Nvidia Removed Linux Driver Feature For Feature Parity With Windows

RemyBR writes "Softpedia points to a Nvidia Developer Zone forum post revealing that the company has removed a specific Linux feature as of the v310 drivers due to the Windows platform. A BaseMosaic user on Ubuntu 12.04 noticed a change in the number of displays that can be used simultaneously after upgrading from the v295 drivers to v310. Another user, apparently working for Nvidia, gave a very troubling answer: 'For feature parity between Windows and Linux we set BaseMosaic to 3 screens.'"

Comments

And this why communism doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes everyone equal with Windows.

Re: And this why communism doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Free nouveou is communism. Binary blob is dictatorship

Re:And this why communism doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd settle for making it compile with the 3.10 kernels... so I don't end up without a FUCKING GUI thanks NVIDIA.

Re: And this why communism doesn't work

[ImaLamer]

Your metaphor falls apart because I'm running free software that allows me to run either one.

Re:And this why communism doesn't work

[davester666]

Excellent. The lowest-common-denominator approach.

Limit everybody else to what the crappiest OS can do...

Re:And this why communism doesn't work

[Barsteward]

Better email Linus so he can give them another "fuck you" and middle finger gesture

Re:And this why communism doesn't work

[Anonymous Coward]

Nouveou is the communist driver. Nvidia's is third-party driver sold both to the communist OS and to its capitalist neighbor. Since most of Nvidia's sales are to the neighbor they preferred to cripple the driver over being accused of being members of the communist party and banned from the neighbor for good.

Re: And this why communism doesn't work

[epyT-R]

No, it would be communism if the nouveau project decreed that you couldn't run competing software (like nvidia's binary) and had the authority to enforce it. After all, it was developed by 'The People', and you will use and like it. Thankfully this is not the case. It's just too bad nvidia is removing functionality for idiotic reasons.

Re:And this why communism doesn't work

[bkcallahan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

Enough said...

Re: And this why communism doesn't work

[ShieldW0lf]

No, it would be communism if the nouveau project decreed that you couldn't run competing software (like nvidia's binary) and had the authority to enforce it. After all, it was developed by 'The People', and you will use and like it. Thankfully this is not the case. It's just too bad nvidia is removing functionality for idiotic reasons.

Economic systems are not political systems. Communal ownership of things like factories and farms and designs does not mean an authoritarian government.

Good to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

...we'll soon have Optimus support and 3d support (without needing a Quadro card) under linux as well. All in the name of 'feature parity' of course...

Re:Good to know...

[ninlilizi]

About time.

The inability of the Linux drivers to drive my 3D gaming projector is the only thing still keeping windows on my box.

Re:Good to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

works fine with a quadro card....;-) Although it does require a 3.5 mm jack to sync the IR to the glasses. Windows uses the USB to do this... I am assuming this is simple market segmentation, to encourage the purchase of quadro cards. Although, they have ECC memory and the mathematics is guaranteed correct....

Re:Good to know...

[ninlilizi]

Quadros do VESA 3D... Which is an older and very different technology.
Under Windows, I just use the 3DTV Play feature to hook my projector up over HDMI. The glasses are controlled by the projector... Works like a 3DTV. I just change to a 3D resolution in the driver control panel and it all just works.

Even if I bought a Quadro card xor a 3D Vision Pro kit. The Linux drivers won't let me output HDMI 1.4a Famepacked Stereo.

Re:Good to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

i am not sure of that. My "other" workstation had a PNY quadro on it and displayport etc... I was able to run stereo just fine at 1920x1200@120Hz over DVI-D (not HDMI). Although I understand it may depend on the HDMI version. There are Displayports on this card and I needed a powered coupling to get it to work, but in principle HDMI is compatible from either?

I am no expert, but the quadro comes with expected upgrade in capability (not to mention support - they shipped the wrong 3.5 mm cable and I got really good support!)

I must say though, the CUDA stuff is very well embedded in VMD and other applications we use (in molecular modelling). AMD has been ATROCIOUS not just in driver support but they have an embedded GPU (APU?) which in theory should be able to support a nice amount of FP calculations but it is simply not used.

Re:Good to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

For non-Quadro cards, there is little pyramid shaped box that connects to a USB port. The communications protocol has been reverse-engineered for Linux compatibiity by many projects (libnvstusb and http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~zwood/teaching/csc572/final11/rsomers/)

Re:Good to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

i had wondered about that! I have the pyramid that is POWERED by the USB but still as the 3.5 mm jack. Annoyingly , you cannot hotplug it you have to restart the X session which is aggravating... I don't even thing the USB does anything other than tell the driver I have the "right" box....

See my point about CUDA above. If only AMD would have decent tools for floating-point calculations we might get some competition.

I must say not been a games player (want to , thesis to finish...) the SteamOS and recent AMD , NVIDIA announcements look as if they are heading in the right direction...

Backwards parity

[Anonymous Coward]

So shouldn't they gimp the speed of Windows drivers until their inline with Linux?

Re:Backwards parity

[davester666]

Of course not. For Nvidia, Windows is "the best that you can get".

Thus:

[Zanadou]

"We have altered the deal; pray we do not alter it again."

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

And people thought Nvidia focusing on Linux drivers because of Steam Box was only going to be beneficial. Be careful what you wish for...

Re:Thus:

[mcgrew]

What deal? The only deal would be between Nvidea and Microsoft, who I'm sure paid a princely sum to hide one of Windows' various deficiencies.

MS must be sacred shitless of Linux, especially since Linux-Android is kicking its ass in the phone and tablet market. MS has a long way to go to match Linux's and Linux's distros' feature sets.

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

the deal between nvidia and linux users using their closed source driver. It's an argument in favour of open sourced drivers, since with those you are less at the mercy of the vendor.

Re:Thus:

[mysidia]

What deal? The only deal would be between Nvidea and Microsoft, who I'm sure paid a princely sum to hide one of Windows' various deficiencies.

Why do that, when you control the Windows logo rules?

Windows must have a preferred status; features available to Windows users must surpass the list of features available to users of competing platforms; that is, as a condition of applying Windows logo certification to a qualifying hardware product, Hardware must have an experience or supported featureset on Windows that exceeds the user experience on any competing operating system.

Re:Thus:

[L. J. Beauregard]

Now ask again why we need antitrust laws with teeth.

Re:Thus:

[ColdWetDog]

They've got Balmer, we don't need antitrust laws.

Re:Thus:

[devent]

Could you give the source of your quote?

Re:Thus:

[mgiuca]

I'd love to know whether that's a real quote from the Windows logo rules. Unfortunately, a Google search for the text returns only one result: this comment. [Citation needed]

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.

And if above is real quote from an agreement made with manufacturers to get approved and use Windows stickers then Microsoft has gone too far and should be hauled to court for unfair market practices hindering competition.

Re:Thus:

[H0p313ss]

Whoosh?

Re:Thus:

[DAldredge]

Where is that from?

Re:Thus:

[mysidia]

This is not a quote. It is an implication; that behind closed doors, between vendors, there is an "arrangement" MS requires, and if they refuse to comply --- MS has the stick of refusing logo certification to their product ---- if nVidia doesn't get the Windows Logo; then neither do any of the hardware builders or OEMs using nVidia components; therefore, they are likely to ship someone else's hardware instead, so they can get the logo.

Some of the Logo certification requirements

As for multiple monitors with SLI Mosaic.... remember what that is?

Multiple real GPUs responsible for all the various monitors, presented to the operating system as one Logical GPU; so, the OS interacts with one GPU, but the responsibility for the display changes between GPUs.....

What do the WHQL requirements say? Well, nVidia needs an exception. How likely is MS to grant the exception to their requirements to their business partner, if/when they learn nVidia has provided better Linux support than Windows support, when the feature is used?

Target Feature: System.Fundamentals.Graphics
Title: If a Windows 8 system has Multiple GPU's, the graphics and system test must pass in every "Operating Mode"

3. Not-allowed Features. These are features that create unavoidable scenarios that do not meet Windows experience expectations,
do not meet certification requirements, and prevent the system from getting certification.

Switchable Graphics Not Allowed Not Allowed

Switchable Graphics: Two or more GPUs from either the same vendor or different vendors where the responsibility for display output to any monitor changes from one processor to the other, typically through a MUX. Starting with Windows 8 systems, this feature is not allowed.

Re:Thus:

[LifesABeach]

"kicking its ass"? About a $900,000,000 write down because of m$'s tablet demand.

I would say that the CEO of m$, and the CEO of Apple will be dusting off their resumes soon. Why Apple's CEO? The Samsung Wrist Phone...

Re:Thus:

[mysidia]

Dang citation needed. Please see Slash:TISNWP or Slash:This_is_Slashdot_not_Wikipedia_sorry_for_the_confusion.

Specific citations cannot be made of documents that a vendor has restricted and not been made available for public perusal.

Re:Thus:

[Raenex]

This is not a quote. It is an implication; that behind closed doors, between vendors, there is an "arrangement" MS requires, and if they refuse to comply --- MS has the stick of refusing logo certification to their product ---- if nVidia doesn't get the Windows Logo; then neither do any of the hardware builders or OEMs using nVidia components; therefore, they are likely to ship someone else's hardware instead, so they can get the logo.

In other words, you made up a phony quote that looks like it's copied straight from a real policy and got modded to +5 Informative, when instead it's just speculation on your part.

