re diamond products boycot in article apr monu cc monash edu au ins j mdw cc monash edu au markfried fellensiek writes if you re considering buying a system with a view to using it to run unix linux bsd etc or some other special software there is a good chance that it will not work with the diamond cards that is if the special software is free like xfree there are vendors that sells diamond x drivers for commercial unices but then they charge this is due to diamond s propriety attitude to it s hardware it s impossible to get free information from them about their chips specifically their dot clocks without paying and signing non disclosure agreements i think they only need a signing i e no paying this still violates the fsf s policy of publically available code this made it impossible for the free software foundation to provide x windows compatibility with these cards as diamond didn t want to divulge programming neccessities while this is true there are fixes for those who have already bought diamond cards in linux for example there are utilities that will put the card in vesa mode before invoking x of course this means no fine tuning of diamond cards but at least this will allow those who re stuck with them to use linux x i agree with mark s suggestion if you are buying a video card for specialized free software avoid diamond but if you already have one there may be a fix that can help you james jjctc chevron com the shortest distance between jtsiao netcom com two puns is a straight line ask me about linux the freely distributable unix clone for the
