On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:48:06 -0800 <bri...@aracnet.com> dijo: >On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 15:08:27 -0500 >Doug <dmcgarr...@optonline.net> wrote:
>> > You will always be in trouble with hardware under Linux because of >> > the lack of mfr's drivers, and when they do provide drivers they >> > are generally binary objects, e.g. NVIDIA. >> Why does it bother you that the driver is a binary? Are you >> qualified to modify it if you had the source code? Certainly 99% of >> us are not, nor would we want to if we could. > > >> (I, for one, am very happy that NVIDIA provides the driver. I just >> installed a card with their GeForce code in it, and I needed the >> driver.) >Having NVIDIA supply the driver, especially the accelerated 3D driver >is, of course, better than nothing. > >yes i am capable of modifying drivers, and have done so, although >not for video. however, making the source accessible speeds the fixing >of bugs and generally makes the driver more robust. > >having source means not (necessarily) having to wait on nvidia to apply >a patch. It will be a long time before I install an nVidia proprietary driver again. 1) I have a Thinkpad T61 with nVidia Quadro NVS 140M. I needed to do a presentation and the projector was capable of 1400x1050. For reasons not worth bothering with here, I needed every pixel I could get. I had been using the nouveau driver since installing the OS a year ago, but couldn't get it to give me the full resolution from the projector. I installed the nVidia driver instead, but it wouldn't work well either. Finally, I discovered how to get the proper resolution using the nouveau driver, so I uninstalled nVidia's driver and reinstalled nouveau. Going back to nouveau turned out to be a major PITA. I finally got the nouveau driver working again, and then later discovered that Fontmatrix, ksysguard, VirtualBox and Avidemux would not launch. The error message is that they are looking for an nVidia library. I have spent hours trying to figure out what makes those apps think there is an nVidia library, but have not yet succeeded. I reinstalled the nVidia driver and then the apps will launch, but I have to boot to safe mode and startx separately or it hangs on boot (two competing drivers). At the moment I am running the nouveau driver and hoping I won't need one of those apps until I can figure out what happened. 2) I have a desktop that started out with Intrepid, and I installed the nVidia driver for the GeForce 6150 chip on the motherboard. Everything was fine until I did several dist-upgrades to Lucid. Afterwards X would not start. I had to uninstall the proprietary drivers and install the nouveau drivers to get it to boot normally. I have upgraded dozens of computers with the nv and nouveau drivers and never had a problem. I don't generally have a problem with proprietary drivers, but it sure is easier figuring out and resolving a problem when the driver is open source. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20101231173328.68f26...@mailhost.pdx.edu
