best AMD motherboard for Linux
Sorry to bother you kernel hackers. I have a simple question.
I am about to buy a new AMD Athlon system and I want to make sure I get the hardware that works best with Linux. I am wondering whether I should get a nForce 2 or KT600 based motherboard. Specifically, I am looking at
Asus A7N8X-X
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-x/overview.htm
nForce 2
Realtek ALC650 sound card
Realtek 8201BL network card
and
Gigabyte GA-7VT600-P-L
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-7VT600-P-L.htm
Northbridge : VIA KT600
Southbridge : VIA VT8237
Realtek ALC655 AC97 sound card
Realtek 8101L NIC
My primary requiremnet is that it must work well with Linux. I can handle downloading & installing drivers. If it works out of the box (without downloading binary drivers) that's even better. I am also planning to get GeForce FX graphics card, if it makes a difference. So which board is more compatibile?
thanks in advance,
Eugene
WTF! I'm going mad YOU ignorant. Why the hell do you ask for such thing on LKML ? God bless mailing-lists...
ynezz
Signature · 1 line
A.C.A.B.
Hi Eugene :)
* Eugene <[email protected]> dixit:
Quoted 1 line
Asus A7N8X-X
Look for the chipset. I think all KT chipsets are supported.
IMHO your worst problem will be the video card :(( If you can
live with binary-only drivers, you can use nVidia, things like that. I don't know new video cards that provide open source drivers, or which ones are natively supported by the stock kernels, sorry :(
Quoted 1 line
Gigabyte GA-7VT600-P-L
This should be supported. KT400 is supported (AFAIK), so KT600
may work.
Quoted 1 line
planning to get GeForce FX graphics card, if it makes a difference.
Ask here before if you are planning to change your video card.
Quoted 1 line
So which board is more compatibile?
I would make my bet for the Gigabyte one...
* [email protected] <[email protected]> dixit:
Quoted 2 lines
WTF! I'm going mad YOU ignorant. Why the hell do you ask for such thing on LKML ? God bless mailing-lists...
Oh, ye olde kernel hacker... who hasn't write a line of code in
the kernel... Have you tried to be polite and stop making noise in the list? Eugene is not an ignorant, since he has asked. You, on the other hand, don't even have a name. Since you are very clever, you won't mind if I write in spanish, gilipollas tonto del culo, es gente como tú la que hace que las listas sean lugares insoportables, los gaznápiros mendrugos que se creen algo porque se saben de memoria las últimas notícias de los lugares para enterados. Bravo por tamaña expresión de estulticia. Ahora a ver si encuentras quien te traduzca esto, and sorry to the list for the flame bit, but I can't stand such gilipollas.
Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado
Signature · 2 lines
Linux Registered User 88736 http://www.pleyades.net & http://raul.pleyades.net/
Quoted 5 lines · DervishD
Hi Eugene :)
Oh, ye olde kernel hacker... who hasn't write a line of code in
the kernel... Have you tried to be polite and stop making noise in [...]
hey, be cool :)
and eugene: there are some websites, which are able to help you - normally much faster and better than any mailing-list can do. normally the distributor has a database with supported hardware. if you distributer has no database online have a look at websites from other distributors, maybe:
http://hardwaredb.suse.de/?LANG=en_UK
http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/
or:
http://www.linuxhardware.org/
i think that you will finde an answer much faster, than anybody can write an e-mail ;)
cu
pp
Quoted 3 lines · On Dec-28 2003, Sun, 18:48 +0100 DervishD <[email protected]> wrote:
Quoted 1 line
planning to get GeForce FX graphics card, if it makes a difference.
Ask here before if you are planning to change your video card.
nVidia translates to "trouble" around here. Selected Radeon cards, on the other hand, work perfectly with opensource drivers and should perform comparably.
Quoted 1 line
I would make my bet for the Gigabyte one...
Me too.
Quoted 3 lines
expresión de estulticia. Ahora a ver si encuentras quien te traduzca esto, and sorry to the list for the flame bit, but I can't stand such gilipollas.
