X11R7.1 about to enter FC5-updates. Driver support?

[Spyke]

How about making renderaccel actually do something with subpixel rendered fonts?

[pzgren]

My next Dual Core Notebook has no more nVidia or Ati card. I have enough from this long waiting and hoping. I will never understand, why there are no Beta drivers available...

I will go this way with an Intel chipset. ===> http://intellinuxgraphics.org/

[Spyke]

Originally Posted by pzgren

My next Dual Core Notebook has no more nVidia or Ati card. I have enough from this long waiting and hoping. I will never understand, why there are no Beta drivers available...

I will go this way with an Intel chipset. ===> http://intellinuxgraphics.org/

Yay for modern Linux notebooks that always suspend and resume without a hitch. I hope both ATI and NV are listening.

[mintSlice]

Originally Posted by Spyke

Yay for modern Linux notebooks that always suspend and resume without a hitch. I hope both ATI and NV are listening.

Yeah, well there is that! Listen up NVIDIA (and ATI). You're graphics cards may be better, but I'll take a well supported graphics card, over a better graphics card for which support is always catching up.

[chrismortimore]

None of what you've said is a problem with nvidia, it is a problem with your distros. I know for a fact that Gentoo have held back moving xorg-7.1 to stable on x86 and x86_64 because of the nvidia and ati issues, because they realise that if everyone upgrades, the forums will get flooded with the same old "My xorg doesn't work with nvidia driver 1.0-8762". They left the option to upgrade to xorg-7.1 down to each user. Yes, nvidia have taken their time, but given what I've heard about what the 9xxx series has in store, it will be worth it. Remember, it is the distros responsibility to provide a stable system with the current set of drivers available for ALL hardware.

And remember this, nvidia is a business. The majority of their money and customers are windows based, linux is secondary. They make either nearly no or actually no money from supporting linux, and only good will is making them do it. If you threaten, they might just pull the whole operation and put up a giant "Sod you Linux users, you ungrateful bunch of people". Chill dude.

NOTE: I'm not affiliated with nvidia, I just like them.

[devik]

True, NVIDIA is a business. But they've long been known as the way to go with Linux. Things have changed; ATI now provides their own proprietary drivers that are far superior to the crap open-source ones that were previously the only (half-way working) option. Obviously ATI thought the market was worthwhile to get into, why would NVIDIA be so hurt by supporting it better? Btw, ATI has already released an X7.1-compatible driver.

NOTE: I'm not affiliated with ATI, nor do I intend to give up my GeForce 6600 for some piece-of-crap ATI card. But I still wish NVIDIA would give a bit better support considering how far behind the 9xxx drivers are for Linux...

[gilboa]

Originally Posted by chrismortimore

None of what you've said is a problem with nvidia, it is a problem with your distros.

-No- it's not.

I know for a fact that Gentoo have held back moving xorg-7.1 to stable on x86 and x86_64 because of the nvidia and ati issues, because they realise that if everyone upgrades, the forums will get flooded with the same old "My xorg doesn't work with nvidia driver 1.0-8762". They left the option to upgrade to xorg-7.1 down to each user.

... and this is stupid mistake which sends the -wrong- signal to the community. Open source should -not- care about non-open source software. (Be that drivers and user-land applications).

Tell me, what if nVidia decides to stop producing graphics drivers for Linux: Are you seriously claiming that all major distro should stop using newer kernels and X.org's until the end of time?

Yes, nvidia have taken their time, but given what I've heard about what the 9xxx series has in store, it will be worth it.

It is well within their rights not to produce any Linux drivers -whatsoever-.
It doesn't change the fact that nVidia -should- have release 7.1 drivers upon release.

Remember, it is the distros responsibility to provide a stable system with the current set of drivers available for ALL hardware.

-Far-, far, far, from it.
You seem to have little, if any, understanding on what OSS is all about.
Creating a stable environment for proprietary -close-source- drivers is -far- from being the OSS movement goal.
I won't be all that surprised, if Linux (as in the Linux kernel) will end up as an GPL-only eco-system. (Read: No support what-so-ever for non-GPL modules)

And remember this, nvidia is a business. The majority of their money and customers are windows based, linux is secondary. They make either nearly no or actually no money from supporting linux, and only good will is making them do it.

nVidia is open for alternative OSs. Which is -very- welcome.
However, claiming that nVidia doesn't get anything back in return is not entirely true: AFAIK both HP and SUN are responsible for financing the SLI support in both Linux and Solaris. *
As I said, I appreciate nVidia's efforts in releasing stable 3D environment for Linux, BSD and Solaris. However, this doesn't change the fact that nVidia did drop the ball on this one.

If you threaten, they might just pull the whole operation and put up a giant "Sod you Linux users, you ungrateful bunch of people".

It's well within their right.
However:
A. nVidia has a vested interest in keeping Linux/BSD/Solaris alive. Without an active competition, Microsoft just might decide to charge 100,000 per DDK license and 1$ per driver download.
B. Big-name nVidia clients have a vested interest in keeping Linux/BSD/Solaris alive. (IBM, Sun, HP) *
C. AFAIK, nVidia's in-house development is mostly done on Linux.
D. Linux/BSD/what-ever poeple tend to sit in high IT positions. If anything, nVidia is selling more GPUs for Windows machines due to thier Linux/BSD/Solaris support.
E. I doubt that this forum chatter has too much influence on nVidia.

NOTE: I'm not affiliated with nvidia, I just like them.

So am I.
As I said, this should change the fact that nVidia drop the ball on this one.

Gilboa

* I'm writing this on an HP xw9300 with SLI support (currently in-active) - AFAIK, HP 'helped' nVidia release SLI drivers just for this machine. (to make it Linux certified). In return, I bought a number of these machines. (And hopefully, I'll get a number of xw9400 workstations later this year)

[arokh]

What's with all this bitching? All the major distro's are supported. The nvidia driver works fine in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Redhat and SuSE. Nobody cares about Gentoo. You can't expect nvidia to release drivers _before_ the major distro's move on, there's nothing to gain in doing that.

Also, that comment about ATi supporting Xorg 7.1 is funny. It almost sounds like they have a competitive driver, it's just too bad that a 6600GT will beat an X1900XT in Linux. Not that it would justify nvidia being lazy with their drivers, but they're not.

I'm just so tired of reading about how evil nvidia is and how much they suck for not open-sourcing their drivers etc. It's just not gonna happen! Read one of the thousands of earlier discussions about the issues! And accept the fact that they can't satisfy Gentoo fanatics that upgrade to 7.1 the day of the release!

[gilboa]

Originally Posted by arokh

What's with all this bitching? All the major distro's are supported. The nvidia driver works fine in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Redhat and SuSE. Nobody cares about Gentoo. You can't expect nvidia to release drivers _before_ the major distro's move on, there's nothing to gain in doing that.

Also, that comment about ATi supporting Xorg 7.1 is funny. It almost sounds like they have a competitive driver, it's just too bad that a 6600GT will beat an X1900XT in Linux. Not that it would justify nvidia being lazy with their drivers, but they're not.

I'm just so tired of reading about how evil nvidia is and how much they suck for not open-sourcing their drivers etc. It's just not gonna happen! Read one of the thousands of earlier discussions about the issues! And accept the fact that they can't satisfy Gentoo fanatics that upgrade to 7.1 the day of the release!

Feeling better?
Got it off you system?
Next time bother reading before commenting.