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- dualscreenman, on 06/27/2008, -60/+343Just as long as I receive a good product for my money I'm happy.
Nvidia seems to seriously support their Linux driver, and I feel like I got a good deal. If the drivers were super-buggy on the other hand it'd be nice to see some open drivers, but they're not, and bugs do seem to get fixed when they pop up.
Also lol @ renting analogy. You get the binary driver when you pay for your card, and you pay no money after that. Yes, you can't modify it, but as long as it's the best solution out there I'm sticking with it. - estvir, on 06/27/2008, -25/+145I really don't care. My last 3 cards were Nvidia ones (8800GT, 7600GT, 6800GT) and before that was an ATI one (7900 Pro, I think) and I'm going to continue buying which one is the best performance compared to cost.
Over the last few years when I've used Linux I've had an Nvidia card and the drivers have performed fine. Why should I care about them being open source if they're fine?
And I swear you guys were angry at ATI and calling for the boycott of them too. Make up your minds already. - nickdot, on 06/27/2008, -86/+193The future for Linux graphic cards seems to be AMD/ATI and Intel. Vote with your wallet! Don't buy Nvidia anymore.
- acegi, on 06/28/2008, -32/+119I was at first like "WUT?"
and then I read 'linux'
so then I was like 'oh lol'
then I went back to surfing the internets - inactive, on 06/28/2008, -19/+92This is the kind of moment when I hate Linux users.. being one myself. Nvidia has been making good drivers for Linux since.. ever. And now that ATI has some open specifications they're bitching at Nvidia and threatening to leave the company, not that this statements have any credibility but Nvidia deserves better. That's why some companies don't give a crap about the "loyal" Linux user and give us a big '***** you' instead.
- srg13, on 06/28/2008, -5/+60The point is that ATI have not only drastically improved their Linux drivers recently, but they're also releasing specifications for their cards so open drivers can be made.
- dinostabOMG, on 06/28/2008, -11/+65This attitude is kind of obnoxious. I agree with the sentiment - that we should vote with our wallets if we don't like what we're being offered - but where the hell did he drum up that sense of entitlement? They developed that technology. What makes the author feel like he deserves to "own" it as much as he owns the hardware?
Not to mention the hypocrisy. Linux users (me included) were loving Nvidia for providing a driver at all; now I understand that ATI has one-upped them, and good for them. But this kind of self-righteous whining is not justified. Nvidia is not ignoring Linux. If you don't like their approach, don't buy their stuff. Even tell people about it. But save the pomp for elsewhere. - Tsiolkovsky, on 06/27/2008, -23/+74Yeah unfortunately this is one more reason to dislike NVIDIA. Another is their extremely poor performance in XRender, which makes modern apps like Firefox 3 and KDE 4 perform slow. Just take a look at this: http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/290.html
- atezun, on 06/28/2008, -5/+54People were angry at ATi previously because they had crappy proprietary linux drivers, the users complained and ATi responded. ATi's drivers are now both better and open source. Now that the competition had bucked up, people want the same from nVIDIA. If they're not happy they'll buy ATi or intel.
- nanostream, on 06/27/2008, -12/+58"If the drivers were super-buggy"
Oh, but on the contrary, they are quite buggy (and a pain for developers if I might add): http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=819 - mrfreeziexp, on 06/28/2008, -7/+39this is why AMD/ATI MUST survive. Monopolies will always screw the consumer.
- hugolp, on 06/28/2008, -1/+33ATI open source drivers are new. Give them a bit more of time and they will be better than the Nvidia drivers that have been developed for so long. In fact right now, you can check the progress and you can see the difference.
- quomen, on 06/28/2008, -1/+32Mohdoo he asked a ***** question. At least he got an answer before you had to write your dumbass comment.
- Noein, on 06/28/2008, -9/+39A merchant is not obligated to meet every one of their customers' demands just as the customers are not obligated to purchase products from them. Nvidia obviously weighted the pros and cons of opening up their drivers before they made the decision of not to. I doubt boycotting is going to make them change mind since they most likely already assessed the market affected by this decision and took the possibility of losing customers to ATI into their decision making process, if their management is anywhere remotely competent. If there's really a void in the market for Linux graphics cards, someone of the Linux community should seize this opportunity and start their own companies instead of just sit around writing blogs complaining.
- Varz, on 06/28/2008, -15/+45They're still better than the ATI drivers and they're open.
