is the first time I have ever had to do that since I loaded Linux. Use the manual method. It's pretty straightforward. -- Regards, Malcolm KMail l.3.1 -- KDE 2.2.2 -- SuSE Linux 7.3 Remove he dots to email me
M. Clark wrote:
On Thursday 14 February 2002 14:35, Stephen H Carbin wrote:
Please excuse my question if it has already been answered: Will the Online Update option in YaST2 get me the updated XFree86 4.2 and SAX2 rpm's ?
I don't think so, although I'm not positive it won't.
It will not. Also, to get DRI support requires recompiling some modules (there are excellent instructions in the readme), so manual is best. -- Joe & Sesil Morris New Tribes Mission Email Address: Joe_Morris@ntm.org Web Address: www.mydestiny.net/~joe_morris Registered Linux user 231871
On Thu, 2002-02-14 at 11:01, KMcLauchlan@chrysalis-its.com wrote:
<rant> What IS the deal with low refresh rate and no 3D? ATI Radeon has been out for quite a while,
Well, the ATI Radeon *name* has been out for a while.
now, and new releases in that card family are simply not going to be spectacularly different from each other at the driver level... are they?
Yes :-( Even the most-recent variants, the Radeon 7500 and the Radeon 8500 are different from each other...
Or do they have to re-invent the chisel, to re-invent the wheel, to re-invent the video driver from the ground up, for each slight revision of ATI product line?
Yes :-(
</rant>
-Gord (with a Radeon 8500 and really, really wanting fast 3D display. "gears" at 300fps -- Gordon Pritchard, P.Eng., Member IEEE Technical University of B.C. - Research Lab Engineer mailto:gordon.pritchard@techbc.ca direct phone: 604-586-6186
participants (5)
-
Gordon Pritchard -
Joe & Sesil Morris (NTM) -
KMcLauchlan＠chrysalis-its.com -
M. Clark -
Stephen H Carbin