Linus Torvalds Calls NVIDIA The Worst Company Ever

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Not only did Linus Torvalds just say NVIDIA was the "worst company" he's ever dealt with, he capped off his comments with a big fat FU** YOU. :eek:

"Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, has called out NVIDIA for their poor graphics drivers in a public presentation. In the talk he called NVIDIA "the single worst company we have ever dealt with" and ended his green comments with "NVIDIA: F*CK YOU!" "
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Is AMD any better at this moment? I know years ago ATI was even worse when it came to drivers in the open source world.
 
It's funny because they have one of the best drivers in the Linux world. He is just mad because they are closed source.

They are the most stable and highest performing as well.

The closed and open source AMD Drivers are both equally terrible, and the open source NVidia driver is a joke.
 
LOL sounds like a well thought out and rational response to one not getting his way
 
He's not getting what he wants from them so he throws a fit like a little girl.

What's more amusing/sad is listening to fanboys about this incident.
 
What a tool. I tried to get an "open source friendly" AMD card working with linux and the performance was so terrible I gave up and bought a cheap NVIDIA card. If my drivers were THAT much better than my competitors I wouldn't want to open them up to the world either.:rolleyes:
 
krogen said:
Is AMD any better at this moment? I know years ago ATI was even worse when it came to drivers in the open source world.
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Here's the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19jUboon5gI&feature=related

The point is that AMD doesn't sell graphic chips for Linux, like Nvidia does. Tegra specifically. It's also about working with the company, not how well they can create drivers. Nvidia chooses to stay mute for the most part to developers.
 
The critical thinking skills of most of the people responding to this thread really make me despair for the human race.

Ashbringer said:
The point is that AMD doesn't sell graphic chips for Linux, like Nvidia does. Tegra specifically. It's also about working with the company, not how well they can create drivers. Nvidia chooses to stay mute for the most part to developers.
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The only person in the thread who has understood the discussion so far.

quimby999 said:
who really cares what Linus Torvalds thinks?
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Umm... a LOT of people, actually.
 
Torvalds should get down on his knees and thank any company who gets involved with Linux in any capacity. nVidia, along with AMD and the rest of them, owes "Linux" little or nothing, in my estimation. However, they owe their respective customers quite a lot, and if those customers indicate a respectable demand for Linux support then I have no doubt but that these companies will support Linux to that degree. The problem that Torvalds refuses to face is that in terms of the consumer desktop market, Linux is pretty much DOA and has been that way for years. The general consumer market demand for a Linux OS is simply not there.

While Torvalds may consider it his duty to push and promote Linux in whatever flavor of its distribution he wishes, it's not nVidia's job or duty in any capacity. While Torvalds may consider it paramount to promote Linux and commit himself to it, nVidia operates under no such compulsion--and I don't know of any other company that does aside from those companies who sell Linux OS versions themselves. Torvalds does not appear to understand the very markets he complains about.
 
krogen said:
Is AMD any better at this moment? I know years ago ATI was even worse when it came to drivers in the open source world.
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As far as open source support, yea. They push things like openCL/openGL and their drivers have improved drastically over the past 2 years.

nVidia are a pain to work with when it comes to support despite the public's view of their driver status being king of the hill. They usually just brush developers off, namely small developers and open source developers, and they push closed standards for all of their products.

I don't see why people are surprised when Linus says something like this. Despite historically providing better driver support for their GPUs, nVidia is about the least open source supportive company on the planet :p
 
lol relevance? the guy oversees Linux kernel development and with Android going more Linux now, Nivida has alot at stake with Tegra.
 
WaltC said:
Torvalds should get down on his knees and thank any company who gets involved with Linux in any capacity. nVidia, along with AMD and the rest of them, owes "Linux" little or nothing, in my estimation. However, they owe their respective customers quite a lot, and if those customers indicate a respectable demand for Linux support then I have no doubt but that these companies will support Linux to that degree. The problem that Torvalds refuses to face is that in terms of the consumer desktop market, Linux is pretty much DOA and has been that way for years. The general consumer market demand for a Linux OS is simply not there.

While Torvalds may consider it his duty to push and promote Linux in whatever flavor of its distribution he wishes, it's not nVidia's job or duty in any capacity. While Torvalds may consider it paramount to promote Linux and commit himself to it, nVidia operates under no such compulsion--and I don't know of any other company that does aside from those companies who sell Linux OS versions themselves. Torvalds does not appear to understand the very markets he complains about.
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1 word and your entire paragraph that you put a whole lot of work into collapses. What's that word?

Android.

The fastest growing operating system on the planet is also a Linux OS.

It doesn't stop at mobile, either. nVidia sells Teslas/Quadros that often go into Linux HPCs or workstations as well (remember Red Hat is a billion dollar enterprise server corp. based on RH Linux).

nVidia doesn't want open source competition to succeed though. They're making a lot of money on proprietary CUDA support as opposed to openCL (they technically support it but their openCL performance sucks). It's also not an issue of drivers being difficult to develop for the workstation/HPC crowd either. The drivers for those segments are usually far easier to get right than the desktop gaming crowd due to the sheer amount of engines/platforms and games that inhabit the PC gaming arena. The HPC crowd do it themselves if nVidia doesn't want to. Optimizations/recompiling and firmware support are all commonly done there anyway. The issue here is them not being allowed to and they're required to hold nVidia's hand and if nVidia says no then you've got nowhere else to go.

