> 3d acceleration is not currently supported for ATI video cards using > the linux-libre kernel. It is a problem of some blob that have been > removed from the linux kernel (ubuntu uses the standard non-free linux > kernel)
More specifically, the blobs are several binary files of microcode used by several parts of the GPU. Many open source supports don't consider source availability for such things to be important, since it runs on other processors than the CPU running the operating system (although the GPU has access to the same memory and probably can make similar security problems). My card needed some such microcode included with Linux (sourceless on free MIT license) and some not included with Linux (also sourceless, but on a license disallowing modification or reverse engineering). KMS didn't work without the microcode, replacing the card with a Nvidia one and using Linux-libre with Nouveau fixed this problem. > I hope in the future the 3d acceleration will be available also for > ATI cards and linux-libre ATI won't fix it, since they don't want people to use their code to learn how the device works and to break its Digital Restrictions Management (not used with GNU/Linux). There is also no such legal motivation for reverse engineering this microcode as was for Nvidia cards, so I don't expect it to be near future.
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