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NVIDIA Begins Supplying Open-Source Register Header Files

Posted by samzenpus on from the opening-it-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes: NVIDIA's latest mark of their newly discovered open-source kindness is beginning to provide open-source hardware reference headers for their latest GK20A/GM20B Tegra GPUs while they are working to also provide hardware header files on their older GPUs. These programming header files in turn will help the development of the open-source Nouveau driver as up to this point they have had to do much of the development via reverse-engineering. Perhaps most interesting is that moving forward they would like to use the Nouveau kernel driver code-base as the primary development environment for new hardware.

77 comments

  1. What's the score now? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We have nVidia helping but not making their own Open Source driver. Intel, after a long period of Open Drivers, said it would require BLOBs for future graphical interfaces. AMD helps with Open Drivers more than nVidia so far but doesn't support them.

    --
    Bruce Perens.
    1. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope all those fuckers get what's coming someday. Especially Intel, what a backstab.

    2. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel is closing their drivers? Really??

      So there is no reason to switch from AMD to Intel....

      Really, I do not understand these companies. They want to have GPU-based programs done, with tools like OpenCL, but then they turn around and not support the actual GPU. That in itself kills usage of GPU-intensive applications on Linux on either of these chips. No wonder they can't make inroads into CUDA playground. At least those drivers work, even if they are not OSS.

    3. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Adding a closed source firmware blob has very little to do with closed source drivers. Intel is not making their drivers closed source. All the x86 regular old CPU code (AKA the driver) is still open. Sure theres is some closed source stuff now, but I suspect there isn't even a compiler publicly available that could compile what ever they have for its source, and that code isn't at all relevant to other devices.

      Would their driver magically become open again if that blob lived in factory loaded microcode you couldn't change? That would be less open, and back to no blob. The blob isn't necessarily evil here, you need to look at the larger picture.

      If you just want to hate on intel though, I recommend targeting their monopolistic actions. Intel really pisses me off in a lot of ways, but please at least respect their great work on open source graphics drivers: its one of the few great things they have done (them contributing an OpenMP run-time to LLVM was another nice thing: they arn't pure evil)

    4. Re:What's the score now? by leehwtsohg · · Score: 1

      powertop?

    5. Re:What's the score now? by x0ra · · Score: 1

      Do you have a source about this whole blob stuff ?

    6. Re:What's the score now? by Pi1grim · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Blob used to be stored in ROM part on the die, upgraded from time to time. Now they'll store in drivers directly and load it into the hardware on initialization. Intel didn't close anything, they just revealed the same blob that used to be hidden from the eyes and included it into driver. So, I'd say that's not Intel creating a problem, merely exposing it. Also, perhaps now that everyone has suddenly got their panties in a bunch over this issue, Intel might consider opensourcing the blob as well (in case publicity benefits will outweigh the work needed).

    7. Re:What's the score now? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If they actually told us how to program their microengines, something good might come of it. But they'll probably just BSD-license a list of numbers, as others have.

      I liked writing bit-slice microcode at Pixar. I really could get every last bit of power out of the hardware.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
    8. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Grow up, Linux faggot.

      Holy shit, are you the type of person that Dice is trying to attract with all /.'s recent "improvements"?

    9. Re:What's the score now? by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Informative

      Citation please? Because the last press release I saw from AMD on the subject said they were releasing docs as fast as the lawyer could sign off on them and that they hoped to replace their binary blob in the future with the FOSS driver. To that end they had gone so far as to hire a couple extra devs to work on the FOSS drivers to help them get closer to release parity.

      Now I can understand why you will never have certain features supported by the FOSS drivers, why? AMD doesn't own the rights and thus has no legal way of releasing that code, for example HDMI with HDCP is owned by Intel and I'm sure their codecs are covered by the MPEG-LA patents but from what I understood AMD has been releasing all their docs not affected by others patents including the APUs which I would assume to be of most benefit to Linux users. Have they changed their position?

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    10. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's better that they don't help. By nVidia not doing any development it means the drivers are clean legally speaking.

    11. Re:What's the score now? by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      One of the hardest lessons I ever learned in this business is that if you tell a customer (often any customer) about it, you support it. It does not matter in the slightest whether it's officially documented or not.

