Jaunty will have the new Xserver 1.6, which brings a lot of 2D acceleration improvements and bug fixes but also a API/ABI change, so that binary only graphics drivers must be updated in order to work with it. This makes all currently released fglrx drivers (Catalyst 9.2) incompatible with Jaunty.
With the release of intrepid there already was a similar situatuation, but AMD released a special version for intrepid back then. But this time AMD just announced to drop the support for chips <= R600 (HDxxxx series) from fglrx coming with Catalyt 9.3 and recommends to use the open source -ati driver for the not longer supported cards. So the question is will Catalyst 9.3 support Xserver 1.6?
It seems to be not so likely, since even the leaked Catalyst 9.4 does not yet support Xserver1.6 and the Ubuntu developers are trying to get R600/R700 support into the open source driver.
The good news is that the open source -ati driver in Jaunty will support all currently available ATI chipsets (yes this includes R600/R700), which will give you probably the fastest 2D acceleration among all linux drivers(intel just broke their driver by merging UXA) and also much better Xvideo accelereation in comparison to fglrx. (no tearing)
The back side is that there will be a regression regarding 3D acceleration. The open source 3D driver stack currently is much slower then the one in fglrx and the work to fix this will not be ready until Ubuntu 9.10 (or probably longer). This will not affect anyone just using Compiz – these will even get a major performance improvement in comparison with fglrx. But in games or more sophisticated 3D applications there will be a noticable slowdown.
And R600/ R700 chips will not have any 3D acceleration at all – not even Compiz. But for these there is still hope for Catalyst 9.5.
Is it impossible to ask the Xorg crew to maintain backwards compatibility with the new features? Although I do appreciate the work they do, it’s kind of odd that a new X server drops support for currently existing drivers. I guess it’s okay to let the different distros pick up the slack there, but I still feel that it would be better to have a more unified model.
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“…it’s kind of odd that a new X server drops support for currently existing drivers.”
That’s actually backwards – it is up to the drivers to support the new xserver features. Most of the open source drivers are updated right along with the xserver. For the proprietary drivers, they get updated if and when the owning company decides to update them.
Let me see if I understand this bull….
1) Ubuntu (or xorg) is forcing the users to buy new hardware in the same way that Microsoft did with their new OS.
2) The new Ubuntu 9.10 is full of bugs but still they used an even number when odd numbers are used for an untested/unstable version of software. Using the users as beta testers against their will? Another Microsoft bull applied.
3) Why can’t FLRGX being installed even if its not receiving support?
I leave RedHat because they were doing the same bull… I am tired to have to change to another distribution. WAKE UP UBUNTU COMMUNITY!
@axllaruse: No, you really don’t understand the situation. On any of those points.
1) No, they’re not. If anywhere, the blame for that might be pinned on ATi. The Linux developers are working hard to pick up the slack.
2) Ubuntu’s version numbers indicate the year and month the version was released, not any stable/development status. The software was in beta for months and months; the bugs aren’t near as bad as they used to be. By the way, nobody is being forced to use the software against their will. Use something else if you want.
3) FGLRX is closed source, and if ATi doesn’t update it for the newer versions of X.org shipped by Ubuntu, there’s nothing Ubuntu can do. Keeping X.org at an older version just because ATi is lazy wouldn’t be fair for the Intel or Nvidia users.
Oh, and this affects all the other Linux distributions, too.
You you should edit the webpage title rojtberg.net » No fglrx for Jaunty? to something more generic for your content you write. I liked the blog post nevertheless.
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