Greatest Linux Innovations Of 2007

Although KDE 4.0 will not be released until January, the Linux desktop has many other reasons to finish 2007 on a high note. Looking back… it was an incredible year. Not a day went by without some notable mention of a Linux-related product in the news. To add to that, usage continues to rise as more and more are looking for an alternative to Windows – whether it be for the desktop or server.

Our friends at Phoronix have taken a hard look at the past year and compiled their personal top five “Linux Innovations” of 2007. It probably comes as no surprise to know that ATI’s renewed support for Linux is listed, in addition to the growing amount of eye-candy that we are seeing with many popular distros. Well worth a read. Bring on 2008!

A very bold move was made this year by ATI/AMD of not only supporting an official open-source driver, but also releasing their GPU documentation to the public at large — without ANY form of a Non-Disclosure Agreement. To date AMD has released over 900 pages of GPU documentation that consist of register reference guides for the RV630 and M56 GPUs, but they will be releasing more R500/600 documentation in the near future that will begin to foster the growth of RadeonHD 3D support.

Source: Phoronix