      I learned this lesson long before I started reading Raymond Chen's blog, which is full of examples.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    12. Re:What's the score now? by cardpuncher · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not having the source is the issue :)

    13. Re:What's the score now? by ledow · · Score: 1

      I'm an Open-Source advocate, don't get me wrong.

      However, they are under no obligation whatsoever, so why should they? What advantage do they get from opening them? What's going to be the thing that will make them want to open their drivers? What's going to outweigh potential patent etc. risks?

      Because, as far as I can see, they gain basically nothing. They might get a "good news" article or two but it won't increase their sales significantly at all.

      Are we still in the era of hoping that huge multinational companies will do complicated, expensive, liability-affecting things for us out of the goodness of their hearts if we complain enough?

      I would love them to, don't get me wrong, but I can perfectly see why they - and others - don't. There's no advantage to a network-card manufacturer not having their network card drivers in the kernel. They don't do anything secret, they operate on well-defined protocols, they all pretty much do the same things, and you can't even start up a computer properly nowadays if your network card isn't supported from the first minute. So the open-source code is next to nothing anyway.

      But graphics card drivers? What's in it for nVidia? Will they sell more video cards? No. Can you not boot your machine without an OS driver? No. Can you just use the proprietary drivers? Yes. Is card X that operates at 10billion IPS almost identical in operation to card Y that operates at 100billion? No. Not even close.

      And then you have to have OpenGL / Mesa / CUDA etc. drivers, APIs, libraries, etc. All this doesn't affect most kinds of hardware but for graphics - one of the fastest moving technologies - it does.

      So I can't blame them. And I can't think why they should beyond political idealism. And I can't think what the OS community could do to change that.

      If OS ruled the world and could decree such things and nobody bought things that weren't OS-approved, sure, we could bully them into submission. But we don't work like that.

      So what can we, as a community, provide to nVidia to convince them to open themselves up to potential patent lawsuits and huge developer expenses on a regular basis?

      I can't think of anything.

    14. Re:What's the score now? by m.alessandrini · · Score: 1

      The advantage? Their hardware could be used on more operating systems, without them having to do anything, and so they could sell more cards for more computers. Their business is hardware, after all, not software.

    15. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      all their docs not affected by others patents

      If they are patented, why it would be an issue to release documentation regarding it? If you are patenting something, you are already releasing the documentation in exchange for getting the patent.

    16. Re:What's the score now? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      How many more OSs, and with what market share? You also didn't mention the many disadvantages, which if the numbers from the first question are too low, will make this a complete non-starter.

    17. Re:What's the score now? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Citation please? Because the last press release I saw from AMD on the subject said they were releasing docs as fast as the lawyer could sign off on them and that they hoped to replace their binary blob in the future with the FOSS driver. To that end they had gone so far as to hire a couple extra devs to work on the FOSS drivers to help them get closer to release parity.

      Well no, not really. They're hoping to replace the base infrastructure on Linux with the open source "amdgpu" driver, but with separate open and closed source user mode drivers for OpenGL, multimedia and so on. It would get you up to release parity if all you need is a framebuffer and software fallback, but they are still planning to develop Mesa and Catalyst separately. They don't have any plans to give Intel a free high performance OpenGL engine or to let nVidia look at their game-specific optimizations.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    18. Re:What's the score now? by Migraineman · · Score: 1

      Coding on the metal seems to be a dying art these days. If resources are plentiful, it's likely faster to implement a solution in a higher-level abstracted method. (And if resoruces aren't plentiful, it's easier to tell your boss "the hardware can't handle it" and get the objective changed to something less agressive.)

    19. Re:What's the score now? by ledow · · Score: 1

      Could be used on more operating systems doesn't translate to more sales.

      And it's not "without them having to do anything". Just patent/copyright-auditing the proprietary driver they had in order to open-source would probably wipe out any extra sales they gained alone. Let alone ongoing maintenance, catering for all the Linux kernel changes as they try to get it accepted into the kernel for several years, bus-changes, new versions of CUDA / OpenGL translations etc.

