Linux drivers are coming...

[Drizzt]

As above.

[Guru]

Source?

[Wombat]

Not me.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Guru
Source?

How can I know it? I think that Matrox will release only drivers and not the source, I don't remember them to have never done differently

[ayoub_ibrahim]

Drizzt, I think he was asking where you got your info from ie your source!

[Drizzt]

I was joking, I had understood.
The source? From Matrox. Quite on the main page

[P5ycho]

At SIGGRAPH 2002 Matrox will also be showing a beta version of the Parhelia Linux® drivers supporting 2D desktops across three displays.

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by Drizzt


I think that Matrox will release only drivers and not the source, I don't remember them to have never done differently

Matrox have released most of their driver sources and chip specs for their previous cards. I hope they don't do anything differently this time round. If they go the nVidia route - no source, no specs, complete dependency on Matrox - they've definitely lost my order. I don't know where I'd go instead - I'd have to see how Ati and 3DLabs do things for their upcoming cards.

[Wombat]

They released the source because it wasn't theirs. Matrox released specs, other people wrote code and GPL'ed it. Matrox has done a nice job of pissing off those contributors by illegally claiming the code as theirs (read the click-through on the Matrox web site).
Matrox has been doing a steady job of alienating the open-source community.

[Ribbit]

Ah - I wondered what you meant the other day when you said Matrox didn't give a damn about Linux. That's really sad. I've always had great trust in them since they opened the G200 specs and what we now know as Utah-GLX was started.

[Wombat]

Well, kewlcat put it pretty well. I am/was a Linux BB. Matrox has not asked us to test anything for 17 months, IIRC, even though they released some drivers in that time. It has been over a year since I've had any "Linux" contact with Matrox at all.

[az]

Sorry, but I see no kewlcat here - was the post pulled?

AZ

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by P5ycho
At SIGGRAPH 2002 Matrox will also be showing a beta version of the Parhelia Linux® drivers supporting 2D desktops across three displays.

Well this and what Wombat said sent me to do some (shallow) digging around. There are no Parhelia specs on Matrox' developer relations site other than a list of supported OpenGL extensions. Parhelia got mentioned briefly on the DRI developer list around launch time, then appears to have been quickly forgotten - attention seems to focussed on getting T&L working on the Radeon [78]500. Parhelia was also only mentioned in passing on the Xpert list, in a discussion about whether XFree86 supports 10-bit colour. I'm sure I'd have found more than this if these drivers were open-source or community-developed.

A couple of other things I picked up:

- The Radeon has 10-bit colour, or at least a 10-bit RAMDAC for TV-out. http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/xpe...ne/018503.html

- 3DLabs cards exist which have 10-bit colour. And XFree86 supports them. http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/xpe...ne/018487.html

Anyway, my point was it's looking like Matrox may be going down the nVidia route after all and supporting Linux only as little as they can get away with. If this is true then it's sad because ultimately no-one benefits in the long run (the drivers will rot once Parhelia becomes officially unsupported) and it leaves out everyone who isn't x86/Linux (i.e. xyzBSD, QNX, etc. on the OS side, and Alpha, SPARC, PPC, MIPS etc. on the h/w side). Perhaps the G400Max I just got hold of will be my last Matrox card. Damn. And I really wanted FAA...

Look at that, it's past my bedtime...

[Wombat]

Az, I was referring to stuff kewlcat said over in Alt. Life. a while ago.

[kaasboer]

Hi Wombat,

Originally posted by Wombat
Matrox has been doing a steady job of alienating the open-source community.

Ups, this is interesting. I always thought, Matrox's support for XFree was very good. :-(

cu,
kaasboer