Slashdot Mirror
Nvidia Releases Beta XFree86 4.0 Drivers
A lot of folks have been submitting the news from Nvidia that they've released
beta drivers for XFree86. They've got OpenGL acceleration - but are still in beta. You've been warned. *grin*
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Now all we need is Dual Head support for the G400 MAX DH
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Finally I can upgrade to XFree86 4. I hope these will make Q3 playable under Linux so I can show off Linux at LAN parties. :)
Also, for all fellow Redhat users out there, the nVidia FAQ indicates that there are now RPMs at the Redhat mirror sites.
The server's slow enough now! The last thing I need is the Slashdot effect.
Seriously, this a a Good Thing, i've been waiting more than a year for these drivers, and had almost lost faith in nvidia ever releasing them. I saw a demo of a geforce in linux with an earlyier verision of these drivers at LinuxWorld and it was were very very fast. Now i wont have to trade my tnt2 for a G400.
--
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
Funny, I managed to get the binary release, which turned out to be for 2.2.12-20 (ancient) kernel. :)
Then I went for the src.rpm and realized that the story by now was probably on slashdot, which turned out to be correct. Oh well, I'll get it tomorrow
I'm downloading them, it's slow and have'nt had a time to look at them. Strange. Anyone knows?
Anybody else notice that in the URL, the Developer folder is under Marketing? Perhaps they're taking this Microsoft partnership a bit too seriously...
---------------------------------
---------------------------------
Visit
2.1.2 Limitations.
No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or
disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the
source code. No Separation of Components. The SOFTWARE is licensed as a
single product. Its component parts may not be separated for use on more
than one computer, nor otherwise used separately from the other parts. No
Rental. Customer may not rent or lease the SOFTWARE to someone else.
Have fun, guys... I'm sticking with hardware that has free drivers.
________________________________
This isn't an open source driver. They forbid "Reverse-engineering".. you must own an nvidia card to even /use/ the software... the list goes on. "But wait.. I have an nvidia card and I want my driver. It's free!" Yes, you get your driver.. for linux. Only. No BeOS, no herd, no *BSD, nothing. Open Source allows the BSD crew to grab a linux driver, hack it to use BSD, and offer that support. Why can't Nvidia release the source so other (maybe less popular) OS' have a chance?
Blah. Nvidia needs to make a commitment - first it was obfusciated drivers, now just a binary. What next - shall we sign an NDA?
This is great... i just wish my attempt @ upgrading to XF86 4 hadn't broken my linux install..
i would've had 1st post if the damn fone hadn't rung...
--DV
--DV
In this day it is safer to be a ninja than a samurai
What is the possibility of /. possible setting aside a server (or just some server space) and automatically mirror pages/files linked to in stories posted and maybe even determining the fastest download site? That's something I think we'd all like to see, BUT I imagine it could get expensive and then there's the whole copywrite thing. Any thoughts?
/*--Why can't I find the QNX OS on any warez sites?
* (above comment useless as of 4-26-2000)
*/
Don't be fooled by the .src.rpm's. They do not contain source code. (did they think they could get that by us?)
Let's hope that ATI releases open source drivers for the Radeon. It looks like that card will be the best thing out there in the next few months. (yes, it beats the GeForce 2 IMHO)
------
Who gives a damn shit about their click-through license agreements? I doubt they hold any water. And on top of that .... I'm French, I can't read zi engliche langouaige, and come and get me, and sue me in a french speaking court you scum licking lawyers ... Bwaaaah ah aha ah aha.
Contents of email below:
to: info@nvidia.com
I wasn't sure where else to send this, so I'm sending it to this address.
Thank you for your support of Linux and 3D. nVidia makes great 3D accellerators. I own a TNT2, and have been very impressed by the value it provided me. I have been looking forward to a high-performance driver solution for my card under Linux, and it's great to see your support of DRI. Thank you!
