NVIDIA Announces Intel nForce Chipsets Coming

Superior Linux Support? by Taladar · 2004-11-20 02:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

Does this mean Intel Mainboards will require proprietary, closed source drivers like nvidia graphics cards that are a total maintenance nightmare because they break with every other kernel version in the near future?

--
Linux is not Windows

Re:Superior Linux Support? by marsu_k · 2004-11-20 02:44 · Score: 4, Informative

I take it you don't have a nForce motherboard? Because they work quite fine out of the box with 2.6 .x kernels. As for the display drivers, yes, they take some extra fiddling upon install every now and then. While this is not ideal, at least you get good 3D performance (not like "that other manufacturer" in Linux ;-). And you can use the default X driver if you don't need 3d acceleration, which is open source.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by Richard_at_work · 2004-11-20 02:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

Im sick of this (and will probably get modded down) but this isnt the sole fault of the vendors, now is it. For whatever reason, they will not release their driver set under opensource licenses, and thats agreeable because its their code and their decision. On the other hand, the linux kernel devs wont supply a stable module API, because they dont like binary modules, which is also agreeable because its also their code and their decision. This does leave the end user in the unenviable position of recompilations, but IMHO nvidea seems to have found a suitable halfway point for this, only requiring a stub recompile. But from where Im standing, its not just nvideas fault, both sides are posturing and trying to make a good situation out of a less than good one, but the majority of people on slashdot seem to blame vendors for supplying closed drivers when they have no real need to.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by bingo777 · 2004-11-20 03:05 · Score: 2, Informative

well my nforce 2 works perfectly fine with 2.6x..it even has support for the integrated lan card n 6 channel sound... so what else r u lookin for???
Re:Superior Linux Support? by EvilGrin666 · 2004-11-20 03:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

Intel publishes specs for its hardware where as nvidia does not. This means we get a closed source driver from nvidia thats often out of date and doesn't work where as with Intel hardware we have open source drivers written by 3rd parties (often the kernel devs) in the kernel tree itself.

The Linux kernel devs have no interest in a stable module API because they have no interest in backwards compatability. If they see a problem, they go in and fix it. Next kernel release all the open source modules in the kernel tree are using the new fixed api.

Its true Nvidia might not have a choice in the matter though. They might have cross licensing deals or patent royalities on some of the technology they are employing in their motherboard chipsets that prevents them using an opensource license or publishing open specs.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by ImpTech · 2004-11-20 03:16 · Score: 4, Informative

Nforce boards do work OOB, its true... but AFAIK not any better than an Intel board. And up until relatively recently, the nForce's didn't work at all. Furthermore, since Nvidia's dumped soundstorm, I can't imagine why an Intel user would buy a nForce board over one of Intel's own.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by legirons · 2004-11-20 03:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

"I'm sick of this (and will probably get modded down) but this isnt the sole fault of the vendors, now is it. For whatever reason, they will not release their driver set under opensource licenses, and thats agreeable because its their code and their decision. On the other hand, the linux kernel devs wont supply a stable module API, because they dont like binary modules, which is also agreeable because its also their code and their decision. This does leave the end user in the unenviable position of recompilations, but IMHO nvidea seems to have found a suitable halfway point for this, only requiring a stub recompile. But from where Im standing, its not just nvideas fault, both sides are posturing and trying to make a good situation out of a less than good one, but the majority of people on slashdot seem to blame vendors for supplying closed drivers when they have no real need to."

Well that's all nice and eloquent,

but...

If it doesn't run a Free Software operating sytem, we're not buying it.

What makes people think we'd go to the trouble of writing billions of dollars' worth of software which is Free, only to sacrifice those principles for a crappy graphics card, modem, or motherboard?
Re:Superior Linux Support? by EvilGrin666 · 2004-11-20 04:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

My Linux desktop box (yes, they do exist!) has a Tyan Tiger motherboard with an Intel chipset. A matrox graphics card and a realtek network card. It works flawlessly with Linux 2.6.9 using drivers readily avalible in the offical tree. I don't need to switch, I'm already there.

