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NVIDIA Begins Providing Open-Source 3D Driver Support For GeForce GTX 900 Series (phoronix.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In late 2014 NVIDIA announced their GPUs would begin requiring signed firmware images before the open-source driver could enable hardware acceleration. That led the Nouveau developers to call the latest GPUs "very open-source unfriendly", but that criticism can now be laid to rest as NVIDIA has finally released the signed firmware and basic open-source driver code. The open-source driver can now move on with its open-source 3D enablement for Maxwell GPUs and the NVIDIA developer is hoping it will be ready for the next kernel cycle (Linux 4.6).
soo...
we are still waiting for the source-code for the binary blobs, and keys required to sign our own firmware?
int main() { printf("Hello World\n"); return 0;}
NVIDIA begins providing open-source defective drivers
I'm sorry, but what does piracy have to do with driver support?
requiring signed firmware is still open source unfriendly! if the firmware can be changed, we want an open source version of that too! we also want to be able to run our own code on it. signed firmware is a hostile statement saying that you don't want anyone else to be able to write firmware for this card.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Only software written by Stallman himself is good as everything else is a potential patent troll and/or vendor lock-in.
For me FOSS is a tool, it's not something to get emotional or tied up about. I pay Nvidia money Nvidia pays people to develop drivers that work. I paid AMD/ATI money and they said "Ha, here's a shit ton of specs, write them yourself". Sorry. My job isn't to write display drivers, my job is to use the display drivers.
I suppose I could try growing my own food too, but I (gladly) pay someone else to do it for me. Even if it is a bit 'closed source'.
And how good is that AMD driver?
Their opensource driver (yup, they are also having some of the opensource driver developers on their own payroll) is actually pretty good.
(As often shown on phoronix benchmarks).
To the point that the open-source driver is the officially supported driver for older hardware platforms that get dropped out of catalyst. Usually by the time a card isn't supported by catalyst anymore, the opensource driver is demonstrating nearly as good performance (and on a few occasions, even better).
The situation is quite different from Nvidia.
With AMD:
- the closed source driver is so-so. It's buggy and crashy, but at least there's 1st day support for newer hardware generations or newer features.
- the open source driver is really good (thanks to actual input by AMD, both documentation *AND* paid position)
- AMD is putting lots of effort in that direction. It progresses very slowly, takes time, but looks promision. AMDGPU is such an exemple (moving to a stack which is mostly open-source, with catalyst being only a proprietary openGL library running above the opensource component as an alternative to the opensource Gallium3D/Mesa's OpenGL state tracker).
With NVidia:
- the closed source driver is high quality. But it's basically an almost straight recompile of the windows stack. So you're fucked up if you need a feature that Linux does differently (hybrid Intel+Nvidia grpahics on laptop was such an exemple). Also fuck you if you use a newer kernel than what they are currently supporting (you can't use a rolling distro or a 3rd party repo to get the latest kernels, because Nvidia's drivers rely on their own special shim driver). And don't forget "fuck you too" if you have older hardware, they'll drop support from newer drivers, and only seldom support older generations of driver for you.
- the open source driver is a mixed bag anywhere between total crap and more or less working. Not at all the fault of the developers. They are basically on their own it's a miracle what they managed to pull off with such a meager support.
- Nvidia mostly doesn't give a crap about opensource development. From time to time, they might decide on a whim to be nice for once and throw a bone. Usually when it also helps Tegra developement and just happens to have some use for desktop cards.
- The exception is the Tegra mobile platform. Given the overly dominant position of Linux in the embed world, Nvidia are regularily providing some help to the opensource Tegra support.
So if you want opensource drivers not only for ideological reasons but also practical reasons (like having a rolling distro and/or latest kernels).
AMD is the definitive GPU maker to go to.
If you want the best performance ever while not minding whatever code you run, Nvidia is you best choice.
(Just hope you won't land on one of the few "not supported" sore points, like laptops).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Open SORES code thieves demand trade secrets unable to build it themselves expecting a company to give away it's hard-earned trade secrets? Please - make us laugh some more, ok?? Such FINE solid code from OPEN SORES WEASELS too (not) http://linux.slashdot.org/stor... Unbelievable - the "land of OPEN SORES" (otherwise known as plagiarism city) - where everyone claims others' code as "their own" falsely by ripping it off or by making incredibly security issue riddled vulnerable garbage as the link evidences.
Is how do you keep folks from hacking the firmware to make an old 660 look like a 960 long enough to screw over a few hundred thousand nVidia customers. It's happened before... Sure, you know how to check your firmware. Lots of us do. Lots of us don't though, or don't care to learn.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
These are linux drivers, kid. Piracy is a windows thing.