      Honestly, look into the costs. They wouldn't actually make that much at all, and it would cost them dear to try. It's not as simple as "let's just push our existing codebase to github", and certainly not if you want anyone to make any sense of it, and certainly not if your codebase changes nearly every week (I've done 20-30 driver updates to my laptop over the last 2 years, for a single chipset that's hardly used any more - god knows what kind of churn they have in their source code management).

      And for a handful of geeks on a minority operating system that has things like Steam, etc., yes but they're not going to RUN OUT and buy a new nVidia card just to use those games. They either buy new regularly anyone to play them on Windows, or they will re-use what they already have.

      Some places it makes sense. But here, I have to agree with nVidia that it probably doesn't make any business-sense at all.

    20. Re:What's the score now? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      What type of GPUs does Pixar use? Is it still the A113?

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    21. Re:What's the score now? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Hardware is cheaper than programmers 99% of the time.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    22. Re:What's the score now? by m.alessandrini · · Score: 1

      Maintenance? Publishing free software themselves? Why? They could simply release the specs needed to interface with their hardware, and whoever wants would write its driver, much like the nouveau team is doing, but with much more difficulty. It would not be their business. And even if this means only 10 more users, it would be a gain anyway. But I know, I'm speaking too idealistically.

    23. Re:What's the score now? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

      I didn't actually work on GPUs very much at Pixar, the image computer I worked on was the grandfather of the SIMD image processing instructions on modern CPUs. What would become a GPU later on was a very expensive box from Silicon Graphics, I had one that cost at least a quarter Million dollars.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
    24. Re:What's the score now? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 1

      Whatever it has been used for subsequently, A113 is a classroom at Cal Arts.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
    25. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There isn't any microcode now. What used to be microcode are now high-level shaders that are compiled into shader program assembly language, optimized using LLVM optimizing compilers and scheduled using multithreaded techniques. Once your GPU cores have deep multi-stage pipelines with parallelized scalar, vector, floating point and double precision processing units, trying to write wide instruction micro-code would be insane. There are just too many things running in parallel. Anything from 100 to 300 different instructions all at different stages of completion. They even have specialized instructions to guarantee that one set of instructions will finish before another starts.

    26. Re:What's the score now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These articles will explain (thousands of rack-mounted AMD processors connected straight by fiber-optics to the artists PC's):

      http://www.slashfilm.com/cool-stuff-a-look-at-pixar-and-lucasfilms-renderfarms/
      http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/24/the-making-of-pixars-latest-technological-marvel-monsters-university/

  2. Curious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder what got them to this point.
    Are they reducing costs? Or they've compared both and liked the open source variant more?

  3. Oh, sure, Tegra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Approximately zero people actually use Tegra in real life, which is probably the whole reason that this was authorized. Every generation they make huge noise about how awesome the new Tegra is, then it ships in maybe 5 or 6 devices, half of which can't actually be bought anywhere.

    1. Re:Oh, sure, Tegra by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      Not so.
      There are more devices out there than you think:
      http://www.nvidia.com/object/t...

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    2. Re:Oh, sure, Tegra by CurryCamel · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sampling a few of the device's in your link, GP's claim that the devices can't be bought still seems to hold true, mostly.
      For example, of the devices on the first page you link to:

      Can't ship out of the US:
      -Acer Chromebook 13 CB5-311-T1UU
      -Acer Chromebook 13 CB5-311-T7NN
      -NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet
      -EVGA Tegra Note 7
      -Nabi Big Tab (24")

      Can be bought:
      -NVIDIA SHIELD Portable
      -Google Nexus 9

      Dead link:
      -HP Chromebook 14 G3

      No wonder nVidia can't sell them, if people cannot buy them... I wonder if there is something in the Tegra itself that causes this, or if the link provided was just a happy coincidence to confirm GP's gut feel.

    3. Re:Oh, sure, Tegra by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      Hmmm... Maybe you/GP is right.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
    4. Re:Oh, sure, Tegra by Aboroth · · Score: 1

      This is a gimmick to try to get Tegra to see an uptick in adoption. If Tegra actually starts getting into everything, everywhere, Nvidia will yank the carrot away as fast as they can, because Nvidia doesn't like sharing.

