Ant, what about Linux driver petition on the main page ?

[bjb]

Ant,

I asked Haig on the Matrox forums a couple of days ago about the status of Linux drivers for Parhelia and after some discussion he ended up suggesting to ask you to start a petition on the issue and sending the results to your contacts at Matrox. Now the whole discussion leads me to believe that in case users don't push demanding descent linux drivers we won't see them for at least a year (sure 2d will be available quickly, but this is not what I and many many folks need). As I said on the Matrox forums, without full linux support, the card is a no-go for me and I sure know this is the same for others as well.
While I believe (or fear) that most of you guys would be happy with good quality windows drivers I still want to ask what you thinks about the idea.

cheers .. Bjoern

[DukeP]

I for one would vote aye for linux drivers. Especially nice packaged ones, that doesnt demand a hole slew of messing around to get to work. .

~~DukeP~~

[The PIT]

Mmm maybe this should be on the site feedback but yes Matrox should supply Lunix drivers.

[rugger]

Originally posted by The PIT
Mmm maybe this should be on the site feedback but yes Matrox should supply Lunix drivers.

PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY WARNING: This post contains heavy ranting and a touch of whine

They had better damn well supply good linux drivers given the cost of the card

With a video card that is going to cost me the best part of a grand (in Aussie dollars) I expect only the best support. Like them bending over backwards to supply good drivers for linux.

A am afraid, as much as I love the parhellia, that if linux drivers are not a high priority, then I will need to go elsewhere.

Having to sign a petition to get good drivers for linux is really not a very professional move by matrox. I shouldn't have to beg for support, the money I will pay for the card should be enough.

[Haig]

No one is asking you to beg and it's not a move by matrox. If you people want tech supp to forward a request, then I need stats on how many people want it.

Another option would be simply email the other contacts in our contact us section and be done with it

[Wombat]

The thing is, Matrox never really worked on Linux drivers, or not as much as it looks like. They released some of the G200 specs, and the open-source community wrote their own drivers. Those drivers were then adopted for later G cards. Matrox <I>did</I> make a good move and got Keith Whitwell on for the initial G400 DRI drivers, but Matrox went solo way too early after that. There's a lot of other stuff that's been very frustrating to me.

I don't think that other people will write Matrox's drivers for free this time. Matrox burned them nicely. The Linux drivers are now behind an (illegal) click-through where Matrox claims copyright on them.

[DukeP]

Hmm..
Personaly I never did get those linux drivers to work properly for my G400MAX.

~~DukeP~~

[Wombat]

I got them to work great, but then again, that was my job. Matrox's instructions were bad for a long time. If you ignored their advice, and went ahead and compiled the drivers with the kernel, it worked very very well. Once Matrox started putting out RPMs, those seemed to install nicely, too.

[Neptune]

Matrox is having a success story with Gxxx cards under linux.
The main reason for this is that at some time they decided to release their specs (not all of them, but almost 98%, i can't remember what exactly they kept secret). This allowed for the XFree community to integrate support in xfree, kernel and dri for matrox cards.
Matrox G-series work flawlessly in all linux-xfree flavors.
I just hope that matrox follows on this with the P.
Otherwise, they will have to release their own binary only kernel modules, like some other companies do (you name one ;-) ). There is no chance I would put in my system(s) a card that needs proprietary kernel modules (stability reasons, security reasons etc.).
Nvidia does this (binary kernel modules) and if you want to see some real nvidia bashing (and matrox praising at the same time), check any redhat or debian mail-list archive.
So, it's not just plain "linux support", the way nvidia does it.

Just my 0.02EU

George

[Ant]

I'll see if I can get an official statement from Matrox on Linux support. Do you want me to just do it as a poll on the news page? If so what should the options be?

"Linux support for Parhelia....

Essential
Would nice
Don't care"

??

[Neptune]

Ant, I think that we should show some kind of "volume", i mean that many ppl will need linux support.
Perhaps you should use something like

Do you plan to use Parhelia under Linux?

Yes
No

[DC]

seems a good poll for me.

DC

[Wombat]

Neptune: the G200 specs that they withheld were for how to work the WARP engine well.

[bjb]

I think something like

Parhelia linux driver support:

- 2d driver is enaugh for me
- 3d would be cool
- without both I won't by a Parhelia based card ever


The point I wanted to make the whole time is that "these" marketing guys (Im doing software dev. and have to suffer of "'em" as well .. no offence for any marketier reading ) won't consider doing something that customers want unless you show them that loads of people won't buy their product if they dont do it the way people want it to be. So I suggest the poll should in fact point out very strongly that they are losing potential customers !
That's not to say that I was/am not pleased with tech support , I am really. Anyway, Haig and Ant I believe you already understood where I'm trying to get now do you ..

cheers .. Bjoern

edit: I'd better point out that Im NOT doing dev for Matrox. The above was mainly of a general nature.

[Neptune]

Wombat: thanx

Ant, bjb's idea is a better one. It's up to you now...