Re: The Proliferation of Linux and its Effect on Programmers
An excellent thread, although, as it's being held by technical people seems to miss what I see as an important aspect of free software: The people who will make he final call on FOSS are the end users, especially corporate end users who are not in the software or IT business. Those users pay (and will pay) for custom solutions for their business. Free (as in gratis) software only mean that they reduce their lock-in with software vendors, but does not mean it will change their relations with ISVs. Consider: if a customer pays an ISV xK$ for an MS (or Websphre, or Oracle) solution, then yK$ is reduced from the cost of the solution for licensing and support. If the ISV charges now xK$-(yK$/2) for the same solution based on a FOSS solution, the client pays less, and the ISV can use the (yK$/2) as profit, or use it to enhance the FOSS solution (with money or effort). This is a win-win (pardon the pun) situation. Now the burden of proof lies with the ISV to show that using a commercial product does make financial sense. Shlomi Fish wrote: One quote in the recent presentation by Christopher Hamilton Bidmead's caught my eye. It said that by the year 2004, there will be more developers developing on Linux than on Windows. I found it very interesting, and went to the URL that specified that. Eventually I brought it up on the Joel-on-Software forum: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=showixPost=98232ixReplies=38 Now, the Joel-on-Software forum (which is done very nicely) attract a great deal of vocal advocates of both Windows and Linux. An interesting development of the thread was this: Will the proliferation of Open-Source Software cause programmers to earn more money or less money? Will it create job or eliminate them? Now, some arguments were made that because a business gets a software for free, he will expect the hackers who have to make it work, to work very cheaply as well. Other arguments were, that the high accessibility of software will make programmers who can make it work become in higher demand. (thus possibly increasing their salary). I took the pro-higher-demand side (naturally). Happy Civil New Year Everybody! Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Writing a BitKeeper replacement is probably easier at this point than getting its license changed. Matt Mackall on OFTC.net #offtopic. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- = Gil Freund Sysnet consulting - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sysnet.co.il voice: +972-52-676906 Fax: +972-8-9356026 = = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
Hi! I'd like to complain about the current situation with the Nvidia drivers. I think the fact they are not open-source and integrated into the main kernel is a huge burden for me, and gives me a lot of trouble. I am not a free software fanatic, but the current way of doing things is wasting me precious time. The question is who should I complain to? NVidia supplies the drivers on their homepage, but claims I should address their OEMs for support. Fact is: I bought my computer recently with an NVidia GX4 card there and don't know who my card OEM is. (albeit I may be able to find out). In any case, I'm not sure this OEM would be clueful enough to deal with a Linux-pertinent problem that is a bit philosophical in nature. Finally, I have a problem. When I use an OpenGL screensaver, the X server crashes and brings me back to command line. It doesn't happen with a non-OpenGL screensaver, so it's probably the driver's fault. I wish to know how can I resolve this. It is obvious that the lack of source code and its proprietary nature make the drivers relatively sub-standard. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Writing a BitKeeper replacement is probably easier at this point than getting its license changed. Matt Mackall on OFTC.net #offtopic. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
, 2 2004, 12:49, : Finally, I have a problem. When I use an OpenGL screensaver, the X server crashes and brings me back to command line. It doesn't happen with a non-OpenGL screensaver, so it's probably the driver's fault. I wish to know how can I resolve this. It is obvious that the lack of source code and its proprietary nature make the drivers relatively sub-standard. ATI ownz :) This crappy Radeon 7000 or 7200 works out of the box and has GPL sources... inside X... -- diego, Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
You could check the support section, and forums of NVidia's site. They have solutions for such things. Unlike many other hardware and driver vendors, NVidia (which ships closed source driver) have a good support, and great forums, meant for you, and everyone else who needs support, regarding Linux. You can blame them for being closed source (as you can blame most of the world, today), but you cannot blame them for lack of support. Ez. On Friday 02 January 2004 12:49, Shlomi Fish wrote: Hi! I'd like to complain about the current situation with the Nvidia drivers. I think the fact they are not open-source and integrated into the main kernel is a huge burden for me, and gives me a lot of trouble. I am not a free software fanatic, but the current way of doing things is wasting me precious time. The question is who should I complain to? NVidia supplies the drivers on their homepage, but claims I should address their OEMs for support. Fact is: I bought my computer recently with an NVidia GX4 card there and don't know who my card OEM is. (albeit I may be able to find out). In any case, I'm not sure this OEM would be clueful enough to deal with a Linux-pertinent problem that is a bit philosophical in nature. Finally, I have a problem. When I use an OpenGL screensaver, the X server crashes and brings me back to command line. It doesn't happen with a non-OpenGL screensaver, so it's probably the driver's fault. I wish to know how can I resolve this. It is obvious that the lack of source code and its proprietary nature make the drivers relatively sub-standard. