Opinion: NVIDIA drivers are a BAD Thing [tm]

[Guy Fraser]

Jonathan Gardner wrote:

>On Tuesday 18 May 2004 12:05 pm, alan wrote:
>  
>
>>Until a vendor that makes a fast 3d video card decides to open source
>>drivers, we are pretty much stuck with the situation.  (Unless someone
>>wants to reverse engineer the chipset.)
>>
>>I don't see it happening soon.
>>    
>>
>Apparently you've never heard of ATI. Their Linux drivers are all open 
>source and it appears that they are actively cooperating with the community 
>and trying to push X and Linux integration forward. While they aren't 
>disclosing trade secrets they aren't at liberty to disclose, they are 
>giving enough information legally that the developers can figure out those 
>secrets or develop their own solutions.
>
>I have been using ATI cards for several years, and as long as I use older 
>hardware (7000 series nowadays), Linux works fabulously with them, even 3D 
>acceleration. Today, you can buy ATI cards for cheap from Taiwanese and 
>Chinese manufacturers. I think they pay ATI for the right to either make 
>the chip themselves or to sell the card with their chipset on it. They sell 
>well because frankly they are more than sufficient for business machines 
>and my home linux network.
>  
>
You can order older ATI cards for cheap right from ATI's web site.
They are likey "refurbished" trade in cards. They are selling
the AIW Radeon 8500 DV for US$59 . That card is not well suited to
Linux because the tuner and video capture are not supported, but it
runs 3D quite well. They likely have the Fire GL 7500 for cheap too
I didn't pay much attention to the price of cards I don't own.

Good luck.