Ignore the idiots if possible, it will make your life easier.
Signature · 1 line
Tomas Szepe <[email protected]>
I run the Asus KT600 w/ SATA, and all is dandy here. I love it, as my UP_IOAPIC works (is wired correctly) unlike on my Biostar board.
Quoted 26 lines · Patrick Plattes
Quoted 5 lines · DervishD
Hi Eugene :)
Oh, ye olde kernel hacker... who hasn't write a line of code in
the kernel... Have you tried to be polite and stop making noise in [...]hey, be cool :)
and eugene: there are some websites, which are able to help you - normally much faster and better than any mailing-list can do. normally the distributor has a database with supported hardware. if you distributer has no database online have a look at websites from other distributors, maybe:
http://hardwaredb.suse.de/?LANG=en_UK
http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/or:
http://www.linuxhardware.org/i think that you will finde an answer much faster, than anybody can write an e-mail ;)
cu
pp
Hi there, Mr. Dick. Such questions are relevant, and germane. This list is surprisingly suited to answer such questions.
Methinks /you're/ ignorant.
Quoted 4 lines · On Sun, 2003-12-28 at 11:20, [email protected] wrote:
WTF! I'm going mad YOU ignorant. Why the hell do you ask for such thing on LKML ? God bless mailing-lists...
ynezz
Quoted 10 lines · Tomas Szepe
Quoted 3 lines · On Dec-28 2003, Sun, 18:48 +0100 DervishD <[email protected]> wrote:
Quoted 1 line
planning to get GeForce FX graphics card, if it makes a difference.
Ask here before if you are planning to change your video card.
nVidia translates to "trouble" around here. Selected Radeon cards, on the other hand, work perfectly with opensource drivers and should perform comparably.
I'm not sure how you're defining "comparably". If you mean they get similar numbers from glxgears, that's possible. But the feature sets are not at all comparable. Nvidia's linux driver actually exposes the features available on modern graphics hardware.
If you're going to advise against the use of their products in a public forum, I suggest you be a lot more specific.
Quoted 7 lines · Derek Foreman
I'm not sure how you're defining "comparably". If you mean they get similar numbers from glxgears, that's possible. But the feature sets are not at all comparable. Nvidia's linux driver actually exposes the features available on modern graphics hardware.
If you're going to advise against the use of their products in a public forum, I suggest you be a lot more specific.
For me at least the nvidia driver substantially increased effort involved in dealing with a driver thats internals are not openly available, in boxes the test lots of kernels. notwithstanding that I still have two them.
When dealing with laptops and apm/acpi issues I'd vastly prefer to have a radeon mobility m7 in the box than virtually anything else, and rv200s have in general been extremely easy for us to support among our users given the integration of their drivers.
Quoted 6 lines
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More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
Signature · 3 lines
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joel Jaeggli Unix Consulting [email protected] GPG Key Fingerprint: 5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2
Quoted 8 lines · On Dec-30 2003, Tue, 12:32 -0600 Derek Foreman <[email protected]>…
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 3 lines
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planning to get GeForce FX graphics card, if it makes a difference.
Ask here before if you are planning to change your video card.
nVidia translates to "trouble" around here. Selected Radeon cards, on the other hand, work perfectly with opensource drivers and should perform comparably.
Quoted 7 lines
I'm not sure how you're defining "comparably". If you mean they get similar numbers from glxgears, that's possible. But the feature sets are not at all comparable. Nvidia's linux driver actually exposes the features available on modern graphics hardware.
If you're going to advise against the use of their products in a public forum, I suggest you be a lot more specific.
The person asking for advice was very articulate in what their primary concerns in choosing hardware were, and my suggestion was made with those in mind. Yes, I'm convinced that a binary only driver is not an adequate solution in "supporting linux."
And by the way, you are not being specific in naming the "features available on modern graphics hardware," either.