Re:Thus:

[mrchaotica]

I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft or Windows -- you can check my posting history to see that -- but it strikes me that the WHQL requirements could have a good reason and such an exception shouldn't be granted. In particular, it makes sense to me that the OS should be able to see multiple GPUs separately so that it can manage them itself.

I may not entirely know what I'm talking about, but I get the general impression that the real issue is that X delegates too much responsibility to the driver, and that the whole architecture would be better off if the cards were "dumber" and had a lower-level interface. The folks who came up with the WHQL requirement apparently understand that, at least.

Re:Thus:

[hobarrera]

What advantages does Nvidia get by it's hardware carrying the Nvidia logo? Why do they care?

Re:Thus:

[mcgrew]

No, I know where the quote comes from, it just wasn't applicable. Vader made a deal, Nvidea made no deal with Linux. Their only deals are with Microsoft, who are probably the Vader here (Darth Ballmer?).

Re:Thus:

[H0p313ss]

No, I know where the quote comes from, it just wasn't applicable. Vader made a deal, Nvidea made no deal with Linux. Their only deals are with Microsoft, who are probably the Vader here (Darth Ballmer?).

That's kind of the point, most of the time the opensource world does not get to make deals with corporations. You take what they dole out and then you thank them for it.

I don't like it, and I'm hoping it doesn't last, but it does seem to be the reality.

In the ideal world our esteemed colleagues at Redmond will continue to screw themselves over and the world will turn slowly to Linux and all the hardware vendors will start playing ball, and there is some indication that has been the gradual trend over the past five years or so, but don't hold your breath and don't expect anyone to play fair.

Re:Thus:

[Teun]

So what stops nVidia selling a not dissimilar card without this feature and with a penguin logo instead?

Re:Thus:

[mikael]

It's well known that for 18 years (at least since 1996), that Microsoft doesn't want OpenGL to offer features that DirectX doesn't have. Some companies would be required to put the "brightest graduates" on DirectX projects rather than OpenGL ones - that's from interviews and direct employment.

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a made up quote, it's Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes back.

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no compelling reason for nVidia to break their Linux drivers to match their Windows ones, rather than fixing their Windows ones to match the Linux ones. That implies they either cannot or do not wish to do so.

If they do not wish to, they're doing exactly what OP said: they're crippling their Linux driver so Windows won't look worse by comparison (or some other reason equally nasty that they don't want to be upfront about).

If they cannot do so, then they're breaking their working Linux product intentionally for no reason other than "parity" with Windows. That means they want it to match Windows, which ends up being the same case as the "do not wish to" case.

In other words, even if OP is incorrect about their desire to break Linux drivers to match Windows ones, the end result is that they're intentionally crippling them to match Windows. There can't be a good reason for that if they didn't mention it already.. it's actually generous to assume they can't because MS made them sign a contract then it is to just say nVidia are the bad guys.

Re:Thus:

[Wootery]

I dare say buyers/suppliers are more fickle than you're giving them credit for.

Re: Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

The overhead cost perhaps?

Re:Thus:

[H0p313ss]

Why Apple's CEO? The Samsung Wrist Phone...

Are you kidding? I'm guessing the conversation around the bong was more along the lines of:

".... so dude... we managed to convince our competitors, the pundits and the market that we'd make a stupid fucking watch right?"

*giggles*

"... I know right ... and now Samsung have actually tried to compete with the damn thing .."

*more giggles* *at least one board member falls off his chair*

"... oh man ... I can't wait to retire and write this up... they'll never believe this shit..."

Re:Thus:

[mysidia]

So what stops nVidia selling a not dissimilar card without this feature and with a penguin logo instead?

You're asking the wrong question. What benefit do they get by selling a not-dissimilar piece of silicon with a penguin logo instead? (And is that benefit greater than the cost?)

The cost of marketing and selling another product can be significant; especially, if they have to make sure the driver for the penguin logo product won't work on the Windows logo product.

I imagine most OEMs such as Dell, and System integrators require the Windows logo version, because they're building PCs, and Microsoft requires that they use only Windows Logo video cards, for their final PC product to be able to carry the Windows Logo, and OEM Windows under system builder terms, requiring the outcome to be logo certified.

Therefore.... limited market for the Penguin-badged product.... will the demand for a more expensive penguin-badged product justify the resources required to make it happen? Probably not at this point.

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well good for them, they didn't develop OpenGL, so they can go fuck themselves.

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have altered the deal; pray we do not alter it again."

Isn't the quote "praw we do not alter it furtherhttp://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/10/05/0021237/nvidia-removed-linux-driver-feature-for-feature-parity-with-windows#"?

Re: Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations... You have just independently proposed the basic idea behind Wayland. The graphics system is greatly simplified and focuses on what modern apps actually need, breaking compatibility with stuff that seemed like a good idea 25 years ago.

Re: Thus:

[mrchaotica]

But doesn't Wayland get rid of all the remote desktop capabilities and whatnot too? I suppose I understand the need to break compatibility (in order to move to a more flexible driver model) but I don't understand the need to break compatibility gratuitously (by changing the API more than it absolutely has to) or the need to remove features.

Re: Thus:

[Mabhatter]

Well from experience Microsoft has secret contract terms like this that repeatedly come out after years of competitive interests being shitcanned on support from hardware vendors or OEMS. So while this exact term may be made up, it most certainly EXISTS in their contracts... Because that's Microsoft's MO.

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

For this case, I think a simpler remedy would be better: Forbid "most favored nation" clauses in contracts. I've not yet heard of a case where these do anything but block competition.

Re: Thus:

[Raenex]

Even if it's a reasonable guess making up a quote that looks like it was pulled from a real policy doc is a crappy thing to do. And no, it doesn't "most certainly EXISTS" in a contract. There's a big difference between certain knowledge and an educated guess.

Re:Thus:

[LifesABeach]

Both CEO's share one common streangth which has been used against them; their competitors beat them to market. And the investors are not fools either.

Re:Thus:

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is the #1 OS on two planets.

Re:Thus:

[Sloppy]

I don't know why people pick that line, for those two characters. I always thought "Perhaps you think you're being treated unfairly?" was waaaaay better. Long before Vader demanded the wookie and the princess, he made it very clear to Lando who had the real power, and he forced Lando to acknowledge it! It was so cold, so perfect, so tyrannical. It was awesome.

Before Vader's "alter" line, it was already made crystal clear that no "deal" truly existed at all. There was nothing to "alter."

Re:Thus:

[nashv]

There is no breach of 'trust' here. Microsoft is not demanding that they cripple feature sets on competing operating systems. NVidia (or whatever third party) is choosing to do that because it feels that the Windows Logo certification is better for their profits than providing complete feature sets on competing operating systems. It is completely fair for Microsoft to say "Hey, if you do something special for us, we'll give you our special badge."

To be completely honest, I don't like or dislike Microsoft. I think it was complete nonsense with the whole IE/Netscape thing. I mean, Microsoft added a feature to their OS ( a browser). Heck, by that logic, every time an OS adds a feature like automatic backup, zip handling and so on, you can claim some third-party software company that used to make a product with that functionality is being driven out of business.

Sure, MS has done some nasty and mostly spectacularly stupid things. But fair is fair.

QA

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it's just for the test cases.

Bring us DirectX then

[Anonymous Coward]

For feature parity with Windows.

SteamOS

[BenJeremy]

I wonder how this will affect SteamOS, since the Steam Machines are nvidia based. Maybe Valve will start throwing their weight around to get nvidia to offer better Linux support?

Re:SteamOS

[DragonTHC]

They already have. I don't remember reading anything about SteamOS being completely opensource.

Re:SteamOS

[_merlin]

Considering it's a console that plugs into a TV, I don't think this matters much at all. Valve's definitely been throwing their weight around demanding better performance and fewer bugs, though. nVidia Linux drivers have been performing better with every release.

Re: SteamOS

[jeff.d.woods]

Valve stated that SteamOS will be open source. Even their prototype beta hardware will be open and hackable.

Re: SteamOS

[Luckyo]

Their "prototype beta hardware" is off the shelf stuff.

Re:SteamOS

[sadboyzz]

Meanwhile as of 3.11 the kernel "radeon" driver is already fully functional, complete with power management and KMS support.

Frankly I'd wager nvidia has already lost on Linux, even though it may currently appear they are still the preferred platform with their higher quality binary driver. But binary drivers have a very limited future on Linux, especially such a critical one as the graphics driver. AMD may have a shitty binary driver, but the "radeon" driver is miles ahead of "nouveau", and once they start seeing the signs on the wall it will be a simple matter for them to put in a little effort and make "radeon" the best graphics driver for gaming on Linux. It's hard to see how nvidia can ever catch up with AMD even if they somehow miraculously changed their attitude toward open source in the near future.

Re: SteamOS

[Raenex]

Valve stated that SteamOS will be open source.

I've looked, and found no reference for this. On their SteamOS page, they hint at it but it's nebulous:

"Cooperating system

Steam is not a one-way content broadcast channel, it's a collaborative many-to-many entertainment platform, in which each participant is a multiplier of the experience for everyone else. With SteamOS, "openness" means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they've been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, but will remain an environment designed to foster these kinds of innovation."