He's right to bitch and moan. Now if only AMD starts selling GCN HPC-focused GPUs for GPGPU...
 
I could careless about open source if the software sucks. The open source flash alternatives for linux blew so hard when I used them that they locked my computer up (this was about 5 years ago so maybe its better now). Ati's drivers blew in linux as well. I'd rather have something that works great than something that is open source and sucks.
 
munkle said:
I could careless about open source if the software sucks. The open source flash alternatives for linux blew so hard when I used them that they locked my computer up (this was about 5 years ago so maybe its better now). Ati's drivers blew in linux as well. I'd rather have something that works great than something that is open source and sucks.
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Where Linux is nonexistent on the desktop it dominates on server/HPC/embedded and mobile. nVidia could give two shits about their desktop Linux support via drivers, it's the fact that Linux is everywhere else where nVidia makes money that should trouble them.
 
Mr. Torvalds was either having a bad die or has personal issue going on with someone at Nvidia.
 
If Linus acts like that most of the time (I hear more about him bitching than praising), maybe its that companies don't want to deal with that aspect. I do see his point, but crying and bitching about it won't get him any further. Probably a step back, if anything.

NVIDIA has some work to do, of course (Android, server utilization of CUDA/OpenCL). There are a lot (LOT) of servers out there running Linux. There are also a lot more devices running Android on NVIDIA hardware. Just don't get some crying, bitching, moaning little bitch up there to bad mouth the people you want to support your product. I've never liked Linus. He's always been that way, and he won't change. I do love Linux, though.
 
Love the nVidia fanboys all attacking, that's rather funny. Linus is nothing, didn't really do much at all...right

Tegra failing is a big big deal and it sounds like again nVidias drivers aren't the be all end all of drivers.
 
It's more funny when someone with a recognizable name does something like this than when one the common folk does it.
 
shad0w4life said:
Love the nVidia fanboys all attacking, that's rather funny. Linus is nothing, didn't really do much at all...right

Tegra failing is a big big deal and it sounds like again nVidias drivers aren't the be all end all of drivers.
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It's not the drivers but rather nVidia not allowing developers access to the hardware/firmware. On the desktop where your drivers revolve around games that's not a big idea. nVidia releases new drivers and you download them. The games were developed with nVidia hardware in hand. Done and done. On the phone/tablet end where software development has exploded then you're locking out people because you want to sell your proprietary CUDA.

openCL has exploded the past 2-3 years and nVidia has put their collective fingers in their ears and closed their eyes and played dumb. While they technically support it, they can't back it up with performance and the FOSS-nature of the language because they've still got their CUDA baby.

Tegra 3 isn't failing currently and it's actually a very good chip. The issue Tegra 3 has is Qualcomm Snapdragon absolutely kicks its ass and the A15 Cortex chip will also whoop it. Neither of those chips carry the same restrictive nature to developers and the community as the Tegra chips do.
 
I wanted to add (but we can't edit our news-article posts) that most people like Torvalds and even some Apple x86 clone ("Mac") customers, operate under the opinion that the vast majority of people use Windows because they are forced to--that they either don't have a choice about it, or either don't know that they have a choice, etc. As long as they operate under such confused, erroneous conceptions their respective product niches will never advance in the general markets much farther than is currently the case, imo.

The majority of people on earth use Windows by choice simply because it is the most useful OS on the market in terms of its 3rd-party hardware and software support. It supports more of both, by a wide margin, than either OS X or your pick of Linux distributions. Achieving this milestone has cost Microsoft an enormous amount of investment over the last twenty years on a consistent annual basis, an investment that, so far, no other OS company has attempted to match. So, it's hardly surprising that the consumer OS market share numbers worldwide of Windows @ 90+%, OS X @ ~5%, and Linux desktop @ ~1% have remained relatively static year in and year out for decades. What year, long past, was projected to be "The year of the Linux desktop"? The phrase has become a joke ever since.

The great majority of people don't use an OS for the sake of the OS itself, its GUI, command line, shell, underlying code structure and so on--they use it primarily to support the kinds of hardware and software they prefer buying. As likely 98%-99% of nVidia's customers buy the company's discrete gpus to run under Windows--more precisely, to run 3d games under Windows and D3d--why would nVidia's attitude be any different?
 
Banko said:
It's funny because they have one of the best drivers in the Linux world. He is just mad because they are closed source.

They are the most stable and highest performing as well.

The closed and open source AMD Drivers are both equally terrible, and the open source NVidia driver is a joke.
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Exactly.

Nvidias closed source drivers are the best graphics drivers for Linux. Period. No exception.


From a functionality perspective today, closed source drivers are performing much better than open source ones.

Nvidias closed source drivers > AMD's Closed source drivers.

