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Old 15th June 2009
echoblack echoblack is offline
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Default ATI Catalyst.... Does it work?

Helo
I am an Archlinux user and would like to try out OpenBSD as a Desktop. I was looking around to see if the ATI Catalist could be installed on OpenBSD but found nothing.

I have a ATI Mobility FireGL v5700 (aka HD3650) in my HP Elitebook 8530w

Do the Open Source drivers work?
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Old 15th June 2009
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ATI Catalyst does not support OpenBSD and likely never will. I would reckon that card would be supported by the radeonhd driver in so far as anything will (you can read the man pages for the driver as included with various OpenBSD releases on their website)


and some others might say you asked a fool question :P
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Old 15th June 2009
echoblack echoblack is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TerryP View Post
ATI Catalyst does not support OpenBSD and likely never will. I would reckon that card would be supported by the radeonhd driver in so far as anything will (you can read the man pages for the driver as included with various OpenBSD releases on their website)


and some others might say you asked a fool question :P
Right on.

Ya, some mite say I asked a fool question but that would asume I didn't know the answer was no. I just wanted to make sure.

AMD/ATI's lack of suport for the Open Source coumity has made me deeply regret buying this laptop and swell a grate hatred for AMD/ATI within me. I will never agin buy a product from AMD untill they change there ways and will continue to badmoth them to anyone that will listen.

Now intel, I Love Intel As far as I know they are as much a supporter of Open Source as AMD is an opposer. I hate to be part of bringing about a monopoly in any market. Such a thing has historically only broght about harm to development, freedom, and price. Unfortunately, AMD has forced me into a corner on this. I can now only hope that Intel stays on it's course towards quality product and suport for Open Source software.

I am however going to try out OpenBSD on my home server do to it's history of security. So, you may hear form me agin with questions for that box. Or I mite go with dragonflyBSD.... The Linux Kernel with grsecurity and PaX is farly secure as well but it is nice to use an OS that was designed for security from the ground up.

Last edited by echoblack; 15th June 2009 at 09:11 AM.
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Old 15th June 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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AMD/ATI isn't an opposed to open source, quite the contrary.. they've been releasing technical documentation and datasheets for some time now.

nVidia is the only major GPU manufacture that's uncooperative with open source projects.

Documentation & Resources:
http://developer.amd.com/documentati....aspx#open_gpu
http://www.x.org/docs/AMD/
http://www.radeonhd.org/
http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeonhd

Relevant articles:
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10979
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NjA0Ng
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=11880
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=12022
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13322
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13802

Many many more articles detailing the whole event as well.

The radeonhd(4) man page indicates that the HD3650 is supported, granted it will take time for the open source drivers to mature.. don't quit at the first sign of failure.

OpenBSD doesn't support binary blob drivers.
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Old 15th June 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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Note; there are 2 drivers for Radeon series graphics cards.. the other one is just called radeon(4).
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Old 15th June 2009
echoblack echoblack is offline
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Ya your right about them giving out info about there ATI products to Open Source / Novel's 2 devs. It all sounds good. Thats why I got this laptop with ATI.

But, at the end of the day both of the Open Source drivers are worthless. AMD is spoon feeding the info to the the developers at such a slow rate that the Catalyst will always be better... Well the open drivers are better then the Catalyst at what they can do 2D... So, when they finaly get enough 3D suport to be usefull I bet in the end they will be better then the Catalyst even if they don't yet have the info for the new tech the card is capable of. However, at this point it seems to me the promises to the Open Source comunity is an empty one. Which leaves you with the Catalyst that is always outdated.

I am simply only going to buy Intel grafics cards. They are not good at all but they are supported and I don't game vary much at all.

Last edited by echoblack; 15th June 2009 at 09:51 AM.
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Old 15th June 2009
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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Are you serious? why all the FUD?

They've already released full 2D/3D documentation for r300/r700 of their GPU's, that's hardly a snails pace.

AMD/ATI is phasing out support for r300/r500 chipsets in their latest Catalyst drivers, they're recommending the open source ones now.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13559

If you take 5 minutes to think of the possibilities, a vendor releasing binary blob drivers can pull support for your specific chipset at any time they want.. given the closed nature of the driver, you cannot pick up where the left off.. back porting possible security vulnerabilities would be impracticable if not impossible.

You're left using old code, running in kernel space.. and you have no idea what it's fiddling with.

The open source drivers are hardly worthless, it takes time to develop a driver, it's not an easy task.. you can hate the vendor all you want.. but at least they're doing something beneficial in this economically difficult time.

Your views related to binary blob drivers clash with OpenBSD philosophies, you would know this if you actually did a little research.
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Old 15th June 2009
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ATI Catalyst is closed source, echoblack. "Catalyst" may broadly refer to both video management software as well as device drivers.

The OpenBSD Project, by policy, does not accept any closed source code or any closed documentation in the OS. For any purpose. Ever. And as for binary objects, or "blobs", please see the commentary and lyrics to the song for OpenBSD 3.9

Closed source or binary objects are possible only in two places, because these are not part of the OS: peripheral device firmware, and the ports/packages system.

It is possible to have 3rd party ports/packages which are kernel modules -- emulators/kqemu is one example. So it may be possible to have a closed-source driver for OpenBSD. Possible. I can't see ATI bothering for so small a market.

But ... no bugs are ever accepted by the Project when the kernel contains a 3rd party module. You'll be told that you are running a "Frankensystem," and when it breaks, you get to keep the pieces.
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Old 16th June 2009
echoblack echoblack is offline
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Ok, I did some more looking. It seems the open drivers for the ATI cards do have working 3D. It is just that the open drivers do not support "my" card. They only fully support old cards. So, I take it back the open drivers are not worthless. They are just worthless for my card. I tried them first before the closed Catalyst (They changed the name of the driver it is not fglrx anymore. The "driver" is in fact called "Catalyst" and the software is called Catalyst Control Center or CCC for short)

So, as Richard Stallman said. It is OK... to use closed source software if there is no open source software alternative.

So, I was worng. I thought that the open drivers were being held back to do the "<1"FPS I was getting in SuperTuxRacer compared to the 300FPS I get with the closed Catalyst driver. There is no Open Source driver avalable for my card so I will continue to use the Catalyst.

....and ya I was getting a little nuts and rude.... sorry

Last edited by echoblack; 16th June 2009 at 05:32 AM.
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Old 17th June 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666 View Post
Note; there are 2 drivers for Radeon series graphics cards.. the other one is just called radeon(4).
Do all those cards listed there actually have 3D support on OBSD? If so that's amazing!!
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Old 17th June 2009
adamk adamk is offline
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http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=artic...20081029164221

I don't know if all r100 through r500 cards are supported, but I do believe that r100 through r400 cards are.

Adam
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