- sirhomer, on 06/28/2008, -3/+30Actually, not too long ago everyone was angry at AMD/ATI for having ***** drivers for Linux. I think articles calling for an AMD boycott or talking crap about them hit the main page many times during that time.
But interestingly enough, AMD responded to that criticism, and they went above and beyond _any_ video card maker with their support for Linux. That's right, what used to be the worst possible choice for video on Linux became the best possible choice. And really the people to thank in the end are not just AMD, but the people on places like Digg on other communities who fought very hard over the course of many months to get the word out there about ATI.
Nvidia is currently the worst choice for video on Linux. They do not provide open specifications or open drivers and their closed source drivers have issues keeping up with X11 advancements, as well as documented security problems and other problems such as poor ACPI support. It's time for Nvidia to step up the plate and improve their Linux support or publish open specifications.
If you want to make a difference, you can, simply boycott Nvidia products and tell your friends and people who ask you for computer advice to avoid purchasing Nvidia products. If they want to know why, explain why. Doing so will add to the pressure for Nvidia to act, and it will prop up companies who are more friendly to Linux. - moosepile, on 06/28/2008, -9/+36Nobody is obliged to do anything. That's the beauty of it all.
However, I choose to vote with my wallet, and won't purchase NVIDIA. Am I some awesome hacker? No. But ATI is at least pointing in the right direction.
Developers need documentation, not drivers. They also don't need ***** from manufacturers about card drivers being "too complex."
"Too complex" probably means "they'll find out how we stole other code". - ysss, on 06/28/2008, -10/+36Wtf is next. You expect to be able to change the movie script of a DVD that you buy??
Bad analogy dude. - estvir, on 06/27/2008, -14/+41Hah, weren't all of you whining about ATI for so long kind of recently?
- nanostream, on 06/27/2008, -2/+26Bugs do not get fixed "when they pop up." Rather, we have to wait for their dev team to fix it - and we'd be lucky that they know the problems even exist - compared to a myriad of other developers being _able_ to fix the problem as soon as they're made aware of it (in the open source model). Don't forget about waiting for the new updates to be released on a huge bundle, on their own terms/time rather than incrementally.
- nanostream, on 06/28/2008, -1/+25http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/25/ati-radeon-hd-4 ...
- Kingoftherings, on 06/27/2008, -30/+53I have an Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS, and I'm jeaolous of all those AMD/ATi users with their open source drivers. My next card will be a Radeon. I do some PC gaming, and ATi looks like a much better deal than Nvidia right now anyway in terms of performance for Windows Games.
- bobbarkerbilly, on 06/28/2008, -7/+27OP is an idiot. Open or proprietary, we should be happy that the nvidia drivers are stable and working well. The company took a huge initiative to support linux while other companies turned their backs. Buy whatever card you like best, fastest, stable or whatever reason, but don't pretend the company is holding back linux because their drivers aren't open source.
- Rapter09, on 06/28/2008, -1/+21The term "Flip-flop" needs to be excised from the English language.
Change your opinion because of new important facts that have arisen during the evolution of a situation? You're a flip-flopper! I don't get how it's a bad thing to change your opinion based on changing facts. If you don't, then you're just an idiot; wouldn't make a whole lot of damn sense for Linux users to keep supporting nVidia if they're going to get jerked around. - Giga, on 06/28/2008, -1/+19The ATI drivers are getting pretty good now and they haven't been open for all that long.
- noisymime, on 06/28/2008, -1/+19Putting aside bugs for the moment, what about features? Not only do nVidia not allow the latest hardware features of their cards to be used in linux (PureVideo / HD), they have actually started removing features, eg No more XVMC in 8xxx and 9xxx cards.
If you don't want to support these features yourself, that's fine, but release the specs so that others can do what you couldn't be bothered doing. - fas2, on 06/28/2008, -3/+21Good for you, but that's not really the point here, is it?
- grapesofbaath, on 06/28/2008, -6/+24buried for submitter not understanding the difference between the words open source and "free"
- BLKMGK, on 06/28/2008, -1/+18Well supported you say? Really? How about H.264 acceleration? How about video acceleration of any kind save MPEG which I *think* they *might* accelerate on Linux. No? Hrm, not so well supported after all it seems!
To be clear - Windows drivers have FAR more functionality and a much wider feature set than the Linux drivers. I *do* use the NVIDIA closed source drivers but mostly because I have little choice. The video accel ain't there and as a result to watch HD video I have to run a monster of a multicore CPU. If they would enable these features, even closed source, I could be running something FAR slower and cheaper.
