Linus Torvalds Calls NVIDIA The Worst Company Ever

[Ashbringer]

why are open source drivers such a big deal? Just curiuos

Cause Nvidia and AMD can and will put older hardware in Legacy state, which means they'll stop supporting older hardware. Also, if companies don't end up providing drivers at all for certain hardware, such as the Optimus that's getting a lot of attention.

Linux is a constantly changing OS, that needs drivers to always keep up. Without constant support, people won't be able to use the latest distro or kernel. Open source is a great way to keep the support up to date, without needing helping hands from manufacturers, which are likely to be unwilling anyway.

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.

Open Source sucks cause Nvidia doesn't provide any details about their hardware. All information has to be reversed engineered.

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.

What is wrong with everyone in this thread? Does anybody know anything about development? If Nvidia doesn't work with anyone, then what good are the drivers? Especially if they don't exist.

Like I said, this wouldn't be such a big deal if Nvidia wasn't pushing their hardware into Linux. Tegra is popping up all over the place, but it's competitors are doing a much better job supplying source code. Nvidia is trying to protect their IP, cause I'm sure a lot of work went into those drivers, but there needs to be some communication. Qualcomm is going to release the source code for their chips.

With the news of PowerVR trying to make a comeback to PC's, Nvidia could soon become very irrelevant.

 

[wiseoracle]

Umm... a LOT of people, actually.

Not me.

 

[Jagger100]

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.

I think that's the point.

Without hardware makers coming to the table, Linux drivers will always be crap.

nvidia sells hardware and not drivers so I don't see why they want to be permanently trapped to Windows themselves.

And I think the frustration is probably not disconnected from rumblings of a Linux Steamworks.

I mean really for the home what do computers do? e-mail, browsing, taxes, storing media and gaming. Linux does the first 3 well enough. Probably the 4th as well. Its the last one that keeps Linux out of many homes.

 

[PRIME1]

What is wrong with everyone in this thread? Does anybody know anything about development? If Nvidia doesn't work with anyone, then what good are the drivers? Especially if they don't exist.

You should really watch the whole video. At the end there is a developer hired by NVIDIA to support the open source community. He basically says to Linus "Thanks for the middle finger". Linus stands there stunned with his foot in his mouth. He responds by saying "I like making outrageous statements" and "I bet this will make 1000 people on the internet angry".

Always good to have the whole story. I see both sides. I can understand Linus being frustrated by not getting full access to hardware. However, I also understand a company may not be able to or may not feel safe to completely open up their hardware.

Tempest in a teapot really.

 

[DarthBeavis]

 

[Seraphical]

I think it would have been more effective if he had just promoted their (Nvidia) competitors as the way to go (due to open source drivers) when making your Linux/Optimus based purchases. Between the pressure of having your competitors kicking your ass and now an added pressure of having big names out you as a viable alternative... strides would have been made to get a little deeper in the open source pool by the Nvidia big wigs. Money talks right?

A big F you / middle finger isn't going to push them any harder or stick in the minds of anyone important (aside from chuckle factor).

 

[soulman901]

Linux one of the worst Operating Systems I've ever had to deal with and I'll raise a middle to both him and Richard Stallman. How do you like that now Penguin.

 

[SkribbelKat]

What's his face...the Mac guy...his legs are all bowed in a slight, but really disturbing way.

 

[Guarana [BAWLS]]

Linux one of the worst Operating Systems I've ever had to deal with and I'll raise a middle to both him and Richard Stallman. How do you like that now Penguin.

Really bad troll is really bad.

Dude, seriously, that was beyond weak. You can do better'n that.

 

[qdemn7]

"I don't game."

"I like being outrageous at times."

"I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended."

All Linus Torvalds quotes from the end of this video.

And us non-developers are supposed to respect this man? I think he's an arrogant jerk.

 

[Jagger100]

Linux one of the worst Operating Systems I've ever had to deal with and I'll raise a middle to both him and Richard Stallman. How do you like that now Penguin.

Linux gets a little better each year and little more user friendly. And there is a good enough point. In fact Microsoft reached their 'good enough' point a while ago and has just been jerking around UI's to help justify new version sales.