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/ Writing a BitKeeper replacement is probably easier at this point than getting its license changed. Matt Mackall on OFTC.net #offtopic. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:49:55PM +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote: I think the fact they are not open-source and integrated into the main kernel is a huge burden for me, and gives me a lot of trouble. Great, so why did you buy them in the first place? buy a card from a vendor that opens its drivers. Pretty obvious, isn't it? -- Muli Ben-Yehuda http://www.mulix.org | http://mulix.livejournal.com/ the nucleus of linux oscillates my world - [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 01:15:07PM +0200, Ez-Aton wrote: You can blame them for being closed source (as you can blame most of the world, today), but you cannot blame them for lack of support. Of course you can. By not opening up the drivers, they deprive you of the best form of support - helping yourself. -- Muli Ben-Yehuda http://www.mulix.org | http://mulix.livejournal.com/ the nucleus of linux oscillates my world - [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
BTW, the solution is there. It is usually related to AGP communication. You can, of course, debug the kernel, the X system, the driver, their relationship, but NVidia did this for you before. Not open, but a good product, and a good support. Not everyone (actually, only very few) bother debugging problematic code or software. It's not a war about open source (as I'm fond of it), but it's talking about reality. Reality says they ship closed source GLX extensions, and reality proves they have a good support. You can choose to use this, under these terms, or use other hardware vendor's graphics card. That's life Ez. On Friday 02 January 2004 14:24, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote: On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 01:15:07PM +0200, Ez-Aton wrote: You can blame them for being closed source (as you can blame most of the world, today), but you cannot blame them for lack of support. Of course you can. By not opening up the drivers, they deprive you of the best form of support - helping yourself. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
Hi Shlomi, The question is who should I complain to? NVidia supplies the drivers on their homepage, but claims I should address their OEMs for support. Fact is: I bought my computer recently with an NVidia GX4 card there and don't know who my card OEM is. (albeit I may be able to find out). In any case, I'm not sure this OEM would be clueful enough to deal with a Linux-pertinent problem that is a bit philosophical in nature. I think those instructions (which instruct you to contact your OEM) is for the Windows version of those drivers, since those OEM DO get the source code, and then they tweak them according to their needs (adding Video-In/Video-Out, TV Tuners, overclocking, etc...) - in that case of those drivers - you should contact the card's OEM.. Finally, I have a problem. When I use an OpenGL screensaver, the X server crashes and brings me back to command line. It doesn't happen with a non-OpenGL screensaver, so it's probably the driver's fault. I wish to know how can I resolve this. It is obvious that the lack of source code and its proprietary nature make the drivers relatively sub-standard. Go use the 4496 version of the driver. Here it's stable as rock. Thanks, Hetz = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
On Friday 02 January 2004 14:56, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote: On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 02:51:53PM +0200, Ez-Aton wrote: BTW, the solution is there. It is usually related to AGP communication. You can, of course, debug the kernel, the X system, the driver, their relationship, but NVidia did this for you before. c.f. shlomif's problem, obviously, they haven't done it good enough. By the same flow of logic, why don't you use windows? I'm not quite sure. Searching their forums took me 10 minutes to get a direction for solving the problem. 10 minutes later, the problem was solved. I don't use windows for various reasons. Want me to start? Not open, but a good product, and a good support. I think you misspelled 'not nearly good enough' there, for reasons I have already elucidated upon. Fine. Offer a better alternative. I think you could still find some 3Dfx cards, maybe on e-bay, and use them. As I remember, they opened their code before the end. You could also try and use S3 graphics, but it's far from being able to compete with both NVidia's and ATI's. Matrox maybe? You could get something, not nearly as good, but for more or less, the same price. Freedom is expensive - and so are Matrox cards. Not everyone (actually, only very few) bother debugging problematic code or software. But everyone should have the option. True. Again, life and its weird way of dissappointing us... You can choose to use this, under these terms, or use other hardware vendor's graphics card. The choice should be obvious. Would it? What would you choose then? Cheers, Muli Ez. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