Signature · 1 line
Tomas Szepe <[email protected]>
Quoted 16 lines · Tomas Szepe
Quoted 13 lines · On Dec-30 2003, Tue, 12:32 -0600 Derek Foreman <[email protected]>…
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 3 lines
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planning to get GeForce FX graphics card, if it makes a difference.
Ask here before if you are planning to change your video card.
nVidia translates to "trouble" around here. Selected Radeon cards, on the other hand, work perfectly with opensource drivers and should perform comparably.
I'm not sure how you're defining "comparably". If you mean they get similar numbers from glxgears, that's possible. But the feature sets are not at all comparable. Nvidia's linux driver actually exposes the features available on modern graphics hardware.
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines
If you're going to advise against the use of their products in a public forum, I suggest you be a lot more specific.
The person asking for advice was very articulate in what their primary concerns in choosing hardware were, and my suggestion was made with those in mind.
His primary requirement was that it (the motherboard) work well with linux. He stated that he was capable of installing drivers if he had to, but it would be even better if it wasn't required.
Open source drivers, or whether nvidia fits your idea of a "linux supporting company" were not on the stated list of requirements.
In fact, the message wasn't even asking for an opinion on the graphics card.
Quoted 2 lines
Yes, I'm convinced that a binary only driver is not an adequate
solution in "supporting linux."
Paying people to write the driver, write documentation for the driver, and provide technical support for the driver does not meet your requirements for "supporting linux"... Your requirements seem steep indeed.
There are a lot of drivers in the linux source tree itself that are just as closed to you and I as the nvidia ones. Lots of companies only give out their documentation under NDA to "appropriate open source developers" (I thought one of the great things about opensource was that everyone was an "appropriate developer"). So while we can look at the source code, we don't have enough information about it to provide adequate peer review or to fix bugs in it ourselves.
We still have to contact whoever has the complete documentation, and we still have to wait for them to make a fix available.
Quoted 2 lines
And by the way, you are not being specific in naming the "features available on modern graphics hardware," either.
Vertex programs, fragment programs, vertex buffer objects, to name a few things. These are also available in the closed source ATI drivers.
Run glxinfo and look at the gl version strings and the supported extensions. I'll send you the output of mine off-list if you'd like to do a comparison.
If you really do have specific complaints about nvidia's drivers, it would be polite to email them first - they do reply to their linux-bugs email address.
Just claiming "nvidia translates into trouble" is really nothing more than FUD.
Quoted 16 lines · On Dec-30 2003, Tue, 18:46 -0600 Derek Foreman <[email protected]>…
Quoted 9 lines
Quoted 9 lines
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nVidia translates to "trouble" around here. Selected Radeon cards, on the other hand, work perfectly with opensource drivers and should perform comparably.
I'm not sure how you're defining "comparably". If you mean they get similar numbers from glxgears, that's possible. But the feature sets are not at all comparable. Nvidia's linux driver actually exposes the features available on modern graphics hardware.
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines
If you're going to advise against the use of their products in a public forum, I suggest you be a lot more specific.
The person asking for advice was very articulate in what their primary concerns in choosing hardware were, and my suggestion was made with those in mind.
Quoted 6 lines
His primary requirement was that it (the motherboard) work well with linux. He stated that he was capable of installing drivers if he had to, but it would be even better if it wasn't required.
Open source drivers, or whether nvidia fits your idea of a "linux supporting company" were not on the stated list of requirements.
Indirectly they were, if you admit that opensource drivers are "better" for Linux users. The person's goal was, let me quote, "to make sure I get the hardware that works best with Linux." I suggested they avoid nVidia, because _my opinion_ is that binary-only drivers do not "work best."
Quoted 2 lines
In fact, the message wasn't even asking for an opinion on the graphics card.
Yes and no, it did mention graphics hardware, and somebody started a subthread in which I reacted.
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines
Yes, I'm convinced that a binary only driver is not an adequate
solution in "supporting linux."Paying people to write the driver, write documentation for the driver, and provide technical support for the driver does not meet your requirements for "supporting linux"...
