Does it make any difference in terms of libre driver compatibility whether a GPU is integrated or on a dedicated card ?
I would think not, since the GPU name seems to be the same in both cases, but someone is trying to lure me into "compatible APU" (i.e. integrated AMD GPU) vs. "non compatible GPU" (i.e. dedicated AMD graphic card).
I would love to be wrong, and that there be in fact some room for these GPUs on a libre OS, but that sounds too good to be true.
It appears I missed the core point, which is not about the drivers but about the (proprietary) firmware: it might be the case that the libre drivers work better with an APU than with the same GPU on a dedicated graphic card, but they still need proprietary blobs to work properly.
So in fact, it does not seem to make any sort of difference in terms of libre OS compatibility (both offer almost none), but it might make a difference in terms of how good free drivers might be at leveraging those proprietary blobs. I think this is what that person was referring to when they talked about "compatibility".
This is my current understanding of the issue, of course I might still be missing or misinterpreting something.
EDIT: of course, this does not explain why the same GPU might get better support depending on where it lives (APU or dedicated card).
According to my experience, they are equivalently bad.
I see, thanks. I would not use them myself anyway but I was curious about what difference it might make.
That seller must have been lying to me then, which sometimes happens with sellers.
Graphics cards are better than integrated graphics, because it is easier to yank a card out and beat it to death with a hammer on your concrete garage floor. Beating integrated graphics chippery to death is a bit more tricky, as you might miss-hit with the hammer and harm your cpu circuitry.
Glad I could be of service.
> harm your cpu circuitry.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us, it all makes sense now. It is of course much more fun to destroy both your cpu and gpu at once. One hammer, one swing, one loud bang, all is gone, back to its elementary pieces. A whole new meaning to "full compatibility". That seller was definitely not lying to me.
That said, could you please refrain from trolling in this serious Troll Lounge thread? Don't you have more serious trolling to do about ARM vs. x86 vs. Power9 vs. RISC-V elsewhere? Don't bother, I'll answer here:
> Modern ARM chips are pretty good compared to 10+ year old Thinkpad x86 chips, I'm sure.
Absolutely. Like that i7 you mentioned, which is turning 10 within a year, if I am correctly adding "10" to "Q2 2012".
> I'll bet these will be a hot seller.
At $980 apiece, if I am correctly converting GBP into USD, I'd like to see this happen, as much as I'd like to hear that the libre software community has grown so affluent that its members can now afford to pay that price for a partly liberated second-hand machine running on a decade old CPU.
Of course, if you just happen to have $980 and no particular use for them, you can always send them to me. I'll forward almost half that amount to the Trisquel project and buy myself an X200 *with* docking station *and* 8G RAM - whenever they are back in stock.
> Absolutely. Like that i7 you mentioned, which is turning 10 within a year, if I am correctly adding "10" to "Q2 2012".
Wow, I did not look up the chip, that is a bummer!
> At $980 apiece, if I am correctly converting GBP into USD, I'd like to see this happen, as much as I'd like to hear that the libre software community has grown so affluent that its members can now afford to pay that price for a partly liberated second-hand machine running on a decade old CPU.
Why you got to hurt a friend when he's down? It's not like I told those carpenter ants to go chew up your house.
Or did I???...
> Or did I???...
We all know you did.
However, they disobeyed your orders and did not do any chewing. According to our experts, carpenter ants gnaw and bite, but never chew.