    5. Re:Oh, sure, Tegra by jaklode · · Score: 1

      Sampling a few of the device's in your link, GP's claim that the devices can't be bought still seems to hold true, mostly. For example, of the devices on the first page you link to:

      Can't ship out of the US: -Acer Chromebook 13 CB5-311-T1UU -Acer Chromebook 13 CB5-311-T7NN

      Right, those are likely American models. My model in Germany has a different model number (it's a Full HD, 4 GB RAM model, BTW). I have it since October 2, 2014.

  4. Cheap stab against RMS's stance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    > Would their driver magically become open again if that blob lived in factory loaded microcode you couldn't change?

    This is the usual cheap stab against RMS's stance. The truth is... it's just more complicated.

    - On the one hand (1) there's your position: firmware can be fixed for bugs, new blob, hardware works now. And there's hope to reverse-engineer all that (far harder "inner") stuff, potentially opening a new avenue, if you're willing to ignore all the scary warnings on the package.

    - On the other hand (2) there's this thing: if firmware is fixed, you've got a fixed target (functionality and bug set) to reverse-engineer against (now I'm talking of the far easier "outer" stuff). And your efforts can't be forced into obsolescence by an update of the binary blobs. Besides (think firmware signing), manufacturers are doing all what's in their might to take control of the firmware side of things. Just a question of time until they find a way of forcing upgrades whenever they please (watch mobile phones OTA to see what I mean).

    Look. I started more as an (1) guy, but knowing RMS I thought "maybe he has a point. He mostly has". But seeing what shenanigans this clusterfuck of manufacturers, "intellectual property" industry and (commercial and police-state) surveillance is coming up with, I'm more and more on (2). The less control the manufacturer has over "his" hardware once I coughed up the dough for it the better.

    1. Re:Cheap stab against RMS's stance by m.alessandrini · · Score: 1

      This is the usual cheap stab against RMS's stance

      One could argue that this is the usual cheap stab of RMS against hardware manufacturer. Hardware firmware is meant to be embedded in a piece of hardware, think microcontrollers that power everything today, and 99% of times you don't even know there are so many of them in a device.

  5. Thanks, Linus. by Lisias · · Score: 4, Funny

    A well said "fuck you" does wonders! :-)

    --
    Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
    1. Re:Thanks, Linus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The very idea Nvidia or any other company, group, or individual should give a fuck what Linus says is laughable. That said, someone definitely needs to tell Linus to go fuck himself.

    2. Re:Thanks, Linus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The very idea Nvidia or any other company, group, or individual should give a fuck what Linus says is laughable. That said, someone definitely needs to tell Linus to go fuck himself.

      Well, if they want to sell Tegra devices then they probably do care a little about what Linus thinks, since his kernel powers... all of them.

    3. Re:Thanks, Linus. by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Yes. Who cares what the guy says who is responsible for the code powering well over half of the internet?

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    4. Re:Thanks, Linus. by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 1

      Well, can't count on an anonymous coward to do it. Luckily what you say also doesn't matter.

      --
      There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
    5. Re:Thanks, Linus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Who cares what the guy says who is responsible for the code powering well over half of the internet?

      What? Neither Cisco IOS, Juniper JunOS, or Huawei [whatever they call stolen IOS] is Linux.

      Those three combined probably power well over 90% of the internet today.

    6. Re: Thanks, Linus. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly you have no idea how the internet works.

  6. What's their fear with that? by m.alessandrini · · Score: 0
    In all these years I've been wondering why they are so jealous about their drivers. I know, it's a very complicated matter of APIs, exposing internal details, etc. But it's not that someone can suddenly copy their silicon by knowing how it exchanges data with the computer, is it? And who exactly would be able to copy their silicon with their current technology?

    Or are they afraid that a cheap manufacturer could use their precious drivers with a cheap, compatible card? But if their hardware is better than the cheaper ones, what's the point?

    1. Re:What's their fear with that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are probably afraid of getting sued with some BS patent on using a register to represent some setting.

    2. Re:What's their fear with that? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ATI and nVidia try to compete for share. They have high-payed repstrying to convince companies making the games used in the benchmarks to use features that favor their cards over their competitions'. I can see publicizing the drivers leading to the discovery of new holes that screw up a specific card getting pushed.