Wrong, big time! ATI Drivers are so horrible, that unless you have the real high end card (8xxx or 9xxx) - then their closed source drivers won't help you, and the open source drivers will give you AT BEST - 30-40% of speed in 3D. I'm not mentioning the fact that there is no AGP driver for their IGP chipset (hello IBM thinkpad R20,R30,R40 users), and virtually NONE 3D acceleration for their IGP320, IGP340 chips.. Want more? sure, go buy their latest (and a previous generation) of ATI All In Wonder (AIW) cards and try to use their TV set and other features - good luck, it ain't working. I'm on the v4l mailing list and I see those complains all the times.. NVidia on the other hand IS supported with everything - starting with their 2D, 3D, all the latest X extensions, Video in/out, 2-4 headed screens right with their drivers. They also have a support channel in IRC (#nvidia on irc.kde.org), as well as forums and email.. Thanks, Hetz On Friday 02 January 2004 01:09 pm, Diego Iastrubni wrote: , 2 2004, 12:49, : Finally, I have a problem. When I use an OpenGL screensaver, the X server crashes and brings me back to command line. It doesn't happen with a non-OpenGL screensaver, so it's probably the driver's fault. I wish to know how can I resolve this. It is obvious that the lack of source code and its proprietary nature make the drivers relatively sub-standard. ATI ownz :) This crappy Radeon 7000 or 7200 works out of the box and has GPL sources... inside X... To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
so what were those rumours saying that 3D games on linux have more frame rate then on windows? BTW, is there TV out support on their drivers? The drivers on the site are for 8500 and 9x000, how abut the 7x000 family? , 2 2004, 15:11,Hetz Ben Hamo: Wrong, big time! ATI Drivers are so horrible, that unless you have the real high end card (8xxx or 9xxx) - then their closed source drivers won't help you, and the open source drivers will give you AT BEST - 30-40% of speed in 3D. -- diego, Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
The 7xxx is unsupported. I have a laptop using one of the 7xxx familly (I think the mobile M6 or a similar name), and I can use only the built-in XFree drivers. None others. Ez. On Friday 02 January 2004 16:20, Diego Iastrubni wrote: so what were those rumours saying that 3D games on linux have more frame rate then on windows? BTW, is there TV out support on their drivers? The drivers on the site are for 8500 and 9x000, how abut the 7x000 family? , 2 2004, 15:11,Hetz Ben Hamo: Wrong, big time! ATI Drivers are so horrible, that unless you have the real high end card (8xxx or 9xxx) - then their closed source drivers won't help you, and the open source drivers will give you AT BEST - 30-40% of speed in 3D. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Diego Iastrubni wrote: | so what were those rumours saying that 3D games on linux have more frame rate | then on windows? | | BTW, | is there TV out support on their drivers? | The drivers on the site are for 8500 and 9x000, how abut the 7x000 family? | | I have a 7000-based card (Hercules 3D Prophet) -- so far I've got nothing but agony from it. No closed-source driver (ATI only supports the more recent Radeons), and the open ones are lacking (though things are improving in XF86 4.4RC2.) For TV-out support you might want to try the Gatos project (http://gatos.sf.net) -- they're trying to make it work (I never tested it myself yet). Alon | ÑÙÕÝ éÙéÙ, 2 ÑÙàÕÐè 2004, 15:11, àÛêÑ âÜ ÙÓÙ Hetz Ben Hamo: | |Wrong, big time! | |ATI Drivers are so horrible, that unless you have the real high end card |(8xxx or 9xxx) - then their closed source drivers won't help you, and the |open source drivers will give you AT BEST - 30-40% of speed in 3D. | | -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE/9YM7E5D11w+OToARAhk5AJ4nvIP0ylfSfd+1MY150kLgyzCHWgCgiZTR qds1fuIyMzS+573K/nXzz9Q= =/fhO -END PGP SIGNATURE- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 02 January 2004 15:11, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: Wrong, big time! ATI Drivers are so horrible, that unless you have the real high end card (8xxx or 9xxx) - then their closed source drivers won't help you, and the open source drivers will give you AT BEST - 30-40% of speed in 3D. I'm not mentioning the fact that there is no AGP driver for their IGP chipset (hello IBM thinkpad R20,R30,R40 users), and virtually NONE 3D acceleration for their IGP320, IGP340 chips.. Correct. I have a compaq with IGP340. Have xfree 4.3.99.902 installed, patched with the appropriate patches, and nada, no DRI. ATI could've released the specs, looks like they opted no to do so. Want more? sure, go