So NO, NVIDIA hasn't exactly supported us. They have given us a nice 2D picture and some 3D accel but the cards are capable of FAR FAR more! - nanostream, on 06/28/2008, -1/+18That is because the ATI has recently released documentation for their gfx cards. It will take time for opensource drivers to mature with this new mountain of information.
- MyWorld, on 06/28/2008, -3/+20And who supported Linux when there was no 3D acceleration a couple of years back?
Go to any forum and most issues regarding 3D cards atm will be the open source ATi drivers, so the binary drivers from Nvidia isn't half bad.
Can't work in more modern programs? Why not wait for the next set of drivers before we doom Nvidia? On the whole their rendering is much better than ANY other solution on the table at this stage, and please, do not go the AMD/ATi power trip "until your chickens are hatched"! Too many ventures have slipped of the table and were fogotten or spoken of in husshed voices because of the epic fail they turned out to be. Show me the alternative, NOW, you can't, can you... - wolferz, on 06/28/2008, -11/+28FTA: "and shut their users off from the expertise of the Linux community"
You mean the expertise of a community that has claimed that Linux is desktop ready for 8 years now and still refuses to acknowledge the problems that remain (lack of consistent interface design, necessitating frequent use of the command line, driver support that is STILL spotty in many areas (partially because of the insistence on open source drivers))? The same expertise of people who herald the benefits of relying on snotty arrogant teenagers and just out of college know-it-alls to figure out why you can print in Firefox but not OpenOffice Writer (ie the best response you can expect is "you probably didn't plug it in noob")? The expertise of the same people that applauded the GPLv3 which intentionally aims to restrict the usefulness of open source in the one market where Linux was quickly gaining a strangle hold (embeded devices). That expertise?
Sound's like a good idea to me...
Open Source is great and all but at the end of the day technology corporations generally need to keep their trade secrets secret in order to stay ahead... and Open Source has no place in such an environment. Until Open Source enthusiasts can understand and accept the need for middle ground all they can hope to do is alienate the people they should be forging alliances with. - Skooma714, on 06/28/2008, -10/+26What do I care if my GFX card doesn't get to it's full potential on Linux? I can't do any gaming on there anyway.
- nanostream, on 06/28/2008, -3/+18To be fair, Linux users are not "flip-flopping." The graphics landscape has changed and users are responding accordingly. AMD/ATI has open-sourced their drivers, meaning there is better linux support than there was in the past. Nvidia drivers on the other hand are comparatively becoming worse (as ATI support gets bettter), thus the tide is changing over from Nvidia to AMD/ATI. Had the situation stayed the same, then we would be flip-flopping.
- Ademan, on 06/28/2008, -2/+17I don't see what the big deal is, if you've been buying hondas since you were young, and suddenly toyota had a line of cars with better gas mileage and better safety (and those were things you cared about) you'd be clamoring for honda to improve as well, or else you'd go with the toyotas with better features...
The analogy isn't entirely accurate, as some would argue open driver specs isn't necessarily a feature, but to many it is (just like, i suppose, not everyone cares too much about gas mileage or safety features) - Ellipsys, on 06/28/2008, -2/+16I've been a fan of Nvidia, having pretty decent (though binary) support for Linux, and all around good cards through the 7, 8, and 9 series. ATI had crappy drivers, and simply couldn't keep up with the hardware. Now, the tables have turned. The GTX series of Nvidia cards are expensive, and have a worse price/performance ratio compared to ATI. Crossfired 4870's will beat a single GTX 280, for less than its price. Also, I'm very impressed that with the 4850 (and I assume the 70 as well) there was DAY 1 linux support! ATI has open sourced their drivers, and even their binary blobs are first rate. After the horrors I had trying to get my mobility x600 to work with fglrx, I swore I'd never go ATI unless something major changed. Now, something major did! Oh, and PhysX/CUDA is capable of running on both ATI and Nvidia hardware now. Give ATI a chance. They're providing a great competition for Nvidia, who can no longer rest on their laurels. I haven't been excited about an ATI card since the days of the Radeon 9800!
- init100, on 06/28/2008, -1/+15Drivers for your router?