 

[dandragonrage]

lol.. Linus.. you're an unprofessional, stupid dictatorship of a lame operating system with the worst driver architecture ever conceived. Kernel versions tied to drivers, breaking everything on even minor version upgrades... Gotta be a Linux kernel dev to write a driver instead of them just figuring out a generic interface for all drivers to use and then forcing all drivers to be loaded as modules...

Nvidia may suck in certain ways, but Linux sucks in just as many ways. Linus needs to realize that HE is the reason that Linux doesn't take off.

The dude's almost as bad as Theo from OpenBSD..

 

[Dr. Righteous]

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.

Big picture time folks.
The main thing that is holding a broader adaption of Linux back is piss poor video drivers.
Linux distro are surviving on hack driver for the most part. With preparatory hardware such as this you really have to have the manufacturer as a team player. Nvidia has pretty much told the Linux community to -suck on it-. AMD is currently committing resources to make the linux drivers much better so in a sense they are on board.

 

[Highwind]

"In my world Linux never existed
Linus Torvalds was born disfigured
It was too much for his parents to take
So they locked him in a car, and they pushed it in a lake"

 

[Saist]

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117255203942825212306/posts/Ss7qfyEh6et

Something to keep in mind here is that the Linux foundation dislikes Nvidia... a lot. They already called Nvidia out once before in an Open Letter, which, incidentally, is no longer at the address I had bookmaked: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-sour...her-holdouts-for-hindering-linux-desktop/2587

What is surprising is that Linus's callout comes after Nvidia Joined the Linux foundation... which indicates there has been a significant amount of behind the scenes drama on Nvidia's part. Even more so, Linus's comments seem to be driven by more recent events that suggest trying to work with Nvidia after they joined the Linux Foundation.

Keep in mind Nvidia's reputation within open-source development has always been abysmal. Nvidia's reputation in /Linux has solely been driven by end-users downloading and installing the NvidiaGLX driver. This, dichotomy, has been a driving factor of my own expressed confusion over why people think Nvidia is so great when it comes to /Linux. They aren't. Never have been.

 

[dandragonrage]

Nvidia's job is to provide working drivers. NOT to provide working open source drivers.

 

[dandragonrage]

It's not Nvidia's fault that the moronic Linux devs made a driver architecture that needs drivers to be under constant revision to keep up with the significant kernel changes that happen with just about every minor version. (I wanted to edit and add this to the last post, but I still don't understand why the mods stupidly have edit disabled for this section.)

 

[Action_Parsnip]

1 word and your entire paragraph that you put a whole lot of work into collapses. What's that word?

Android.

Soo totally agree. Nail hit on head right there.

 

[TheWeazmeister]

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.

Excellent non-fanboi, on either side of the equation, post. It also summarizes what the problem, as I see it, is with where we are whether it is Dem v Rep, AMD v nVdia, whatever. We are so lock into extremes that we can't compromise to the benefit of all. Anyhow, +1 on the post.

 

[Action_Parsnip]

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.

Yes but he didn't invent nvidia GPUs and so cannot write drivers for them. The article did mention reverse engineering of nvidia driver codes for open source versions...

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.

He's a whiney snob but he is also a genius and his creation is now in nearly every smartphone, tablet and server on the planet.

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.

It was a helluva call to make your trade secrets known that's for sure.

Not me.

Are you living up to your namesake then?

"I don't game."

"I like being outrageous at times."

"I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended."

All Linus Torvalds quotes from the end of this video.

And us non-developers are supposed to respect this man? I think he's an arrogant jerk.

Again he's a jerk, but a genius and a man at the helm of development of the primary branch of the most successful operating system on the planet.

lol.. Linus.. you're an unprofessional, stupid dictatorship of a lame operating system with the worst driver architecture ever conceived. Kernel versions tied to drivers, breaking everything on even minor version upgrades... Gotta be a Linux kernel dev to write a driver instead of them just figuring out a generic interface for all drivers to use and then forcing all drivers to be loaded as modules...

