Re: Linux on all new iron

Biffster wrote:
On 2007-08-13, Nicolas George <nicolas$george@xxxxxxxxxxx> rambled on thusly:

Note that only 2D acceleration is available on Nvidia cards with free
drivers. If you only want to do 2D, something cheaper and less
power-hungry will be good enough.
Not true. The 3d support from nVidia is superb.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

These drivers are not free. You do not have to give away money, but you have
to sell your soul to have them.

Wow... could you be a little more dramatic there?

For those who don't know, nvidia's drivers are not open-source. They are
proprietary, and binary-only. If you are trying to keep a completely
free/open source system, then using the nvidia drivers will taint that (and
on some distros, including Debian, you'll get a warning that the nvidia
module taints the kernel).

If you are less strict on the FOSS issue, though, then the nvidia drivers
really do kick ass.

Taints the kernel can mean that there are unknown serious dangers like
open back doors, exploits, vulnerabilities, spying by nVidia...

I do NOT trust strangers. Therefore, I refrain from purchasing things
that have hidden aspects or "features".

I influence up to 10,000 purchases each year.

There are thousands of others like me.

If nVidia opened up, and permitted an Open Source version of a driver,
and all of us quickly rallied around it, nVidia would rake in
multi-millions in profits.

That's how it works, folks! So, meanwhile, we don't purchase, and it
becomes a form of a defacto boycott. Such is stupidity. Perhaps the
SCO toasting will open some eyes?
.

Relevant Pages

  • NVIDIA DRIVERS
    ... Latest Macbook Pro Nvidia Drivers ... Nvidia Geforce Fx 5200 Drivers ... Nvidia Nforce Network Drivers ...
    (sci.techniques.microscopy)
  • NVIDIA DRIVERS
    ... Latest Macbook Pro Nvidia Drivers ... Nvidia Geforce Go 7600 Drivers ... Nvidia Nforce Network Drivers ...
    (rec.antiques)
  • Re: "sched: add vslice" causes horrible interactivity under load
    ... appended my .config. ... I can't obviously reproduce it without the nvidia ... # Infrared-port device drivers ... # SCSI device support ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: Potential School Wide Linux Implementation (Tommy)
    ... Jaunty beta - lost my nvidia drivers ... Re: /home partition ... 3.0GiB but ever since switching to Ubuntu, ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: nVidia drivers
    ... They wanted to install the 2.4.27 kernel. ... I tried the installer from nVidia, one of the 8000 series drivers. ... What do I need to do to get this damn driver to install? ...
    (Debian-User)