I speak for many Linux users when I say: Can we expect open-source drivers? While the binary-only module that you provide is well-supported in XFree 4.0 on x86/Linux, it does not address the needs of PPC users, Alpha users, *BSD users, and others who can also use XFree 4.0. I would like to note that your competitors (3DFx, ATI, and Matrox) have not only released open-source drivers (un-obfuscated!) but hardware register-level specs as well. Note that even the ATI Rage Pro (a weak card) was consistently out-performing even your GeForce GPU in Linux. While that may have changed as of this driver release, still it was the Linux community who wrote, tested, and finalized the ATI driver (mostly through the efforts of John Carmack). The Matrox G200 handily beat the TNT2 in Linux, thanks to the community. We both know the TNT2 kicks the G200 hard under Win32. My old Voodoo 2 slams all of these cards handily, since open-source drivers have been available the longest for this card. Plus, 3DFx actively supports these drivers themselves.
While I am not a businessman, I don't see how you can lose business by releasing these drivers and specs. Admittedly, some of these users would be a pretty small market, I don't think it costs much to release what you've already developed for another platform.
Your upcoming GeForce 2 sounds like a winner in the specs department, and I'd love to have one. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for your Linux support, but I'm leaning toward the purchase of another kind of card, either a 3DFx V5, or Matrox G450. Neither of these cards has all the specs that your Geforce 2 has (the fillrate plus features; EMBM, Cubic Mapping, 3D Textures, etc) but these companies have open Linux drivers and specs now, and I know I can expect this from them in the future.
Thanks for your time, and your Linux support,
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
here
--
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
Or at least descent into binary-hell. Yes, that's what idiocy nVidia is pushing on it's customers. Binaries. No source. There's no hope you'll find a GPL on *these* drivers.
So now, here's a release of binaries. For x86-Linux only. Nothing for x86-BSD. Or for PPC-anything. With source comes the option to port it. With the source and specs, heaven forbid we decide to IMPROVE their driver.
I reall wish nVidia would wake up. We can all say 'Hooray, drivers at last!' But as soon as we find bugs, we're SCREWED until they finally decide to release their next revision. And given how long these took to arive, and nVidia's track record for maintaining their previous 3.3.x GLX drivers.. Well.. Fuck em. Go buy a REAL video card. One that comes from a company that cares about you, the consumer.
No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code.
This is straight out of the EULA, which really makes one wonder considering that they have tarballs and src.rpm versions of this driver.
So, either they are giving away the source code and some knee-jerk lawer put this clause in with no understanding of what it meant or...
They are providing a closed source driver and don't understand what is to be expected in a src.rpm file.
Either way, you have to wonder, although I suspect (given their history) that the latter case is correct. Anybody who has been able to download from their slashdotted site please enlighten us as to what they are giving us.
Finkployd
http://www.linuxgames.com/articles/nvidia_first_lo ok/
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I guess the drivers are still beta.. but I wonder how well they will actually work. My G400Max (on an Athlon 700) is flaky to say the least with DRI. Most people would still be better off to stick with whatever is working for XF86 3.x. /usr/X11R6, and make sure that direct rendering is going to work first.
My own experience:
AMD 751 Irongate - the chipset sucks, not supported with current AGP code in the kernel (yah it's there but doesn't work), can get it working on X 3.3.x with utah-glx and a m em hack, but forget X 4.0 (at least till the agp code is working).
My recommendation would be to install X 4.0 into some other directory - ie not
I have the installation FAQ in front of me, and it's a long and careful list of things to do. From a quick scan, it looks like people of a nervous disposition should think twice before going down this list - making a quick backup of your current Xfree installation might not be a bad idea, or at least keep the old Xfree86 rpms at hand in case of crisis. Beyond that, it looks like it may conflict a bit with Mesa, so those modules need to be deleted or renamed as well (all in the FAQ).
For a speed comparison under the new drivers, Linux Games has a First Look up which gives me hope that I'll finally see some speed on my TNT2 card!
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
see title
--
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
:wq
Would a sane sysadmin let any luser get the root passwords to his systems? Now would you let any of those lusers carry a gun?
If you find out that I have the root password for your system, you can change that situation.
I have a handgun, good luck changing that.
Finkployd
How can they distribute a modified kernel without releasing the source?
Or what is the kernel modification to the GPL that allows this kind of weird things?
---
Um, I think their marketdroids just put their standard click thru license agreement on without actually burning any cpu cycles on it.
l ish/XFree86_40/
Because there is src rpms available right here:
ftp://ftp1.detonator.nvidia.com/pub/drivers/eng
No reverse engineering required.
