ATI/AMD Radeon XPRESS 200M Linux Driver

Dear AMD,

We, the undersigned, wish to have drivers that are fully functional with the rapidly standardizing "AIGLX" framework of the X.Org window server for our integrated ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M chipsets. We would prefer that you lend your support to the freedesktop.org DRI project (http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/), as you seem to endorse the project in your Linux FAQ's (http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html#10), and with good reason, as the project has been able to add support for many of your wonderful chipsets. Also, freedesktop.org is specifically committed to standardizing the Linux desktop, in order that Linux may play a bigger role in the desktop market. However, the developers of the project have specifically marked the chipset in our laptops as being unable to work, due to issues in memory initialization (http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon?action=highlight&value=CategoryHardwareChipset#head-68fec165ffa1a16d26a317fb3c7c43fd4cc66bc0). While the solution might normally be to purchase another video card, due to the integrated nature of laptop video cards, we are unable to do so without purchasing a new laptop, something that does not encourage brand loyalty.

We believe that with the assistance of your brilliant engineers, this problem can easily be resolved. We also understand that your team cannot disclose trade secrets; we wish only to have the same level of support from the DRI drivers that similar chipsets from your teams are enjoying.

We owners of these laptops purchased them due to the value of an AMD-powered system, and hope for your processors to continue increasing their market share in the PC manufacturer market. More manufacturers are seeing that their customers want Linux pre-installed as an option when they purchase a PC. When choosing what hardware vendors to purchase their parts from, these manufacturers are going to choose the vendors with the easiest Linux support, as it keeps their technical support costs down. With your position as the producer of the processor, motherboard chipset and GPU, the three most significant choices from an end-user purchasing standpoint, you have the ability to position yourselves as the leader in top-down Linux support. We hope for the day that we can proudly recommend AMD+ATI-based laptops to any and all Linux users, be they friends who have never tried Linux before or seasoned professional Linux administrators and developers.

We also hope and believe that your driver development team's job will be made easier by serving as mentors to the project, answering questions from project developers regarding the capabilities of your integrated chipsets, then allowing the community to fix bugs and ensure compatibility with the Linux kernel. Your team will no longer have to devote time re-developing a new driver simply because the Linux kernel went up by a version. Also, by aiding the open-source team's job, you open up your products to the users of even more operating systems, such as FreeBSD. We believe that by participating, your market share can only go up, and we wish for the maximum increase in market share for your company.