First open source driver for new Radeon graphics cards released

[Pedro]

{QUOTE-> Following the announcement of a greater commitment to open source for graphics drivers and the publication of graphics chip documentation, AMD's partner for Linux issues Novell has, as previously announced, released a free Linux driver for R500 and R600 family graphics chips. Using the OpenSuse Build Service, the development team are offering the drivers not just as pre-compiled versions for various Novell distributions, but also for the latest versions of Fedora and Mandriva. The driver is, according to the announcement, still only "alpha quality" and currently supports only basic functionality - support for RandR 1.2, video overlay, 2D acceleration and further graphics chips remain on the to-do list. <-QUOTE}
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/96235

I still haven't understood all the names, r500, r300, who built them etc., but this seems to be a step in the right direction for AMD. ATI alone would not do this.

[Mrkvonic]

Hello,
Looks like a step in the right direction.
Mrk

[Firecat]

{QUOTE->

I still haven't understood all the names, r500, r300, who built them etc., but this seems to be a step in the right direction for AMD. ATI alone would not do this. <-QUOTE}

This is really very nice to know because Radeon cards have traditionally had pretty poor open source support. Its nice to see this flaw finally being addressed by AMD! :)

As for R300, R400, R500 etc....these are codenames for the chips on various graphics cards.

R3xx/RV3xx - Radeon 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, X300, X550, X600
R4xx/RV4xx - Radeon X700, X800, X850 families
R5xx/RV5xx - Radeon X1000 series
R6xx/RV6xx - Radeon 2000 series

Where x stands for any number :)

[Pedro]

Thanks Firecat :)

[lucas1985]

{QUOTE-> Looks like a step in the right direction. <-QUOTE}
Perhaps this will put some pressure on the NVIDIA side to open their drivers.