Mark Hatton, to clear some issues that seem to confuse some people:
> 1) Compiz *is* enabled out of the box and becomes active once fglrx is 
> installed, and so people with
>  ATI cards will encounter this suspend/hibernate bug without any prior 
> warning. If this is the situation, 
> then surely the Gutsy release should be held until the problem is either 
> fixed by ATI or a workaround 
> is made available and documented.
>
> 2) Compiz actually isn't enabled out of the box, in which case whoever writes 
> the introduction page 
> (currently http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/710rc for Gutsy) should perhaps 
> amend the wording to 
> reflect that fact

Compiz is enabled by default, and _works with the default, free/open
source ATI driver_ that Ubuntu uses for most ATI cards ranging from 7500
to X850, except for some specific models with known problems where the
driver is used but 3D is disabled by default (can be enabled). For
example, on my Radeon X800 works fluently out of the box with Compiz in
Ubuntu 7.10, with the open source drivers.

The closed, separetly installable fglrx drivers _do not support
currently Compiz at all_, and those should not be used by users wishing
to use 3D desktop. The newest released fglrx drivers, apart from the
X2000-series-only release, support 3D on cards from 9500 to X1950,
covering the extra X1000 range the open source driver does not yet
support. However, most people see less 3D with fglrx anyway since the
Compiz Desktop Effects do not work.

I understand that if your Mobility Radeon X300 is currently blacklisted
in the open source driver for 3D (which would explain your writings),
you'd want fglrx to work. However, the point is to get the open source
driver work on all cards instead of trying to spend lots of times trying
to workaround problems with the closed binary driver. It's not about
punishing non-FLOSS users, it's the reality of open source drivers being
more beneficial to work for, and from my point of view I'd say ATI's
fglrx drivers have always had severe problems, lagging behind X.org and
kernel releases, so they are really a poor example of even a closed
source driver.

I personally waited 3 years for the fglrx drivers to fix my issues which
still aren't fixed by ATI, and amazingly found it easier to bite the
bullet and find out why the open source driver did not provide full 3D
support for my card. I managed to find the culprit(s) during Ubuntu 6.10
and from 7.04 onwards my range of cards (X800) seem to have full 3D
support and a lot less problems than what I had with the fglrx drivers.

I wrote this mainly because most people shouldn't think they _need_ to
install fglrx driver for their ATI card. X1000-series need it for proper
2D acceleration, that is given, but so it was with Ubuntu 7.04 so there
is no regression. For the Ubuntu 8.04, there will be open source support
for both X1000 and X2000 series.

Thank you for listening.

-- 
[gutsy] fglrx breaks over suspend/resume
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/121653
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Bugs, which is the bug contact for Ubuntu.

-- 
ubuntu-bugs mailing list
ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs

Reply via email to