Re: SteamOS

[hobarrera]

The OS will be based on open source stuff, but I don't think it's enterity will be open source, since Steam includes DRM, and DRM+Open source don't go hand in hand.

Re:SteamOS

[RightSaidFred99]

Probably it won't affect anything, because it's a bunch of nonsense and bullshit. Some random NVidia employee claims it's for feature parity in some random unofficial thread somewhere. If you look at the thread, another user calls bullshit because he's doing exactly what the OP wanted in Windows anyway.

It's bullshit, and hence this Slashdot article is bullshit.

Re:SteamOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone that has never had to use the Linux ATI/AMD drivers.

I'd rather get a root canal while listening to Michael Bolton and getting my right leg sawn off without anesthesia.

Re: SteamOS

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet people like me play Linux games in Steam in a Radeon 7970 every day without any issues what so ever.

Re:SteamOS

[Kjella]

once they start seeing the signs on the wall it will be a simple matter for them to put in a little effort and make "radeon" the best graphics driver for gaming on Linux

Or a lot more work, from what I gather one of the key differences between the radeon driver and the catalyst driver is that they've created a ton of behavior profiles to fit different workloads and they're continuously working to update them and providing even more specific ones tuned to the individual game. That takes a lot of manpower and a rather complicated driver infrastructure, while the open source driver has gone for a much simpler "jack of all trades" acceleration. Last I was really paying attention they were hoping to reach 60-70% performance on average relative to the closed source driver when it was feature complete.

Now remember that there's often a huge gap between software fallback and hardware acceleration, so 60-70% is a lot better than 1% emulating on the CPU. But from the perspective of a GPU buyer that difference between 60-70% and 100% translates to a rather big price difference. If you're not on the bleeding edge and your games aren't straining the graphics card to the fullest of its ability it might not matter, but to a lot of people it will. A lot of other things are like that too, yes it has implemented a form of power management so it doesn't run at full speed all the time. Is it as aggressive and efficient as it could be? Probably not, but again it's more about having it as opposed to not having it at the moment.

Re: SteamOS

[Anonymous Coward]

The OS will be based on open source stuff, but I don't think it's enterity will be open source, since Steam includes DRM, and DRM+Open source don't go hand in hand.

SteamOS is just a standard Linux distro that boots directly into the Steam client. The Steam client is closed source, as are pretty much all the games. The OS itself is still standard Linux.

Re: SteamOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. They like to use it, they would be nothing without it, and they like to say the words, but they're in it for the money, not because they have any sense of morality. Typical run-of-the-mill opportunists.

Re: SteamOS

[bunkymag]

Just a question - is it 'hacking' if things are open in the first place? Or is it just customisation?

Re: SteamOS

[MBGMorden]

SteamOS is just a standard Linux distro that boots directly into the Steam client. The Steam client is closed source, as are pretty much all the games. The OS itself is still standard Linux.

"Standard Linux" isn't really a thing. I'm guessing they'll be stripping out most of the more mundane general purpose stuff on the system, but what form it'll take will ultimately be a mystery. Given the incredibly limited number of actual apps that SteamOS needs to run (their client and games) its still not even clear if it'll be using x.org or Wayland or something else.

Honestly though its a bit too early in the game to be making any assumptions about it except that it indeed will be running a Linux kernel.

Not interested in these lies.

[Narcocide]

I want to hear more about the features they've been leaving out of the Linux drivers to make Windows support superior.

Removing feature for parity with another platform?

[DJ Rubbie]

Anyway, if i'm right, optimus support under linux is not on par with windows.
Are you nvidia going to fix optimus on linux, or "for feature parity" are you going to make the optimus support worse on windows too?

Directly quoting someone from that thread because this was exactly what I was thinking of.

I smell a lawsuit...

[Anonymous Coward]

Crippling drivers just to bolster the position of a company may have anti-trust implications. Between this and technologies like UEFI, non-rooted devices, etc., I could see all the companies taken to task in one huge round of prosecutions.

Re:I smell a lawsuit...

[Dunbal]

In a country where the government thinks it can do what it wants with all your "meta" data? Naw, government and corporations have decided that your computer is theirs, not yours.

Re:I smell a lawsuit...

[Lonewolf666]

More importantly, I don't think NVidia is far enough ahead of AMD to make this a smart move. Their Linux drivers still have a better reputation compared to AMD, but it seems to me this advantage is eroding. Pissed customers might simply get an AMD next time.

By comparison, Intel can get away with similar crap in the CPU world (no ECC RAM support except on Xeon processors and "workstation" chipsets). Their lead over AMD in CPUs is big enough that most people will swallow the bitter pill and buy Intel anyway.

Re:I smell a lawsuit...

[fustakrakich]

Lawsuit? Oh boy! I smell a t-shirt! In with the wash it goes...

Re:I smell a lawsuit...

[datapharmer]

Not really so. We ran a comparison before our last server purchase for a larger client and AMD won the performance per dollar ratio for virtualization with the dl 385 g7. I'm also about to make a large desktop refresh purchase for a cost conscious company and the amd offerings from various suppliers offer more bang for the buck. They are mostly using standard office applications, and in a couple cases light adobe work (photoshop, Indesign etc) and for the price even on the more heavily utilized computers we can add a dedicated graphics card and more ram for the same price or less than buying an intel based box. Given that the ram is more expandable on many of the amd chipsets and the raw cpu power just isn't that important any more for the 90% use case it makes sense to have a homogenous environment, so intel is likely out of the picture completely.

In a car anaology, if you are a racecar driver you need a racecar, but as a car manufacturer don't rest on your laurels and think you can charge more just because you have a really fast ferrari. Most people are happy with a slower but reliable toyota with the power window and cruise control at a fraction of the cost.

Re:I smell a lawsuit...

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you find the packet loss with bnx2? I have the same box with dual BD running Xen and it took some fiddling to get bonding to cooperate.

nouveau

[Sqr(twg)]

All this time I've been pissed at the nouveau drivers that came as default with my linux distribution. "NVIDIA's drivers are working perfectly" I thought. "Why the hell are you building something not as good, just to make it open source?"

Now I know.

Re: nouveau

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly RMS and his free software. He is starting to look quite a bit more insightful, decades after he started his public campaign.

Re:nouveau

[razman47]

It still lacks critical features like proper power management, which means cards using Nouveau tend to have reduced lifespans compared to the binary drivers which actually control the fans and voltages properly.

Nouveau is a good idea and should be encouraged, but there's no fucking way I'll touch it even if NVIDIA treats Linux like a second-class citizen. And honestly, if you aren't used to being treated like a second (or after OS X, a third-class citizen) on the desktop computing world, you haven't used Linux for long enough.

Re:nouveau

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of not touching Nouveau, you should be not touching NVIDIA hardware.
Blame them for refusing to supply open source drivers, or even just specifications so that we can create the drivers ourselves. Don't blame the guys who are making an effort to do something about the problem in their own way.

Re:nouveau

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. But on the metrics of control, freedom, and privacy, it is Windows users who are the second-class citizens (OS X users would be third-class I guess).

Re:nouveau

[Narcocide]

I object to the statement that the Nvidia binary drivers treat the fans "properly."

Re:nouveau

[razman47]

Check what I wrote. I didn't blame the people working on Nouveau at all, it's a tough job and I even said we should encourage their work. It's just that the current results are shit for those who have high performance and functionality standards. It's stupid to ignore the reality of the situation just because it's not ideal and I'm not going to sugar-coat the current situation.

As for NVIDIA hardware, it's still got the best support in Linux when you want power. At work we use CUDA because OpenCL still isn't good enough (like Nouveau it's "ok", but we demand the best possible performance and capability - fuck if it's open source or not, in my business results are the most important). It's not ideal, but we don't live in an ideal world and one needs to remember that we're not out to change it.

Re:nouveau

[razman47]

Heh, whatever. Most people use Windows because of its ubiquitousness and hence the programs available to run on it. Metrics like freedom are useless if said platform doesn't run what you want. Something I had to come to grips with once I grew up and understood the imperfect nature of the world, something most Linux geeks still don't fucking appreciate.

Re:nouveau

[Bert64]

I would hardly say OSX is third-class... OSX is far more open than windows, key parts of the system are open source and most parts of the system do a good job of supporting open standards (eg the calendar app supports caldav, whereas outlook is tied to exchange via proprietary protocols)...

IOS and OSX are entirely different products.

Re: nouveau

[Anonymous Coward]

Starting to? He looked insightful from the start to anyone with similar insight. What you mean is that it's taken decades for you to start realizing some of the things he's been preaching for so long.

Or perhaps, some of RMS's decades-old insights have become obvious now.

Re:nouveau

[cpghost]

Now I know.

It's much more difficult to hide an NSA backdoor in nouveau than in the closed-source nVidia blobs. Just so you know more.

Re:nouveau

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people use Windows because it was preinstalled, not because of any perceptions of popularity, compatibility, or functionality.

For all the Facebook and YouTube masses are concerned, they wouldn't even notice if all their machines were running Ubuntu tomorrow. (Well, OK. Maybe they'll be glad to not have to put up with that Metro crap)

Re:nouveau

[loonycyborg]

It still lacks critical features like proper power management, which means cards using Nouveau tend to have reduced lifespans compared to the binary drivers which actually control the fans and voltages properly.

