14 DAY TRIAL // With AMD about to bring out the first Fusion APUs ever, though it will still take a while for that to happen, the company figured it was time to make sure it had a wide enough range of supporting software platforms, so it released an open source driver.
Developing a driver for Microsoft Windows may or may not be the main challenge that makers of hardware have to face when developing a new product.
Of course, at the same time, it is not the only challenge that they have to go through in terms of software development.
Advanced Micro Devices seems to have learned this lesson well at some point in the past, because it decided to act with foresight in regards to its upcoming Fusion products.
What the Sunnyvale, California-based company did was release an open source driver meant to give the Linux OS support for the upcoming APUs.
The software will be included in the Linux distributions starting with version 2.6.38 and is mostly aimed at the Ontario processor.
For those interested in a reminder, the APU is one that uses very little power, being able to make do with as little as 9W.
Despite this, it packs not just all necessary processing capabilities, but also on-die graphics with support for DirectX 11.
Basically, it should prove most suited for such things as nettops and HTPCs, since it is meant as an affordable processor with multimedia capabilities.
The driver will make sure that not just PCs running Microsoft Windows, but also those loaded with the open-source Linux OS will be ready to house the chip once it gets launched.
"The graphics portion of Ontario is very similar to the entry-level Evergreen GPU, at least for the portions used by the open drivers," AMD's John Bridgman told Phoronix
"There are a few enhancements, but we haven't looked at those yet. We want to get Northern Islands supported next," he added.