VIA Announces Strategic Open Source Driver Development Initiative

[gazzzman]

I have to be honest...
I avoid VIA like I would the plauge
nevertheless the more credibility Linux gets with manufacturers the more people will use it etc!
didn't the Chinese government launch a drive to move entirely away from M$ for all their internal SW?
if the Chinese start using Linux en-masse then things may REALLY improve for all of us
(wel I can live in hope right??)

on a personal note I have never quite forgiven Via for their earlier processors..
you know the ones the bought of IBM/Cyrix I remember the fun? I had replacing these when the internal cache died...
dozens and dozens of em

[MarcoZan]

Hi all, and sorry for beeing a little OT ....

Bulek, would you mind to give me some details/pointers related to your newly bought Mini-ITX Intel Boards for 65€ each?

I also have a VIA board and although my experience is not as bad as yours, I cannot say I'm totally satisfied with it.

So having a look to a more functional (and cheaper, by the way) alternative would't be a bad idea ...

TIA and regards

Marco

[bulek]

Hi all, and sorry for beeing a little OT ....

Bulek, would you mind to give me some details/pointers related to your newly bought Mini-ITX Intel Boards for 65€ each?

I also have a VIA board and although my experience is not as bad as yours, I cannot say I'm totally satisfied with it.

So having a look to a more functional (and cheaper, by the way) alternative would't be a bad idea ...

TIA and regards

Marco

http://www.cartft.com/catalog/il/844

But they sell them even cheaper on Ebay...

http://cgi.ebay.de/Intel-D201GLY2-Mini-ITX-Mainboard-BOX_W0QQitemZ150233859826QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item150233859826

But beware, it seems that graphics is not so well supported under Linux (I get a bit snowing on screen and also didn't tried to play video with it - I'm using it as headless MD, just as and audio source).....


HTH,

regards,

Bulek.

[golgoj4]

So, this has apparently born some fruit but ill be damned if I know its usefull. Maybe someone else has an opinion?



They apparently release  frame buffer code...like i know what that is. Anyways.
Link to their dl page
http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action

& the slashdot blurb

"VIA has released 16,434 Lines Of Free & Open Source code that enables Linux natively to use the framebuffer on VIA's graphics chipsets. This comes a month after VIA announced that it will provide Open-Source drivers and documentation on its Web site so that its hardware will work out of the box with Linux distributions. This gives VIA-powered systems that come pre-installed with Linux — such as the gPC, 15.4" gBook, CloudBook, and Zonbu — the ability to output graphics through digital connections such as HDMI, and probably makes them the best-supported framebuffers Linux has ever had. Look forward to documentation and X.org drivers from VIA as well in the near future."

and link http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/11/1736250&from=rss