      Security by obscurity is not a replacement for real security, but it helps in this narrow case.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    3. Re:What's their fear with that? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      They license a lot of technologies from other companies, and the conditions of those licenses usually specifically mention not being allowed to publish details of its operation, and especially not precise details. That alone means their hands are tied in this respect. It's the price we pay for the performance we get.

    4. Re:What's their fear with that? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      In all these years I've been wondering why they are so jealous about their drivers. I know, it's a very complicated matter of APIs, exposing internal details, etc.

      nVidia doesn't own a lot of the IP in their mainstream graphics cards. Tesla is a separate development, and they do own most of the GPU IP in there, so they can release the specs. But nVidia got deeply into bed with Microsoft in the NV2x era. They got insider information on Direct3D, which they used to guide geforce development, and they got their chip into the original Xbox, but they also wound up beholden to Microsoft. They have never outright come out and said that, but they've strongly implied it, and it makes sense.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:What's their fear with that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In all these years I've been wondering why they are so jealous about their drivers. I know, it's a very complicated matter of APIs, exposing internal details, etc.

      nVidia doesn't own a lot of the IP in their mainstream graphics cards. Tesla is a separate development, and they do own most of the GPU IP in there, so they can release the specs. But nVidia got deeply into bed with Microsoft in the NV2x era. They got insider information on Direct3D, which they used to guide geforce development, and they got their chip into the original Xbox, but they also wound up beholden to Microsoft. They have never outright come out and said that, but they've strongly implied it, and it makes sense.

      Exactly, it's all about DirectX and Nvidia can't be happy about being held hostage on that for so many years. The problem is that the standard is DirectX in most markets that Nvidia has major markets in like gaming and the workstation applications. So almost all driver development is done #1 for DirectX and then #2 for OpenGL/Android. But those markets are now in decline and there isn't any more growth because of mobile and the Windows workstation market is quickly going to Mac/Linux. The real growth markets are with Mac/Linux for workstations/computation and Android for gaming. Nvidia doesn't have any major market in the consoles and it's current position in Android is pathetic. They are a small company in comparison to the large ARM GPU makers squeezing them on one side and then Intel/AMD hitting them with the integrated graphics which is killing their mass-market low-end GPU's. With Intel Skylake even the GTX 750 will become irrelevant really fast. Nvidia is in serious trouble and they know it.

      Vulkan is the only hope they have of liberating themselves from Microsoft DirectX and being able to have a future in the Mac/Linux/Android markets. It would be an ideal for them to have one single target for all UNIX driver development. This would be brand new graphics work done in the FOSS drivers with probably proprietary libs for CUDA and some games/applications. It's going to be amazing and get much faster powerful than DirectX ever could be. Nvidia is in a race to free itself from DirectX before they lose the future of Mac/Linux to Intel/AMD and Android to the large ARM GPU makers.

    6. Re:What's their fear with that? by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 1

      1) They license other companies intellectual property. They can't just willy-nilly make all of their drivers' source code public.

      2) A decade ago, NVIDIA other companies were so competitive, they were concerned that revealing their driver source code could reveal their hardware tricks to speed up graphics performance. Then their competitors could reverse-engineer the detail in their next generation card, and "catch up" to NVIDIA's performance. Luckily, they may be finally realizing that they get more of an advantage by utilizing free debugging & fixes from their enthusiast customers.

      --
      There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
  7. Okay so.... Physx on Mac then? by sandbagger · · Score: 1

    A fellow can dream.

    --
    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
  8. Why bother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Haven't used Linux for ages. Under Windows I can have a deluxe NVIDIA driver installed right now.

    1. Re:Why bother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All depends on which card you have...

      Some don't work with the new drivers.

    2. Re:Why bother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't matter. Then I use the old drivers. They are still more optimized and featureful than the Linux stuff. Windows 10 supports even WDDM 1.0 (Vista era) drivers and they work great.

    3. Re:Why bother... by lordbeejee · · Score: 1

      Haven't used Linux for ages. Under Windows I can have a deluxe NVIDIA driver installed right now.

