Timothy Musson wrote:
Nick Rout, 2003-11-26 09:30:23:
after all you cannnot use the driver without buying the card. Perhaps the details necessary to open the driver would give away too much about their hardware details. If that is the case then they have a legitimate concern. graphics chips are a very competitive market.
Agreed, but there's no reason competition shouldn't help open them up in the long run, too. That's up to us (...and, I would've thought, publications with titles like "Linux Journal").
Anyway. Support:
If I'm not allowed to know how my hardware works, I'm at the mercy of the manufacturer for everything - including the drivers.
Its hardly begging for mercy...more like begging for more, because anyone using an nVidia 3D card in linux will have better 3D than anyone else who isn't (debateable, but I'm basing this on 'feel' gathered from intensive readin up on this topic...)
Now, even if the manufacturer is more responsive and helpful than its competition - and nVidia might well be - there are still things they'll just flat-out refuse to help with, and just plain be unable to deal with (...leaving me nowhere to turn). And they'll eventually discontinue the product and refuse to help me altogether, becuase it would inconvenience them to bother. And then, one day... they'll go out of business. So much for "support".
I don't believe nVidia will do so. The reason why is that the excellent drivers they have created for Linux are so popular that Linux people are buying nVidia cards just to use these drivers. I'm an example. I was given choice of ATI Radeon or nVidia GeForce card. It came down to the fact that the ATI drivers were less complete, while the nV linux drivers are as up- to-date as their beloved Windows brethren. For a chipset manufacturer to release drivers for linux at pretty much the same time as Windows says that nVidia really is committed to helping us. We reward that commitment by using their chipsets...
Oh, I got my card free due to a stuff-up by Dick Smith, but I had the choice of a low-end Radeon or nVidia card. nVidia was a clear winner solely because their driver got enormous kudos from other linux users around the world. The verdict is already out on that one. nVidia's driver is a winner whether it is OS or not...
I also run the risk of an employee going postal and inserting something nasty into the driver. Or the company adding spyware intentionally. I have _no_ way to know. Nor do you.
Why would they do that when we've given them our support by buying their cards? Kind of like biting the hand that feeds you, and I'm sure in-house bug-testing would fail...its not a tiny garage-run company you know...
See, I can't for the life of me understand how any of the above supports me, you, or GNU/Linux. It's rude. All it does is make me needlessly reliant on a company and put me at risk in a couple of ways. I don't like risks, or being reliant. It's something straight out of a <del>Microsoft</del> horror movie. The MS mindset is sneaking in under the radar with "We support Linux!" printed on the box.
I'm not needlessly reliant on nVidia. I could just as easy pull my nVidia card from the machine and go back to using the integrated S3 Savage4. Thing is that the Savage4 driver doesn't do 3D (read no 3D hardware assisted graphics), and the 2D is about half the speed of my nVidia card. I know which I prefer.
take a few things as given and you will see that nvidia are the best choice (maybe the best of a bad bunch, but we are talking practicalities here)
If we're being _really_ practical (...and a desire to play the latest and greatest video game is not practical...), there's a better choice. Look at second hand video cards. Perfectly good hardware, with the added bonus of _not_ paying a manufacturer to help screw your favourite Operating System and mine.
Different strokes for different folks. I like my 3D games, so for me to upgrade to a GeForceFX 5600 Ultra is a good thing. To use the nVidia driver is a must, not only because it gives awesome 3D support, but because its the only option to get 3D. I can live with that happily since the 3D will be better than any offering on any other card that XFree86/DRI supports...
-- Kind regards,
Chris Wilkinson, Christchurch, New Zealand. Remove spamblocker to send replies direct to my email...
