Zardon

It has been a while but Pete has finished his latest editorial in his open source journals and he details with some passion his frustration with ATI's current (lack of) Linux driver support.

"ATI's stance in the whole subject reminds me of the whole SLI debate when it was re-introduced by nVidia, also known as burying your head in the sand. At first, ATI tried to downplay its importance, telling people left and right that it is practically useless, that they don't believe it will catch on, or that it will interest/benefit consumers. Do you know what happened after one year? - Crossfire. ATI saw the market, saw nVidia walking away with an easy victory, regrouped, and presented an alternative. Well ATI, guess who's walking away with an easy victory in the Linux front for the past years. Guess which company is preferred by people who are interested in running Linux, not only as their main operating system mind you, but even as a casual alternative in a dual-boot system."

read his latest journal entry over here and discuss in this thread in our forums.

BWX

It isn't the only problem... What about support for AIW and VIVO? TV-in / recording is totally messed up.. even in windows...
Come on ATI.. Little more work on the AIW series please.
Same kind of frustration I am sure for linux users.. :-/

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rig

Partizan

As Windows XP is my last Microsoft OS and I was thinking of completely migrating to Linux, it is obvious my next card will be a Geforce if ATI won't do something about it.


Regards, Partizan

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No_Style

Could it be that they've dipped their toes into too many different waters and are not able to properly support them all? That's how it appears to me.

Well written article Pete, hopefully it'll rattle a few cages over at ATI.

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SFOSOK

I don't use linux, if I did though I would be pissed too with a 500$ card that doesn't do what it should.

ATI just seems behind lately.

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*Warning* - Explicit Content Preceeding

BWX

Yeah I have been a huge ATI fan for years.. lately in the past year or so, I just don't know what to think.

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rig

Rasta Monsta

Well, I hope everyone who accuses us of running a fanboy site get a chance to read that.

rasta

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madmatty

well the way i see it, you not gonna spend $500 on a graphics card just for linux since theres no software or games that could possably take advantage of it (ok so theres q4,doom3,ut ... that it?) . Maybe ati doesnt really care about linux users, it is a very minority os after all (in comparison to MsWin). Its highly likely a linux user has a dual boot setup anyway so that there is an os that can take full advantage of the card. Its far easier to support the mainstreem os and even easier as its a full desktop envoronment. Linux is just ..well just a kernal. The linux os is what ever the user makes of it with so many distrubutions and so many possible combinations and various dekstop environments, how can ati support em all 100%. Sure they can choose a specific linux setup , but then that makes other users unhappy. Sure it can be done, nvidia did it, but it must be a pain in the rear for the devs to support everything which is maybe why they have so many driver issues under windows as they try to keep all things equal. .

These are just my thaughts and not ment to rattle any cages. im no linux pro, only messed with lindows, debian,redhat and knoppix distrobutions, but i dont feel any of them is really a windows replacement (although knoppixcd is very handy for when windows decided to hose it self).

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finite

They only need to write a driver for the X server. That doesn't change from distro to distro. And they already have an installer that works on all distributions.

Linux would have a much larger user base if it actually had better hardware support from manufacturers. That's my number one issue with the OS.

The stance that ATI and other companies take leave us with a catch 22. (Low user base = no support. No support = low user base.) Of course, the other solution is nVidia. It'd be nice if ATI woke up to that fact.

swimtech

Right along with your journal entry Pete, a quick check reveals that ATI is missing the boat as well for Apple (Unix based...). ATI doesn't sell a X1xxx card for the Mac, and Apple offers PCI Express Nvidia cards (right on up to the 7800GT) exclusively for their latest Mac G5 Dual and Quad towers. The cards ATI does offer for the Mac are not PCIe, AGP 8x Pro slot only.

Hmmm...

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

mkk

I'm no Linux user but the situation still irks me. Good article.

Netrat33

Hah. What like 6% now? Linux ISN'T the everyday man's system.

Completely disagree with the article saying Linux users effect decisions and word of mouth. Most people don't search a forum! They go to sites like Driverheaven, Hardocp, Tom's hardware, bob's reviews, the review review site, game magazines (get the point) Joe Public doesn't give a crap, nor even KNOW of linux most likely.

You can tell me all you want about how linux is better this and that. I'M not switching due to it's simply easier. And it's SO not affecting me either due to lacking priority game support. And I KNOW someone is going to want to insult me. Save your breathe (er...type)

As far as I'm concerned: Sorry Linux users. These are gaming cards. I wouldn't mind seeing them completely pull those 5 programmers and putting all dedication for more speed/image/stability for xp.

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zerodamage

How I see it is this. If you want a gaming system; do not use Linux. It doesn't matter if you are using Nvidia or ATI. Most games run on Windows; not Linux. Most of the support is available on Windows, not Linux. If you are foolish enough to buy a high end card for gaming and are using Linux, then you should have done your research. These types of rants and whining articles just annoy me. There is no secret that Linux has a small market share and that very few games actually run on it. So why in the hell are you using it to play games knowing the support for it sucks and then go off and cry about it?

I know that ATI said that there would be drivers BUT you should also know that driver support for linux has been nearly non existant to begin with. Add that with the fact that few games support the linux os. I really do not know where the big surprise is.

Sandok

Same here... I used to defend ATI alot but lately, as you can see if you search my posts, I've really been giving NV kudos for their 7 series... And ATI has been getting nothing for their X1k series from me

BWX

For me it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.. as far as the software goes. Sure there are great points to some of it, but in general.. it's like watching a train wreck. Just look at the vivo/aiw/mmc software fiasco. That alone makes me think twice about what card to buy next. Hope they can get some things straitened out soon. I still think their hardware is top notch.

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rig