AMD/ATI finally treating Linux on par with Windows

Several months ago AMD announced new ATI Linux drivers and that they were going to open up their GPU specifications. Well, the talk is over and the real thing has finally happened. Over the last several months, ATI proprietary Linux driver has gotten to be on par with NVidia's Linux driver. But there are two open source ATI drivers that are picking up new features and is being improved upon on a daily basis.

AMD continues to publish programming guides and register information routinely for their latest hardware. Now AMD has really stepped up and evolved their linux support by leaps and bounds. They are working to push new high-end features into their linux driver (example is the multi-GPU crossfire support) with their new Radeon HD 4850. On top of that, they are now showing off Tux on their product packaging and will be including Linux drivers on their product CDs too!

Previously Linux drivers were an afterthought. Some examples were when ATI introduced the X1000 (R500) series cards. Consumers did not see any Linux support for seven months after it was released. More recently the Radeon HD 2000 (or R600) series cards took six months for any Linux support to be had. This should now be a thing of the past. With the recently announced Radeon HD 4800 (or RV770) series cards, they will ship the Linux driver on the CD included in the box (unlike nVidia who has never shipped Linux drivers with their product). Plus, they are getting ever so close to offering all of the same features in Windows and Linux drivers alike.

One reason why it would take so long between new GPU releases and Linux support was that the amount of code being shared between the two driver sets was very little. But since last year saw a new OpenGL driver introduced, now more and more code is shared between the two driver bases. This sharing of code is not too dissimilar to what nVidia does with its code between Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Obviously excluding any of the platform specific parts. This has seen nVidia having a pretty good record of delivering support for Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris within days of a new product lauch. With the exception of nVidia's GeForce 8 series cards and their bugs and performance issues of late.

As mentioned before, ATI will be prominently displaying Tux on their official packaging and they have asked the AIBs to include Tux on their packaging as well. Which this may just mark the first time Tux will be prominently displayed on a wide-scale computer hardware package targeted for desktop users.

Also, I would like to add that some of the performance numbers being floated around for the new ATI boards show that nVidia may have given up the performance high ground to ATI. It will be interested to see nVidia's response to both the performance and such high quality Linux support. This could really heighten Linux support across the board for all Linux users.

Firefox 3 and XP

Firefox 3

Today is download day for Firefox 3. People all around the world is coordinating to get people to download Firefox 3 today in an attempt to set a record for the most downloads of a piece of software in 24 hours.

I went ahead and downloaded it but I have not installed the final version yet. Most of my extensions do not support Ff3 yet. So I'm going to give them a little more time to get their stuff together before I start using it. Otherwise, I will have to go out and find replacements for them.

XP

Windows XP, arguably one of the best versions of Windows to ever be released, is starting to creep towards the end of its selling cycle. Microsoft is still on track to use its bouncer mentality to force big PC makers to quick offering XP on new machines. But their strong-arming isn't nearly as influential toward businesses to upgrade to Vista or to sway developers to write Vista-specific programs.

This will only help Microsoft bolster their Vista numbers because people cannot get XP, which is still the most widely preferred version of windows on new PCs as of earlier this year.

I read an article, which I will link to below, that says the big problem for Vista is that 92% of developers are ignoring it. Linux is getting more love with about 13% of developers are writing apps for it this year and about 15.5% are projecting to write for Linux in 2009.

But beyond the 'new graphics engine', a peer to peer mechanisms, a new networking stack, and WinFS. Oh wait, Scratch that last one since it was dropped early on in Vista's development. Plus scratch the new networking stack since it was actually ported to Windows XP.

But beyond that, Windows XP is not going anywhere in the near future anyway. Mainstream support will not end until 2009 and extended support will go through April 2014 anyway. But XP will still be available on PCs from smaller pc makers (aka system builders) through January 31, 2009, ultra-low-cost pcs through June 30, 2010, a low-end XP Starter Edition will be available in 'emerging markets' also through June 30, 2010.

But also, Vista Ultimate and Vista Business come with downgrade rights. So some computer makers are using this option to offer machines that appear to be XP products but are 'factory downgraded' to XP. The bad thing is only the pricier versions of Vista qualify for this, but you can 'upgrade' to Vista for no added fee either. MS says it will continue to make XP discs available to computer makers in order to enable downgrade rights through at least January 31, 2009.

