Open GPU Documentation by AMD
Chip manufacturer AMD has released documentation for its ATI graphics chips on the "Open GPU Documentation" website.
The website, which was set up just recently, is part of the AMD homepage. AMD uses it to provide comprehensive documentation at register level for AMD graphics chips. Thus far, documentation for the AMD R5xx, AMD R6xx and AMD RS6xx series chips has been published. According to AMD this includes both information on chips for both desktops and mobile devices. As the website says: "Documents for mobile chips are a superset of the desktop chip documentation; they contain all the desktop chip information as well as any relevant mobile additions." On top of this, AMD has set up a separate email address for queries from developers.
The published documents, titled M56, M76, RV630 and RS690, have been publically available since September 2007 via the X.Org website. Documentation for the 3D and R600 2D is likely to follow in the near future.
The "Open GPU Documentation" label implies that the documentation does not bind developers to any further commitments, however, this has not always been the case. In the period leading up to the release, there were contradictory reports stating that the documentation would only be made available to developers after signing a confidentiality agreement (see the Linux Magazine report here).
Issue 14: Raspberry Pi Handbook/Special Editions
Tag Cloud
News
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SCO Rises from the Swamp
Longtime litigator revives an ancient suit against IBM alleging Linux infringes on Unix copyrights.
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UberStudent Project Releases UberStudent 3.0
Specialty distro keeps the focus on advanced learning.
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openSUSE Conference Approaches
The openSUSE Conference will be held July 18-22, 2013, at the Olympic Museum in Thessaloniki, Greece.
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Drupal.org Hacked
Security breached at home sites of the CMS project.
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Oracle Takes Action on Java Security
Lead Java developer vows policy changes and more attention to fixing problems.
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Google and NASA Partner in Quantum Computing Project
Vendor D-Wave scores big with a sale to NASA's Quantum Intelligence Lab.
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Mageia Project Announces Mageia 3 Linux
Many package updates and Steam integration highlight the latest from the Mandriva-based community Linux.
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FSF Outs the World Wide Web Consortium over DRM Proposal
Richard Stallman calls for the W3C to remain independent of vendor interests.
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Debian 7.0 Debuts
The new release supports nine architectures, 73 human languages, and zero non-Free components.
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Alpha Version of Fedora 19 Released
Fedora developers release the first alpha version of Fedora 19, known as Schrödinger’s Cat, for general testing. The final release is expected in July 2013.

