[2516] in Release_7.7_team
HP Linux Athena status and simplification.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Tue Dec 12 13:36:16 2000
Message-ID: <0uBb0Mlz000154t_s2@mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 18:36:08 +0000 ()
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: nicole_hennessey@hp.com, Susan_Green@Dell.com
CC: owls@MIT.EDU, release-team@MIT.EDU, bass@MIT.EDU
Nicole, Susan:
I just wanted to let you know the outcome of a recent strategy session
examining the issue of support for the Intel i815e on-board graphics
chip in the MIT school-wide Athena distribution based on Linux:
We will not support i815e graphics before July 1, 2001.
Our phase-in will be at the annual Athena release. We have examined a
few ways of earlier support:
patching and recompiling X for an Athena patch release.
early adoption of XFree86 4.0.
early adoption of RedHat 7.0.
All of these options are too costly when compared against the number of
customers who cannot just buy an NVIDIA TNT2 card. Recompiling X is
very disruptive to our current system build and deploy process. Early
adoption of the new XFree86 or RedHat version 7.0 represents too much
testing and too much user visible change for a patch release.
We're focusing on recommending your hardware to Athena Linux users with
the addition of the NVIDIA TNT 2 card.
A factor in this recommendation is the assurances from those with
experience with NVIDIA that the latest TNT2 card available for purchase
is still compatible with Red Hat 6.2 without any additional work.
-wdc