I agree with your Asus comment. My gaming rig has an A7N8X deluxe which was a pig to setup and get running. Once its there with XP installed its fine though.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by EvilGrin666 · 2004-11-20 04:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes intel publishes specs, just like these Centino technical specs here.

As for Nvidia's drivers being out of date, how long did it take them to fix the 4k stacks issues? months wasn't it? I also suspect my Matrox cards drivers are updated faster than the Nvidia drivers due to the fact they live in the kernel tree and get updated when everything else in the kernel tree does.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by molnarcs · 2004-11-20 04:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

The 'vendor goes AWOL' kinda argument in the close vs. open debate is getting really boring. Problem is, that it is true - but in this case: what do you think is the chance that nvidia will just screw its linux userbase?
None. The reason: they have excellent and commited developers. They use a unified code-base for all their drivers. Occasionally, they go out of their way to provide support even for less hyped operating systems (FreeBSD, for instance). This is an old thread, and FreeBSD with 5.3 has proper (proper for Nvidia's needs) tls implementation, but still, it is a good example of nvidia's commitment to work with open source developers on issues with their drivers.
So yes, the 'what if company X choses to no longer support opensource' has a ring of truth to it (and opensource advocates can always have it open in kwrite for copy & paste job for every newsbit about closed source drivers), but you always have to think about the specific case. Does nvidia have good support for their chipsets for linux/freebsd? Yes, it does, and these drivers are quite up to date with their windows counterparts. Are they willing to address various issues with their drivers? Yes they are. Are they willing to opensource their drivers? No. And that seems to bring out the worst of zealotry in opensource land. I'm not addressing this to parent post specifically btw, but to all who beat the 'company X suxorz cause they're proprietary' drum.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by ImpTech · 2004-11-20 06:53 · Score: 2

I'm mostly talking about the rampant APIC issues, which were crashing people's systems all over the place up until maybe 4 months ago. And remember we're talking out of box install, so anything you got working with drivers from nVidia doesn't count. Not sure when they submitted their AGPGART patches, but their onboard NIC had to be reverse-engineered and that couldn't have been more than 9 months ago.

Now I'm not in the Intel camp anymore, so I don't know offhand how long it takes for their new chipsets to be supported. But as a nForce2 user, I can say that it took at least a year from the first boards being released to reasonably good support in the Linux kernel mainline.
Re:Superior Linux Support? by Ogerman · 2004-11-20 07:57 · Score: 2

And there you have it, summed up in a nice little couple of paragraphs why Windows is dominant. Linux is arrogantly postering from a position at the back of the pack and if it's not careful vendors are going to go back to ignoring it.

Driver support has precisely nothing to do with why Windows is dominant, unless you're talking niche markets like the PC extreme gaming crowd. (yes, it is sadly now a niche market for all practical purposes thanks to XBox and PS2) Other than 3D hardware (and some buggy non-standards compliant crap), most works perfectly fine with Linux.

When desktop application availability turns the tide in Linux's favor, every hardware company out there will be bending over backwards to make sure their products work perfectly in Linux out of the box. To do this they will have two valid options: 1.) provide open source drivers or 2.) provide adequate specifications so that other people can provide open source drivers. (usually this only means adding recognition + tweaks to existing drivers because of common chipsets, etc.) We can thank the kernel developer's "arrogant" stance for this. The final result will be the most stable PC platform ever known. Do you realize that many of Windows' stability problems are caused by bad drivers? (Even with it's "stable binary driver API") Guess what? That approach doesn't work and the kernel developers know it! The simple fact is, we cannot rely upon hardware developers to provide quality drivers for their own products or to keep their drivers up to date with the OS! It doesn't even work for Windows with its monopolistic share of the market!

Other reasons why open source drivers are imperative: 1.) Continued support if the hardware manufacturer disappears 2.) Security - can you trust downloaded 3rd party drivers from some random server in Taiwan? Remember, this is software that essentially has root on your machine.

Am I the only one who saw this coming? by Valarauk · 2004-11-20 02:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

Intel and NVIDIA cut a deal with Sony Online Entertainment to get their products given "premier" status, complete with back to back advirtisments while loading games like Everquest2.