Of course they may be obfuscated, still waiting for the download (damn the slashdot effect).
Well i will take a beta driver any thing has to be bettter than not being able to use my Quadro in linux even if it has crappy scanlines its still better then viewing the intenet in text only mode out of the console
Go here, no clickthru to agree to and src rpms and src tarballs are here:
l ish/XFree86_40/
l ish/XFree86_40/
ftp://ftp1.detonator.nvidia.com/pub/drivers/eng
and
ftp://ftp2.detonator.nvidia.com/pub/drivers/eng
and i must second this, G400Max is a wonderful card, and its fluid at 1024 with old drivers under 3.3.x! ;-)
(so imagine when DRI will come, and dualhead too
---
My point, precisely.
Can they beat THIS???
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
they NEED to be open source. That is the primary thing I look at when buying hardware for Linux. I'm getting a monster new computer within the next couple months, and I will probably get a G400 due to its open source drivers.
Anyone got a mirror?
You can't have that much karma... it'll be fun to watch when the moderators come down on your trolling ass.
~luge (actually responsible with my +1, most of the time)
IAAL,BIANLY
Are you saying that sane sysadmins should be able to carry guns? Probably not, but fun to ask.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Does anyone know why they had to use a kernel module? What this means for me is that every time I upgrade my kernel, it will break my 3D acceleration. If they aren't giving us the source, then I can't recompile it to make it work again, and will be dependent on NVidia to recompile it for me. This is completely unacceptable. Does the DRI infrustructure in XFree 4.0 not provide what they need?
--
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
There's enough good commentary now establishing that the drivers are a binary release (with a source stub for kernel version compatibility), and a fair amount of annoyance at that fact. One thing I haven't seen addressed is the question of *why* hardware companies like nVidia choose not to release source. I can see that they want to protect their R&D investment in the board's hardware and firmware capabilities, but would simply disclosing the API in the form of driver source really give away that much? I'm curious whether the decision not to do so represents fear and bad habits of closed-sourceness, or whether there a genuine justification (from their viewpoint). And if there is one, whether a method of release might be established that's better than this one (which might as well be binary-only as far as the non-x86 or non-Linux crowd is concerned).
This is a genuine question, not rhetorical; I'm not a video driver programmer so I don't know how much the source gives away about the underlying hardware, but my gut says that it can't be very much. An OpenGL driver is an OpenGL driver, surely.
-- Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. ~ Robert Doisneau
Since chromatic doesn't seem to be around today, I may as well mention a helpful little page he's put together, for those who haven't seen it yet:
/. by PI's Frank LaMonica.
What is Nvidia doing?
There's a lot of information there about their (lack of) support for free OS's, issues with the DRI, etc. It was put together shortly after the Nvidia and Linux Troubles article on
Have to add, of course, that if ATI's new Radeon hardware really does outdo the GeForce 2, and ATI releases programming specs for that puppy-- Nvidia is toast.
iSKUNK!
However.
If I had the source, I could recompile it for a different platform, and possibly port it to a different OS.
If I had the source, Alan Cox and John Carmack would have the source too, and that would most likely be a good thing.
Saying "YOU don't know what to do with the source" does NOT mean that source availability would not improve the driver.
---
I have an Nvidia card, which I bought when I heard they were going with open source, then they seesawed around until they are now here. I've had it with them.
I'm putting together a Windows box for someone. That person is going to get my video card whilst I get one that while it may not be supported by the company, the company doesn't give false statements about future plans.
----------------
Have you read my journal today?
The binary-only driver will work fine on a BSD box just as long as you have the Linux kernel module loaded... hmmm...
----------------------------
That's what I'm interested in anyway.
Yeah, I just realized multihead support and support for multihead cards are two different things. I guess these newer cards support multiple monitors from the same card -- cool.
The FAQ says riva 128 is supported by xfree 4.0 w/o these drivers, and while I know it's not a high performance chipset, I've got one kicking around. (in the box I'm typing from, actually) Anyone know/run one of them under xfree 4.0 and care to comment? or should I just run 3.3.6 and utah-glx? :)
bash: ispell: command not found
This sig left intentionally blank.