      The blob has the same performance in linux as in windows, games generally yield the same performance too, except for some that use a wrapper without decent optimization. See here for a januari test - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p... The nvidia header file releases discussed in this article and their future plans might boost the opensource driver linux though, which performs badly.

  9. Re:What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh fuck off APK, nobody gives a shit about you.

  10. Re:What I post's nonsense dave420? by Psychotria · · Score: 1

    Could you perhaps find a synonym for effete? I'm asking this with the utmost sincerity because looking at your post history I think that your use of the word has become, well, effete.

  11. Re:What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    dave420 you're exposed in your true motives (webmaster) n' contradictions n' you're cryin about it? Your unidentifiable ac posts prove it. Grow up and quit puffing that pot. It's making you stupider than ever.

  12. Re:What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    dave420 you obviously do now that we saw how you are you don't like it being exposed in it.

  13. What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    Why'd you agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you:

    "I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

    Of course not: It's impossible to dispute HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!

    Since my points in favor of hosts SINGLE FILE native kernelmode faster part show hosts doing more w/ less vs. so-called 'competitors' many part messagepassing + cpu/ram use overheads laden slower usermode FAR MORE COMPLEX 'solutions' doing less than hosts do for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity!

    I make creating a superior more efficient solution EASIER!

    (That's more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).

    ---

    "I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    I bother you? Then WHY DON'T YOU DO IT & use 'em? Answer that!

    (You stalk/harass me instead!)

    OBVIOUSLY you don't & you're a "ne'er-do-well" troll & you have "other motivations" (next):

    ---

    * QUESTION:

    DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , or a MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?

    Answer it!

    As per your usual you'll avoid every question, or lie & You've been EXPOSED in your "motives" in the last link just above, lol!

    APK

    P.S.=> See Dave420 the "pot puffing clown" SQUIRM - evasions galore will ensue (as well as effete downmods to *try* vainly "hide it" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )... apk

  14. Linux Nightmares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Honestly, I am a 100% Linux user, but lately I have been extremely frustrated by the personalities in control of projects that give me one headache after the other. Primarily I use Gentoo and Gentoo Based Sabayon Linux. One of my issues is Nvidia dropping support of a graphics card I have in my wife's computer that I bought 2 years ago (granted it was an $80 card at the time) So now I have been switching between nouveau and the 304 Nvidia drivers, one breaks with a kernel release and I have to switch.

    Secondly, this whole avlib/ffmpeg fork is causing me all kinds of grief as I have been using OpenShot for video editing, and now avconv is diverged enough from ffmpeg that when I encode from OpenShot I have no audio. And switching to ffmpeg is a huge task on gentoo/sabayon now. Gentoo has dropped all of the other alternative functional non-linear video editors from portage (also gone from entropy). Also mplayer is so hopelessly broken with avconv I am just depressed.

    And with each update Gnome 3 becomes more an more hostile to how I like to use my computer. Mate is half broken, XFCE is too primitive so I am either switching to KDE or just going to use just FluxBox W with XFE or Just use the latest Enlightenment.

    1. Re:Linux Nightmares by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 1

      Kudos for sticking with Linux, but you should be bright enough to figure out that this the "price" you pay for using Linux. The price of "anarchy" is that the community chooses its leaders; there is no "vetting" or removal procedure. Basically, things have to get XFree86 bad before something gets done about it. Your whining about the "proletarian coders' paradise" falls on deaf ears, much like the Soviet Union. Hell, there aren't even Linux (not RMS) evangelists that will bother to raise the battle flag anymore.

      --
      There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
    2. Re:Linux Nightmares by Tighe_L · · Score: 1

      Good points, but it doesn't change the fact that Linux is getting worse lately.

  15. Re:suck it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh so close! Try again next time.

  16. What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    Why'd you agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you:

    "I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

    Of course not: It's impossible to dispute HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!

    Since my points in favor of hosts SINGLE FILE native kernelmode faster part show hosts doing more w/ less vs. so-called 'competitors' many part messagepassing + cpu/ram use overheads laden slower usermode FAR MORE COMPLEX 'solutions' doing less than hosts do for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity!

