If "you" (as in "yours truly") are stupid enough to have bought
nForce2-based mobos, everytime I upgraded to a new kernel, my USB mouse
stopped working. Ditto for USB-based remote keyboards. I can live, at
least temporarily, with no NIC driver. But not w/o mouse and keyboard
(as well as other USB-based peripherals). The only way to get around
this problem is to always have a PS2 mouse ready; plug that in and then
re-install the nForce drivers as soon as I was able to boot into the
system. Now try to tell that to your "clients".
On the video side, the main difference b/t nVidia and ATI, IMO, is that
the latter is more actively involved in developing the open-source
version of its drivers (or more open with its specs). . . . whereas
nVidia seems to be "almost" (give them benefit of the doubt) exclusively
focused on their proprietary drivers.
W/o participation from their creators, nVidia cards suck under the "nv"
driver. The open-sourced versions of Raedon drivers seem to be only one
version behind the most current proprietary version. The graphics of my
HP ze4560 notebook (with a mobile Raedon 9200) with the default driver
works surprisingly and noticeably better than my GeForce4 under nv.
Linux has progressed to a stage where it's the little things that
count. Of course, I am sure nVidia will change. But until that
happens, stay away from their products. wayne
Eric Hattemer wrote:
1. The nv driver that ships with the OS does the same software
rendering other open source drivers do. 2. The ati open source driver
is not made by ati, and has very little hardware rendering functionality.
3. The only thing on the nforce boards that require drivers is the
network card, and I'm not even sure that's true anymore. 4. There is
an nvidia installer option that allows installation of multiple
modules. I believe its -k, but check NVIDIA*.sh -A; for the advanced
options. 5. With this in mind, I don't think there is reason to not
buy NVIDIA stuff. There aren't really any reasonable alternatives
besides ATi.
But on the plus side, the upper range of ATi Radeon cards do seem to
outperform (outbenchmark) the upper range of NVidia cards.
-Eric Hattemer
