Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
plenty of open-source alternatives. Nvidia can keep their binary-only rubbish as far as I am concerned.
Just think how crap the linux 3D graphics market would be without nVidias proprietary driver for TNT/GeForce graphics cards...its intellectual property they are
We were talking mobos, not graphics cards.
Whether it is mobos, graphics cards, scanner drivers, or whatever is irrelevant...these devices do not have driver software in the public domain because knowledge of the source for these devices would be advantageous to the opposition companies vying for market share in each sector. Linux is a 'free' product, but the people who manufacture mobos still have to sell them in a very competitive market...keeping the secrets hidden is an important part of that process...
trying to protect and with good reason. Its not like we have to pay for the drivers for the nforce2...
YES WE DO, and for the graphics drivers too. It takes time to locate and download the drivers and to compile them and get them to go
We do not hand over money to buy these things. We spend money on ancillary equipment that allows us to download these things from the net. That does not mean the money we spend on internet is solely devoted to that purpose alone...
There are no decent OSS alternatives to get an nforce2 running. There are of course alternative mobos, which are well supported by current linux drivers, but then again if you want an nforce2 your best support will come from nVidia...
graphcis cards you might grudgingly get annoyed and fork out anyway because there are no practical alternatives, but only until there are.
I didn't grudgingly fork out for my GeForce card. I got it free from Dick Smith because they mucked up the advertising of the Linux system I purchased from them, by saying an S3 Savage4 graphics chip had native Linux 3D hardware acceleration when clearly it didn't. It doesn't matter because I would have purchased a GeForce or ATI card anyway, preferably a GeForce because the nVidia driver supports stuff in games that the open source ATI driver doesn't, like s3tc texture compression etc...
I certainly didn't have to fork out $$$ for the nVidia driver, only the means to download it...
Kind regards,
Chris Wilkinson, Christchurch.
