Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 24th Jun 2008 12:07 UTC
A constant thorn in the eye of many Linux kernel developers is the existence of closed-source kernel modules, most notably those by Nvidia and Ati, but also some file system drivers and other elements. Most of the Linux developers have been against these modules ever since they were first used, and in fact, bug reports originating from a tainted kernel are often disregarded and ignored. The kernel developers have now rallied together by issuing a statement urging vendors to release open source Linux kernel modules and drivers.
Thread beginning with comment 319752
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2008-03-17
Whilst, yes, nvidia support legacy hardware, it not without problems. Firstly legacy hardware drivers do not get new features even if they possible/work. Fixes are limited to getting it to work with new kernels and xservers and bugs that exist are not fixed.
Binary drivers are never going to integrate well with linux, so-> no kernel mode setting, crappy power management, dodgy suspend/hibernate.
Worst of all is the bad desktop performance. the Ati gpl driver and the intel drivers are very good at xrender acceleration but nvidia is really bad mostly on "new" hardware(only if you count nov. 2006 new).
Now we can all agree that the 3d performance is quite good (the core driver is the same as the windows), but if 2d performance sucks then even with a opengl compositor its gonna be slow.
So with open drivers one will never get to play games on optimized drivers that fully take advantage of the raw computational power of the cards but we would get drivers that are optimised for features linux DESKTOP users care about.
Nvidia can keep providing their binary driver to those that need full 3d power but will then no longer have to support feature for the linux desktop like randr etc.
The gpl driver is improving daily so by the time I get a new computer I'll buy ati use the gpl driver for linux and for games I can always use windows.