    I make creating a superior more efficient solution EASIER!

    (That's more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).

    ---

    "I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    I bother you? Then WHY DON'T YOU DO IT & use 'em? Answer that!

    (You stalk/harass me instead!)

    OBVIOUSLY you don't & you're a "ne'er-do-well" troll & you have "other motivations" (next):

    ---

    * QUESTION:

    DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , or a MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?

    Answer it!

    As per your usual you'll avoid every question, or lie & You've been EXPOSED in your "motives" in the last link just above, lol!

    APK

    P.S.=> See Dave420 the "pot puffing clown" SQUIRM - evasions galore will ensue (as well as effete downmods via sockpuppets to *try* vainly "hide it" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )... apk

  17. What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    Why'd you agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you:

    "I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

    Of course not: It's impossible to dispute HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!

    Since my points in favor of hosts SINGLE FILE native kernelmode faster part show hosts doing more w/ less vs. so-called 'competitors' many part messagepassing + cpu/ram use overheads laden slower usermode FAR MORE COMPLEX 'solutions' doing less than hosts do for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity!

    I make creating a superior more efficient solution EASIER!

    (That's more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).

    ---

    "I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    I bother you? Then WHY DON'T YOU DO IT & use 'em? Answer that!

    (You stalk/harass me instead!)

    OBVIOUSLY you don't & you're a "ne'er-do-well" troll & you have "other motivations" (next):

    ---

    * QUESTION:

    DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , or a MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?

    Answer it!

    As per your usual you'll avoid every question, or lie & You've been EXPOSED in your "motives" in the last link just above, lol!

    APK

    P.S.=> See Dave420 the "pot puffing clown" SQUIRM - evasions galore will ensue (as well as effete downmods via sockpuppets to *try* vainly "hide it" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )... apk

  18. Silence dolt! apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject? Make me you fucking PUNY powerless dolt!

    APK

    P.S.=> LMAO @ U fool... apk

  19. What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    Why'd you agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you:

    "I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

    Of course not: It's impossible to dispute HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!

    Since my points in favor of hosts SINGLE FILE native kernelmode faster part show hosts doing more w/ less vs. so-called 'competitors' many part messagepassing + cpu/ram use overheads laden slower usermode FAR MORE COMPLEX 'solutions' doing less than hosts do for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity!

    I make creating a superior more efficient solution EASIER!

    (That's more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).

    ---

    "I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    I bother you? Then WHY DON'T YOU DO IT & use 'em? Answer that!

    (You stalk/harass me instead!)

    OBVIOUSLY you don't & you're a "ne'er-do-well" troll & you have "other motivations" (next):

    ---

    * QUESTION:

    DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , or a MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?

    Answer it!

    As per your usual you'll avoid every question, or lie & You've been EXPOSED in your "motives" in the last link just above, lol!

    APK

    P.S.=> See Dave420 the "pot puffing clown" SQUIRM - evasions galore will ensue (as well as effete downmods via sockpuppets to *try* vainly "hide it" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )... apk

  20. What I post's nonsense dave420? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    Why'd you agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you:

    "I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

    Of course not: It's impossible to dispute HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!

    Since my points in favor of hosts SINGLE FILE native kernelmode faster part show hosts doing more w/ less vs. so-called 'competitors' many part messagepassing + cpu/ram use overheads laden slower usermode FAR MORE COMPLEX 'solutions' doing less than hosts do for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity!

    I make creating a superior more efficient solution EASIER!

    (That's more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).

    ---

    "I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)

    I bother you? Then WHY DON'T YOU DO IT & use 'em? Answer that!

    (You stalk/harass me instead!)

    OBVIOUSLY you don't & you're a "ne'er-do-well" troll & you have "other motivations" (next):

    ---

    * QUESTION:

    DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , or a MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?

    Answer it!

    As per your usual you'll avoid every question, or lie & You've been EXPOSED in your "motives" in the last link just above, lol!

    APK

    P.S.=> See Dave420 the "pot puffing clown" SQUIRM - evasions galore will ensue (as well as effete downmods via sockpuppets to *try* vainly "hide it" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )... apk