Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

nVidia Unified Drivers Including Linux/FreeBSD

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-isn't-that-special dept.

Screaming Lunatic writes "nVidia has decided to include Linux and FreeBSD in their Unified Driver Architecture and offer more tech support. Sounds like great news for Linux developers and users if Linux drivers are released at the same time as Windows drivers. (The NV30 emulation driver for Linux was made available about 3 months later than for Windows) The big push is probably from big studios that use Linux tools such as Film Gimp. More info here ." Added by Heunique: You might want to look here if you are using the latest development kernel.

9 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The have supported Linux for a long time by SquierStrat · · Score: 5, Informative

    The FreeBSD drivers have been out for about a month. The news is that the drivers are part of the official driver package now and will be released with the regularity of the Windows drivers.

    --
    Derek Greene
  2. Yet another reason ... by JSkills · · Score: 5, Informative
    ... to buy nVidia based graphics cards.

    They're arguably equal or (in most cases) superior to most other cards

    They've always supported Linux

    Installing a Geforce 4200i in my Mandrake box was a snap last year ...

    BTW - it was interesting to see the comment by Tim Sweeney of Epic Games (Unreal), who was applauding nVidia for their support of Linux. If we could only get all the gaming companies to pay as much attention to the Linux platform as the consoles or the PC, I could see the entire desktop shifting towards Linux next. Ok, well maybe I'm just dreaming ...

    1. Re:Yet another reason ... by the+gnat · · Score: 5, Informative
      Add to this:
      • Their GLX implementation offers features that are non-existent in Mesa.

      One piece of software I use almost daily essentially requires the NVidia driver if you use it on Linux, because of display lists. The difference in speed is simply ridiculous.
  3. Re:Is this news? by OmniVector · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not that i'm trying to be an ass,

    but this is posted every time the topic comes up. NVidia can't release the drivers because of legal reasons. There are things in the code that they do not own, thus cannot release.

    Not to mention right now, the Nvidia cards win hands down on driver quality, which is a good advantage over ATI cards.

    --
    - tristan
  4. Still doesn't make a lick of difference to me... by DCowern · · Score: 4, Informative

    NVidia still hasn't realeased a set of drivers that work with the 2.5.x development kernel which, unfortunately, I must use day-to-day -- albeit on a non-production machine.

    I won't criticize NVidia too harshly for distributing binary-only drivers -- I understand their reasoning and I accept it. I only wish that since we can't have the source, they'd support us developers with beta drivers that work with the 2.5 series kernel. It'd be nice to have an idea of what and how things will work in kernel-next.

  5. Re:in a word... by DCowern · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's actually not their fault. IIRC, their driver code contains a lot of code from other companies that is copyrighted or under very restrictive licensing. This, unfortunately is very bad for people who would like to see the driver code fully released. It'll never happen without all the contributing corporations signing off on it. I support them because they do the best they can do to support the linux community. They also just happen to do it far better than any other GPU manufacturer ever has.

  6. OT: New Nvidia Drivers support dual independent by JeffVolc · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have a Geforce2 Dual card which I have been trying to get seperate X screens on so I can play OpenGL games (i.e Terminus, UT2003, etc) on one screen and put XAWTV on the second to watch TV (i.e. Simpsons & Samurai Jack). Well, the new driver supports that...

    Here are the highlights of the new driver:

    Linux Display Driver
    Linux Graphics Driver Download

    Version: 1.0-4191
    Operating System: Linux IA32
    Release Date: December 11, 2002

    Release Highlights:
    * OpenGL 1.4 with CineFX architecture support
    * Support for AGP 8x and nForce2 IGP
    * Support for index overlays on Quadro4 to support legacy applications
    * Support for separate X screens on nView enabled GPUs
    * GLX 1.3 support

    Yup, seperate X screens now with the dualhead cards. Hopefully I can put this to the test in the next few days.

    BTW, Don't try this on Windows kids....

    Jeff

  7. Re:Still doesn't make a lick of difference to me.. by Repugnant_Shit · · Score: 5, Informative

    Visit www.minion.de for some patches that will let you use the drivers under 2.5.x (worked great for me under 2.5.50). The author of the patches worked at nVidia as an intern doing work on the Linux/FreeBSD drivers.

    --
    Vote for global prefs bug
  8. Re:What happened to ATI's open source drivers? by pawsa · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Weather Channel-sponsored drivers are doing great, I use them since August and now they are basically ready - see http://dri.sf.net/. The only disadvantage with respect to closed source drivers was inability to use some patented techniques (in particular texture compression), since the patent owner (S3?) did not grant (yet) the rights to use them in the driver. Otherwise, there are much more convienent to use than Nvidia drivers I have been forced to use on my other box. And more stable, too.