DAAMIT woos penguinfolk

THERE IS AT LEAST one group of people that ought to be delighted with AMD's devouring of ATI last summer. Those people are penguin lovers.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder and leader of Ubuntu project and Linux distro, told Phoronix he was extremely pleased with AMD's new-found strategy and went so far as to state that ATI is now proving to be a leader in Linux community.

With ton of notebooks now being shipped with either FreeDOS or Linux operating system, demand for high-quality Linux support is on the high, and ATI's move, credited to now-departing Henri Richard is a very smart one.

Sadly for penguin lovers, Ubuntu 7.10, codenamed Gutsy Gibbon will not feature fglrx 8.41 drivers. Final preparations are underway for an October release, as the driver does not yet feature FireGL or AIGLX support. All of this will arrive in October with fglrx 8.42, which is set to be easily available as an update - once the driver passes internal tests.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (codenamed Hardy Heron), set to be released in April 2008 will sport fglrx 8.48 or 8.49, depending on the speed of ATI's fingerwork. µ