If it will, people looking at a GeForce who can wait might want to see how far off the Radeon's shipping date is.
This nVidia driver release is probably the most amazing thing that has happened to me this week. First I get DSL, now this. Okay, I'm getting to my point. I would first like to congratulate nVidia on a driver release that is fast (though not completly stable, but hey, it's beta.) and very usable. This is a major step in the right direction for the Linux movement, though it does have its faults. First, it is not Open Source. I personally don't care, but I know the OSS community in general does. They think it is a bad thing for binary-only things to be used on Linux. While they may believe it's true, I also think they care about the quality of the Linux environment. Face it. Very few people use Linux because of its apparent freedom. People mainly use Linux because it is a very high quality environment. In that end, most care more about the quality of the environment than the freeness of it all. The nVidia drivers immensly increase the quality of the Linux environment, and in that end, it is a Good Thing. True, it trades freedom for that quality, but in the end, few people hack their video card drivers, but many people need high quality 3D acceleration. It is part of a broader trend of getting Linux accepted into the mainstream market. True, some think that Linux should stay a hacker-only system, but in the end, that too is detrimental to the quality of the system. Without the mainstream acceptance of Linux, 3D acceleration would have been unthinkable. Even three years ago, did anyone even think that someday the top consumer 3D company would write drivers explicitly for Linux? I doubt it. In addition to drivers, Quake, Corel Office, all the apps that are being ported, and partially KDE and GNOME, are due to the increasing acceptance of Linux. Although I doubt nVidia cares about the few of you who will boycott the GeForce based soley on the fact that there are no OSS drivers, I do think that it is important to encourage them and congratulate them on this release. (IE: Lay off the flame mail.) If they want to do more in the future, than that is their decision. Encouragement is good, but "OSS DO OR DIE" is bad.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Xinerama is not a kernel module. Nor did it originate in what would be considered "the linux camp." It was written by DEC and contributed to the Open Group or whoever owned X at that time.
And just to show you my appreciation, I will go out and buy me a GeForce 2 :)
Looking into how to upgrade an ATI Rage Pro 64 (all-in-wonder), I bumped into the Utah-GLX site;
http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net
Can anyone comment on how well the Utah-GLX drivers work?
There's scant little that I could find searching deja.com and google, only one note that it is "getting better" but not "stable" and that ATI still has to fork up some better specs.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
AWESOME.
In quake, texture-intensive levels that really sucked in windows (q3tourney4) now run as fast as everything else.
My only concern is the mouse input. has anyone found a good bunch of settings that make the mouse input smoother? Things I've tried: in_dgamouse, sensitivity, and xset m X Y. anyone have the magic combination?
So someone should be able to port it to *BSD.
Well, the linuxgames article said they had a blank screen using the new drivers with just a normal Riva TNT, the reviewer chalked it up to his configuration error.
I have a Riva TNT, also experienced the blank screen, and from examining XFree86.0.log I found this interesting tidbit:
(**) NVIDIA(0): VideoRAM: 0 kBytes
I, uh, have a 16 meg card, setting the VideoRam parameter in the device setup seems to have no effect, whatever happens there is always 0 KB of video ram detected. Er, Slight bug huh NVidia? Maybe if they were open source drivers we could fix it instead of having to wait for you.
-- iCEBaLM
I am ashamed at all the negativity on this board. There are almost not positive comments and most are flames directed at the closed-sourceness of the drivers. Even ACs who otherwise would have been ignored are being moderated up because they are against nVidia. People are posting "no source is bad" without even backing up their reasons. I for one would like to put in a positive comment.
:)
A) This is good for Linux. The OSS die hards might not like it, and it is unfortunate that the Alpha people can't use it, but overall it is good. It furthers Linux in the home market and the desktop 3D workstation market. It make linux a higher quality, more usable environment.
B) It is good for Linux users. Now people with the fastest cards (GeForces) can lay the smack down on people puttering on with G400s and Voodoo 3s.
C) It shows that Linux is being treated equally among OSs. nVidia wouldn't release their source to Microsoft, and they aren't doing it for the OSS community.