Nvidia may suck in certain ways, but Linux sucks in just as many ways. Linus needs to realize that HE is the reason that Linux doesn't take off.

The dude's almost as bad as Theo from OpenBSD..

No, no and no.

Big picture time folks.
The main thing that is holding a broader adaption of Linux back is piss poor video drivers.
Linux distro are surviving on hack driver for the most part. With preparatory hardware such as this you really have to have the manufacturer as a team player. Nvidia has pretty much told the Linux community to -suck on it-.

Yes, yes and yes.

It's not Nvidia's fault that the moronic Linux devs made a driver architecture that needs drivers to be under constant revision to keep up with the significant kernel changes that happen with just about every minor version.

Windows changes, browsers change, Adobe flash changes, games change. It's not a linux specific issue by any stretch.

Can you smell the burning bridges? I can.

Bridges need to have existed to be burnt.

 

[velusip]

Big picture time folks.
The main thing that is holding a broader adaption of Linux back is piss poor video drivers.
Linux distro are surviving on hack driver for the most part. With preparatory hardware such as this you really have to have the manufacturer as a team player. Nvidia has pretty much told the Linux community to -suck on it-. AMD is currently committing resources to make the linux drivers much better so in a sense they are on board.

It's true. Many major hardware manufacturers have been supportive of the FOSS world -- especially with Linux driver integration. Everyone benefits from this; Linux gets early/stable adoption of new technology, customers get updates, and the manufacturer receives an instant audience and much needed feedback for further development.

While Linux development has always strived to support bleeding edge technology, graphics have been a major setback. While there is a fantastic video framework in the Linux codebase, nVidia releases closed drivers and provides nothing to the FOSS world. Linux is backed by the FOSS ecosystem and since nVidia does not support that ecosystem at all, there is lack of development and much moral rejection from devs (case in point, Linus flipping the bird). Considering the relatively small number of people willing to decypher nVidia's undocumented I/O and work on a FOSS driver, a relatively substatial effort is wasted on this reverse engineering. A little input from nVidia would accelerate progress, draw interest, and ultimately provide a free platform to nVidia to work with.

This outburst really proves that Linus does not care anymore. AMD/ATI's latest support in the mobile framebuffer to mobile gpu effort is making strides in the graphics world. This does not help us gamers one bit, but it certainly helps Linux. In other news, Linus is a bit of a dick. It's probably a good thing that he is too. There is a huge amout of pointless flak in the FOSS world, so it's nice to cut through etiquette and get to the point.

 

[dandragonrage]

Windows changes, browsers change, Adobe flash changes, games change. It's not a linux specific issue by any stretch.

Have you ever actually used Linux? It seems like you haven't to me. Linux kernel versions happen significantly more often than Windows version upgrades, and because they have (again, STUPIDLY) tied drivers into the kernel itself, they are constantly breaking drivers. And new driver versions often require kernel updates. And new kernel updates often require new driver versions. They cannot figure out an interface. The Linux kernel has never left the alpha state in ANY version, regardless of what Linus and the rest of the developers tell you. Drivers that work on both Windows Vista and Windows 7 have already kept a driver architecture longer than Linux ever has. Linux is funded by many companies and has been around for decades, and yet the whole kernel is just written by a bunch of amateurs who don't understand the real world.

And yes, Linus is almost as bad as Theo. "No, no, no" is not valid reasoning, by the way, so feel free to elaborate if you want anyone to care about what you think of that. You may disagree with what I said, but at least I said something with substance.

 

[wonderfield]

why are open source drivers such a big deal? Just curiuos

People like Torvalds believe everything should be open source and that proprietary ideas and information should simply not exist. That's a reasonable belief if a person is rational, level-headed and empathetic about that viewpoint (even if that seems pretty contradictory). It's not reasonable if your attitude is that of Linus's. If open source software is a religion, then he's the leader of the OSS equivalent to the Westboro Baptist Church.

He spends more time damaging public perception of the Linux community than any other single person in the Linux community, in my opinion. Rather than being a positive beacon, he chooses to be the negative beacon, festering negativity and resentment in the community. I don't hold the guy singularly responsible for the way many Linux people act (arrogant to an extreme degree), but he absolutely isn't helping.