"Pondering Windows XP's demise" by Ina Fried
"The Open Road" by Matt Asay

Could OpenGL 3.0 make significant leaps over DirectX 10?

So, two of the big selling points for Windows Vista is security and DirectX 10. Well the whole security thing is just that it has a real firewall that is enabled from the beginning and not just half of a firewall like they used in Windows XP. The Windows XP firewall would only block outgoing stuff, it would do nothing about incoming stuff. This is easily remedied by using another firewall....TADA!!! your safe.

Now, the whole DirectX 10 thing is that you can't get DirectX 10 on Windows XP. What a great ploy at their disposal? A way to make people upgrade to get that when so many other things have been backported to XP. Brilliant!

Oh wait, this could backfire too. Vista has been released for over a year now but how many licenses have been sold? As of the mark of one year of availability, the number of new computers sold was about 250 million. How many of those were Windows Vista PC's you say? About 100 Million. So about 2/5ths of new PC's sold during that time were Windows Vista PCs. Those people will not be looking to buy Vista anytime soon considering they just purchased their PC.

Also, its pretty simple that a game developer wants to get to the widest audience possible. The widest possible audience is people running DirectX 9. But they also want to provide the best experience possible. Here is where OpenGL 3.0 can come in and try to sweep the rug out from underneath M$.

OpenGL 3 will be completely backwards compatible with OpenGL 2.1, 2.0, 1.5, 1.4, 1.3, 1.2, 1.1 and 1.0 just like always. But it will also push the OpenGL 3.0 API into the next generation and will finally be able to compete with Direct3D 10. Plus, this same functionality will be available on video cards that support OpenGL 2 and DirectX 9. Thus no requirement to get a new video card (unless you want more performance for the bleeding edgers).

So the short of it is that you could get the same functionality as Direct3D 10, in an open standard, and it would be available on Windows XP machines as well as Windows Vista machines.

But, like with everything else, there is a down side. DirectX is more than just graphics. It has DirectInput, DirectPlay for communication, and some less significant things. While OpenGL is just a graphics library API. It doesn't have input or sound, to get those you pretty much have to do it yourself.

OpenGL has a chance to make a big mark but it is at somewhat of an disadvantage too. Do you use DirectX 10 and make it Windows Vista only? Or do you go OpenGL to get the same functionality but on more platforms with the need to write your own input, sound etc?

I will be pulling for OpenGL since I like open standards and most of my favorite games use OpenGL.

Posting lag

Well, its that time of year when there's not too much to post about.

Coach Saban was in Mobile yesterday to kick off their state tour leading up to this falls football season. He hinted at how much Mobile mattered in rebuilding LSU when we was there and how it will be key to rebuilding the Crimson Tide back to its national prominence.

In a couple hours from now, groundbreaking will take place on the new Student Rec Center adjacent to Stanky Field. Now, for the people who are not familiar with South Alabama baseball, they will initially laugh at the name 'stanky field'. Eddie Stanky was a major league player, manager and eventually coach at South Alabama. He took USA from unknown to a widely known NCAA baseball team.

This same area where the new student rec center is going to be built, is the same area that students gather each spring semester to play 'Oozeball' before finals start. I wonder if it will still be held at the same area or if they will move it to another place on campus.

Also, tonight USA takes on Alabama at Stanky Field at 6pm.

Finally Thursday is release day for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. I will be attending a release party at Picklefish from 7pm - until.

FLOSS-USA Workshop March 22nd 2008

Thought I would post that the new student organization that Rick Green and I started last semester, Free Libre Open Source Software at the University of South Alabama (FLOSS-USA) will be holding its first workshop on Saturday, March 22nd at 2pm in Faculty Court East room 21.

The topic is different ways to run Linux.

• Rick Green will present how to virtualize one Operating System in another Operating System using Windows, Linux and VMWare.
• Jeremy Blair will present how to run Linux applications within Windows using andLinux.
• Mr. Michael Black will present how to setup and run Linux on a flash drive.
• I will demonstrate how to use a Live CD to familiarize yourself with Linux and how to install Ubuntu to have a dual boot system with Ubuntu and Windows.