Can you back up the statement that it actually reduces lifespan or it's just a wild conjecture? Indeed nouveau lacks support for voltage and fan control by default, but it leads to it using lowest frequency for GPU which doesn't require much fan management. I wouldn't expect degradation of lifespan.

Re:nouveau

[Anonymous Coward]

"Metrics like freedom are useless if said platform doesn't run what you want."

        What you want or told to want?

celle

Re: nouveau

[cpghost]

RMS was always insightful. We were just trying to cut corners by being "pragmatists". We fully deserved what we got out of this consumerist, passive stance. Oh, not all of us (Theo, are you reading this?), but most of us deserve to be hit by a clue bat every now and then.

Re:nouveau

[razman47]

I want to run Photoshop. GIMP has too many deficiencies that result in longer workflows to achieve the same goals and functionality that simply doesn't exist, such as non-destructive layers. Or Irfanview - by far the best picture viewer I've ever had with extra functionality that I've yet to find in any Linux equivalent. Or just MS Office - LibreOffice can't vertically align text in a text box after all these years, and Impress is still far too buggy and sluggish compared to Powerpoint.

People don't want to move to software that does LESS than what they're already using, just because it's free. That's no way to convert people. It has to be BETTER.

Re:nouveau

[razman47]

Anecdotal evidence. Many people on forums complaining that their GPU temps run hotter under Nouveau than the proprietary drivers. Things running hotter are statistically more likely to break down quicker - it's just a fact with electronics.

If, like you say, the GPU is running as its slowest clock rate instead, well then it means you're not getting the performance out of your hardware that you paid for, which is almost as bad.

Re:nouveau

[loonycyborg]

Not really. GPU clock doesn't matter in plain desktop usage not involving graphic intensive apps, while lifespan does. In fact, nouveau is used in many linux distros by default. If such allegations are true then those distros definitely should stop doing so. If not then you're just spreading FUD to make your argument seem stronger than if you just brought up nouveau's reduced performance everyone already know about anyway.

Re:nouveau

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not true: The "newer" Nvidia drivers won't work if you use a older card. For example, after they removed compatibility with the 127 driver branch, a lot of games stopped working to me. Using the nouveau drivers everything wors as intended again: Using nouveau driver is a good way of making your system functional and boot on a GUI. Later you do what you want.

Re:NVIDIA -- fuck you!

[VortexCortex]

Yeah, well, If Linus had listened to RMS about binary blobs then he wouldn't be giving the finger to NVIDIA, eh? Fucking hypocrite, IMO.

Re:Removing feature for parity with another platfo

[diebels]

Anyway, if i'm right, optimus support under linux is not on par with windows. Are you nvidia going to fix optimus on linux, or "for feature parity" are you going to make the optimus support worse on windows too?

Directly quoting someone from that thread because this was exactly what I was thinking of.

That's a bug, not a feature :-p

not the first time they remove features.

[DragonTHC]

They removed basic customizable anaglyph support from both after I detailed how you could hack 3D support into Left 4 Dead and other games.

And I'm still an Nvidia fanboy.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, being a fan of an electronics company is so beneficial, especially one that don't give a crap (all of them).

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Blaskowicz]

I used that feature on a Geforce 2MX to try it out, a good while ago. No idea what you mean by "hacking" 3D support, you only had to press a hotkey to enable Stereo 3D in any game or app (with or without great results, but at least it's working or trying to). Five year laters I tried shutter glasses on Geforce 6/7 (too bad FSAA wasn't working, as I had to run at 640x480 or 800x600 on the old CRT to play with stereo).

Anaglyph was really shit though, it fucks your color vision (after using it for a hour your eyes or brain compensate, if you look away from the screen and close one eye, one eye sees in red and the other in blue! to this day my right eye seems to see in a warm tint and the left eye in a cold one)

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Fieryphoenix]

That's normal. I remember as a child (long before I ever encountered anaglyph glasses of any kind) amusing myself by switching from one eye closed to the other, which would slightly change the tint of what I saw.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[mcgrew]

Anaglyph was really shit though, it fucks your color vision (after using it for a hour your eyes or brain compensate, if you look away from the screen and close one eye, one eye sees in red and the other in blue! to this day my right eye seems to see in a warm tint and the left eye in a cold one)

That's not the Anaglyph driver, that's physics and biology and is an artifact of the red-blue method of "3d". You'll get the same effect watching an old 3d movie from the '50s with the red-blue (more like bluegreen than blue) 3d glasses.

Stare at a flag in bright light for two minutes, then look at a white wall. You'll see the flag in reversed colors; it's the same effect.

Although I would think that with shuttered glasses they wouldn't alter the color, but simply switch eyes as the frames change. Perhaps they're using color perspective to enhance the 3d illusion; warm colors tend to look like they're closer than cool colors. If you combine color perspective with lighting perspective you can fool the eyes completely; take a black surface with a large bright red square and a smaller, dimmer blue square and the red square will appear to hover above the surface while the blue will appear to sink behind it.

This is of course conjecture, as I haven't tried these glasses.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Anonymous Coward]

> And I'm still an Nvidia fanboy.

I stopped being that when they started selling surveillance platforms and became part of the military industrial complex.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[mysidia]

to this day my right eye seems to see in a warm tint and the left eye in a cold one)

This sounds like a multi-million$ lawsuit.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Talderas]

Thank god. It was bothering me that I was seeing this and yet when I described it to others no one knew what they hell I was talking about.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[macinnisrr]

I've always noticed this too, and I also noticed that the "warmer" eye was always the one with more bloodflow. Lie on your side for a while, and notice that the eye that's lower is also the one that's warmer.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[nightsky30]

I noticed this as a child as well! I've also had a few friends mention they saw slightly different shades of warmth in their eyes . I've never used this technology. This is biological.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[bill_mcgonigle]

to this day my right eye seems to see in a warm tint and the left eye in a cold one

There's no biological reason why this effect would last more than ten to fifteen minutes.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Blaskowicz]

Indeed, the complaint was more about anaglyph than the driver per se. You don't even need a driver, you can look at stuff right from image search results. The comments about blood flow in the eyes from other posters are damn interesting too, this means there are probably no long term effects.

About shutter glasses, they don't deal with colors and theoretically would not affect them. They darken the picture and give an unwanted blue tint, but that's because the LCDs are far from perfect. With the old style PC gaming technology (late 90s, then sold into the 00s) gamma correction was simply enabled to brighten up the picture back, but still with that bluish tint, looking-through-sunglasses effect.
The current gaming tech is mostly the same, using a 120Hz LCD monitor instead of a CRT, and better, lighter LCD shutter glasses. The monitor itself goes into a special overbright mode when you enable the stereo driver, this ought to give you a brighter and more color-accurate picture, similar to not using stereo. I didn't try that particular feature.

Unrelated to the technical aspects, nvidia tried or achieved cornering the market on that occasion, relaunching it as "3D Vision". They want you to believe only nvidia approved glasses work and it's kind of what they enforced in their driver. They did some asshole driver-crippling there.
No one noticed the canning of support for old tech shutter glasses, which used a little device with VGA passthrough and worked with fast refresh CRT. That was a rare nerd curiosity at the time. About anaglyph, I don't know how much they crippled it or if it's been removed entirely, I remember reading at a point they disabled choosing the colors (you might have red-green, red-blue, red-cyan or arbitrary)

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[HiThere]

And I'm still an Nvidia fanboy.

Why?

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Waccoon]

My eyes do that naturally and I've never used any of those red/blue glasses. It's normal for your eyes not to see the same colors.

My big beef with cheap, TN panel LCDs is that the viewing angle is so narrow, my left eye sees different colors than my right eye. I have to use a good IPS display just for everyday work or I get a stereographic-induced headache. Forget resolution -- I'm pissed it took so long for affordable IPS displays to hit the market.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here.

Left eye is slightly "warmer" (red/yellow) and is a bit fuzzy. Not blurry, but everything has an indistinct edge.

Right eye is "cooler" (blue/green) and is extremely sharp. Almost too sharp, in fact. It has the effect that would get the "sharpness" turned down on an old CRT monitor.

Is there a reason for that? Just right/left dominance? Does anyone know? Or am I a freak? (Don't answer that last one.)

For the record: I'm right-handed.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[jandrese]

From what I can tell, nVidia has basically given up on 3D Vision. The price point they set for it was way too high anyway, it was always doomed. I don't think it ever worked on Linux for instance.

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[nbritton]

"Anaglyph was really shit though, it fucks your color vision (after using it for a hour your eyes or brain compensate, if you look away from the screen and close one eye, one eye sees in red and the other in blue! to this day my right eye seems to see in a warm tint and the left eye in a cold one)

You know you could wear it in reverse...

Re:not the first time they remove features.

[Joey Vegetables]

My eyes started to do the same thing a few years back, after a mild head injury. I did have them checked out, and the doctors explained that some variance in color perception between individual eyes is normal, although mine was, at the time, substantially worse than normal. They could not find anything physiologically wrong, and gradually, over the next couple years, my color perception returned to normal. I would get this checked out, because there are potentially serious though treatable conditions that could cause it, such as glaucoma or persistent bleeding into the fluid in the eyeball. However, it's also very possible that it's completely normal. Only one way to find out.

garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical shortsighted behavior. I don't think companies actually understand the definition of demand.

They still dont get it

[lapm]

Nvidia still dosent get it.. Reminds me of now famous Torvalds quote from video where he send hes regards to Nvidia..

