What about an online petition?

[topolinik]

So, we are here or surfing the web in search of some kind of `magic' which lets us still use our good old video card mr. matrox is forgetting so fast...
They released their latest drivers with a pre-compiled hal driver no-one can look into and, further, they don't update it! Shame on them!
I see the site petitiononline is hosting a petition for those asking matrox for parhelia drivers (and they recently got the update!!!) so... what about us? We also can have some good point for publishing a petition asking the same - for Gx series, of course: asking for an update or, it would be a dream, for source code for that obscure hal driver.
I see (at least) two good results when doing this: first of all, someone at matrox maybe stumble into that page, seeing more people than those many have emailed them asking this before (me too).
Second issue: maybe we can realize it's not worth this troubles. I mean, how many guys really actually need matrox' support? I don't know.
If I will see just 60 people have signed the petition, well, I will look ahead for buying a different piece of hardware without waiting for a move from matrox (which could never take into account a request from just 60 guys).
What do you think, guys?

[calimero]

I would happily sign the petition.
Few months ago I gave G550pcie for 150USD a try, since i wanted a silent, low power-consumption, linux friendly and stable standalone pcie card. (Yes I know any integrated Intel would do the trick, but I dont have any on my current MB )

BUT

To be honest I would never buy G550 card again. I was nearly satisfied with it until the prop. driver stopped working.......anyway now I know that NVIDIA Quadro NVS 290 256MB PCIe beats it easily with 2/3 of price, with 3D uncoparably better, 2D not bad, yes it drains a bit more power, but Linux driver JUST WORKS.

After my experience with G card I dont know any reason why should nowadays Linux users buy NEW Gx cards, (even if we will assume the working driver)...... Of course old Gx users get pissed by old and sucking drivers, but they have payed for their cards already, so who cares? I am afraid, this is how Matrox guys see the current situation.

[calimero]

I am afraid it is exactly as I said... here it is the Matrox reply for the question, if there are any plans to do something with linux driver for G series.

Hi Jan,

In the readme of the driver you will find what is the latest version of X supported by the G series driver. I believe it to be 7.0.0.

At this time there are no plans on future linux driver updates for this card.

The P and M series cards have linux drivers that support the latest versions of X.

Regards,

Trpimir
MGI Technical Support Representative

Matrox Graphics Inc.

[topolinik]

Uh? What strange game are they playing?
With this last message, matrox' employees gave us a whole range of answers.
See here.
And here too.

Do we really need a crystal ball to see the future into?