--
**insert favorite profound quotation here**

Good News for Nvidia and Intel by blueZhift · 2004-11-20 02:38 · Score: 4, Informative

I guess this is good news for both Nvidia and Intel. This should help Nvidia make up for being shut out of the Xbox 2 graphics game, though they may have lost money on the original Xbox deal anyway. And this should bring some gamer cred back to Intel who may have been using some gamer sales to AMD because of the nForce chipset. Of the two though, I think Nvidia gets the best part of the deal since they will now have an easier entry into the wider PC market which is dominated by Intel based systems. Intel will only see marginal gains since gamers are not a big part of the market, though they do buy a good proportion of high end systems I would guess.

--
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started

Re:Good News for Nvidia and Intel by MrWim · 2004-11-20 02:51 · Score: 2, Informative

I don't understand how it would affect the XBox deal. The XBox 2 will be based on the PowerPC architecture from IBM and will probably have little to do with intel.
Re:Good News for Nvidia and Intel by nonmaskable · 2004-11-20 02:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

>>

They've lost gamer sales because the AMD 64 processors are a much better value for gaming than Prescott spaceheaters. The mainboard chipset is a pretty marginal contributor to framerates.
Re:Good News for Nvidia and Intel by blueZhift · 2004-11-20 03:01 · Score: 4, Informative

Nvidia provided the graphics chipset for the original Xbox. Then they had some sort of falling out with Microsoft over how much they were supposed to be paid. This probably contributed to the Xbox 2 graphics chipset being done by ATI. So Nvidia will be missing the Xbox 2 party, but given that the Xbox deal probably wasn't good for them anyway, it may not be a big loss.

--
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started

Re:Way to go NVIDIA... by Seven001 · 2004-11-20 02:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

How exactly are they screwing over the average guy? Granted I dislike Intel greatly and refuse to use their products, but I don't see how its screwing anyone over. I don't like the partnership either, but unforunately theres not a damn thing anyone can do about it except hope the Intel version of nForce flops.

Superior ? by matt-larose · 2004-11-20 02:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

What the hell makes commercial closed source drivers superior ?.

I agree that nForce is supported well on linux, but its mostly because the sound and ethernet are handled by opensoure projects now. The stupid AGP gart is another issue. /me curses nVidia.

--
"Be glad you sailed for a better day, But dont forget there will be hell to pay" - Dave King/Flogging Molly

Re:Superior ? by plupster · 2004-11-20 04:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

What the hell makes commercial closed source drivers superior ?

They exist. ;-)

Re:meh by the+unbeliever · 2004-11-20 03:00 · Score: 2, Informative

Soundstorm isn't really necessary anymore.

And did you happen to notice the dearth of nForce boards with Soundstorm? It wasn't nVidia that killed it, it was the mobo makers. They didn't want to pay for it.

Proprietary drivers a PITA by xrepete · 2004-11-20 03:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Proprietary drivers are nothing but a PITA. They are totally unsupportable, and you have no idea how they will affect your system. Don't get me wrong. At least nVidia creates Linux drivers. However, until they create open-source drivers it is not something that I cannot have confidence in because if there are problems caused by the drivers I have zero support.

nVidia for my video, not my chipset by dlZ · 2004-11-20 03:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've worked with the nForce chipsets before, but for my AMD needs I still prefer VIA. And on the Intel side, it'll take me a lot to sway away from Intel boards with the Intel chipsets. I'm mostly working with Windows machines on the Intel side, and the Intel chipset has never given me an issue, unlike SIS and even Via.
The average machine going out of my shop is going into a home with no real PC experience. I have to worry more about spyware than maybe some odd chipset incompatibility.

--
rm -rf ./evidence @ punkcomp

Nvidia's Linux support superior to Intel by EvilGrin666 · 2004-11-20 03:04 · Score: 3, Informative

Since when? AFAIK Intel publishes its sepcs and Nvidia doesn't. Hows that superior exactly? Granted Nvidia release drivers, but there performance and features pale in comparison to the windows version or indeed similar Intel hardware with open source drivers written from the published specs.