Re:They still dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you mean this quote - "..l.." :-)

Re:They still dont get it

[jo_ham]

Nvidia still dosent get it.. Reminds me of now famous Torvalds quote from video where he send hes regards to Nvidia..

What doesn't it get that the quote from Linus reminds you of? That Linux developers are unprofessional? I think it gets that very well.

Re:They still dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Nvidia still dosent get it.. Reminds me of now famous Torvalds quote from video where he send hes regards to Nvidia..

How does this sort of post get +5 insightful? What does Nvidia not get? Why? How does it relate to the article? What examples or citations do you have? What famous Torvalds quote? I haven't heard of it!

If you can provide more content that provides insight into your assertions or the article, maybe then you deserve +5 insightful. As of right now, this is a content-less one liner.

Re:They still dont get it

[imnotanumber]

Nvidia still dosent get it.. Reminds me of now famous Torvalds quote from video where he send hes regards to Nvidia..

What doesn't it get that the quote from Linus reminds you of? That Linux developers are unprofessional? I think it gets that very well.

Nvidia still doesn't get that removing a feature, from the linux driver, to level it with the one for an inferior product is a big "f_ck you" to their linux costumers.

If that is being professional I think that calling " Linux developers are unprofessional" is praising them.

Re:They still dont get it

[jo_ham]

Nvidia still dosent get it.. Reminds me of now famous Torvalds quote from video where he send hes regards to Nvidia..

What doesn't it get that the quote from Linus reminds you of? That Linux developers are unprofessional? I think it gets that very well.

Nvidia still doesn't get that removing a feature, from the linux driver, to level it with the one for an inferior product is a big "f_ck you" to their linux costumers.

If that is being professional I think that calling " Linux developers are unprofessional" is praising them.

Well, they're certainly being encouraged to work with Linux by being told "fuck you" by its most important developer. I can see why they didn't sweat it by reducing a feature in the Linux driver to spare Microsoft's blushes. I expect they've never been told to fuck off by Microsoft.

Re:They still dont get it

[whoever57]

Nvidia still dosent get it.

Nvidia gets it alright. They just don't agree.

In this case, I think that Nvidia is using driver capabilities to sell new chips. What happens is that the chips are designed with a certain feature set, but the driver does not enable all of them. Later, "new" chips are released, but the only real change is a change to the drivers, which now unlock features already in the prior chips.

Re:They still dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they're certainly being encouraged to work with Linux by being told "fuck you" by its most important developer. I can see why they didn't sweat it by reducing a feature in the Linux driver to spare Microsoft's blushes. I expect they've never been told to fuck off by Microsoft.

I think you are being unfair to assume nvidia product managers are such petulant tantrum-throwing prima donnas that they'll retaliate against their users because a project's leader prefixed constructive criticism with a rant nvidia pm's might find tactless. I see no evidence of that.

If that kind of behaviour is the norm in your company, or considered "an understandable human reaction" or something, I suggest it might be practical to demand that your coworkers grow the fuck up if they expect to be taken seriously.

Re:They still dont get it

[jo_ham]

Well, they're certainly being encouraged to work with Linux by being told "fuck you" by its most important developer. I can see why they didn't sweat it by reducing a feature in the Linux driver to spare Microsoft's blushes. I expect they've never been told to fuck off by Microsoft.

I think you are being unfair to assume nvidia product managers are such petulant tantrum-throwing prima donnas that they'll retaliate against their users because a project's leader prefixed constructive criticism with a rant nvidia pm's might find tactless. I see no evidence of that.

If that kind of behaviour is the norm in your company, or considered "an understandable human reaction" or something, I suggest it might be practical to demand that your coworkers grow the fuck up if they expect to be taken seriously.

I'm sorry, I thought the sarcasm was plainly evident in my post. I guess not.

Re:They still dont get it

[shaitand]

If being "professional" means presenting a false, colorless, expressionless version of yourself rather than behaving like you would with friends and family without the need to present an artificial image I think the Linux developers are better off.

People really need to get over their silly aversion to so called "obscene" words and gestures. They are just words and gestures. They aren't going to hurt anyone. We would all be better off if the entire world were bombarded with and thereby desensitized to this stuff.

Re:They still dont get it

[Grant_Watson]

I believe that this is the discussion being referred to, where Linus expresses his frustration with nVidia.

Re:They still dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the new post-as-artform slashdot moderation system. The post itself isn't +5 Insightful, instead YOU have to be +5 Insightful to understand the post.

Re:They still dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Please, no. I don't want anyone to take away the power of obscene words.
I want them to be usable for their intended purpose. You would destroy that.

Re:They still dont get it

[jo_ham]

If being "professional" means presenting a false, colorless, expressionless version of yourself rather than behaving like you would with friends and family without the need to present an artificial image I think the Linux developers are better off.

People really need to get over their silly aversion to so called "obscene" words and gestures. They are just words and gestures. They aren't going to hurt anyone. We would all be better off if the entire world were bombarded with and thereby desensitized to this stuff.

I see you missed the sarcasm, but such as it is.

There is middle ground between a false, colourless, expressionless version of yourself and telling someone to fuck off. That's the target ground you (and the business you represent) aim for. Your strawman argument suggests that the alternative to telling a company to fuck off is to be an expressionless drone.

Re:They still dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes telling someone to fuck off is the most appropriate response.

Fuck off you logic-impaired piece of shit. - totally appropriate and justified.

Re:They still dont get it

[jo_ham]

That might have meant something if you'd have logged in.

As it is, AC posters and businesses should usually refrain from telling people to fuck off. One looks unprofessional, the other just looks amusing.

Re:Fuck Nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you too.

Re:Removing feature for parity with another platfo

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

The real reply

[EmagGeek]

"In order to sell more video cards, we set BaseMosaic to 3 screens."

Closed source...

[wbr1]

It's our party and we'll fuck you if we want to, fuck you if we want to.

A new law

[mattr]

For any people with free time, how about starting a PAC to get a new law passed that would require hardware manufacturers to provide full specifications of their products to consumers in a standardized format? It could be used not only for open source developers (rights of the consumer to use purchased gear as he or she sees fit) but also could be used to guarantee and verify all provided functions and that there aren't any additional spyware functions included. Conceivably it could be used in a software / firmware binary verification program too.

Re:A new law

[fustakrakich]

You mean like a food labeling law? Lots of luck... I say, fuck 'em, and those that can should fully reverse engineer the hardware and spread the development around anonymously. We should take our rights, not beg for them.

Re:A new law

[TheGratefulNet]

we don't follow our existing laws - and you want to create new ones?

there is a law against NSA spying on citizens but they do it anyway.

besides, you can't get the gov to sign any laws that tie their hands on spying. and spyware, whether corporate or governmental is not going to be outlawed. that would interfere with, well, business and government! at least the current bad behavior of those two.

the time when government stood up for consumers' rights was 20 or more years ago. the last few decades, well, not so much. don't expect any help from those in power and don't expect anyone with morals to be able to -get- into power, to change things.

Re:A new law

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, forcing this kind of legislation and enforcing it is a way to take your rights, and you don't have to beg for laws, you can force them to happen. It doesn't dismiss the need for reverse engineering things to verify that the law isn't being circumvented.
Civil disobedience is needed, but making good laws isn't a bad thing.

Re:A new law

[bill_mcgonigle]

get a new law passed that would require hardware manufacturers to provide full specifications

This is analogous to patching bad code with more bad code instead of fixing the bug. The reason there is so little competition among video card manufacturers can be found in the patent system and corporate liability law.

Fix the real bugs.

Re:A new law

[Anonymous Coward]

Better idea: Ditch all "IP" law, have all "IP lawyers" instead operate and support an international design registry.
  All OEMs required to check in their final shipping design source blueprints before releasing any product for sale - any that cheat subject to massive fines. Alternatively, sellers may simply ship the blueprints with the product itself (ie, what happens when you employ someone to design and build you a house), or directly openly publish them.

Checked-in designs stay secret for a reasonable time (a few years?), then are openly (no paywalls) published. Deliberate / accidental flaws leading to death/destruction that could reasonably be avoided had the companies utilized merely the state of the art engineering at the time of publishing become detectable, rather than just "ret-con"ed out of existence.

Open publishing of the "how to" information should include a complete chain right back through all tools directly to the fundamentals, safeguarding against accidental loss of fundamental "how to" know-how. Detail should include parameterizations, rules-of-thumb and design equations wherever possible, and should include all prototype notes as well as the final, cleaned up production sources.

Who here knows how to build an accurate machine, starting with hand tools? Who knows how to build an amplifier, starting with just metal and glass? If the answer is "buy such an such a tool/machine/product and use that" then the chain is incomplete. Currently, the know how is available... in books, which are themselves "IP protected" so that they cannot be readily searched/copied/backed up, and libraries these days are burning them wholesale....

This scheme gives a job back to all the IP lawyers who would otherwise be out of work*, and the open design data base can foster innovation in a way that patents can not - these are verified designs, actually in use: Guaranteed freedom to use, and they are known to work - killer features that our current diseased-sewerage pool of patents cannot claim. (* if they have a mind for legalese, then they must be capable of understanding programming languages, and are probably capable of learning/applying science/engineering too.)