I really don't care whether or not nVidia releases sources. Some people may, and if nVidia does, good for them. In the meantime, those people should congratulte nVidia on the release, and gently encourage them to release more source. (Hey I could benefit. BeOS needs GeForce specs!) Ultimately, however, it is their decision, and it is up to them what they want to do with their work. I do think, however, than an overly negitive response (as opposed to a positive, but gently encouraging response) could clam nVidia up from releasing sources. I doubt they'd be turned off to the Linux market, because SGI and nVidia have their own plans for Linux, but they may become even more closed and not port to other OSs (ahem, BeOS.)
PS: What is wrong with you people? Do any of you care about speed? Voodoo 5 has already shown to be only moderatly faster than a GeForce but you'd prefer an open Voodoo, rather than a closed GeForce 2? Doesn't anyone care about SPEEEED!??
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do" - I don't remeber
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
I have a TNT2 and a RIVA128. I also have a tax refund.
I'll soon be offloading those driverless cards for a product with real Linux support. My biggest decision now is whether to go with a 3dfx or Matrox product.
I don't care anymore whether nVidia ever releases proper drivers for my OS of choice. They had me as a customer, twice. They won't again.
--
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Isn't that how it works though? The EULA forces you to If you won't agree to the restrictions, you are violating the license, just as signing a non-disclosure agreement removes some of your "freedom of speech" because you can't talk or write about what you've learned.
;-)
Nobody ever said intellectual property law had to make intuitive sense.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
I emailed them asking to release their drivers a couple of days ago. Maybe it worked. This was probably allready in the works beforehand though, so i doubt that I actually made any difference.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
Okay, whilst I welcome this as much as anyone else (I own a TNT2u, and I didn't pay 180UK pounds for it just to be forced to boot to Windows everytime I want to use it properly...), I have to say that this sucks. It sucks because:
a) It's a binary only release, with no specs for the chipsets, etc
b) It's a beta.
a) sucks for all the obvious reasons - the "community" can't make bug fixes or learn from it, only x86 Linux is supported so everyone else is SOL, etc.
b) sucks for a slightly less obvious reason. Both of the previous driver releases, for XFree3, were also beta "development only" releases. When are we going to get the real thing?
Yes, I realise that this isn't easy, and that they have a decade or two more man-hours in Windows driver development, and that Linux is a niche market, etc etc, but damnit, I want real drivers! Failing that, I want the chance to fail to write them myself!
Thank you, NVidia, for a really good graphics card, but I'm afraid that my next card is going to have to be from a company that shows a little more commitment to my OS of choice.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This is the only good post I've seen directly in reply to mine. Would it be possible to port the kernel module to *BSD since the source is available? If that code were ported, would the GART portion matter?
Sure, it's good that NVidia is paying attention to the Linux market - course at 12,000,000 and growing exponentially they don't really have much choice - but they'd pay a whole lot more attention if you sat this round of NVidia products out and went with Matrox, which reportedly has the best rendering quality in the field, is far from shabby in performance, and has made the fullest release of technical specs so far, which can only result in the best possible drivers. Matrox needs to be rewarded for this, and NVidia needs to learn why secret specs as bad.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
No he's saying no sane person gives idiots guns. Unfortunately, like the other French quote we all know and love.."He'z already got one". "(hehe, I told zem I've already got one)"
--
+&x
I sent NVidia an angry email yesterday night about just this subject. I must really have some clout over there. Hear me NVidia and tremble :)
I guess it could be a coincidence.
Anybody here ever though of the possibility that the difference between these two chips is software driver enabling???? Maybe that's why the driver's source code is so protected, because not doing so would endanger their $600+ graphic card market. I dunno, just a speculation.
Sorry and thanks. I probably should read the FAQ sometime. =) I thought I'd never be the poster that asks the stupid question that's already covered in the FAQ. hehe, oops.
/*--Why can't I find the QNX OS on any warez sites?
* (above comment useless as of 4-26-2000)
*/
I may not copy this binary to give it to a friend... I may not reverse engineer it.. I may not blabla.... I am not fanatic (well, I try not to be:-) of free software. By why use such a stupid license for a driver??? Anyway, I'm happy they make a linux version :-)
And remember, people never get satisfied .....