Indeed it doesn't -- this approach doesn't work for Linux. Might work for other operating systems, but it certainly doesn't work for Linux.
Quoted 1 line
Your requirements seem steep indeed.
Yes.
Quoted 7 lines
There are a lot of drivers in the linux source tree itself that are just as closed to you and I as the nvidia ones. Lots of companies only give out their documentation under NDA to "appropriate open source developers" (I thought one of the great things about opensource was that everyone was an "appropriate developer"). So while we can look at the source code, we don't have enough information about it to provide adequate peer review or to fix bugs in it ourselves.
Now, excuse me French, _this_ is a big load. Come back when you've tried to find out how a piece of hardware works with and without working driver sources.
Quoted 2 lines
We still have to contact whoever has the complete documentation, and we still have to wait for them to make a fix available.
Ok, I might not be able to add support for a new revision of a chip, true enough. Somebody will do it, eventually. The important thing you're ignoring is -- if such a driver is oopsing my box, I will be able to fix it.
Quoted 9 lines
Quoted 2 lines
And by the way, you are not being specific in naming the "features available on modern graphics hardware," either.
Vertex programs, fragment programs, vertex buffer objects, to name a few things. These are also available in the closed source ATI drivers.
Run glxinfo and look at the gl version strings and the supported extensions. I'll send you the output of mine off-list if you'd like to do a comparison.
No I don't, but thank you.
Quoted 3 lines
If you really do have specific complaints about nvidia's drivers, it would be polite to email them first - they do reply to their linux-bugs email address.
No, thanks, I've had my share with nVidia's oopsing drivers.
Quoted 2 lines
Just claiming "nvidia translates into trouble" is really nothing more than FUD.
No, it isn't. Search the lkml archives for "OOPS Tainted nvdriver."
Signature · 1 line
Tomas Szepe <[email protected]>
Quoted 7 lines · Tomas Szepe
Quoted 4 lines · On Dec-30 2003, Tue, 18:46 -0600 Derek Foreman <[email protected]>…
His primary requirement was that it (the motherboard) work well with linux. He stated that he was capable of installing drivers if he had to, but it would be even better if it wasn't required.
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines
Open source drivers, or whether nvidia fits your idea of a "linux supporting company" were not on the stated list of requirements.
Indirectly they were, if you admit that opensource drivers are "better" for Linux users. The person's goal was, let me quote, "to make sure I get the hardware that works best with Linux." I suggested they avoid nVidia, because
_myopinion_is that binary-only drivers do not "work best."
I think we're just going to have to disagree on what "work best" means. I choose to interpret it as a measure of driver functionality and performance.
Your definition of "work best" is based on a political agenda, and not on technical merit.
Quoted 11 lines
Quoted 7 lines
There are a lot of drivers in the linux source tree itself that are just as closed to you and I as the nvidia ones. Lots of companies only give out their documentation under NDA to "appropriate open source developers" (I thought one of the great things about opensource was that everyone was an "appropriate developer"). So while we can look at the source code, we don't have enough information about it to provide adequate peer review or to fix bugs in it ourselves.
Now, excuse me French, _this_ is a big load. Come back when you've tried to find out how a piece of hardware works with and without working driver sources.
Excuse you indeed. I have.
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 2 lines
We still have to contact whoever has the complete documentation, and we still have to wait for them to make a fix available.
Ok, I might not be able to add support for a new revision of a chip, true enough. Somebody will do it, eventually. The important thing you're ignoring is -- if such a driver is oopsing my box, I will be able to fix it.
You will be able to fix a certain subset of possible problems. Maybe you can fix an OOPS or BUG if they're obvious enough, and have to do with kernel interfaces and not the hardware itself.
If the driver is not properly accessing the hardware, and you don't have the documentation, it's as much a black box to you as nvidia.o.
Quoted 4 lines
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Just claiming "nvidia translates into trouble" is really nothing more than FUD.
No, it isn't. Search the lkml archives for "OOPS Tainted nvdriver."
