ok, my situation: I have a new laptop(Toshiba Equium, with ATI X1200 Graphics, and AMD Turion 64 X2).
I am incredibly confused about the whole kernel modules/proprietary software/fedora policies thing.
I have installed Fedora 7, and i wanna get 3d graphics working.
I cant get the ATI drivers to install(ive heard they are c**p).
as i understand it, fedora has a policy about not including proprietary stuff in the distro.
however, when i installed F7 on an older laptop, it worked fine out-of-the-box, 3d and everything, without me having to download a driver.
how is this possible? fedora isnt meant to have proprietary software in it. the only explanation i can think of is that it used a non-proprietary driver that could do more than just display pictures. I have also read about proprietary linux software being illegal, as it is derived from linux, but isnt under GPL.

So, why is it that there is such a lack of non-proprietary drivers for video cards?
Is there some kind of driver i could get for my laptop that would give me 3d without being illegal?


some help would be good...

Well, graphics-hardware vendors do tend to imagine that no competent hardware engineer worth his salt could not, if he wanted to, figure out how the plugs-and-switches on their particular interface-card must work. They want you to use their drivers with their stuff.

First of all, you just might find that other people's drivers do work just fine...

In fact, you will probably find that other people's drivers do work "just fine!"

But if you don't, then the vendor is probably going to supply you with a driver that does not have source-code. Which can be done, but no "distro" vendor is going to distribute it. It's your system, so you will have to do it. That's all.

You're not breaking any rules or laws here.

Surely you are not claiming that the nvidia and ati drivers are illegal? Not much appreciated because they are closed source, yes, but that is something else again. As for there being "no" open source drivers, that has to do with two things: hardware vendors (ATI/Nvidia) not willing to publish the specs of their products so that developers have to hack something together themselves; and more importantly, whatever they hack together risks ending up becoming the property of the hardware vendor so people are discouraged from taking things into their own hands.
That being said, there are open source drivers for both nvidia and ATI (nv and radeon/ati) but the ATI drivers cover only part of the spectrum (I would guess that your older laptop happens to have one of the older ATI cards, whicht generally run fine with the radeon driver) and both have more limited functionality than the closed versions. ATI has recently opened up (some of) the details of its more recent cards so work is under way to build an open source driver for these too. In the meantime, you'll have to use the closed fglrx driver, which is extremely simply to install providing that you have enabled the livna repository.

ive done a little more research, and it seems that there is mass controversy surrounding this, caused by the idea that the drivers contain binary blobs with no source code.
the real question is: are the drivers (or do they contain) derivatives of linux code. if so, then the drivers must be GPLed, which is impossible due to the blobs, as the GPL requires all source code to be made available.

Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of the major kernel contributors, believes that nvidia and ati drivers are illegal:
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livna :
interesting....

So ? About anything is illegal if you are going to adopt every law system in the world.

That would depend on how one reads the GPL. Of course one can't use GPL'ed code without accepting the rules, i.e. making the source available. I just wonder about the extent to which the code in the nvidia/fglrx drivers can be said to "use" such code. Yes, of course, they inevitably need to make kernel calls and as such they do rely on GPL'ed code. But "rely on" is something completely different from "use" or "extend" - especially if you can pay a good lawyer or two. And who can tell what with these drivers being binary only? For all we know even windows may be 90% UNIX/Linux code...

thats the big debate...<sighs>

no way, it sucks too much.

http://www.dumblaws.com/
In new York it is illegal to have a kiss in public.

My take : don't bother too much with this. Nobody cares what you install on your computer and nobody will ever sue you, whether this is legal or not.

And for what it's worth, there is nothing illegal about installing an ATI driver. If Fedora (and other distros) do not offer them directly, it's only because one is not allowed to redistribute them. Unless you were intending to set up a video card driver shop, you have nothing to worry about.

So is it legal for ATI to distribute the driver in the first place ?

Well, I would so say so, yes. The driver is theirs so it's their rules. And why should they bother making Linux drivers if they didn't want anyone to use them?

Now if the GPL folks could prove that the driver is illegal because it breaks the GPL as some have claimed, ATI would effectively lose the right to make these drivers available in the first place. So far, we've had only speculation and accusation, no law suits, so I don't see why anyone except the purist should care.

another question: say for instance it could be considered illegal for ATI to distribute drivers, is it illegal to use them?

It would become illegal the moment that ATI is effectively denied the right to make their drivers available. As a strictly law-abiding citizen, one would then have to uninstall any such drivers one has installed. But until that happens, who cares. I mean, seriously, Microsoft has been claiming for years that Linux is illegal because they feel that it infringes on their IP. And others have been claiming for years that Elvis and Hitler are still alive. Should we take them seriously?

Leedude, don't know if you solved your problem, but the easy way around things in Fedora is to enable the livna repository and follow their instructions on installing the ATI drivers. Works fine for me with fedora 8 and nvidia - basically the same issue.

Goto www.livna.org