Amd ati graphic cards only chipset matters not brand and version?
On h node if you select amd ati, pci e, and works with 3d acceleration, you get radeon hd 4870, 6450, 7450, 8450, radeon r5 230.
Cards with these chipsets come in different brands and versions. Fx various memory sizes. You get a free hardware amd ati graphic card with 3d acc no matter what brand and version you choose, as long as the card has one of the listed chipsets?
All of these reports are incorrect, people either think that llvmpipe
provides GPU acceleration (it uses the CPU instead) or use the nonfree
firmware.
Find a way to improve h-node.org documentation to prevent such mistakes?
Thanks. I cannot get a 3d acceleration supporting pci e graphic card that is free hardware? Does fsf know their h node info on graphic cards is incorrect?
Do you know what "free hardware" is? Some NVIDIA PCIe cards have 3d
acceleration with Nouveau working with Trisquel.
If I do not, tell me what it is? I thought the h node was a listing of free hardware.
None are "free hardware" that you can study, share/modify designs of and
manufacture. h-node lists devices that "work with a fully free
operating system" and ones that do not.
I used a wrong terminology. Shall I call it free software hardware?
If you replace its nonfree VGA BIOS and revise the name to not use a
"noun + noun" construction, then yes.
If you call it "hardware working with a free operating system", then
it's completely clear what is ok and what isn't. (E.g. AMD cards
aren't, while NVIDIA cards that ThinkPenguin sells are ok, despite
having nonfree VGA BIOS and not being able to use all their features
with Trisquel.)
A few of us put some info about this in the wiki:
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/hardware-type-and-software-freedom
I hope that we got it right. Please let us know if not.
Edit: I edited that page a little today, based on Michal's posts in this topic
> Does fsf know their h node info on graphic cards is incorrect?
I notified them about this.
Nvidia generally has better GNU/Linux support and many of their cards can do 3D acceleration with free drivers.
I really want an Nvidia GTX 970 based card (ASUS or MSI) in the near future and hopefully a future update can bring free driver support like my current GT 430.
If it is correct that the h node amd cards listing is incorrect, then what pci e cards are free hardware supporting 3d acceleration?
What nvidia pci e graphic cards with 3d acceleration are free hardware? Is it not good to use a nvidia graphic card on an amd mainboard?
Nvidia doesn't support libre software, but the Nouveau project has succeeded at reverse-engineering a lot of Nvidia's video cards. For example, Think Penguin sells an (old model) Nvidia card that works perfectly with Nouveau. It's not as good a situation as Intel's integrated GPUs, but it's worlds better than the situation with AMD/ATI GPUs.
There is no full listing of nouveau free software pci e graphic cards? I could not find a graphic card on thinkpenguin.
It's not an exhaustive list but what users like you and me submit there.
Edit: sorry, I somehow though you were talking about h-node...
tonlee:
> I could not find a graphic card on thinkpenguin.
It's under Acessories & Other Products, the GeForce 8400GS.
The h node listing about graphic cards does not tell for sure that a card can run on non free software?
Graphic cards listed on http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/CodeNames/#nv20family support 3d acceleration and are able to run on free software? It may happen you install one of the cards on hardware that makes the card run non free software? Same situation if you install one of the cards on a computer that runs none free software?
Because there is no desktop computer running only free software, it is unlikely that a nouveau card will run on free software?
If ati releases more documentation than nvidia about their cards, then why do nouveau make nvidia drivers?
> despite having nonfree VGA BIOS
Does the bios interact with the graphic card?
According to https://www.h-node.org :
The h-node project aims at the construction of a hardware database in order to identify what devices work with a fully free operating system.
This definition excludes the BIOS/EFI.
"that a card can run on non free software": isn't it obvious that the
card works with nonfree software? Although not all do have nonfree
drivers for GNU/Linux. Many reports help finding if the device can work
without nonfree software, but they sometimes need more work.
Several years ago both ATI and NVIDIA hardware had incomplete free
drivers based on reverse engineering (while ATI released their nonfree
firmware). Later AMD (who bought ATI) started releasing documentation
and supported development of a free driver, then they worked against
that driver having modesetting without running bytecode from the VGA
BIOS blob (AtomBIOS) and stopped releasing documentation needed to
replace that part. They never released documentation needed to
understand or replace the firmware. NVIDIA did not release their
firmware under a license allowing redistribution, so developers at
e.g. Red Hat were motivated to write free replacements, while such
companies used nonfree firmware from AMD for Radeon drivers. (I'm not
discussing technical advantages of one or another GPU regardless of
their driver freedom issues.)
The BIOS provides some data to the VGA BIOS and starts running its
initialization code. VGA BIOS (also known as VGA ROM or option ROM) is
included in a flash chip on the graphics card, or in the same chip as
the BIOS in case of integrated graphics.