[oclug] Poor graphics card support for linux

[Dan Cardamore]

On Fri, Aug 23, 2002 at 09:45:34AM -0400, Kevin Everets wrote:
> Just because you haven't run into the bugs does not mean that they are
> not buggy (try to find buffer overflows just by running the software).
> You can make observations about speed by comparison, but not
> efficiency (at least, not completely... you can guess based on CPU and
> memory usage, but those are vague indicators of efficiency at best).
> It is extremely hard to tell without the source.

Were you hoping it would speed up your network too? :)

Like I said in a previous post:  full screen divx movie at dvd quality
with no frame loss and 1% cpu utilization.  Games run at 30 - 60 fps.

Efficiency *is* determined by black box testing.  Not by whitebox.  If
you have poor efficiency then you can white box test to figure out where
the problem is.

> Success through restricting user's freedom is not something I would
> congratulate them for.  Microsoft Windows is successful, and I've
> heard that the code for XP is pretty decent (from people that have
> looked at it after signing NDAs).  Is that a good thing?

These 2 things are not fair to compare at all.  If you feel your freedom
is at stake here then keep using the "NV" driver which is open source.
Some things don't *have* to be open source, if you think so then why not
start claiming that you're freedom is at stake because they don't
provide the ASIC design for the GPU?
> What patents?  Why are there free software drivers available for other
> cards?  If they don't own some of the code, they could put out most of
> the framework they have, and others in the Free Software community
> could fill in the rest.  They make none of this effort.

There are free open source drivers available for nvidia.  Its called NV.
People have the choice of which ones to use.

> My problem is that it goes out of its' way to support only Linux,
> which does restrict my freedom.  I can't make equal use of their cards
> under OpenBSD, or GNU, or any other free operating system.  My choice
> is now restricted to: Windows or Linux.  Woohoo.  I can't look at what
> their drivers actually do, or change them to suit my needs.  If your
> world is Linux and you don't care about what the code that runs on
> your computer actually does, then you can be happy with nVidia and
> their closed-source drivers.  I'm not.

This I can agree with.

> I don't spit on their offering.  I'm saying that their offering is of
> no use to me.  I don't run non-free drivers.  I don't run non-free
> operating systems.  If you do either of the above, their "offering" is
> probably good enough for you.  Until they actually participate in the
> community and produce something of value, I will not waste my money on
> them.  Nor my time responding to more trolls.  That is all.

Your choice, NV or nvidia, that is still "freedom".

Dan

__________________________________________________________________________
    Dan Cardamore        mailto://dan@hld.ca         http://www.hld.ca     
 10:36:13 up 8 days, 23:44,  2 users,  load average: 0.17, 0.18, 0.12
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 232 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://tux.oclug.on.ca/pipermail/oclug/attachments/20020823/f9004f67/attachment.bin