OT: nVidia driver [was: Wish list]]

[Matthew Miller]

On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 09:10:44PM -0400, Sean wrote:
> Yeah, and what "work" are you getting done with your binary nVidia driver
> that couldn't be done with an open source alternative.   My guess,
> nothing.   Have you even tried the open source nv alternative?

I don't know about the the original poster here, but graphics programmers in
our Scientific Computing and Visualization center need fast, modern 3D
graphics cards. As much as I hate the situation, their realistic choices
are: 1) use the nVidia proprietary drivers on Linux or 2) use a whole
proprietary OS.

I wish that weren't the case, but there it is.


> BS.  Obviously you have to overstate the facts (ie. there are many open
> source cards newer than 7 years old) to feel like you can defend your
> position, typical nVidia zealotry.  Get over it.

Seven years is an exaggeration, but as far as I know, the most powerful card
with open source 3D drivers in x.org is the ATI FireGL 8800, which was
launched August, 2001. (It's basically a faster version of the Radeon 8500.)
That's almost four years ago.


There are several options for "okay, at least 3D hardware is somehow
involved here" (notably, the Intel integrated chipsets), but generally the
situation is grim.

-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm at mattdm.org        <http://www.mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>                <http://linux.bu.edu/>
Current office temperature: 81 degrees Fahrenheit.