Of course it is. And you're doing it again. Performing that search doesn't give any evidence that "nvidia is trouble", or even that their graphics driver is unstable. But the implication is that nvidia's drivers will cause me problems.
This is getting quite unfocused. My intended point is that saying "<foo> is trouble" without any detail at all is misleading. It gives the impression that <foo> may not operate correctly, when the real issue at hand here is that it is closed source.
Derek Foreman wrote the following on 01/01/2004 07:15 AM :
Quoted 24 lines · Tomas Szepe
Quoted 12 lines
Quoted 4 lines · On Dec-30 2003, Tue, 18:46 -0600 Derek Foreman <[email protected]>…
His primary requirement was that it (the motherboard) work well with linux. He stated that he was capable of installing drivers if he had to, but it would be even better if it wasn't required.
Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 4 lines
Open source drivers, or whether nvidia fits your idea of a "linux supporting company" were not on the stated list of requirements.
Indirectly they were, if you admit that opensource drivers are "better" for Linux users. The person's goal was, let me quote, "to make sure I get the hardware that works best with Linux." I suggested they avoid nVidia, because
_myopinion_is that binary-only drivers do not "work best."
Quoted 9 lines
I think we're just going to have to disagree on what "work best" means. I choose to interpret it as a measure of driver functionality and performance.
Your definition of "work best" is based on a political agenda, and not on technical merit.
Linux isn't a closed-source system where binary APIs are frozen, so working best with a set of specific kernels (and I don't even say kernel versions, I *mean* kernels, just search for threads on nvidia with kernels built with some perfectly legit gcc flags) doesn't mean it is working best with Linux. What if Nvidia goes bankrupt in the future like 3DFX did, what do you do with your card ? throw it away ?
I type this e-mail on a Sony PCG-GRT785B laptop which happen to use a Geforce Go 420 chip. Until the 5328 nvidia driver, I couldn't even switch to a text console after starting X (search for this type of problems and you'll see that the laptop support is really lacking in their drivers). Even now software suspend is out of the question when the nvidia kernel module is loaded (even with X stopped). I was aware of the fact that I could encounter these problems when I purchased the laptop and was ready to use the OSS XFree driver without 3D support (unfortunately I found out that the ones shipped with RH9 don't work), so I assume them, but it's hardly what I'll call "working best"...
There's nothing political in saying that binary drivers don't work best. In fact it assumes a minimum understanding of the technical aspects involved in a Linux kernel to understand *why* they can't work best...
Signature · 7 lines
Lionel Bouton - inet6 --------------------------------------------------------------------- o Siege social: 51, rue de Verdun - 92158 Suresnes / _ __ _ Acces Bureaux: 33 rue Benoit Malon - 92150 Suresnes / /\ /_ / /_ France \/ \/_ / /_/ Tel. +33 (0) 1 41 44 85 36 Inetsys S.A. Fax +33 (0) 1 46 97 20 10
Quoted 7 lines · El Thu, 01 Jan 2004 18:04:07 +0100 Lionel Bouton <[email protected]>…
Linux isn't a closed-source system where binary APIs are frozen, so working best with a set of specific kernels (and I don't even say kernel versions, I *mean* kernels, just search for threads on nvidia with kernels built with some perfectly legit gcc flags) doesn't mean it is working best with Linux.
What if Nvidia goes bankrupt in the future like 3DFX did, what do you do with your card ? throw it away ?
Yeah! I own a voodoo 3 3000 card. I've 100% opensource drivers. Under windows XP, I suffer from hangs while playing some games. And looking at the memory dump, the reponsible is the graphics driver, which isn't updated just because tdfx has dissapeared, hence my voodoo card is condemned to hang my box forever under windows.
And if anyone had a tdfx card in a powerpc machine, they could use it. Unlike the propietary drivers: you have to use the framebuffer in your ibook (with linux) because you don't have drivers for PPC. However, Mac OS X has them....
Thanks for cutting down on the CCs, this is getting out of hand.
