Open-Source ATI Graphics In Ubuntu 9.04

[ Thanks to Michael Larabel for
this link. ]

“With Ubuntu 9.04, the out-of-the-box ATI experience is
great with the R100 through R500 series, complete with 3D support.
Ubuntu 9.04 also has X-Video and EXA support for the ATI R600
(Radeon HD 2000/3000) and R700 (Radeon HD 4000) series through a
recently-updated DDX driver and updated kernel DRM. While Intel’s
open-source driver has picked up DRI2 support, kernel memory
management (via the Graphics Execution Manager), and numerous other
improvements as of late, none of these features can be found in
Jaunty’s open-source ATI stack since they are still very much under
development.

“We were using an R500 graphics processor in the form of an ATI
Mobility Radeon X1400 for this latest round of testing. The
Mobility Radeon X1400 was found on a Lenovo ThinkPad T60 notebook
along with an Intel Core Duo T2400 processor, 1400 x 1050 LCD
panel, Intel Mobile 945GM + ICH7-M based motherboard, 1GB of DDR2
system memory, and an 80GB Hitachi SATA hard drive. For the
non-version experts, Ubuntu 8.10 provides the Linux 2.6.27 kernel,
X Server 1.5.2, xf86-video-ati 6.9.0, and Mesa 7.2. Ubuntu 9.04
Alpha 6 shipped with the Linux 2.6.28 kernel, X Server 1.6.0,
xf86-video-ati 6.11.0, and Mesa 7.3. The xf86-video-ati 6.12 driver
has since been released, but that was not available at the time our
testing had commenced.”

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