Re: [gNewSense-users] Compatible Video Cards with 3D Acceleration

[Kevin Dean]

> Can anybody confirm this. Is R200 based cards 3D acceleration supported
> on gNewSense? Don't contains binary blobs?

r200 contains microcode (binary blobs) that can not bee freely edited.
The r100 and r200 were written using ATI stuff under Non-disclosure
agreement. I checked the code myself, which you can do as well in
radeon_cp.c.

For r200 specifically -> R200_cp_microcode[] which then goes on for
many lines. It is non-free.

> thanks
>
> >
> > AMD is promising to release free drivers for newer ATI cards, but it's
> > not confirmed [3]. Perhaps you could wait and buy a newer ATI card if
> > free drivers are released.
> >
> > [2] http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon
> > [3]
> > 
> http://enterpriselinuxlog.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/05/09/amd-will-deliver-open-graphics-drivers/
> >


I caution people not to fall into this. AMD has announced that they
will "open source" their drivers, they never said they would make them
Libre! The Radeon driver and the linux kernel BOTH contain binary
blobs that restrict a user's ability to modify, and learn from them.

AMD may very well release fully modifyable, GPL drivers but they might
not. As of today, they have not, and I wouldn't put my money into a
product that might NEVER release such things.