buy their latest (and a previous generation) of ATI All In Wonder (AIW) cards and try to use their TV set and other features - good luck, it ain't working. I'm on the v4l mailing list and I see those complains all the times.. NVidia on the other hand IS supported with everything - starting with their 2D, 3D, all the latest X extensions, Video in/out, 2-4 headed screens right with their drivers. They also have a support channel in IRC (#nvidia on irc.kde.org), as well as forums and email.. Thanks, Hetz On Friday 02 January 2004 01:09 pm, Diego Iastrubni wrote: , 2 2004, 12:49, : Finally, I have a problem. When I use an OpenGL screensaver, the X server crashes and brings me back to command line. It doesn't happen with a non-OpenGL screensaver, so it's probably the driver's fault. I wish to know how can I resolve this. It is obvious that the lack of source code and its proprietary nature make the drivers relatively sub-standard. ATI ownz :) This crappy Radeon 7000 or 7200 works out of the box and has GPL sources... inside X... - -- Meir Kriheli MKsoft systems http://www.mksoft.co.il -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/9aDRRkS5DWK1mZkRAr8HAJ43sdsLXTGs26IiANa7gow5UowhfgCg7W54 xK0OgPPt7Yef/oV/O6mHNXI= =YBSH -END PGP SIGNATURE- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
On Friday 02 January 2004 14:23, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote: Great, so why did you buy them in the first place? buy a card from a vendor that opens its drivers. Pretty obvious, isn't it? It is (I haven't bought any of their cards). But can you point to *any* card with at least an open spec? It doesn't have to be the latest and greatest but it should be still in production. I was looking for one and haven't found any yet. -- Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -Oscar Wilde = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TV show about Hackers WWII Station X
Hi! Just noticed that on this weekend channel 23 (Educational TV) continuosly broadcasts shows about hackers world and on the WWII Station X (one of the biggest secrets as well successes of the allied forces). Thought this might interest some on this list. Boaz. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 03:08:19PM +0200, Ez-Aton wrote: The choice should be obvious. Would it? What would you choose then? A card that has open drivers. In the hypothetical case that no such card exists, I would've bought the one that is closest to open and worked on reverse engineering the drivers. Cheers, Muli -- Muli Ben-Yehuda http://www.mulix.org | http://mulix.livejournal.com/ the nucleus of linux oscillates my world - [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 05:01:18PM +0200, Oron Peled wrote: On Friday 02 January 2004 14:23, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote: Great, so why did you buy them in the first place? buy a card from a vendor that opens its drivers. Pretty obvious, isn't it? It is (I haven't bought any of their cards). But can you point to *any* card with at least an open spec? It doesn't have to be the latest and greatest but it should be still in production. I was looking for one and haven't found any yet. No, I'm afraid I haven't done any research into this problem yet and thus cannot point you to such a card, although I should, soon. I think Oleg did recently, though. Oleg? Cheers, Muli -- Muli Ben-Yehuda http://www.mulix.org | http://mulix.livejournal.com/ the nucleus of linux oscillates my world - [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
Muli Ben-Yehuda [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, I'm afraid I haven't done any research into this problem yet and thus cannot point you to such a card, although I should, soon. I think Oleg did recently, though. Oleg? Well, I tried to stay away from this discussion, but now I am drawn into it explicitly. I changed a couple of video cards recently. My Voodoo card that had served me for a few years went bust a few months ago. The ATI Radeon card I bought then lasted about 3 months or so (till the first power outage). I am using an nVidia card at the moment. It works for me, so I have not had a chance to peruse their support in any form. Basically, the normal (i.e. your friendly neighbourhood computer store) market is shared between ATI and nVidia. There is nothing else worth mentioning, at least if you are a layman retail purchaser. As we all know, ATI cards have free (as beer and speech) drivers, nVidia cards have proprietary drivers that happen to work. Linus (check his recent LKML postings on the subject) does not mind nVidia drivers all that much, though he says it is one of the few cases where binary modules are OK. It well may happen that your friendly neighbourhood computer store will not have ATI or nVidia in stock. That is, they may have nVidia but not ATI, or the other way around. Chances are that they can order, say, an ATI card for you if you insist on it for ideological reasons. The shop I bought my current card at did not carry ATI, and not being too ideological I bought nVidia knowing it would work. Now, to the question of specs. Short answer is, I don't know, and this has a bearing on everything else I will write below. A longer answer is, it is likely that even if there is a free (as in whatever) driver for your card it does not