We are investigating if we want to include these modules. The fact that
nvidia is no longer planning to maintain the 9631 driver doesn't help
the case. We have to contend with possible bugs, mainly security related
issues.
Not only that we have to contend with making the driver work with our
kernel. If nVidia isn't keeping the driver up-to-date, we are having to
modify the build ourselves to make it compile. We already had to do this
with 9631. It will only mean more problems in the future as the kernel
API changes. Additional work for maintenance.
For those that suggest this is a critical bug, it is not. A critical bug
makes the system completely unusable (read the definition of severity
levels on the Ubuntu wiki). Ubuntu's stock nv driver supports all of
these chiosets. It boots and works as expected. The nvidia driver is
supplied for those wanting the vendor supported drivers to get
acceleration with their hw. We provide these as a courtesy, to make
using Ubuntu easier for you, since we assume most people will want the
drivers whether we provide them or not. We do no provide it because we
have to, and if the the vendor drops support, we are at their mercy. If
your card suddenly stops working, you can blame nVidia, not us.
That being said, we are looking at this from a completely technical
aspect. How much work is it for us to include the 9631 driver blob
compared to how much it helps users. Note that this isn't just a matter
of putting it in. Once we commit to supporting it in feisty, we commit
to supporting it over the life of feisty (1.5 years) and probably, much
like the native driver, supporting it in later releases of Ubuntu.
The primary loss here is composite features for desktop effects and
possibly some performance with GL applications (games). This is hardly a
critical loss, but we realize that current trends warrant the use of
such features. It is very likely we will include the 9631 for feisty,
but the scope of it's inclusion and the existence of it past feisty is
still up for debate.
** Changed in: linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20 (Ubuntu)
Importance: Medium => High
Target: None => ubuntu-7.04
--
MASTER: Request for new-legacy nvidia drivers (9631)
https://launchpad.net/bugs/96430
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