Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds • Hacker News Board

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#51

Post by AlexDanger » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 1:27 AM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #4

TLDR: Linus at a Q&A, a woman asks why Nvidia still isn't providing any support for Optimus on Linux, Linus responds that Nvidia is being really difficult about that without good reason and "Fuck You Nvidia!" (flicks off the camera). Her question actually starts a minute earlier than the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShbP3OpASA&t=48m14s PS - Bravo Linus. This is issue is a real PITA, and a bit incongruent con…

Later in the talk someone says they are working for nVidia and doing something with Tegra. I couldnt quite make it out, what is he saying?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShbP3OpASA&feature=playe...

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#52

Post by kristofferR » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 1:31 AM UTC

The title you gave it doesn't make much sense considering what this post/part of the speech and following discussion really is about - Nvidia's lack of support for Linux and Linus' reaction.

You should have titled it "Linus Torvalds Angry at Nvidia, Flips the Finger at Speach" or something.

That would have been more descriptive, just a heads up for next time! ;)

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#53

Post by StephenFalken » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 1:34 AM UTC

We desperately need open sourced chip cores. An open community would build them with open source EDA tools and the final tapeout would be physically produced by a foundry. I know open source EDA tools are still decades away from proprietary ones, but we won't go anywhere if we don't start somewhere.

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#54

Post by fmoralesc » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 1:38 AM UTC

paol wrote: post #34

flabbergasted wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Intel and ATI, Nvidia doesn't play nice with open source developers.

While this is true, nvidia's closed-source drivers do have the virtue of actually working . (ok, this is slightly unfair to intel's video drivers, they work fine as long as you don't need 3D acceleration)

I must have hallucinated playing 3d games on my intel-based systems. (Of course, performance isn't great, but it doesn't work bad at all, at least in my experience).

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#55

Post by castilhor » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 1:57 AM UTC

here's a gif http://cl.ly/313u2y471p1F0G3Q1a2i

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#56

Post by thristian » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 2:00 AM UTC

psykotic wrote: post #48

flabbergasted wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real issue is that Nvidia is the most closed when it comes to releasing specs. With the proper specs, open source developers will produce better drivers than Nvidia.

> With the proper specs, open source developers will produce better drivers than Nvidia. That may be true for specific features like Optimus--I can't say. But if you're talking about writing a full 3D driver stack for a modern GPU, you're almost certainly underestimating the effort involved by several orders of magnitude. NVIDIA has hundreds of full-time software engineers working on the various parts of the GPU driv…

Nobody disputes that nVidia's drivers (and hardware) excel at pushing textured triangles, but that particular measurement is fairly high up Maslow's Hierarchy of Video Driver Needs. As I understand it, people generally want nVidia drivers to be open source so they can add solid support for things like XRandR (instead of stupid TwinView), reliable suspend/resume, kernel mode-setting, that kind of stuff.

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#57

Post by twelvechairs » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 2:03 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #25

alecco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't reflect his opinion. First, Linus states Nvidia is an exception, one of the worst trouble spots. And he is also very upset because Nvidia at the same time tries to sell a lot of chips into the Android market, a Linux based system. Very ungrateful of Nvidia. I agree, fuck Nvidia.

Ungrateful? Since when is that part of any sensible business plan? I don't know why Linus would expect a corporation to devote significant resources to an endeavor out of kindness. Nvidia will play nicely with Linux when it becomes in their financial interests to do so. Edit: I expected downvotes and I'll gladly take them if someone can explain to me how Nvidia is being unreasonable.

> Nvidia will play nicely with Linux when it becomes in their financial interests to do so.

Not to disagree with your point (which is right), but It becomes in NVidia's financial interests when they have negative press coverage because someone like Linus says bad things about them.

I hope you understand what I am saying. Linus isn't just talking in an abstract-intellectual environment, his voice is strongly publicised and is here he is using it as an activist, to force NVidia into action. Its all part of the game...

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#58

Post by saurik » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 2:06 AM UTC

The original title of this submission was 'Linus to Nvidia: "Fuck You"', which was renamed by someone (the moderators? can the submitter change the title?) after a ton of people had upvoted and commented on it, and despite the link being not to the entire video but instead to a specific point in the video for which the title of the entire video is probably not even an appropriate description.

So, when people are reading the comments of this submission in the future, please keep this in mind as a historical note. (This, humorously, was actually the kind of situation that caused the complaint[1] that itself turned into a massive hullabaloo recently regarding what can be discussed on HN and what the policies regarding hell-banning are; to view the reference you will need showdead.)

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4102013

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#59

Post by sp332 » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 2:07 AM UTC

cpinto wrote: post #35

Let the memes begin! Here's an image template of Linus giving the finger: https://skitch.com/cpinto/ebemj/linus

Try posting it to http://canv.as/ you might get a better response :)

Re: Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds

#60

Post by thristian » Sun, Jun 17, 2012, 2:10 AM UTC

paol wrote: post #34

flabbergasted wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Intel and ATI, Nvidia doesn't play nice with open source developers.

While this is true, nvidia's closed-source drivers do have the virtue of actually working . (ok, this is slightly unfair to intel's video drivers, they work fine as long as you don't need 3D acceleration)

So far as I can tell, I get similar frame-rates under X11 with Wine as Windows users do on the same hardware. Intel's video drivers are wonderful, including for 3D acceleration, it's just their hardware that's lacking.