 

[dandragonrage]

While Linux development has always strived to support bleeding edge technology, graphics have been a major setback. While there is a fantastic video framework in the Linux codebase, nVidia releases closed drivers and provides nothing to the FOSS world.

LOL.. There is no fantastic video framework in Linux. There are about 100 different crappy ones to do various things. Different video memory managers for various vendors because they can't agree on one.. different video acceleration architectures for the same reason (the best of which by FAR is, in fact, Nvidia's VDPAU).. video rendering done by the kernel?! (DRI)... And how is Gallium3d coming along? What? It's slow no matter what hardware you have? HMM. Totally Nvidia's fault there!

I'm sorry, but Nvidia is a company that is out to make money and protect trade secrets. Just because you like open source software does not make it Nvidia's mission to provide such software to you. That attitude is what is going to keep Linux from ever going mainstream. Period. It is the inability of the Linux devs to provide a stable platform on which Nvidia (and other companies) can develop that is the issue here. You are not going to get most companies to provide open source anything. Period. You can whine about it and claim that it's better for the community all day, but it's not going to change reality.

Linus is such a moron that he doesn't even know what 'release candidate' means. He labels things as beta and RC and all, but in reality, it's all just the same alpha code to him.

 

[krogen]

Have you ever actually used Linux? It seems like you haven't to me. Linux kernel versions happen significantly more often than Windows version upgrades, and because they have (again, STUPIDLY) tied drivers into the kernel itself, they are constantly breaking drivers. And new driver versions often require kernel updates. And new kernel updates often require new driver versions. They cannot figure out an interface. The Linux kernel has never left the alpha state in ANY version, regardless of what Linus and the rest of the developers tell you. Drivers that work on both Windows Vista and Windows 7 have already kept a driver architecture longer than Linux ever has. Linux is funded by many companies and has been around for decades, and yet the whole kernel is just written by a bunch of amateurs who don't understand the real world.

And yes, Linus is almost as bad as Theo. "No, no, no" is not valid reasoning, by the way, so feel free to elaborate if you want anyone to care about what you think of that. You may disagree with what I said, but at least I said something with substance.

Isn't that where kernel modularity comes in? You don't have to compile a driver into the kernel, you can always build it as a module.

You can strip all drivers as far as kernel developers are concerned. It's all your own choice.

 

[dandragonrage]

Isn't that where kernel modularity comes in? You don't have to compile a driver into the kernel, you can always build it as a module.

You can strip all drivers as far as kernel developers are concerned. It's all your own choice.

No, because they are still subject to needing to be updated every kernel version because there is too much integration between drivers and the kernel. All drivers should work through one standard interface via the kernel that can support anything a driver would need to do. I understand that the kernel devs have to try and accommodate the companies that are writing drivers, and that results in super fragmentation which I made fun of last post, but they shouldn't be giving hardware developers freedom to just add their own stuff to the OS kernel to begin with. WTF? I cannot begin to fathom how the kernel devs - or you guys here in this thread - can accept that model.

I'm sorry, but drivers are one area where Windows is light years ahead of Linux. I'm not even a fan of Windows or Microsoft, but Linus and the boys are not even CLOSE to competing in that area.

 

[Thuleman]

Confirming that 3D gfx performance on Linux matters.

 

[dandragonrage]

Confirming that 3D gfx performance on Linux matters.

You're not going to get it until those greedy, selfish companies release all of their source code and trade secrets for the world to see. Oh, wait, AMD provided a bunch of documentation years ago and yet somehow Nouveau is actually less bad than the open source AMD drivers?

Funny thing is that I don't really like Nvidia, either. I mean, I generally like their products, but I don't like how they're always messing up, coming up with hard-to-produce chips, and then putting the blame on everyone else... If anything, Nvidia has some common ground with Linux on that front.. always blaming others for your problems.

 

[beowulf7]

I read about this on CNET this morning. Not very professional of Linus, but it's pretty funny.

