> From: Rick Moen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > As you'll see at http://www.mbsi.ca/cnxtlindrv/index.html#about , the > core code is proprietary and binary-only. If I may quote myself from > http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/#winmodem : > > Binary-only drivers are very bad news, and should be shunned. > (They're typically buggy for lack of peer review, poorly maintained, > not portable to newer or different CPU architectures, prone to > breakage with routine kernel or other system upgrades, etc.) Besides, > you're still trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Pursue > this path, if you absolutely must justify your US $30 mistake, but > You Were Warned.
I dislike binary drivers just as much as the next Linux user, but I have to say that while the points made here are very valid, in practice, binary drivers do work and often work well. If a kernel upgrade breaks a binary driver, then the fault can go both ways. If the kernel doesn't live up to its interfaces properly, even an open source driver would have to be labouriously recoded to work with the new one (and likely break compatibility with the older kernel short of putting in ugly kernel detection kludges). Nvidia's binary-only XFree and kernel drivers for its GeForce line are much more functional than the wussy or more likely non-existent support for the Radeon's 3D features in the open source XFree86 drivers. Moreover, I've been using the them and they've proven both *high-performance* and *solid*. To get the most out of your Radeon under *nix, you have to go with Xi Graphic's closed-source and commercial X Server drivers (at least Nvidia provides theirs for free). I had an easy enough time installing and getting Nvidia's binary drivers to work with Slackware 8.1 from partial source tarball (NOT rpm - blecch) and it felt fairly clean so between that and an emasculated open source driver, I'd use the former (but still wish for the latter to improve of course). _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
