Another plea for open source nforce drivers

[ronjohn]

Hi,

I know I'm not the 1st, but I have to add that nVidia lost a sale, because I think that closed-source kernel drivers are A Bad Thing, since if the company decides to stop maintaining the code, users are SOL, and must buy new motherboards/RAM and go through the ardorous task of replacing the old board, if they want new linux kernels.

Note that I am happy with the nvidia xfree driver. It makes my Riva TNT2 more than fast enough for me. If nvidia decides to stop maintaining it, I can go buy a new video card and have it running in 15 minutes.

[TheOneKEA]

Unfortunately, the only way such drivers will come to exist is when NVIDIA realizes that whatever closed-source functionality they want to deploy in the OS layer is really better off in a ROM somewhere in the core-logic of the chipset.

I'm certain that if NVIDIA moved their secret code into a place where it is almost inaccessible to the casual reverse-engineerist, they could create OSS drivers in a heartbeat.

I feel that the same thing could be done with the Atheros AR52xx tri-mode Wi-Fi chipsets as well. Because they chose to implement software-based radios, when creating a Linux driver they were forced to create a HAL that implemented the radio, to avoid FCC ligitation regarding the unlicensed use of a radio transmitter.

[blueworm]

AFAIK open source drivers for nvidia nic are bieng worked on by kernel developers.:)
But we still need a proper audio apu driver, with urgency!:mad:
http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28505&sid=5cf793d6dc6df6d192bcb31f1575c943

[connyosis]

For audio why not use ALSA? Works like a charm for me. Of course it still doesn't have all the features but it's getting there.

[blueworm]

Alsas drivers work well but still no hardware mixing. have since installed sbLive.
Hardware mixing is a must...

[bahamot]

Originally posted by blueworm
Hardware mixing is a must...
Agree!!!

[blueworm]

It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people.
In Hawaii "Aloha" means hello and goodbye go figure.