Re:A new law

[plazman30]

How about you start a Kickstarter project to create a 3D graphics card as good as Nvidia that will have it's hardware fully documented and driver source always available. If you build it, Steam will come.

Re:A new law

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are going to need to add some lingo about how 'hidden features could be exploited by terrorists" before you are going to get any backing about making big corps do something. Congressmen are going to need some reason to piss off their owners, I mean corporate donors.

Re:A new law

[bingoUV]

Why don't you complete your posts? Anyway, here goes: ... Steam will come from the fires of thousands of court cases litigating about patents of existing high-performance graphics players (Nvidia and AMD for the most), a few from mobile graphics players, suing the kickstarter project's implementation company to kingdom come.

Re:Fuck Nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Fuck you!

Harrison Bergeron

[Macchendra]

Harrison Bergeron should be the name of this new chip version. Can they introduce periodic crashes, too?

My AMD cards work fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just throwing it out there.

I've watched nvidia screw over linux users and treat them like second class citizens one too many times, only to have AMD step up and offer support and features nvidia said they had 'no plans to offer' which are then countered by nvidia in order to compete with AMD.

I know there was a period of time where ATI had a buggy product, but from my pov concerning my 3 nvidia cards, those days are gone, everything works fine for me.

Stop the madness, dump nvidia, buy AMD, problem solved. Fuck you nvidia.

Re:My AMD cards work fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

damnit ...

"but from my pov concerning my 3 AMD cards"

Another reason to dump nvidia ... they brainwash people. ;)

Re:My AMD cards work fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's also from my POV fwiw, Next card is liable to be AMD. Can't say that I am going to get that as an option (yet) on my next laptop (the viable Linux laptop vendors are using NVidia parts...sigh...) but the next desktop purchase WILL be AMD. So, depending on what gets purchased first...

Re: Fuck Nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

fucking

Re:You Open Source Idiots!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the closed source drivers work better on many things- well until recently, that is...

AMD support's beginning to look like it's in the right place to make a cut-over to them- NVida's not got a clue for certain. They used to be more open than the rest with full documentation on how to write drivers for the NV1 being publicly downloadable. Oh, well, there might be a sea change coming shortly and it won't be pretty for most of the players in the mobile space and possibly for anyone else (Meaning NVidia...) in the desktop space.

Re:Fuck Nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward is fucking himself!

Re:Fuck Nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

Metafuckery.

Thanks nVidia

[turgid]

I've been running accelerated 3D graphics on Linux thanks to nVidia since 2000. And thanks to Linus' pragmatism

In an ideal world, nVidia would provide their drivers as Open Source for the FOSS crowd, and one day they might if they can get the IP issues sorted out.

I am a supporter of Linux and the FSF and I admire and support the efforts and ideals of both. However, these are ideals not physical reality. I choose FOSS wherever possible. I don't run Windows and abandoned MS when Win95 came out. I've done just fine without them (thanks for Slackware, Pat).

I dare say that there are millions of (not very clever) people in the world who would have dismissed Linux and Free Software in general as "rubbish" had they not been able to see it do fast, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics like the commercial OSs. You know what people are like...

Then we had the support for Linux from ATi, not to be left out, and later intel who have very generously provided much data and open source code.

Without nVidia's contribution and pioneering support of Linux, we'd be in a much darker place today and Linux would be not nearly as popular with the average user.

I've been using nVidia graphics cards on my own PCs (all Linux) since 1999 and I've never been disappointed. I'm on my 5th or 6th card now (lost count). And I've never had trouble integrating their driver with Slackware or anything else...

Just a happy customer here, not an employee or shareholder.

Re:Thanks nVidia

[goarilla]

What about hibernate/resume ? On one NVIDIA card I got it locking up (gt 610) and on another two
(9800 gt, 660 gtx) I can get them to resume but with the following issue. When I resume, I get a black screen, I can switch to the X tty (Ctrl-Alt-F7)
a few minutes later it switches back to a black screen. I can switch again and now it doesn't do it anymore.

I use slackware64-14.0 with alien's multilib packages.

Re:Thanks nVidia

[Anonymous Coward]

insightful comment indeed, that's why Linus http://i.qkme.me/3pqpgv.jpg agrees with such opinions.
the best company out there, which is keeping open-source drivers in shape, and prices low for customer because amd is in the scene with cheap and good vfm cards and the biggest contribution in the oss community in vga drivers(check the 3.11, 3.12 kernels to see what is going on).

when you say a driver is good or bad it depends on what you are doing, as a gamer and a programmer I have to say that I am now more pleased with my 4870 rather than my newest nvidia card.

"Without nVidia's contribution and pioneering support of Linux, we'd be in a much darker place today and Linux would be not nearly as popular with the average user."
without nVidia linus might had less anger issues.

Re:Thanks nVidia

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I started out with Linux and I have been back on it for over half a decade, yet I most certainly and without doubt consider any OS that can't play back a FullHD H.264 Hi10p video with AAC audio or do basic gaming like running Xonotic, I consider such OS to be utter rubbish for home/personal use. To clearify, I don't expect amazing multimedia experience from OpenBSD but that's not a normal OS, is it? But if an OS wants to stay on my home computer it better do multimedia no worse than Windows. Coindicentally this is why I avoid Radeon - the worst thing ever, especially on Linux.

Re:NVIDIA -- fuck you!

[znanue]

He might have listened to RMS but nobody might be listening to him. Maybe we need RMS but we also need an OSS hero that is more practical than RMS, and we have that in LBT.

Does this also

[Anonymous Coward]

mean they are adding blue screens to simulate driver crashes. You know for feature parity between Windows and Linux.

Re:Does this also

[Anonymous Coward]

And get rid of that network-aware X Windows stuff. Its not fair to have a system with more capability than Windows.

Anti-freedom posts...

[Anonymous Coward]

... basically amount to:

1) closed is better because app A beats free-app B out of the water (never mind why... in this case, because nVidia makes the hardware!) and

2) when non-radical free-software users happen to use some closed source piece: hahaha, we owned you, fools... now you're using closed, you're in our hands!

For them, F/OSS users are losers whether they are against or accept closed source.

Do these guys have brains or what?

Re:NVIDIA -- fuck you!

[redback]

The world needs RMS and people with his viewpoint.

But you cant force everyone to live in their world.

Not Thinking

[bobwalt]

Come people think! Why would they do that? I'll bet you anything that it makes development easier not do have a special feature just for the Linux market tested only on Linux. Companies do not spend any more than is necessary especially if the feature in question is not driving sales.

Re:Not Thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have left it and just listed 3 as supported with a note in the 'bugs' section that it is untested and may or may not work with more than 3 monitors. There may be a technical deficiency in Windows which limits it to 3 monitors but without such a limitation in Linux it does seem strange to declare for parity sake they're limiting the feature in Linux. It could only sell them more cards at what added cost?

Re:Not Thinking

[bobwalt]

At the cost of untested code screwing something up something else and the cost of vendor complaints when it doesn't work. It is amazingly naïve to think that just because they state in their release notes it is untested that people won't complain with OEMs at the top of the list. Besides they can not use an untested feature as a selling point that has all the earmarks of a marketing disaster.

D3D 9 Comes To Linux,Implemented Over Mesa/Gallium

[tepples]

Direct3D state tracker on Linux? Consider it done.

When Wii U, PS4, and XbOne all run AMD

[tepples]

Considering it's a console that plugs into a TV, I don't think this matters much at all. Valve's definitely been throwing their weight around demanding better performance and fewer bugs, though.

That or the fact that of the four eighth-generation consoles available now, all three run AMD graphics. PS4 and Xbox One have essentially the same AMD APU, and Wii U is reportedly built on a Radeon HD 5000. Only the OUYA console has NVIDIA graphics, and that's the same Tegra 3 that's in the first-generation Nexus 7. Perhaps this is NV's attempt to redeem itself to gamers who say OUYA doesn't count.

I Moved Your Cheese

[tepples]

we don't live in an ideal world

Agreed so far. But understanding how each deviation from the ideal came about can prove useful in improving the lot of each of us.

and one needs to remember that we're not out to change it.

You need to read I Moved Your Cheese by Deepak Malhotra, an unofficial sequel to a widely read business fable. You can take change lying down, or you can become an instrument of change.

Re:I Moved Your Cheese

[Anonymous Coward]

Spare some change? Change is good. I'll take it lying down, I'll take it on the ground. I'll take it here and there, I'll take it anywhere. In a box, with a fox. In a house, with a mouse. In unmarked notes even.

You are welcome to be an instrument of plentiful change...

Re:I Moved Your Cheese

[razman47]

Yes well, with a baby on the way, computing is becoming less of an interest from a hobby or intellectual point of view and more about getting things done. I don't want to deal with the stresses associated with using software that isn't as good as the proprietary stuff, just because free software is a better outcome for the world. There's too much other shit to deal with these days and one has to prioritize.

Re:I Moved Your Cheese

[tepples]

Feeding your baby while saving up to buy the proprietary stuff is itself a stress. Or how quickly does the proprietary stuff pay for itself in marginal productivity compared to free software?

Re:I Moved Your Cheese

[razman47]

Honestly, it varies.

I have MS Office 2010. That's going to last me quite a while I imagine. Going to LibreOffice when I've already got MS Office is going backwards - the only thing it gains me is native use on Linux, but then there's no motivation to move if what I've already got is the best product out there. If you're talking about having to buy future versions of MS Office to support newer formats, well... so be it. It's extremely unlikely LO will support them in their entirety and I'm not begging for money anytime soon.