Re:Nvidia's Linux support superior to Intel by AstroDrabb · 2004-11-20 03:19 · Score: 3, Informative

but there performance and features pale in comparison to the windows version
Just making things up to try to prove a point? The NVidia chipsets work out-of-the-box under Linux with Open Source drivers, no binary drivers required. For NVidia graphics cards, NVidia uses a unified driver that shares most code cross-platform. The Linux and Windows NVidia drivers are feature for feature compatible. The performance numbers are all about the same. I get just as good FPS under Linux with NVidia that I do on the same hardware under MS Windows. Even the installation is about the same. For Windows you run the executable and reboot. For Linux you just log out of X and run the executable without a reboot.

--
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison

Not too hot for AMD. by SnowCrashed · 2004-11-20 03:07 · Score: 5, Interesting

The NForce boards were really one of the best things about AMD's chips for people who wanted a good all in one mobo for a basic system (esp. the NForce2 with the onboard GF4mx which totally rocked Intel's "extreme" garbage). While AMD rigs will still probably be cheaper, this is quite a low blow. However, maybe it won't make much difference with ATI's XPress chipsets coming out. They like they will be the ultimate solution for a while, at least until newer things come.

Eh? by MiniChaz · 2004-11-20 03:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

"NVIDIA's superior Linux support"

Are you on drugs? Since when did binary only modules constitute "superior Linux support"?

Re:Way to go NVIDIA... by BCW2 · 2004-11-20 03:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

Some of us refuse to take the hit in the wallet for Intel. AMD is still the best bang for the buck. I know that my reasons are strictly money. Intel is overpriced for what you get.

--
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.

Chipset drivers by Derf_X · 2004-11-20 03:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

Am I te only who thinks it's not normal for chipset to require drivers to be installed. Every chipset I tried works out of the box without drivers needing to be installed, be it on Windows or Linux.

Iwas very surprised the first time I did troubleshooting on my friends computer who has an nForce chipset. I was actually troubleshooting his GeForce video card (in Windows) so I uninstalled the drivers, but I actually uninstalled the chipset drivers because I didn't know the chipset required some. Same when I installed Linux on his computer: I knew the videocard required drivers but the chipset?!?!

This is ridiculous! It conviced me never to buy a motherboard with an nForce chipset. Now if I could only find a videocard with open source drivers that support accelerated TV-out under Linux...

Re:Chipset drivers by Jeff+DeMaagd · 2004-11-20 05:18 · Score: 2, Informative

Intel chipsets often don't need drivers but that's because basic drivers for Intel chipsets are usually included with Windows.

With my current computer, Windows 2000 did not have an AGP driver, so my AGP video card was running in PCI mode. Chipset drivers also enable performance features. IIRC, Windows defaults to PIO modes, chipset drivers allow users to enable UDMA.

Now, I'd probably never use a chipset with built-in graphics.

Best tool for the job by bug1 · 2004-11-20 03:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

The "best tool for the job" depends on the timeframe your looking at.

In the short term the easiest method is the best tool for the job as you cant justify overheads of learning a new tool.

In the long term retooling costs are insignificant and the best tool for the job may even involve making a custom tool for yourself.

Software Freedom enables long term solution, plans to be made in regard to maintenace and development to ensure long availablility and reliability.

Closed source software is a consumable, its not reusable, its long term maitanance and reliability is beyond your control, its nothing more than a short term solution.

Free Software should be seen as a form of infrastructure that indirectly benefits all of society.

Re:Best tool for the job by cowbutt · 2004-11-20 06:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'd like to play PC games, and my timeframe I'd like to do is "before the next ice age".
Whereas I don't really care about any games that came out after 1999 or so (hence my Radeon 7500 still performs fine for me), but I /do/ care about being able to use the hardware I've paid for for as long as I want to (rather than as long as the hardware vendor doesn't want me to buy new kit) and I like having the fallback position of being able to self-support if there are problems. So I try and by documented hardware supported by Free drivers these days.
Horses for courses though.
--

...but it might not be the chipset that matters... by codefreez · 2004-11-20 03:51 · Score: 2, Informative