AMD's Open Source drivers > Nvidias Open source drivers.

I respect Linus Thorvalds for all he has done, but with this I feel he is going a bit overboard.

To understand his comments you really have to understand that there are many in the Open Source community that see ANY closed source software at all as evil and the enemy. They demand that their systems run free of any closed source software, even to the detriment of functionality.

He is really just butt hurt because Nvidia doesn't accept his ideal of open source everything. While that ideal is beautiful, we exist in a real world, not an ideal world, and it is not surprising to me that Nvidia would want to keep its drivers closed source, to avoid giving up trade secrets.

I personally feel this is silly. I like the open source movement, but I have no problems with using closed source drivers or other software on my linux boxes when it is the best functioning option.

All this zealotry about keeping closed source out of Linux and all these hissy fits just make him look like a big baby.

There are a lot of advantages to having open source, but it is also unreasonable to expect for profit companies to give away their source code, or other specifications that can diminish their competitive advantage. In cases like these, closed source drivers are a compromise, but a good one, as having closed source support is better than having no support at all, especially considering how tough a time the noveau team is having reverse engineering nvidia drivers in an open source form.
 
Hey Linus, if you don't like it, then quit bitching and create your own damn open-source device drivers. Afterall, you invented and coded Linux more than 20 years ago, ffs.
 
DarthBeavis said:
I thought he was talking about NVIDIA Optimus. That is not Android-related.
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It was about Optimus and lack of Linux support entirely. They essentially have come out and said that we'll never support Optimus for Linux (the

He also said he's never dealt with worse than nVidia and most of his dealings are related to mobile/server/HPC rather than desktop where Optimus doesn't exist. Thus, the issue with lack of Linux support for the desktop via Optimus is just a symptom of a much larger problem for them.

nVidia licenses ARM cores and ISAs but ARM is also a member of the HSA foundation that's pushing openCL, along with Apple, one of their biggest customers being one of the founders of openCL.

Optimus support just one problem and it's the smallest one.
 
Disappointed on most comments in this thread... :(

Clearly not many people have worked in development it seems.
 
pelo said:
It was about Optimus and lack of Linux support entirely. They essentially have come out and said that we'll never support Optimus for Linux (the

He also said he's never dealt with worse than nVidia and most of his dealings are related to mobile/server/HPC rather than desktop where Optimus doesn't exist. Thus, the issue with lack of Linux support for the desktop via Optimus is just a symptom of a much larger problem for them.

nVidia licenses ARM cores and ISAs but ARM is also a member of the HSA foundation that's pushing openCL, along with Apple, one of their biggest customers being one of the founders of openCL.

Optimus support just one problem and it's the smallest one.
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So Optimus is not supported on Linux.

Big deal. Buy a laptop that doesn't rely on optimus to run linux.

Linux hardware support is nowhere near universal in general. You have to pick your hardware specifically for linux anyway, no matter what you do, so this really isn't a HUGE deal.

More like an annoyance.
 
It isn't a big deal. Honestly, who cares about Optimus support on Linux when you can only utilize it via desktop GPUs? Optimus is incredibly small and it doesn't matter.

But like I said, the issue here is far bigger than that for nVidia than mere Optimus support.

AMD Publishes Open-Source HD 7000, Trinity Code
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ARM joins HSA and pushes openCL as a standard

And openCL has garnered more support with developers in the last 2-3 years than CUDA has ever had (outside of HPC where openCL is just beginning to take hold).

Apple has reportedly set an industry record by moving its OpenCL parallel computing standard from its beginnings to imminent approval in half a year, paving the way for its inclusion in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
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It's not about Optimus but rather the attitude towards FOSS that's kicking nVidia in the balls. Proprietary CUDA is going to dig them a deep grave. nVidia licenses ARM cores and the ISA. Most of its products outside of the desktop GPUs are running on Linux.

PDHeadInSand.gif
 
And here I was all thrilled that Linux was going to get a Steam client and see some major growth. Now NVidia is gonna snub them because Linus can't act like an adult.
 
The more I hear about this guy the more he just seems like a whiny snob.

Sure Linux is very useful for many circumstances, but even in the circumstances its most useful I dont know that it would be if it were not free and open source. This is also its downfall when it comes to 3rd party support/drivers, companies want to make money, why spend resources on something that has no ROI?

In many cases Linux drivers are just garbage, nvidia is the only one? How about a working fucking wifi driver for my laptop? Umm, no, too much to ask? Ok so if I want to run Linux on my laptop I just have to deal with the connection dropping all the time? Uh no thanks think I'll just stick to an OS with working drivers.
 
Im going to have to go with AMD having better Linux drivers.
Ill admit I personally dont know this but I will listen to the creator.
 
I don't blame NVIDIA. When I worked at HP, the specs for our in-house microprocessor used in iLO was under lock and key on a purely need-to-know basis. To expect NVIDIA to release all their specs and years of design work for the community's benefit is ridiculous.

Yes, I know ATI released their specs. I think it was stupid and would never in a million years have done that if I was in charge.
 
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