I don't think that nvidia is evil, but stupid I wouldn't bet against. They could have had these drivers written for them, free! Why wouldn't they want that? I had to sign a non-disclosure once, to get some schematics (computer industry, but a different part of it), and when I saw them, I saw why. They must have been ashamed of their work, and afraid that the world would find out just how bad their design was. It was full of text-book no-no's. I figure that you only hide things you are ashamed of. Any competitor who's serious could buy a board, take the chips apart in a clean room, and so on... I can't imagine that they really think that they're protecting themselves.
So, I'm not going to buy an nvidia board until I see open source, accelerated drivers for it. Not because of ideology, not because I hate nvidia, but just because I want my machine to work, today and next year, and the year after that.
I'm not criticising nvidia, nor suggesting that releasing these binary drivers is bad. But I can't get excited over this. It's not good enough news to get me to trust them to deliver working software, when I need it. If someone with the resources of Microsoft can't deliver that, little nvidia never will.
See what I've been reading.
Whoa! All I can say is I moved my Geforce 256 DDR card from my celeron 500 system (windows) to my Athlon 700 (my linux box, previously with a Matrox G400) and ran a timedemo demo001 in Q3A first thing. Boy, was I amazed. With 1024x768 (no lightmap, geometry set to low, and 16bit color/textures) I was getting over 112 fps! I almost shit myself. I cranked up the color depth and textures to 32bit, changed to lightmap, set geometry to high, and cranked up the texture detail, and I was still getting 50fps... I am amazed... closed source or not, these drivers are amazing...
Consider, who is most likely to what the highest horsepower graphics cards out there? Well, that would be those people who play lots of games, like lots of high-tech toys, and basically are "in the know" when it comes to computers. In some senses, that is US my fellow slashdotters.
Well, let's see here, it also happens to be the case that we are also the life, liberty, and the open source way kind of people. Hence by not playing straight with their drivers (and bowing to M$'s demands), they are estranging their main purchasing base.
Now, this does assume a high degree of overlap between those who want the card but won't buy the card because they are TRUE BELIEVERS, but I think it is a fair statement. Even if it isn't, we're smart enough to realize that even if I'm driving a Ferrari, it needs to have good fuel to make it run. That is, no matter what the card, if its software component is stuck in, oh say, reverse, then it is not worthwhile.
Regards.
Well, an XFree86 4.0 driver DOES addresss the needs of PPC and Alpha users. A single driver runs on *any* xfree4 server.
Unless I downgrade from the 2.3 kernel I'm using at the moment, I can't use these drivers, because they don't support 2.3. That stinks. That's why people are pissed off. That's why I plan on buying _anything_ but nvidia in the future.
:-(
Yes, the fact that they've released drivers is good, but you have to understand that Linux isn't just another operating system, that you can release binary drivers for and have them work - it's not like windows in this sense. There is no ABI for Linux, so there's no way that you can write a driver that will be guaranteed to work on more than one version of the kernel. It could easily break between minor versions (even of the stable kernel), and there's no way that it would work between major revisions. Now, if they'd released source for the kernel module at least, then that problem would go away, because people who wanted to use their nvidia cards under 2.3 would port the driver themselves, but with binary only, that can't happen.
It's pretty much the same with the X side of things, though the X developers go to more trouble to maintain binary compatibility. But even with that, there's a very good chance that things will fail at some point, and people will have to wait on nvidia for fixes. That's not good enough, not for an open source world.
And the final nail in the coffin of these drivers is the fact that they're ia32 only - there are a lot of PowerPC users out there, and the numbers are growing. They can't use these drivers, and they probably have absolutely no chance of getting working drivers for their platform. Again, if this was a source release, the problem would dissappear almost overnight.
Ultimately, the problem is that you can't treat Linux or any open source system the same way that you'd treat a binary-only OS. You can't treat the code the same way, because it behaves very differently, and you can't treat the users the same way, because they behave differently as well, and they expect different treatment. Nvidia might have produced some quite nice drivers for their cards here (and they do seem pretty fast, certainly compared to the original release), but they've screwed up in the long run by caring more about their paranoia than their customers. I don't know whether nvidia will lose out in the market in the long run, but I know they've lost out in the open source market because of this.
himi
Still pissed off . . .
