will we ever have radeon drivers that aren't crap?

[john wendel]

On 07/27/2009 06:58 PM, John Mellor wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-07-24 at 12:23 +0200, Julian Aloofi wrote:
>> Am Donnerstag, den 23.07.2009, 20:13 -0400 schrieb John Mellor:
>>> This is a Fedora-killer.  Nothing should be higher priority.
>>>
>>> Is there any way to get Radeon HD support as a mandatory blocking issue
>>> into F12 ?  If the incredibly bad situation is not fixed by F12 with
>>> compiz and 3D gaming and everything else working correctly, then
>>> probably the only people who will be left running Fedora will be on
>>> laptops with their very low-end graphics, and some NVidia proprietary
>>> driver users.
>>>
>>> If it can't be fixed in that timeframe, is it possible to revert back to
>>> the old DRI interfaces so that the proprietary ATI drivers will work
>>> again?
>>>
>>> I can test, but not if it is going to hose my machine in a way that
>>> cannot be easily recovered from.  Unfortunately, I don't have the time
>>> available to code, as my real job takes priority.
>> As soon as the Fedora 12 Alpha is released we could start another test
>> day for radeon cards. We could contact the original initiators and ask
>> them if they'd like to join us. The most important thing is that we will
>> need at least one person experienced with radeon driver hacking, do you
>> know one? When the Alpha is released one of us should contact Dave
>> Airlie and ask him whether he has the time to do the dirty work.
>> I didn't know the radeon situation is that bad, I guess I'm just lucky
>> having the right card (Radeon HD 2600).
>
> I'm ok with this, as long as a non-functioning Radeon-HD card becomes a
> blocker issue.  There is no way that F12 should be released without this
> support, and most cards working correctly.
>
> I can test, with my HD-3650 AGP card, as long as I'm given a backout
> mechanism to allow me to recover from installing a bad Radeon package
> safely.
>
> For a fall-back position, we need to otherwise guarantee that F12
> releases with a functioning kernel and dri modules that fully support
> the fglrx driver.  Its not free, but the free drivers are still not up
> to the job if we are considering this option, and the functionality
> absolutely needs to be in Fedora.  This also needs to be a blocker
> issue.
>

Why should F12 be blocked for those of us who know not to buy ATI video?

The one and only time I ever had an ATI card was when I was running 
Windows 98 (the last version I ever owned) and the ATI driver wouldn't 
get out of 640x480 mode. I gave the card away, and vowed to never buy 
ATI video again. I suggest you do the same.

Regards,

John