utilize the cards full capabilities in 3D acceleration etc, because the spec is not fully known. Now, you only need 3D acceleration (or AGP for that matter) if you do something really heavy, e.g. play advanced games on your computer. I don't play games, so I would be very happy if there were simple non-accelerated cheap (as in NIS 25 rather than NIS 250 a pop) cards on the market, I would be very happy because that's all I need. Now please write down your requirements for a spec (e.g. full specification of every bell and whistle related to 3D acceleration, or basic stuff that is enough for KDE), google or otherwise ask around, and decide for yourself if that is available for the card of your choice. I would venture a wild guess that if games is your thing you will likely be better off with nVidia's proprietary driver than with a free one for ATI. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Complaining and Solving Problems of the Nvidia Drivers
Not entirely correct. You could find some ATI [EMAIL PROTECTED] or the likes, for around 200NIS. It will work with X out of the box. It will have zero (0) 3D abilities, and it's fine for you. If you want to play the simplest 3D game - let's say tux racer, you need 3D acceleration, else you'll get around one frame every 3 or 4 seconds (it's up to your CPU power, of course, using MESA) Now, Tux-Racer is not what I call advanced heavy game, so 3D acceleration might come in handy. You could use it as well for 3D modelling (CAD programs, etc.). One of the advantages, generally speaking, of these cheap 3D cards (around 350 and above) is that they support quite a good 2D modeling, thus, you get better draw speed, faster minimization of windows, etc. You could use the open drivers supplied with X for NVidia cards, but you will lose lots of advantages, both 2D and 3D. These are open drivers, and you get to have the minimum required for things to work. Slow, but working. Have complains regarding closed specs? Use them. Being real, you do not gain the ability to debug the driver yourself (although I believe you could debug it to some extend), but you get to enjoy the good support team and good forum NVidia supplies. You could like it, and use these drivers (BTW, they work really well), or you could oppose it, and buy a different (non-accelerated) card, or use the default X drivers. I think it's fair asking why aren't these specs open, but I don't think it's fair blaming them for closed specs, after you have bought the card, and decided to use their drivers. My oppinion. Ez On Saturday 03 January 2004 00:10, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Muli Ben-Yehuda [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No, I'm afraid I haven't done any research into this problem yet and thus cannot point you to such a card, although I should, soon. I think Oleg did recently, though. Oleg? Well, I tried to stay away from this discussion, but now I am drawn into it explicitly. I changed a couple of video cards recently. My Voodoo card that had served me for a few years went bust a few months ago. The ATI Radeon card I bought then lasted about 3 months or so (till the first power outage). I am using an nVidia card at the moment. It works for me, so I have not had a chance to peruse their support in any form. Basically, the normal (i.e. your friendly neighbourhood computer store) market is shared between ATI and nVidia. There is nothing else worth mentioning, at least if you are a layman retail purchaser. As we all know, ATI cards have free (as beer and speech) drivers, nVidia cards have proprietary drivers that happen to work. Linus (check his recent LKML postings on the subject) does not mind nVidia drivers all that much, though he says it is one of the few cases where binary modules are OK. It well may happen that your friendly neighbourhood computer store will not have ATI or nVidia in stock. That is, they may have nVidia but not ATI, or the other way around. Chances are that they can order, say, an ATI card for you if you insist on it for ideological reasons. The shop I bought my current card at did not carry ATI, and not being too ideological I bought nVidia knowing it would work. Now, to the question of specs. Short answer is, I don't know, and this has a bearing on everything else I will write below. A longer answer is, it is likely that even if there is a free (as in whatever) driver for your card it does not utilize the cards full capabilities in 3D acceleration etc, because the spec is not fully known. Now, you only need 3D acceleration (or AGP for that matter) if you do something really heavy, e.g. play advanced games on your computer. I don't play games, so I would be very happy if there were simple non-accelerated cheap (as in NIS 25 rather than NIS 250 a pop) cards on the market, I would be very happy because that's all I need. Now please write down your requirements for a spec (e.g. full specification of every bell and whistle related to 3D acceleration, or basic stuff that is enough for KDE), google or otherwise ask around, and decide for yourself if that is available for the card of your choice. I would venture a wild guess that if games is your thing you will likely be better off with nVidia's proprietary driver than with a free one for ATI. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