 

[ZodaEX]

No, because they are still subject to needing to be updated every kernel version because there is too much integration between drivers and the kernel. All drivers should work through one standard interface via the kernel that can support anything a driver would need to do. I understand that the kernel devs have to try and accommodate the companies that are writing drivers, and that results in super fragmentation which I made fun of last post, but they shouldn't be giving hardware developers freedom to just add their own stuff to the OS kernel to begin with. WTF? I cannot begin to fathom how the kernel devs - or you guys here in this thread - can accept that model.

I'm sorry, but drivers are one area where Windows is light years ahead of Linux. I'm not even a fan of Windows or Microsoft, but Linus and the boys are not even CLOSE to competing in that area.

You gotta admit though that linux has the advantage of no product activation. It saves me hours and hours not having to reactivate every install. Linux is a time saver for sure.

 

[Merc1138]

and yet the whole kernel is just written by a bunch of amateurs who don't understand the real world.

I wouldn't say that exactly. There are a lot of professionals that work on it. However their biggest problem is that they're idealists who refuse to accept real world issues like needing standards. They remind me of Cartman in an episode of southpark where he kept repeating "whatever, I can do what I want". Microsoft, and even Apple can reign in the idealism of their developers and get them working on something practical(most of the time) instead of the OSS world where someone would rather come up with a new and exciting way of doing something, instead of working with other people to come up with a single standard that works for everyone.

As far as Linus Torvalds is concerned... his 15 minutes of fame ended a long time ago and his fanaticism is almost a detriment to linux these days. The response he gave to Nvidia is not a way to even attempt to work on getting a proper partnership, it is a great way to burn bridges and piss off management so they don't stand a chance in hell of changing their minds for a few more years.

 

[dandragonrage]

I wouldn't say that exactly. There are a lot of professionals that work on it. However their biggest problem is that they're idealists who refuse to accept real world issues like needing standards. They remind me of Cartman in an episode of southpark where he kept repeating "whatever, I can do what I want". Microsoft, and even Apple can reign in the idealism of their developers and get them working on something practical(most of the time) instead of the OSS world where someone would rather come up with a new and exciting way of doing something, instead of working with other people to come up with a single standard that works for everyone.

"Amateur" was somewhat of an exaggeration. I pretty much agree with you. And it's not like I think Linux doesn't have its good points.. but I certainly think that this is a MAJOR downside to Linux at the moment.

 

[wonderfield]

You gotta admit though that linux has the advantage of no product activation. It saves me hours and hours not having to reactivate every install. Linux is a time saver for sure.

How often are you reinstalling? If you're doing it more frequently than the grace period for activation, then just don't activate.

 

[8du8]

He's a whiney snob but he is also a genius and his creation is now in nearly every smartphone, tablet and server on the planet.

Yes, because its free. If the shit wasn't free no one would be using it.

 

[blackhand1001]

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.

The snapdragon isn't the most open chip either though. The two most open chips right now are the omap 4 followed by the exynos.

 

[pelo]

You're not going to get it until those greedy, selfish companies release all of their source code and trade secrets for the world to see. Oh, wait, AMD provided a bunch of documentation years ago and yet somehow Nouveau is actually less bad than the open source AMD drivers?

The AMD drivers have improved by leaps and bounds over the past few years. So much so that they're on an even keel with nVidia.

Secondly, it has nothing to do with releasing their source code. Linux users wouldn't bitch about the lack of Optimus support if it were supported, but not only is it not supported but nVidia has come out and said that they'll never support it. Why? if they've got the better graphics drivers for Linux (which you claim they do) yet they're somehow better despite leaving out a key feature of the architecture? That's not good driver support, closed or open. That's just being ignorant and lazy.

The issue wouldn't have ever come up if it was supported (which it would be with good driver support) but it isn't nor will it be. Instead, Linux users did it themselves...
http://bumblebee-project.org/

This shouldn't surprise anyone and it brings us to another point that's important and you overlooked: debugging/coding/developing is a grassroots approach in the Linux community that fixes its own problems if the hardware vendors won't bother. This isn't just shared amongst the community but with the hardware vendors and their respective software folk so it's an upstream flow. There's a reason the Alpha/Beta builds of popular Linux distros get overwhelmed with bug reports whereas windows is generally a "who gives a fuck?"