Marginal productivity is cumulative. I make a decent salary and am prepared to use that to make my life more comfortable and less stressful. Absolutely worst scenario - I'd pirate. I'm very good at knowing how to pirate safely over years of doing it as a kid. I'd prefer not to for moral reasons, but I'll never settle for anything less that the best (functionality wise) product out there. It's not worth using substandard software.

MicroSoft needs 3rd party for that?

[dutchwhizzman]

Seriously, Does MicroSoft need 3rd party vendors to make their "user experience" better than their own operating system? I'm sorry, let me rephrase that: Do hardware drivers make the user experience so much better? That must be one crappy operating system then....

Re:MicroSoft needs 3rd party for that?

[jones_supa]

Do hardware drivers make the user experience so much better?

Yes.

Re:MicroSoft needs 3rd party for that?

[Kwyj1b0]

I'm sorry, let me rephrase that: Do hardware drivers make the user experience so much better? That must be one crappy operating system then....

Funny. If I read just this part of your comment, I wouldn't know whether you are criticizing Windows or Linux. This whole article is about hardware drivers affecting user experience!!

Re:MicroSoft needs 3rd party for that?

[mysidia]

I think WHQL certification is mostly MS' way of pressuring component vendors to implement new features they want. For example; UEFI secure boot / OS signing, and preventing OSes such as Linux for booting, or providing TCPA / TCPM (Trusted Computing Platform Modules).

But that's not all. there are plenty of features. Whatever MS requires or forbids will be extremely influential, as computer manufacturers Want to be able to advertise their product using the Windows Logo; and they are required to use only Windows logo certified components in their systems, so a hardware vendor not getting the stamp of approval on their product can be harmful to their business.

MS will use their leverage to do what they think will improve the number of people buying their product --- that includes improving their user experience, or diminishing the user experience of old operating systems, or competing vendors' OS.

For example: making new hardware no longer compatible with XP or Windows 7 would be a win for them, because it encourages more sales of Windows 8.

The WHQL requirements are full of lists of features that must be supported and features that must not be supported by hardware.

In the former category; they list supposed business justifications, and it's all about user experience.

For the latter category; these are limitations of Windows, and the hardware is not allowed to have support for features outside of Windows' limitations.

In the middle category; there are features hardware vendors must ask for permission to implement; that is probably the safest category for MS to use to pressure vendors --- just withhold permission, until they agree to 'off the record' conditions.

Re:MicroSoft needs 3rd party for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

computer manufacturers Want to be able to advertise their product using the Windows Logo

They want the license discount. I doubt anyone cares about the logo except MS. Most of the customers wouldn't notice one less sticker ad.

Re:MicroSoft needs 3rd party for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time we had people with balls. Willing to bend the rules and give the middle finger to M$ and put "compatabile with windows logos" on their boxes.

No one has to use the WHQL certified and trademarked logo.

FUCK YOU CORPORATE BASTARDS.

But improvements are on the way

[dutchwhizzman]

Yes, it's not as good as it should be. Fortunately, NVidia has opened up a lot more specs so the last missing bits for may features and "irky bugs" in Nouveau can finally be dealt with. It's still not enough to build a fully featured just-as-fast driver, but in the last few months, significant changes were made in how NVidia treats the open source community and so far, Nouveau driver developers have been happy with what they got. It's not finished, but at least it's getting in the right direction.

Re:But improvements are on the way

[Anonymous Coward]

No they haven't.

If you looked at what they have actually offered, other than PR spin, is an incomplete description of one table that appears in the VGA BIOS of Nvidia cards. A description that is useless without documentation of the control registers of the card, documentation that, thus far, has not been supplied.

So what they have in fact done, is got a bunch of dumb nerds to believe a PRspin campaign, without providing anything of value. It probably resulted in a knee-jerk sale of a few thousand graphics cards to dumb nerds who read the headlines, and didn't bother to actually investigate and find that it's all bullshit.

There is a Fix for This

[stoicio]

1.) Go to the Nvidia site and search for 'Linux' and then surf all the linux related
pages on thier site.

2.) Send an email to technical support and ask why you can no longer use all the monitors on your desktop.

3.) Buy an AMD/ATI card , send them an email to let them know why. Let AMD know you are using Linux and why.

4.) Send your old Nvidia card to Nvidia head office for RMA in protest by mail. (Write it off)

Re:There is a Fix for This

[bill_mcgonigle]

4.) Send your old Nvidia card to Nvidia head office for RMA in protest by mail. (Write it off)

That may be a good moral stance, but it's not a fix. nVidia has already said they don't care about the linux multi-head users - sending them a small amount of e-waste isn't going to change that.

Re:There is a Fix for This

[cpghost]

Let's see: you use an overblown proprietary binary blob that contains who-knows-what in times of overall NSA spying, and you dare complain that this binary blob has lost one tiny bit of functionality w.r.t. Windows' binary blob? Don't worry, the main functionality of this nVidia blob (NSA backdoor?) is still fully functional.

Re:There is a Fix for This

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see: you use an overblown proprietary binary blob that contains who-knows-what in times of overall NSA spying, and you dare complain that this binary blob has lost one tiny bit of functionality w.r.t. Windows' binary blob? Don't worry, the main functionality of this nVidia blob (NSA backdoor?) is still fully functional.

Citation needed. Just because it's a binary blob doesn't mean you can't open it up and look, as evidenced by how commonly people find security holes in closed-source products. So, any citation for your claim or are you mature enough to admit you're spewing bullshit?

Re:There is a Fix for This

[H0p313ss]

Let's see: you use an overblown proprietary binary blob that contains who-knows-what in times of overall NSA spying, and you dare complain that this binary blob has lost one tiny bit of functionality w.r.t. Windows' binary blob? Don't worry, the main functionality of this nVidia blob (NSA backdoor?) is still fully functional.

Nvidia has never been a perfect partner to the opensource world, however your tinfoil hat is too tight son, it's clearly cutting off the blood flow to your brain.

Re:There is a Fix for This

[H0p313ss]

Ah if only I had not already commented on this...

So I'll point out that step 4) should include a cover letter that clearly documents your actions in 1), 2) & 3)

Step 5) would be to document the above and any responses from NVIDIA somewhere in public on the web.

No profit here, but much satisfaction from righteous indignation.

Re:There is a Fix for This

[cpghost]

Well, I was (partly) joking, but what makes you think those binary blobs are backdoor-free? That's just a belief, isn't it? Point is: there's no way for nVidia to restore confidence other than to provide the full source. As a matter of fact, I do work in IT security and I'm seeing more and more companies here in Europe avoiding those binary blobs like the plague. Even more so since all this Snowden publicity. Now, does nVidia's driver contain a backdoor? If your corporate secrets are important to you, it is prudent to assume "yes" and go truly all-opensource.

Re:There is a Fix for This

[H0p313ss]

And I was being a little flippant.

Yes, any binary that you don't have the source to is a potential security hole.

But it's like worrying about people wearing bombs in their shoes, you're focusing on the wrong thing.

Re:There is a Fix for This

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I was (partly) joking, but what makes you think those binary blobs are backdoor-free?

Because direct network connectivity is observable? If you have a firewall between you and the Internet then you can sniff packets and see that happening.

That's just a belief, isn't it?

Only if you believe networks run on magic instead of electricity and that software is impossible to comprehend or examine in binary form. You also probably need to believe that the NSA employs wizards who cast ritual spying spells instead of using technology.

As a matter of fact, I do work in IT security and I'm seeing more and more companies here in Europe avoiding those binary blobs like the plague. Even more so since all this Snowden publicity. Now, does nVidia's driver contain a backdoor? If your corporate secrets are important to you, it is prudent to assume "yes" and go truly all-opensource.

Irony.

The only potential backdoor that could exist undetected is connecting to a running X server then perform secret sauce to get a root terminal. This would require a) accepting incoming X sessions over the network, or b) running random executables you downloaded or received in email.

Re:There is a Fix for This

[stoicio]

How much do you think it would cost Nvidia to haul all those cards to the recycler?
Think of it as a kind of protest fine.

PLP configurations too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know when they put in the ability to configure a PLP set of screens in the linux driver, then rip it out because Windows users aren't allowed such a mind bogglingly challenging display configuration. I mean, having to transpose the pixels in a framebuffer before outputting it? IMPOSSIBLE.

Re:NVIDIA -- fuck you!

[MikeBabcock]

And instead we got NVidia's feet wet in the Linux ecosystem and proved there's money in it for them.

Now we can push them further toward the FOSS cliff.

Better fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Post the matter to EU Trade Comission offices in Brussels and complain Microsoft is flexing it's market power to prevent competition and let hardware manufacturers choose freely which features it can and wishes to support on each operating system.

They sure are interested this kind of matters and if that really is the case they will have means to make it so expensive to Microsoft that they will be happy to comply.

Re:Fuck Nvidia

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's what kids call masturbation these days.

Patch location

[Anonymous Coward]

http://pastebin.com/i3R3sUu3

Re:Patch location

[Jonah Hex]

Your patch is not helped by posting Anon, mentioning Hot Grits, etc.

Re:Patch location

[Teun]

But we can try to help highlighting it.

