Intel’s GMA500 graphics chipset has been a source of pain for a few years; unlike almost everything else from Intel, it lacks a free driver. That situation appears to be changing, though: Alan Cox has posted a new GMA500 driver for the staging tree. Alan says “Currently it’s unaccelerated but still pretty snappy even compositing with the frame buffer X server.” It seems that quite a bit of work is needed (the driver is going into staging for a reason), and it’s not clear when (or how) proper 3D support will be added, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Read more at LWN
