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nVidia Unified Drivers Including Linux/FreeBSD
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.
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
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 ...
Id software can practically drive the industry sometimes, and without decent driver support for the platform Id would have a hard time putting out games like doom III or Quake III for the linux platform.
- tristan
Please point me to WORKING nvidea drivers for a non intel/amd architecture.......
At best you could say they support i386-linux not linux... and you are still limited to a subset of all the available kernels...
They have linux drivers, they don't support linux.
Jeroen
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The big push is probably from big studios that use Linux tools such as Film Gimp.
Right, because workstations that use a 2D, time based, painting program need programmable pixel shaders, programmable vertex shaders, hardware transform and lighting, massive fill rate, AGP 8X transfer speeds, and astronomical triangle throughput.
Quoth the AC: I like drivers that work.
Apparently those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it. The formalization of the Free Software movement by RMS in the form of the FSF was a direct result of a buggy driver (for a printer). So while it's nice that nvidia sees value in releasing these drivers and giving GNU/Linux the option to play on a level field with Windows... it hardly pushes the cause of Free Software forward to pollute machines that would otherwise be 100% Free with little bits of wholly un-Free software. Now, as I understand it, it's unfortunate that much of the competitive edge nvidia's hardware has is actually the result of the proprietary code in their drivers. It's going to be hard to convince them to forego that, since it would endanger their cash flow.
I do not have a signature
If I understood the article, the drivers aren't going to be Open Source / Free Software. So I don't see why I would support them...
Yeah, there are so many other companies with superior products who will give us every single bit of code in their drivers. Besides, who needs 3D acceleration on Linux anyway? I suppose I can just take my 3D apps and run them on Windows.
Moron.
A disproportionate number of Linux users have nVidia cards primarily because they have decent drivers which work for all kernels, and tend to install without too much hassle. I downgraded my Linux box to a TNT2 because of this.
This has resulted in a large chunk of the market share going to nVidia, encouraging them to invest a little more in Linux. A sort of feedback loop.
It may only be a niche, but it's another chunk of income for them. nVidia will sell chips to anyone if they can get more money back than they spend.
I doubt filmgimp has as much of an impact. This is a smaller market than 3d enthusiasts with dual boot Linux systems.
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
Of course it would be BETTER if they were open source. But the reason to support them is that you need a graphics card in your computer, and you'll choose the one that has good linux drivers.
Anyway, any major company that takes Linux seriously is worth supporting. I fully support them. Like I fully support Id software even if they don't make open source games (which would be totally stupid IMHO anyway). Also, maybe some other graphic cards vendors (or other hardware or even software) will look at the highly successful nVidia, and say "hey, they make linux drivers and are successful, so maybe we should do so too."
bool Marketoid::IsGood(){return IsDead();}
just because the drivers themselves aren't Open Source doesn't mean nVidia isn't supporting the open source community by release drivers for Open Source OS's. What's with the All-or-Nothing mentality of the open source community. Can't we just be glad nVidia now sees the linux market big enough to spend resources to develop drivers for can pat them on the back for it?
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence. Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1845
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.
They are not open source. They have a small kernel modules that comes as a source tarball, which you have to compile against your kernel. The driver itself is binary only and communicates to the kernel using that module.
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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.
Do you even know what "open source" means? It does not mean having a HUGE closed binary driver (larger than most people's linux kernel) that links to the kernel using a tiny wrapper whose source code is available. Nor does it mean having a OpenGL library and GLX extension whose source is completely unavailable.
Dinivin
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.
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Thanks. My god, no wonder they took so long. They have to provide separate RPMs for every single different optimisation for every CPU type???? I hope the kernel gets some semblance of binary compatability soon, that's nuts.
Companies that are bottom line driven (accept it, you won't change capitalism over night) can't usually afford to jump in head first. This goes double for Nvidia, ATI, etc. Their driver source is like a blueprint of the important parts of their hardware.
I prefer open source, but to say there is no place in the world for closed source modules, applications, whatever, is too extreme IMHO.
For me the dividing line has always been commodity vs non commodity. Example: Of COURSE the OS, office software, web browsers, MUA's, MTA's, etc should be open, they are commodities. Specialized programs like AutoCAD, Drivers for up-to-the-minute video cards, and various other areas do NOT lend themselves to the open source model, and I don't believe they have to.
So right now the devil's choice is,
a) fast nvidia drivers for linux/bsd that get released with the windows drivers, which is 2 steps ahead of where we were in July, or
b) only a community supported driver, created by reverse engineering the chipset or windows drivers, released months (and years) after the windows versions.
It's not a perfect world, we have to change it in small steps. Your idealism is duly noted. Give nvidia credit for moving in the right direction, maybe at some point it *will* make sense to go GPL for them..
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Look, I know that many people think ideally everything should be open source, but it doesn't work that way. There are good reasons to want to keep the source closed on many thigns. In nVidia's case, one of teh main reasons is because they liscence certian thigns (like OpenGL technology for example) they they are contractually not allowed to release.
Really, I think people ought to quit bitching. Their drivers are fast, stable, and support all the features of their hardware. This is what one would expect from a driver. If they keep it closed for contractual reasons or otherwise, that seems like a poor reason not to use the hardware.
We aren't talking about something like Windows, that is attempting to keep something proprietary, the drivers act purely as an interface between the hardware and the higher level software.
In the end, like any business decision, it's a marginal cost/marginal benefit based decision. What does NVidia get from Open Sourcing their drivers? Matrox has had the best support for Open Source over the years, open specs and the works. How far has that gotten them? Ummm... I am as much a proponent of Open Source as the next rabid slashbot, but the fact is for a hardware company concerned about giving out too many details of their hardware and intellectual property, that spends more time and money developing good drivers than other hardware companies do, their stance makes some sense. In a perfect world, we would recognize that a hardware company's business is selling hardware, and the driver software ain't part of their business, thus they should Open Source it. But the fact is they MIGHT give away proprietary information they don't want competitors to have if they did that. And that's more important to them than the small market represented by the most rabid Open Source zealots.
Furthermore, many of the problems folks have had over the years with breaking NVidia drivers are directly attributable to the fucktard kernel devs who don't seem to have a concept of a stable ABI/API for kernel drivers. This is one area that Windows technically seems to shine over Linux. Kernel modules should work seemlessly across minor kernel versions. Not to encourage binary only modules, but to encourage ease of use and upgrading of Linux systems. If I upgrade Windows 2000 to Service Pack 18 or whatever, I don't have to go download new drivers. This is just silly. The contract between driverland and kernel land should be well-specified and stable, not "the driver can muck around with any kernel structures it fucking pleases".
Okay. I love linux. I love having the source available to many different partsof my OS and of many of my applications. BUT I AM ALSO A REALIST. We will never get to a point where everything is Open Source. People do need to protect the their IP some times. People have a perfect right to close source their poject if that is what they decided to do. I am very happy that Nvidia is supporting Linux. I love their drivers. Quake 3 Arena and UT2K3 run really fast. All my little opengl apps I using to learn runs flawlessly. Continue the great work Nvidia...close source your drive if you want or if you are required to by other agreements. Please stop whinning everyone, be glad we are getting good solid support!
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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.