Unified Linux drivers for "older" Matrox cards...

[Mikko]

ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/archive/linux/2004/

Some quotes from a readme file:

"This release of the Matrox display driver includes support for
Matrox G100, G200, G400, G450 and G550 based graphics hardware.

This driver package includes previously released drivers for XFree86
versions 4.3.0 and X.org versions 6.7.0, 6.8.0 and 6.8.1."

"The included display drivers are based on the Matrox driver source
included with XFree86. Modifications made by Matrox include the
addition of the Matrox HAL library, which can be optionally
installed to enable Matrox specific features."

"Due to certain legal liabilities and for the protection of
intellectual property, Matrox reserves licensing rights to the
library and prohibits reverse engineering but allows free
distribution under any operating system. Matrox encourages members
of the open source community to freely distribute and assist in
the further development of this driver."

[magog]

Re: Unified Linux drivers for "older" Matrox cards...

Originally posted by Mikko
ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/mga/archive/linux/2004/

Some quotes from a readme file:

"This release of the Matrox display driver includes support for
Matrox G100, G200, G400, G450 and G550 based graphics hardware.
....

The other option still is --> SciTech SNAP for Linux

http://www.scitechsoft.com

or here

http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/ent/enterprise_home.html

[K6-III]

Funny how they support their obsolete cards better than the P-based cards under Linux...

[leech]

That's because the biggest part of the driver has been done by the open source programmers. If Matrox had opened the specs for the Parhelia, than we'd have great support for that too.....

Though I can understand why they didn't.... the card is about 2.5 years old now, and the only tech on i tthat is still pretty cool is FAA. But most of the cards out now re beefy enough to handle most older games at full AA/AF. And of course the newer games run great on them, but not on the Parhelia.....

They would do well now to at least release the 2D specs for the linux programmers.... or at the very least release a new driver... it's almost been a full year!

Leech

[dZeus]

Originally posted by leech
That's because the biggest part of the driver has been done by the open source programmers. If Matrox had opened the specs for the Parhelia, than we'd have great support for that too.....

Though I can understand why they didn't.... the card is about 2.5 years old now, and the only tech on i tthat is still pretty cool is FAA. But most of the cards out now re beefy enough to handle most older games at full AA/AF. And of course the newer games run great on them, but not on the Parhelia.....

They would do well now to at least release the 2D specs for the linux programmers.... or at the very least release a new driver... it's almost been a full year!

Leech

I doubt we'd see better drivers with open specs for P

I've read an interview with Alan Cox (involved with Linux kernel development) and he said that the specs for 6 (!!) different cards were released, but nobody made drivers. Why? Writing a display driver appearantly isn't easy at all, and thus a card needs huge populairity among linux developers before they'll start coding drivers for it. I doubt P has the amount of populairity needed.

[Ribbit]

3D driver development is really, really hard, certainly. Accelerated 2D drivers are hard to do well, but probably not that hard to do at least some work on. A basic frame-buffer driver for X could probably be written by any half-capable programmer with specs and time on his hands.

In the Linux developer community, I think you'll find in general that the popularity of a card is strongly influenced by the availability of the specs.

When the P was being launched, there was a lot of excitement about it in the Linux community (ok, maybe not among those really in the know). Matrox had given Linux developers a huge amount of support with the G-series, and everyone was expecting the same for the P (and Matrox encouraged them). Of course we all know how it actually turned out.

Do you have a link to this interview dZeus, or at least a list of the cards mentioned?

[magog]

Originally posted by leech
They would do well now to at least release the 2D specs for the linux programmers.... or at the very least release a new driver... it's almost been a full year!

Leech

Well under OS/2 the Parhelia, the P650 and the P750 work with the SNAP driver.
The current SNAP for Linux is not yet on the v2.9 Lever oder v3.0 but maybe the driver is already available through the personal builds on http://my.scitechsoft.com

I've not checked it because my Linux box doesn't have a Matrox board in it (it's an EPIA M9000 - the replacement I'm currently working on has an DFI ACP MiniITX mobo with video integrated into the intel chipset -> CPU Pentium M 1.4 GHz - nice but expensive bundle..I mean the board - got the CPU for ~55 US $).

[SUPERVISOR]

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