Nvidia submits patches to open source driver

Post by dmm » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 12:29 PM UTC

nimbs wrote: post #23

blinkingled wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's odd. What laptop was that? There really shouldn't be any reason for all but newest ATI GPUs to not work out of box. With nvidia the terrible stability and kernel upgrade hassles plus the need to externally install the drivers means it should be much uglier an experience than out of box ATI OSS drivers. Anyway as long as it works...

> means that normal users shouldn't really need to install binary drivers if they have a recent ATI GPU. > There really shouldn't be any reason for all but newest ATI GPUs to not work out of box. So you don't have any problems if you have a recent ATI GPU, unless you have a recent ATI GPU?

Post by dmm » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 1:55 PM UTC

gtaylor wrote: post #14

lelandbatey wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has bought both brands recently-ish, I have to say I would VASTLY prefer AMD over Nvidia for Linux compatible graphics cards. I found that the community-provided AMD drivers where leagues ahead of Nvidia proprietary and community drivers (in terms of shear usability). Here's a thread where I test my Nvidia 670 and my AMD 6870 in Linux. I explain why I like one over the other: http://www.reddit.com/r/li…

The community drivers are pretty limited if you need to drive more than two monitors or need to work with non-trivial OpenGL applications or games. Neither open source driver has very good power management, either. They both leave a lot to desire.

Post by driverdan » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 3:10 PM UTC

gtaylor wrote: post #2

On a somewhat related (non-mobile) note, I really regret buying my AMD 5870 three years ago. Things have changed quite a bit in that nvidia has done some serious work on their Linux binary drivers, while AMD's has been utterly unimpressive, if not embarrassingly bad. I understand that Linux has been a lesser priority for both companies, which is understandable. It's not going to make them the truckloads of money that…

Post by Narishma » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 3:32 PM UTC

nolok wrote: post #4

gtaylor wrote: post #2

On a somewhat related (non-mobile) note, I really regret buying my AMD 5870 three years ago. Things have changed quite a bit in that nvidia has done some serious work on their Linux binary drivers, while AMD's has been utterly unimpressive, if not embarrassingly bad. I understand that Linux has been a lesser priority for both companies, which is understandable. It's not going to make them the truckloads of money that…

The sad part is that, being on console hardware for a long time with chip derived from their main lines (and being in all 3 "main" consoles of this new generation), AMD obviously already has some great drivers for *nix systems, so it's not like they can't do it or would have to start from scratch. How much of that is legal impossibility, secrets protection or simply not caring enough, well ...

Post by hga » Mon, Feb 03, 2014, 4:00 PM UTC

zimbatm wrote: post #32

gtaylor wrote: post #2

On a somewhat related (non-mobile) note, I really regret buying my AMD 5870 three years ago. Things have changed quite a bit in that nvidia has done some serious work on their Linux binary drivers, while AMD's has been utterly unimpressive, if not embarrassingly bad. I understand that Linux has been a lesser priority for both companies, which is understandable. It's not going to make them the truckloads of money that…

Don't forget Intel. While their GMA chips don't have the performances of a Nvigia/AMD desktop GPU they have a much better track record at publishing code in the open. In fact I don't think there are even proprietary binary drivers for those.