Re:Patch location

[Anonymous Coward]

I've already done half the work for all of you ingrateful plebs by finding the location you need to patch.

You *will* bow down to GNAA and summarily pour a bowl of hot grits directly down your pants while fapping to Natalie Portman whether I tell you to do so or not.

Re:Patch location

[Anonymous Coward]

How about modding it up so someone has a chance of finding it?

Re:Patch location

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason I won't work any more on this is the same reason everything else is wrong in America right now. The zealots of the Obama administration, because of their foolish pursuits, have forced the Republicans to stand their ground and also forced the inept democratic into a standstill.

Re:Patch location

[Jonah Hex]

I was going to mod it up until I saw the Hot Grits/GNAA crap, which I guess will come back around to being funny again some day... Most likely after Slashdot implements their new design that will finally stop me from coming here.

Do we have to Boycott NVIDIA,NUKE india or both?

[Anonymous Coward]

From NVidia forums:

Hello Sandip

sandipt said:
For feature parity between Windows and Linux we set BaseMosaic to 3 screens on GeForce

Was this decision was made by an employee from India or from the United States?

I ask because it would be a terrible decision, but I don't believe it was made as a decision. I think it is the excuse of the off-shore workers, who shouldn't have done this.

Whatever is going on, this needs to be reversed and must never happen again. People purchased NVidia cards to operate 4 monitors with 3D acceleration. The 295 drivers and earlier supported that. Users tested their cards during the warranty period, and it worked.

Under the U.S. laws (Uniform Commercial Code), the historical support creates a Warranty for a Particular Purpose along with the Warranty of Merchantability and Fitness. Neither of these warranties can be waived. Nvidia could be sued by the class of affected users, and should lose.

That legal situation is as it should be. Companies have no right to withdraw features already sold to users, for any reason. To do so is stealing.

Re:NVIDIA -- fuck you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep you can't force people to not eat at McDonalds or supersize their meals.

windows with only 3 monitors?

[bored]

I've been running NVIDIA hardware with 4 monitors for over a decade. So, maybe there is an issue with win7/8 and multiple GPUs? In the past I would even mix/match the GPU's because the windows multimonitor support is (was?) part of the OS. I remember packing multiple PCI (not e) boards into the same machine. Lots of combinations worked but not all of them.

So, as another user on the nvidia forums pointed out it sounds like BS.

That said, running single screen configurations with linux/Xinerama has been problematic with nvidia hardware for a long time. Its sort of hit/miss whether it works.

Wobbly story

[Anonymous Coward]

Nvidia wants good Linux drivers. Linux and Windows drivers for Nvidia GPU parts can be the same under the hood. Nvidia NEEDS them to be the same to leverage Windows quality in the Linux driver releases. So Nvidia compromises a little, and brings Windows and Linux drivers into equivalence.

Sorry, so where is the story. Are there really such cretins here that think Nvidia should maintain SPECIAL Linux drivers with a completely different and unique codebase. Can anyone really be THAT thick?

Re: NVIDIA -- fuck you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Had he listened about binary blobs we probably wouldnt have any funtional nvidia drivers at all..

Re:You Open Source Idiots!

[Anonymous Coward]

Says who?

Open Graphics (GPL-GPU)

[asicsolutions]

Just thought I'd post that our kickstarter goes live on 10/9 for an LGPL graphics core. It is a complete 2D/3D Verilog implementation. The current version is PCI based and runs on Altera/ Xilinx or ASIC. 100% clean and synthesizable Verilog. We have a number of stretch goals that bring new features, generic interfaces so you could run on a PCIe FPGA board or an SOC part. The ultimate stretch goal would be a Unified Shader design.

We have pictures and will have video from the FPGA board on the kickstarter site (live on 10/9),

Our Facebook page (pictures and live now): Silicon Spectrum FB Page

Our Home page (out of date): Silicon Spectrum Home

GPLGPU.com (not live yet): GPL GPU site (not currently live)

It won't beat an Nvidia or AMD part in price/ performance (unless someone wants to do an ASIC based on it), but the source is open and no risk of ever not knowing what is inside in the future.

I run four monitors in Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

So are they saying that this will be reduced to three too?

I really can't see any Microsoft angle in all this, I think someone's screwed up.

Good old SlashDot

[RightSaidFred99]

Making a Linux Jihad off of an offhand, unofficial comment on a forum somewhere by "some NVidia employee" as evidence that The Man is out to get Linux. Nevermind that someone later in the thread says they _are_ using 4 monitors in Windows and that the whole thread really has no substance.

I'm serious when I say get a life.

Ndevious

[Mister Liberty]

Need I say more?

I think this comes down to:

[tlambert]

I'd settle for making it compile with the 3.10 kernels... so I don't end up without a FUCKING GUI thanks NVIDIA.

I think this comes down to:

(1) When you change an API and break our software, you are an asshole

(2) When we change an API and break your software and you don't scramble to use the new API, we are forward thinkers contributing to progress

In the second case, it's clear that your code has "bitrotted", and it has nothing to do with the fact that we changed the API.

Re:I think this comes down to:

[the_B0fh]

Linus is famously against breaking usermode code.

Internal kernel APIs are not for use by non-kernel developers. That you can use it is a side effect.

NVIDIA is contributing to kernel code, but shoving a blob inside (you realize that their code is actually *WINDOWS* code with a shim right?)

How is any of these Linus's fault?

Have the ETF sue.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are neutering a feature that works well, after people buy the hardware. Sue.

Need for FSF's Respects Your Freedom certification

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly why we need FSF's Respects Your Freedom Certification and end-users making purchasing decisions that help fix these types of issues. If people refuse to purchase from companies whom won't release the complete set of code (or specifications) under free software licenses then the community will have some sway. Right now the community has no sway simply because users are purchasing from a random assortment of companies who *don't care*. There primary target audience is not Linux and as a result it is insignificant. There are companies working on fixing these issues. The FSF has certified products from two companies thus far:

ThinkPenguin.com (all sorts of hardware for desktop use, wifi cards, sound, graphics, printers, etc)
Aleph Objects, Inc. (3d printers)

ThinkPenguin only ships free software friendly hardware (where it works with 100% free distribution) and has been pushing toward getting companies designing chipsets to release code. Right now they've made some progress however small and are aiming for a 100% free software friendly laptop (further down the road, according to CEO who posts frequently on the Trisquel forums). Right now it isn't feasible (despite numerous companies/projects working on it). What is needed most is money. Somebody needs to pay the developers, engineers, and fabs to produce this stuff and despite claims by some of progress we are really far off from seeing something sustainable the masses would buy. And without that you might as well keep going with what is more freedom respecting (and work up to) than ship a single system that can't be updated/sustained/or well supported.

Re:NVIDIA -- fuck you!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can, apparently, force everyone to live in the neo-liberal world, though.

Reality check

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, dear conspiracy theorists. Please be aware that the largest cost in software development usually is testing. Anything to reduce the test matrix is a huge plus in the real world where someone has to pay the bills. Now, guess what removing a feature exclusive to a vocal and nonpaying market segment does to that matrix? Right. Streamlining. Get real.

"because it encourages more sales of Windows 8"...

[peacefool]

The first ddg search "Windows 8 sales" got me here:
PC Sales Plunge Due To Windows 8: Report - The Huffington Post

- Looks like if mass consumer "is given the choice" of having a windows 8 PC only or NOT having a PC overall, he prefers NOT having a PC at all (and goes now for something completely different, ie some tablet /mobile phone /PC-on-a-Stick instead))

Obligatory rant

[sl4shd0rk]

It's no wonder these guys pissed off Linus enough to get the finger.

The API didn't change, because there isn't an API

[Anonymous Coward]

What API? There is no module-to-kernel API in Linux.

And maybe that's the real complaint. Someone ought to write an in-kernel GPL-compatible "plug-in supporter" which offers an API to third-party binaries which wish to run in kernel space. There currently exists no such service.

And this why communism analogies don't work

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole GPL communism/capitalism thing doesn't really make sense.

If meatspace economics, communism is generally thought of as two things simultaneously: public ownership of the means of production and a centrally planned economy, whereas capitalism is generally thought of as private ownership of the means of production, and a free market (or relatively free market) economy.

The thing about GPLed code, is that it resembles public ownership of the means of production, combined with an extreme free market characterized by viciously rabid competition by slick-haired 1980s Reaganaughts; whereas proprietary code resembles private ownership of the means of production, but with a centrally planned economy by Marx-trained father-knows-best left-wing professors, with competition virtually outlawed, and the KGB out looking for anyone who makes a derived work containing a bugfix.

So the whole analogy with meatspace economics is going to constantly grate on everyone, because no matter which side you take, you're wrong. People who say the free driver is commie, get called fools by free market fans. People say the free driver is capitalist, get called fools by Intellectual Property fans. People who say the proprietary driver is capitalist, get called fools by the free market fans who lament the lack of market forces and competition keeping the driver honest. People who say the proprietary driver is communist, get called fools by the people who know the users can't maintain the driver.

All four sets of criticism are valid, because, it turns out, THE ANALOGY IS TOTALLY STUPID and doesn't fit anyone's concept of communism or capitalism.

Forget Windoze already!!!

[apexwm]

I don't know how many problems that I've come across in Windows, that in GNU/Linux is not an issue. Who cares about Windows. Let Windows rot, and let's get on with a real OS.