Quoted 5 lines · Lionel Bouton
Linux isn't a closed-source system where binary APIs are frozen, so working best with a set of specific kernels (and I don't even say kernel versions, I *mean* kernels, just search for threads on nvidia with kernels built with some perfectly legit gcc flags) doesn't mean it is working best with Linux.
There are features available in both the ati and nvidia closed source drivers that are not available in DRI. If I want "full use" of my hardware, then DRI is does not "work best" for me.
Regardless, I should not have used the word "political" in my response to Tomas.
Quoted 2 lines
What if Nvidia goes bankrupt in the future like 3DFX did, what do you do with your card ? throw it away ?
What would probably happen, as has happened with the aureal vortex, is that someone would maintain the open source wrapper. Possibly until someone reverse engineered the driver (as happened with the aureal vortex)
- but I wouldn't hold my breath on that for something as complicated as a graphics card.
Quoted 10 lines
I type this e-mail on a Sony PCG-GRT785B laptop which happen to use a Geforce Go 420 chip. Until the 5328 nvidia driver, I couldn't even switch to a text console after starting X (search for this type of problems and you'll see that the laptop support is really lacking in their drivers). Even now software suspend is out of the question when the nvidia kernel module is loaded (even with X stopped). I was aware of the fact that I could encounter these problems when I purchased the laptop and was ready to use the OSS XFree driver without 3D support (unfortunately I found out that the ones shipped with RH9 don't work), so I assume them, but it's hardly what I'll call "working best"...
Is nvidia aware of this issue? If you're forced to keep that laptop, it might be worth your time to bring it up with them.
Better would be to return the laptop and follow Joel Jaeggli's advice from earlier in this same thread, but unfortunately that's probably not an option.
Quoted 3 lines
There's nothing political in saying that binary drivers don't work best. In fact it assumes a minimum understanding of the technical aspects involved in a Linux kernel to understand *why* they can't work best...
The closed source modules "work best" for me, as some of the code I play with uses vertex buffer objects.
I realize that tomorrow nvidia could drop linux support, next week someone could discover that echo HI\ MOM > /dev/nvidiactl gives them a root shell.
But for my situation, these things are an acceptable trade for the added toys.
Quoted 36 lines · Lionel Bouton
Derek Foreman wrote the following on 01/01/2004 07:15 AM :
Quoted 24 lines · Tomas Szepe
Quoted 12 lines
Quoted 4 lines · On Dec-30 2003, Tue, 18:46 -0600 Derek Foreman <[email protected]>…
His primary requirement was that it (the motherboard) work well with linux. He stated that he was capable of installing drivers if he had to, but it would be even better if it wasn't required.
Quoted 10 lines
Quoted 4 lines
Open source drivers, or whether nvidia fits your idea of a "linux supporting company" were not on the stated list of requirements.
Indirectly they were, if you admit that opensource drivers are "better" for Linux users. The person's goal was, let me quote, "to make sure I get the hardware that works best with Linux." I suggested they avoid nVidia, because
_myopinion_is that binary-only drivers do not "work best."Quoted 9 lines
I think we're just going to have to disagree on what "work best" means. I choose to interpret it as a measure of driver functionality and performance.
Your definition of "work best" is based on a political agenda, and not on technical merit.
Quoted 8 lines
Linux isn't a closed-source system where binary APIs are frozen, so working best with a set of specific kernels (and I don't even say kernel versions, I *mean* kernels, just search for threads on nvidia with kernels built with some perfectly legit gcc flags) doesn't mean it is working best with Linux.
What if Nvidia goes bankrupt in the future like 3DFX did, what do you do with your card ? throw it away ?
The point which you and some of the others that maybe did not use 2.5.* on systems with nvidia cards, is that only the very specific hardware calls is closed source (nvidia.o), the rest (kernel interface, agp, vm, etc) is done with source that you need to compile. Thus we already (thanks to great work from a few guys at minion.de) used a 2.4 driver with 2.5. Also, a lot of 2.5/6 bugs, and guess what, even 2.4 vm bugs was fixed, because we had most the source.