- FairDinkumMate, on 06/28/2008, -1/+15I don't particularly care whether the driver is open or not. I just care that it works. My Nvidia graphics card is the only reason I still have to dual boot to XP. I have one PC that I use as a media centre & the Nvidia driver for Linux doesn't support the TV out functionality correctly. So I have to have XP on dual boot to access this quite important(for me anyway) feature of the card. If Nvidia release a driver that does this, great. But if they don't, I think they should allow the community the access needed to write one that does work properly. If you think that is self-righteous whining - so be it.
That said, I'm not holding my breath & highly doubt that Nvidia will get my money next time. - geoken, on 06/28/2008, -1/+14In other words, your distro packagers ***** up so it must be nvidia's fault. I guess it was also nvidia's fault when the Ubuntu packagers ***** something up with the drivers in Hardy and everyone was getting the pink shadows until they uninstalled the Ubuntu package and installed the drivers from Nvidia's website.
- nanostream, on 06/27/2008, -5/+17I am sorry for the 3rd reply, but I just wanted to mention that I agree with you on the faulty logic of the blogger's "renting analogy."
- iizh, on 06/28/2008, -0/+12estvir... what? Nvidia is getting its ass handed to it right now. GTX 280 is almost universally recognized as overpriced. GTX 260 is dead ($100 more than HD4870 yet has inferior performance). 9800GTX+ can match 4850, but without DX 10.1, single slot cooler, and costs $30 more (MSRP-wise, actually $50+ in street prices). Meanwhile, R700 is coming to take the top spot, while RV770 derivatives will take the low end. So... care to explain?
- l0k0, on 06/28/2008, -18/+30There are legitimate reasons why Nvidia and others (i.e. Creative) frown upon modders. Even basic INF modding can cause serious instabilities, and often times the card manufacturer still gets blamed. Even if you don't like it, it is still their intellectual property, and they have every right to release it solely in binaries.
It is also very odd to me that Linux users would complain about the driver support from Nvidia. Is their any hardware manufacturer that supports Linux better than Nvidia for GPUs or Motherboards? When I last used Ubuntu, Nvidia compatible drivers were stable and easy to find. Drivers for my soundcard, monitor, and router didn't even exist. - moosepile, on 06/28/2008, -2/+13You are correct - users of most Linux distro's are using closed binary drivers.
So what separates *xbuntunoxianuse* from Windows/OSX? Is "Linux" a movement for Open Software or Windows replacement?
I understand people just want "***** to work". But by using binary blobs to achieve that goal make the Linux movement nothing more than a cheaper Windows. Which is fine and dandy, but it goes against the crutch that people use to advocate Linux.
Using binary blobs in Linux/FreeBSD/whatever reduces the advocacy of the OS into nothing more that a price-point and performance argument.
Free and Open software as a philosophy is tossed out the window. - Giga, on 06/28/2008, -4/+15Time to buy ATI/AMD then. The recently released 4850 is an extremely good card for the money.
- TheMadCow, on 06/28/2008, -10/+21I say, Yeah! Screw'em!
You'll show them. Go write your own ***** driver and go "thppppt!" to the man.
Yessireee.
tool. - nanostream, on 06/28/2008, -3/+14http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/25/ati-radeon-hd-4 ...
- wigren, on 06/28/2008, -1/+11And The Random Comment Award goes to....
- saftaplan, on 06/28/2008, -2/+12It's easy. First, GNU/Linux users had the choice between crappy proprietary drivers (ATI) and reasonably good proprietary drivers (nVidia). Of course, everybody says "buy nVidia". Now, they have the choice between reasonably good proprietary drivers (nVidia) and open drivers which respect the user and promise to become much better in the future (ATI).
It's normal that everybody now says "buy ATI" because that company, at least, respects their users *now*. I don't care what they did in the past.
Also, guess where most of the stand-by/hibernate headaches comes from? Right, from proprietary drivers. - funklor, on 06/28/2008, -2/+12Company loyalty is beyond retarded. They don't ***DESERVE*** anything. They provide a product or service, and if it's superior to the competition in whatever area you find important, you reward them with business. They exist for the consumer, not vice versa.
nVidia isn't your dear old Uncle's business. - silfiriel, on 06/28/2008, -0/+10"I know a couple of Linux guys myself and none of them have ever really explained to me why Open Source has such a fanatical following?"
it's like a movement. It's incredible if you think about it. I 've been included in open source as a translator (since i am no programmer), but the way things work is amazing. People work on a piece of software from all over the world, and then we use it, without paying a cent. And the feeling you get by doing it, is elevating and fullfiling. -
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