Re: [gentoo-user] About ATI drivers in X.org 7

[Holly Bostick <motub@planet.nl>]

Rafael Fernández López schreef:
> Hi,
> 
> I've read something somewhere that have amazed me... Is X.org 
> developing new ATI drivers, better far from ATI.com ?

Yes and no... I think what you're talking about is most likely the open
source r300 drivers (similar in effect to the open source 'radeon'
kernel drivers that are available for the 9500 and below).

More information can be found on these drivers here:

http://r300.sourceforge.net/R300.php

As far as I know, although the r300 project's code is available to X.org
(and in fact has been accepted into the CVS tree), the project itself is not
associated with, or rather is separate from, the X.org project itself.

> 
> If that's affirmative... We will be able to use Damage extension (and
>  Composite extension) with ati rendering ?

No idea, since I don't know what the Damage extension is/does, and afaik
the Composite extension is not yet complete or stable, so it doesn't
'matter' whether it works atm-- ATI themselves don't want to 'waste'
resources on supporting Composite until it's done, so I can't imagine
that the Open Source project is going to focus on it yet either (having
less resources and information than ATI themselves).

> 
> And when is X.org going to be able on portage ?

As noted on the r300 site, 'The latest source code is available directly
from Xorg, Mesa and DRM CVS trees.'

I would assume that 'the Xorg, Mesa and DRM CVS trees' are the
development trees for modular X.org (X.org 7, is that?).

Ebuilds for these are available in Portage, they're just hard-masked.
Myself, I'm not prepared to touch them with a 20-foot/metre pole, but
perhaps you are.

If not, then it would be better to wait until upstream stabilizes a
release, and the ebuilds stabilize to at least ~arch. Perhaps the Xorg
site has a target date for the next release; I haven't looked. I would
at least imagine that their development mailing list would give a better
idea as to how close to release they might be.

I'm happy to wait, but that's just my opinion, and it's your choice what
you decide to do.

HTH,
Holly
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list