Funny thing is that I don't really like Nvidia, either. I mean, I generally like their products, but I don't like how they're always messing up, coming up with hard-to-produce chips, and then putting the blame on everyone else... If anything, Nvidia has some common ground with Linux on that front.. always blaming others for your problems.

Like providing a workaround that the users themselves developed? I don't need to tell you that in the Linux community that's not the exception but rather the norm. The issue here isn't Linux being pissy, the users and developers will do the ground work, but rather being blocked out of any support whatsoever.

nVidia's Linux support revolves around how much money they can make by selling Tegras and HPC Quadros. Fine. Just remember that you'll get better drivers and performance with AMD GPUs on Linux and that you'll have far more available programs and better performance gains with openCL on Android and the desktop over CUDA. That same "Mine mine mine" attitude is biting them in the ass.

 

[Ashbringer]

Funny thing is that I don't really like Nvidia, either. I mean, I generally like their products, but I don't like how they're always messing up, coming up with hard-to-produce chips, and then putting the blame on everyone else... If anything, Nvidia has some common ground with Linux on that front.. always blaming others for your problems.

I remember when Nvidia did some shady stuff in the past. Remember the whole 3Dmark cheating that they did? How about that time when Nvidia released the FX series of graphic cards that were suppose to be true DX9? Yet games had to be in DX8.1 to even get decent performance out of FX cards? I still hate to see FX 5200 in stores. I wonder what poor sucker will end up with that thing.

I'm not a huge fan of Nvidia and their practices of the past. Though they've seemed to stop screwing around with customers for a while, which puts them back into my possible purchase for the future.

 

[dandragonrage]

I'm not a huge fan of Nvidia and their practices of the past. Though they've seemed to stop screwing around with customers for a while, which puts them back into my possible purchase for the future.

They still pull the same old rebranding crap, though. You have to thoroughly research what you buy when it comes to Nvidia, or you will end up buying old technology with a new name.

But even still, I just can't bring myself to be impressed even slightly with AMD Southern Islands.. I'd still go for Kepler if I were buying a new video card any time soon.

 

[Whatsisname]

You are totally confusing Torvalds with RMS.

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.

 

[Action_Parsnip]

You're not going to get it until those greedy, selfish companies release all of their source code and trade secrets for the world to see. Oh, wait, AMD provided a bunch of documentation years ago and yet somehow Nouveau is actually less bad than the open source AMD drivers?

Funny thing is that I don't really like Nvidia, either. I mean, I generally like their products, but I don't like how they're always messing up, coming up with hard-to-produce chips, and then putting the blame on everyone else... If anything, Nvidia has some common ground with Linux on that front.. always blaming others for your problems.

On a side note I tried reading some of that documentation for a laugh. See if I could make head nor tail of it. It turned out it was as far over my head as ....Earth's Moon

Yes, because its free. If the shit wasn't free no one would be using it.

Linux on the desktop is free. It's also where it matters least. For enterprise and consumer electronics it is not free. Most definetly not for the former.

They still pull the same old rebranding crap, though. You have to thoroughly research what you buy when it comes to Nvidia, or you will end up buying old technology with a new name.

But even still, I just can't bring myself to be impressed even slightly with AMD Southern Islands.. I'd still go for Kepler if I were buying a new video card any time soon.

Oh I dunno, 7700 and 7870 are just too expensive, but for their die area and power consumption they do pack alot of punch. Sure they're far too expensive but heck these are *good* products.

With the 7970 you have a product that is half gaming orientated and half compute orientated. Kepler, as we have seen it so far, strips out all the meaty compute stuff, hence it's smaller and faster. If anything it's a role reversal for AMD and Nvidia. Going back a time and using different logic you could say the 560 ti was pretty unimpressive, given how much extra power and transistors it needed to convincingly see off the 6870, a *much* smaller chip. But that isn't how the 560 will be remembered and neither should it be. It was quick and inexpensive. Excellent product for the enthusiast consumer.