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Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

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Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#111

Post by Esau »

arkitaip wrote: post #108
ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

First, let me say that I think what they did was wrong and it should only be opt-in and clearly stated. That said, having managed fleets of machines that were nominally running the "same" software, getting updates from all of them is a really powerful debugging tool. Once you get above about 1,000 machines logs comparison of all the machines immediately surfaces software issues (happens on all machines), connectivity…

Isn't the easy option to allow customers to participate in the program? Their software is already so buggy and bloated that a simple checkbox that ANONYMOUSLY sends telemetry would be trivial to implement.

This is something that, I hate to say, will probably take a law to fix. Companies in general have shown a resistance to understanding why this is a problem (even when well intentioned).

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#112

Post by michaelt »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

First, let me say that I think what they did was wrong and it should only be opt-in and clearly stated. That said, having managed fleets of machines that were nominally running the "same" software, getting updates from all of them is a really powerful debugging tool. Once you get above about 1,000 machines logs comparison of all the machines immediately surfaces software issues (happens on all machines), connectivity…

  And that gives you a bit more courage to release things
  early because you'll see problems faster and can fix them.
I gotta say, if the major benefit of telemetry is that vendors can test less before they release, that sounds like a bad thing not a good thing for users?

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#113

Post by robohamburger »

brink wrote: post #6

On a related note; I can't even use NVidia's "Geforce Experience" any more without logging in. Thanks for that, NVidia. Just what I wanted; a driver tool that forces me to log in.

You can go to their website and install the normal driver. It installs the nvidia control panel which also has an update checker. If I had known I could just be using this I would have never installed that monstrosity.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#114

Post by blub »

Karunamon wrote: post #101
throwaway2048 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People aren't bothered about security or privacy, they just cannot be bothered. Says who? You? Facebook? Microsoft? Google? You don't see the inherent conflict of benefiting from that position and declaring it, unilaterally, it to be so? How many people do you think would be comfortable, and explicitly approve the kinds of "opt out" data collection that goes on, if you gave them the true extent of how that data can…

When using "people" in aggregate, this is a completely correct statement . It's why, for example, HN throws a fit[1] the moment a developer goes so far as to add anonymous google analytics to a package manager [2] even when that data couldn't possibly be used to harm them or track them in any way. If you make $thing opt in, most people will not do $thing, regardless of what $thing is. Defaults matter. [1]: https://ne…

Google analytics. Anonymous. Couldn't possibly be used to track them.

You've either missed the last decade of privacy-related discussions or you're playing for team spyware yourself.

Companies like Google have billions, lawyers lobbyists, sociologists and every bloody specialist working for them to suck all information out of everybody and there's always some clueless person jumping to their defense with some pointlessly pedantic arguments. Because we don't want to be unfair towards Google or nvidia.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#116

Post by dogma1138 »

vetinari wrote: post #94
dogma1138 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NVIDIA's own linux drivers are excellent, they are considerably better than AMD's ones (reversal from the days of ATI), but they are closed source. NVIDIA released Linux drivers hand in hand with their Windows based ones, you get at least one update every month. So while it's true that you can't have a completely open source driver for NVIDIA you do have excellent Linux drivers. On the compute side NVIDIA's support f…

Unfortunately, Nvidia's proprietary drivers are excellent for features where the puck has been and not-so-excellent in features where the puck is going. See also Wayland support or switchable GPUs.

Been hearing about Wayland for a while wake me up when it's actually here. Also there is no problem with switchable GPU's which is specific to nVIDIA anymore the Optimus chip is no longer used (and haven't been for a while) since Intels Iris came out it powered a single generation of mobile GPUs and was a hack even on Windows.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#117

Post by Namrog84 »

michaelt wrote: post #112
ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

First, let me say that I think what they did was wrong and it should only be opt-in and clearly stated. That said, having managed fleets of machines that were nominally running the "same" software, getting updates from all of them is a really powerful debugging tool. Once you get above about 1,000 machines logs comparison of all the machines immediately surfaces software issues (happens on all machines), connectivity…

And that gives you a bit more courage to release things early because you'll see problems faster and can fix them. I gotta say, if the major benefit of telemetry is that vendors can test less before they release, that sounds like a bad thing not a good thing for users?

Bad for few users. But great for most.

Testing less means they can release sooner.

Here is a bad example. New game comes out. Graphical driver glitch crash. Typically would take 2 weeks to get to public as whole. Now with this they can release in 2 days to 10% fix up and release to whole by end of first week. So 90% of population got a fix sooner(1 week) And some percentage of the 10% may have had some annoyances. Sucks for them. But if they roll out in a way that minimizes this. It'd be beneficial to all overall.

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#118

Post by [deleted] »

michaelt wrote: post #112
ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

First, let me say that I think what they did was wrong and it should only be opt-in and clearly stated. That said, having managed fleets of machines that were nominally running the "same" software, getting updates from all of them is a really powerful debugging tool. Once you get above about 1,000 machines logs comparison of all the machines immediately surfaces software issues (happens on all machines), connectivity…

And that gives you a bit more courage to release things early because you'll see problems faster and can fix them. I gotta say, if the major benefit of telemetry is that vendors can test less before they release, that sounds like a bad thing not a good thing for users?

[deleted]

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#119

Post by rasz_pl »

eswat wrote: post #35

Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough, but I’m surprised this and the forced login for GeForce Experience didn’t make a bigger wave amongst gamers, who’ve historically been very vocal about questionable decisions that provide far more value to the business than to the gamers.

gamers vocal? they are sheep, they accepted mouse drivers calling home to the mothership before (only complain was a bug causing mouse jerkiness when connection goes offline).

Re: Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers

#120

Post by vetinari »

dogma1138 wrote: post #116
vetinari wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Nvidia's proprietary drivers are excellent for features where the puck has been and not-so-excellent in features where the puck is going. See also Wayland support or switchable GPUs.

Been hearing about Wayland for a while wake me up when it's actually here. Also there is no problem with switchable GPU's which is specific to nVIDIA anymore the Optimus chip is no longer used (and haven't been for a while) since Intels Iris came out it powered a single generation of mobile GPUs and was a hack even on Windows.

Wayland is actually there; it has been shipping with Fedora for some time and for 25 (release in less than two weeks), it is going to be default.

There is still problem with switchable GPUs: namely those, where one GPU is using Mesa and the other is not (i.e. Nvidia). Those computers didn't disappear for the face of the Earth, people are still using it and expect it to work, even if there are never laptops available on the market. It is being worked on (https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2016/11/01/discrete-graphics-...).

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