I just read an interesting article last night that claims it is not chipset that matters so much, because the Intel CPUs stick to the traditional north/south bridge design that limits I/O, while AMD64 processors have multiple hypertransport interfaces on-chip. http://www.samag.com/documents/s=9408/sam0411b/041 1b.htm

So... by Dragoon412 · 2004-11-20 05:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's fairly well-understood that these days, the Athlon 64 is utterly dominant in terms of sheer performance and price/performance. At least in the gaming market, which is the nForce boards' target market. It seems the only reason Intel is even still competetive in the high-end home PC market is due to uneducated users buying from the likes of Dell and Alienware, and their success at branding themselves, which, as of late, seems to be falling by the wayside.

So while I don't think this is a bad thing at all, I think the gaming community, specifically the enthusiast builders as a whole (who actually care what chipset their system uses) will have a reaction along the lines of "Meh..."

So, I doubt this'll have much of an effect on anything. Enthusiasts are buying AMD, and the uninformed will keep spending money on Dells and the like regardless of who made the mainboard.

Re:Doesn't matter by doublebackslash · 2004-11-20 05:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

Ok, I'm responding to an AC, but I can't resist.
Hyperthreading can SLOW DOWN your computer. Why? Because the two tinstructions that are supposed to execute similtaniously aren't allways on the same set of data, due to poor scheduling. This means that data is 'thrashed' in and out of low level cache to higherlevel cash and main system memory. Even with dual channel support on cheap chips it dosn't make up for the fact that their processor can't keep up with AMD's on operations (read: they could, in theory, get more data to the cpu, but can't do much with it fast enough), and as far as hyperthreading making the desktop more responsive, well, this MAY be true, in similarly performing chips, but save the cash from an intel HT chip, and buy a higerperforming AMD at the same price (most likely a 64 w/ hypertransport) and your latency issues will go DOWN.
Intel hasn't made a decent chip since the P3, and I never even bothered to invest in a p4 because of the price to performance disparity between AMD and intel.
I don't expect intel to be the lagger for much longer, but they have a lot of work to do to get the price down, and the performance up (across the board, not just in synthetic benchmarks).
Thats just the way I sees it.

--
There are more things in Heaven and on Earth than attempted in our philosphy...

--
md5sum /boot/vmlinuz
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e /boot/vmlinuz

you guys don't pay much attention, do you? by ruiner5000 · 2004-11-20 07:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you had then you would have read my report on Nvidia working on Linux system utilities, and continuing to improve their graphic drivers particularly focusing on DCC. Yeah, Nvidia can not open source their drivers due to licensing issues. What are they supposed to do? I think I will take the GiGE, advanced SATA RAID, advanced firewall, and best in class performance. Yeah, we are all pulling for Soundstorm to come back, but because the motherboard vendors didn't want it we lost it in nForce 3. You really need to learn more about what is going on with Nvidia before you criticize. I suppose most of you slashdotters complaining in this thread aren't paying attention.

Forceware ported to Linux is good.
Support in the Kernel is good.
Support for 64 bit in Linux is good.
Support for FreeBSD is good.
Advanced SATA RAID far past what Intel has is good.
GigE superior to Intel or any other chip maker is good.
Hardware and software firewall superior to what Intel or any other chipmaker has is good.

Yeah, real big deal having to install closed drivers, and miss out on those features. I think plenty of people will, and Nvidia is the preferred solution for AMD users running Linux exactly for these reasons. Is Slashdot behind the times?

--
ignorance is bliss. googlefiberatx.com

FUCK OFF by msimm · 2004-11-20 08:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Mod me whatever you want, but I'm am sick to death of hearing OSS users whine about closed source drivers.

Nvidia has excellent support for Linux whether you like their policy or not. If you want opensource drivers you can reverse engineer them your goddamned self. But to be honest, if your that much of a OSS zealot you should start by engineering and manufacturing your own OPEN HARDWARE PLATFORM and stop worrying about what Nvidia is doing.

No one owes you anything. OSS is a choice.

--
Quack, quack.

Slashdot Mirror

NVIDIA Announces Intel nForce Chipsets Coming

37 of 189 comments (clear)