nvidia

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2007-10-28 at 15:59 -0600, Karl Larsen wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
> > Karl Larsen wrote:
> >
> >>>  
> >>>>     I was one who bought a new computer and until today could not tell
> >>>> you had a particular nvitia video card.
> >>>>     
> >>>
> >>> If I was going to buy a new computer and wanted to run Linux on it
> >>> I would at least google for "<new computer> Linux"
> >>> to see what problems I was likely to meet.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>   
> >>    I did. But it was the motherboard since the computer was a kit 
> >> from a supplier. what I got was many web pages that were thrilled 
> >> with how well it worked. And another thing you forget. At that time I 
> >> was not aware that nvidia was bad. I had never even heard of it.
> >
> > Nvidia isn't 'bad' in any normal sense.  They just have not made 
> > source code available for their drivers available under GPL terms as 
> > some small fraction of users would like to demand.  It it the fact the 
> > Linux will not provide a stable interface (so a working binary module 
> > continues to work) and the fedora project's policy not to cooperate 
> > with anyone with different terms than their own that make it difficult 
> > to use the combination.  I'd guess that it's easier to change the OS 
> > than a motherboard chip...
> >
>     Thanks Les. I realize that wanting Fedora to work even on computers 
> that use nvidia video cards is a lost cause with Fedora. I put 
> "linux,nvidia" in Goggle and I see all the other Linux brands are 
> providing the binary in their kit.
----
there's a lot of mis-information here

xorg includes an nv module (for nvidia video) which is open source and
part of xorg/fedora packaging. This driver does 2D.

nVidia corporation also provides a binary only driver that is designed
for specific kernel builds and since it is binary only, patent
encumbered, restricted license, not open source, fedora packaging will
not include that. Livna and other repositories will typically package it
with a kernel-mod which sort of makes it painless for the user (the user
must install the yum repository package for livna but that's about it).

nVidia binary modules seem to work reasonably well but it is not
necessary to use them at all.

Any other Linux distribution that packages patent encumbered, restricted
license, binary only modules into their base packaging and distributed
with other GPL license software would likely be violating the GPL
license, run afoul of patent restrictions in the US and would certainly
be distributing software that they have absolutely no possible way to
certify as safe and/or maintainable.

Craig