I even used it later with 2.5 and NPTL (when the first versions of the GLX part that supported TLS came out), and to be honest, I have had very little problems. If I could not fix something myself, it was usually very quickly fixed minion.de side. Sure, maybe I am just lucky (or maybe its because I do not use AMD, or VIA chipset mobo - bug that is another story :D), but the fact is that for a _lot_ of us out there, we had nVidia cards going 3D, while the DRM/DRI was in a state of flux. To be honest, _I_ have not had much success with DRI in general. If I could get it to work (this means it actually initializes, and glxgears/glxinfo seems to use direct rendering) with the SIS box at work, or with an ATI card I borrowed, it would create artifacts, lockup, or such. You do not hear me going off about DRI on the list?
On the other hand, it seems you had issues :/ Maybe check that you did not use rivafb - I never had issues like yours *shrug*.
I guess the point Derek wanted to make, and where I want to fill in, is that you cannot say for a fact that something will work, or not for all. For some, the nvidia drivers works great, and if you are into games, it will prob give better performance. For some it wont. For some DRI works, for others, not. And the 'its a binary driver, so you cannot debug/fix it' does not hold the same as it used to these days with the new types of ati/nvidia drivers.
If you are a 'open source fanatic', please keep your wits with you, and do not try to get everything into a 'closed source is evil' argument. I am sure most of us are to some extend fanatic about open source, but there is a time and a place. The fact is, unless something drastically happens to the commercial sector, we will always have companies that do not want to fully release all specs, as they do not want to loose their 'edge' - but you do not have to support them, right?
Hey, its Linux - we have the choice, right? Unfortunately it seems that some still want to take that choice from others :/
<ramble/>
Signature · 1 line
Martin Schlemmer
Derek Foreman wrote the following on 01/01/2004 10:44 PM :
Quoted 8 lines
[...]
There are features available in both the ati and nvidia closed source drivers that are not available in DRI. If I want "full use" of my hardware, then DRI is does not "work best" for me.
We could argue endlessly on that subject. Let's agree that what *practically* works best for one doesn't automatically for another. My "best" in "they can't work best" conclusion referred to the utopic bug-free, adaptable to whatever changes in new kernels happen during the 21st century driver.
Quoted 4 lines
What would probably happen, as has happened with the aureal vortex, is that someone would maintain the open source wrapper.
You can't bet on it. You don't know which assumptions the binary code part makes on kernel structures' layouts.
Quoted 1 line
Is nvidia aware of this issue?
Yes they are, a bug report was already filed to them when I searched before posting mine. For the text mode, according to the nvidia people answering on their support forums this seems to come from the various ways hardware are initialised depending on the actual VGA BIOS. For the software suspend problem that bites me now this is probably the lack of ACPI support in their driver they are already well aware of but as swsusp is a patch to the 2.4 (and now 2.6), I don't think they'll take a bug report seriously anyway.
Quoted 6 lines
Better would be to return the laptop and follow Joel Jaeggli's advice from earlier in this same thread, but unfortunately that's probably not an option.
This laptop was the best hardware I could buy for the money and my needs. In fact my problems with the nvidia driver weren't even supposed to exist as I first planned to go the XFree86 nv driver way (without 3D support as I don't need it). Unfortunately, the LCD panel isn't setup properly by the OSS driver version distributed with RH9. I didn't have time to try XFree86 CVS so proprietary I went...
Quoted 11 lines
The closed source modules "work best" for me, as some of the code I play with uses vertex buffer objects.
I realize that tomorrow nvidia could drop linux support, next week someone could discover that echo HI\ MOM >
/dev/nvidiactlgives them a root shell.But for my situation, these things are an acceptable trade for the added toys.
As I said I agree that "work best for me" is obviously a variable...
My e-mail was only meant to bring some facts to the discussion describing the problems with proprietary drivers not a "burn all unholy hardware without proper OSS driver" flamewar starter. In the hope that will help cool things down a little, best regards and happy new year,
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