--
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Sorry, not so. Theoretically, an XF4 module can run on any other OS using the same processor, so the driver would work on *BSD/x86 and such. However, the drivers nVidia released today appear to be a bit more than just an XF4 module, so I am not certain that they have even that level of compatibility.
------
Many people here are criticizing the "OSS diehards" for being critical of closed source Linux drivers. They talk about how this is good for Linux, and therefore it is good. They like to be able to use Linux in this was or that, etc., etc.
Quite frankly, you miss the point. Proprietary software companies charge for their software to be used in a restrictive manner, and either you decide you like the tool or you don't.
People the write free software decided that they wanted to make a system that respects the user's right to copy and and do whatever they want with the software.
Using a loophole and interpretation, people have been allowed to release drivers that violate these rights.
These people wrote software, said that anybody could use it on the condition that modifications and derived works ALSO respected people's freedoms.
This company is NOT doing so. Those of you that use Linux and these drivers are NOT being fair to the developers of this system.
They provided it for free with the SIMPLE condition that derived works be made with the same freedom. This driver VIOLATES that principle, because nVidia is standing on the shoulders of giants without giving back.
You are ALSO doing so. You have no problems using the work of people's hard labor without respecting their intentions. Instead of charging you money, licensing, etc., they chose a simple requirement. Instead, they are being cheated.
The workstation market? Some of this Linux exploitation is disgusting. To take the labor of thousands of programmers, use it for free, and find ways to AVOID contributing back to this effort is disgusting. The home market and workstation market of people not planning to write code but use Linux is okay, the authors allow this. What they DO NOT allow is the use of these work with people riding on their efforts for free.
nVidia did not write GNU and Linux. The people claiming that source doesn't matter did NOT write GNU and Linux.
As they are NOT paying for the right to use the software, they should respect the MUCH simpler restrictions placed upon it.
Those of you that claim that OSS doesn't matter, you are leeches on the system. You take Linux because it is better, but not only do you not contribute back, you encourage OTHERS to leech off the system. That is DISGUSTING. You take GNU and Linux as though they were your right. They are a gift, and the requirement of that gift is that you respect the writes of others.
nVidia IS spitting in the communities face, but more importantly they are spitting in the face of rms and the other programmers that wrote the code you use.
This is the MOST disrespectful I have ever seen.
They ask you to follow a license, but they do whatever they can to NOT follow that license... and definitely not the spirit of the license.
Alex
I'm still running Redhat 6.0 so I can't use the 6.2 RPMs. I tried installing from the "source" tar.gz, but I get the following error when running "install.sh" after "make": "./NVdriver: kernel-module version mismatch ./NVdriver was compiled for kernel version 2.2.5-15 while this kernel is version 2.2.5-15smp.
Error loading kernel driver Check build"
The readme says:
"If you want to build NVdriver for a system other than the compiling system, then you'll need to run the make as:
$ make SYSINCLUDE=/src/kern/my-smp-kernel/include"
so I tried:
"$ make SYSINCLUDE=/usr/src/linux-2.2.5/include"
Still no help. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong or are the build scripts just broken? has anyone gotten this to work on 6.0 SMP? Does anyone know of a fast mirror for these drivers?
Thanks, and sorry for the long whiney message,
-ctepher
Could it be claimed that simply by releasing this as a binary file they are encrypting the contents of a copyrighted work (the source code?) Would this then lead any developers who took on such a project down the same road of misery that the DeCSS author(s) now face?
I'm not sure either way, but I thought it should be mentioned. Let me know if I'm on crack, please.
Also as for the EULA, even if a court upheld it's validity (and assuming we still have the right to RE it otherwise,) would the someone who say, got the file be under those constraints, as he never signed any agreement? And would the resulting product be legal if the person who originally redistributed it did so in violation of the EULA?
Disclaimer:This comment may cause migraines or drowsiness.
is so that we can DOWNLOAD the @#$@&!$ driver in less than eternity minus a day. If they were open, I could get them from a number of sites. For a company that just got $200x10^6 from MS, they sure got a narrow pipe to the net.
I downloaded/installed the drivers... found all the XMMS plugins crash when I try to use them. Hmph. Anyone else expeirencing this? Pulsar -fps gets 70fps and I'm running in 32bit 1280x1024. Oh ya, glplanet seems to not work either.
