The wonderful new linux drivers

[wateenellende]

Hello,

after all the activity recently in the not-supported-by-VIA Linux Arena,
(See: Decent Linux Drivers: Seriously, what is going on? )
I'd thought it would be nice to try to ask the following on a forum that is supposed to be supported-by-VIA:

What's up ? We've been waiting for quite some time now.
Are new, working drivers coming ? Releasing specs at least ? If we don't have any news now, when will we ?

[Mr. Chris]

You should refer to this Thread here: Decent Linux Drivers: Seriously, what is going on?
for news and updates on how the progress is going, or not going? That is the only place that any of us get any news. Chris.

[wateenellende]

Mr. Chris, you have me completely confused.

I posted here because this forum is listed as "official VIA" forum, which, according to the description, has VIA employees looking at it. The links in both our post are to a thread in a volunteer-based linux forum, which is described as _not_ having any official VIA status, and hence no VIA employees posting there.

This is already rather confusing - linux forums used to be part of the old VIA arena forums.

If you say the only way anybody gets any news is through the volunteer forum, but you are a moderator here, could you clarify whether:
a) You are an official VIA employee telling me that my question won't be answered here;
b) You are not an official VIA employee but are telling me anyway that no VIA employee will answer my question;
c) something else....

Sorry, but I find it currently rather unclear who I'm talking to. Would it be possible to clearly identify people speaking on behalf of VIA on these forums ?

[Mr. Chris]

b) You are not an official VIA employee but are telling me anyway that no VIA employee will answer my question;

Even at the old VIA Forums there were never any VIA employees. We were and still are an all volunteer user based Forum, like many others. VIA has never had and probably never will have an employee based Tech Forum.

It has always seemed to me that VIA cares little about the end user, trying to shuffle off any Tech assistance on the companies that used their chipsets on different brand boards. But now with Epia being a VIA product and being direct marketed to the masses, seems to me VIA needs their own Epia Forum at least. But it won't happen. VIA will not spend the time or the money.

John Gatt (our liason to VIA, if you will) and several partners dismantled the old VIA Forums and started TK Arena, but kept along the old VIA Forums to continue to try and help those with VIA products. So these Forums are totally a seperate identity from VIA, altho we continue to try and give customer support.

VIA moves slow, I would give it a little more time for the negotiating for decent Linux drivers. Chris.

[wateenellende]

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

The line "This is the official VIA International technical support forum. This section of the forum is Moderated by VIA Arena staff and long-term VIA hardware users." had me thinking that VIA staff was active here and VIA was somehow behind it.

If that is not the case, I'd like to suggest to make it more clear that tkarena is an all volunteer forum, and has _no_ official links to VIA whatsoever.

This would, I hope, give people more reasonable expectations about the level of help that can be found here, and stop people from trying to talk/scream at VIA in vain.

And, of course, many thanks for maintaining these fora.

[Mr. Chris]

Ahhhhh, that line is definately misleading. But as far as it goes, this is the Official VIA International support forum. And we are VIA Arena staff, moderators anyways. Note the word "Arena". And it's volunteer staff. Yeah, I know, it's called "splitting hairs", but they get away with it. Chris.

[Midniteoyl]

It needs to be changed.. TK Arena is not supported by VIA. VIA Arena was un 'unofficial' type of support forum, regardless of what it said, and was dreamed up and admin'ed by a VIA employee... that person no longer works for VIA and VIA did not care about the forum he created, so it became TK ARENA and here we are...

[wateenellende]

I strongly recommend taking a distance from VIA if you're not actually working for them. If VIA Arena is not part of VIA either, it should be made clear.

Otherwise you might get an earful if someone takes you for an employee of that company. VIA is doing very wrong things, and if you do take over the support role that is their responsibility, you will (IMHO) only reduce the pressure on them to take that responsibility.

It's good that you're doing this, but personally, I would have put a phrase like "run by volunteers because VIA is too incompetent to run a support service" or something like that on the front page.
Call it an "incentive" :-)

Ok, maybe that's too radical, but I guess many people think VIA Arena and VIA are one, and treat VIA Arena staff as if they were VIA people. Not a position I would envy.

[Mr. Chris]

Quote: "Otherwise you might get an earful if someone takes you for an employee of that company. "

Oh, yeah, been there, had that! LOL. Oyl's right, we do need to change that. At the least it will save some future headaches for us volunteers. Chris.