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The SLI Godfather

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the insightful-or-just-bitterly-dissapointed dept.

CaptCanuk writes "Phoronix has an insightful article about the motivation behind Nvidia's alternative operating system support. From the article: 'When it comes time for a user to upgrade their computer hardware, and decide to go with a choice from a leading manufacturer of graphics solutions, software support is a given, correct? Wrong.' Read on to find out what truly funds their development and why some think they treat Linux as a second hand citizen."

3 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. The only reason NV supports Linux.... by otis+wildflower · · Score: 4, Interesting

    .... Is 'cuz of folks doing workstation graphics (like CGI, visualization, modeling, etc). The more folks move to Linux from SGI, Solaris, etc, the more attention Linux drivers will get. The fact that the chipsets are similar enough for consumer-grade graphics boards to be supported is a nice plus, but I very much doubt the Linux gaming community plays much more of a role than that of testers and bugreporters.

  2. NVidia may be pro Linux, but not open source. by (H)elix1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One thing worth pointing out is NVidia has been pretty good producing Linux drivers for most of the stuff they put out. It started with the video cards, but as they moved to chipsets they kept it up for all the bits on the chipset/mainboard as well. The place that people find fault is they release the drivers as binary rather than source form, and make it exceptionally difficult to roll your own as they don't release any under the cover info. They say it is partly due to licensing on their side, partly to keep the competition in the dark.

    Now for me, I use the OS as a development platform. I don't expect source for any Win32 driver I use nor do I care if I have source for Linux or Solaris for that matter. As long as it works and does the job, I'm happy. I suspect I'm a pretty typical Linux user. The Linux developers would have problems with this - having to poke around a black box is a pain in the ass. My pain point comes with having to deal with them at install/update time. I also keep a small stack of Matrox Millennium (4M PCI) cards around because they do 'just work' without binary drivers. If they made them source based it would be more convenient for me, but NVidia has been pretty good keeping up with the multiple kernels and major distros. I'd call them pro Linux, but not open source.

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    +++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
  3. This article hits and misses by unr_stuart · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yes, of course, nVidia isn't going to spend time developing drivers for 0.01% of their customer base. The reason why Linux has any support at all is because nVidia sees it as a growing market, and because the drivers for Windows and Linux share 98% of their code. This isn't true of other platforms. Look at the Mac for example, their driver interface is completely different than that of Windows or Linux, which is why it takes longer (even though they have a somewhat full team of engineers for the Mac).

    For the Linux drivers, the engineers simply say "what do we need more urgently, these bug fixes, or these features?" If they need the features, they borrow the code from Windows and put it in, with possibly some minor glue code. With other platforms, some poor engineer has to learn enough about that one particular OS to get a driver working. Again, how does diverting this portion of time equate to revenue for ATI without a guaranteed contract from the hardware vendor? It doesn't.

    nVidia has a steady stream of revenue from Windows users (gamers and casual users) and Linux users (research and education), but the same is not always true of other manufacturers like HP, Sun, etc. And again, why would a business invest their time and money if they don't have a reasonable assurance of profit?