Ian
An SRPM doesn't imply program source... an SRPM is a collection of the files used to build a binary RPM. This makes the building of a binary rpm package on different architectures and OSes several orders of magnitude easier.
nVidia states on their site that the drivers are binary-only.
Its nVidia's hardware and nVidia's choice to release drivers in whatever fasion they choose.
If they are using GPL'd code that someone else wrote as part of these close source drivers, then you have a valid case and the Free Software Foundation (or somebody) should go after them.
If they aren't using GPL'd code, then you are simply a fool and a blowhard. No where does it say that if you want to release a program or a driver for linux, that it has to be open source.
You should order online from their website.
Last year australia passed laws making it legal to reverse engineer products.
Would nvidias licence void what australian law says im allowed to do (im australian) ?
Does anybody know more about this ?
They now have their development environment setup so that their windows and linux drivers use nearly the same code base( methinks ), so that whenever they fix a bug/add a feature to the windows or linux driver the improvement shows up in both. I think this is very ingenius. It speeds up time to market. Give them some credit, they believe that releasing all the specs to their harware would give away trade secrets. I know how much you all love patents here on slashdot, and they have many. Come on, do you see Intel telling amd "here are the circuit layouts for our IA-64 architecure". I don't think linux is about open-source hardware. So yes, the driver is software and it's not open-source. If you want an open-source driver, buy some obsolete hardware that has an open-source driver, in the meantime I'll be enjoying my nvidia cards, closed-source drivers and all. If nvidia is willing to maintain linux drivers for you, what are you complaining about?
A line needs to be drawn somewhere. What should be free, what shouldn't be free? The guys at nvidia put a lot of hard work into their designs and can't afford to give them away. They have to make _a_living_ off of this and I don't think they'll jeopardize their livelihood in the name of open-source.
Mike
Non-Anonymous Coward
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
Not even theoretically I think. DRI uses kernel modules on linux, and therefore need rewriting for BSD.
... at least in the EU. While you can sign a contract that give up your right to reverse engineer a program, the contract will not be legaly binding.
I did'nt get this one. Care to elaborate?
Well, I think I interpreted the .sig right, so I guess you meant this part
Unfortunately, like the other French quote we all know and love.."He'z already got one"."(hehe,
I told zem I've already got one)"
Which is a slight mangling of the lines that John Cleese's French knight from this says from atop the castle wall. 'Twas an obscure play on how most Americans say you will be able to get their guns away from them, i.e. "Pry it from my cold dead hands."
--
+&x
and since I just thought of the other parellel... "You can have my root pswd when you pry it from my cold dead brain" (i.e. my computer). Anybody need a .sig? :-)
--
+&x
What makes a video card fast is 90% done by what's in the core of the chip, not the driver. For example, Voodoo1 vs. Voodoo2 - Before 3Dfx released a Voodoo2-aware glide for Linux, someone discovered that you could get the voodoo2 to work with the V1 drivers with 95% of the performance of the Voodoo2. (Which was about 2-3x that of the V1). All that was needed was to change a byte in the card-detection routine. Yes, the V2 had some additional features that needed driver modifications, but it's not like those were anything revolutionary - higher end boards had been using the same techniques for years.
Even if NVidia has something super-special that their drivers reveal, that's what patents were made for! If it's patented, it can't be stolen and used by another hardware vendor even if the source is available.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I speak from a users perspective. I can't edit the source to KDE to fix bugs, and only a few users can. Not programming skill entirely, but the few weeks that it would take to get up do date on the KDE source are not worth it for me. Similar thing with drivers. Most users cannot fix these bugs, and in the end wait of KDE or Utah GLX to release a fix rather than wait on nVidia or Microsoft. It has not clearly been shown that bugs are fixed faster in Open Source drivers. Sure, some execeptions exist, like the ATI drivers, but in general, OSS software (At least major stuff like Utah GLX or KDE or Mesa, etc) are just as bloated and buggy and take time to fix than it's closed source cousins. (The kernel is a notable exception mainly because it has an overwhelming amount of support.) OSS software just costs less, and if there really is a small showstopping glitch that you can fix, you can do it on OSS software. However, those cases are extremely rare to the end user.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...