NVIDIA Is Joining The Linux Foundation

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA Is Joining The Linux Foundation

NVIDIA will be joining the Linux Foundation, per an announcement coming out in the morning. But for open-source Linux fans, will this be a reason to rejoice about NVIDIA potentially moving forward with open-source drivers? Don't break out the champagne quite yet...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTA2NzI

[LLStarks]

Any devs want to chime in for a more realistic analysis?

[oliver]

My first reaction seeing the title in my RSS reader was; This is it, hell has frozen over. Reading the rest of the article though only re-confirmed what I've been remembering for years.

nVidia doesn't care for linux. Their CEO once made a statement regarding linux back in the riva128 days about they would never support opensource etc etc.

I think them joining the foundation is just a way to sell more tegra chips for use in android tablets, with their binary blob for video. Good for the foundation to have some extra cash, but don't expect any nVidia opensource miracles.

[hal2k1]

My first reaction seeing the title in my RSS reader was; This is it, hell has frozen over. Reading the rest of the article though only re-confirmed what I've been remembering for years.

nVidia doesn't care for linux. Their CEO once made a statement regarding linux back in the riva128 days about they would never support opensource etc etc.

I think them joining the foundation is just a way to sell more tegra chips for use in android tablets, with their binary blob for video. Good for the foundation to have some extra cash, but don't expect any nVidia opensource miracles.

Previous generations of Android devices have used Tegra, but currently the reference platform is OMAP4.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/24...n-nexus-galaxy

OMAP5 is shaping up as the future:

http://9to5google.com/2012/01/13/tex...head-of-apple/

IMO Nvidia need desperately to do something positive re Linux or Tegra won't be used any longer for Android. This is a big market to miss out on.

[oliver]

Only sad thing about the omap's is, they use our big bad friend, PowerVR.

[dfx.]

Only sad thing about the omap's is, they use our big bad friend, PowerVR. :(

and i don't even know who's worse...
personally, i hope for Samsung and ARM to kick some ass with Exynos, Mali and Tizen.

[droidhacker]

Only sad thing about the omap's is, they use our big bad friend, PowerVR.

I'll take powervr over nvidia any day.
The biggest problem that can be associated with powervr was actually caused by INTEL.

[Sidicas]

IMO Nvidia need desperately to do something positive re Linux or Tegra won't be used any longer for Android. This is a big market to miss out on.

I agree, I think nvidia has been making a pretty big mistake in regards to their lack of Tegra support on Linux. This is a big reason why ARM tablets are becoming more and more popular. Linux enthusiasts should definitely be buying tablets with ARM chips rather than Tegra chips becauase there is so much more that can be done with them (ie: Debian, Plasma Active Two, etc. runs on ARM).

[Lynxeye]

I agree, I think nvidia has been making a pretty big mistake in regards to their lack of Tegra support on Linux. This is a big reason why ARM tablets are becoming more and more popular. Linux enthusiasts should definitely be buying tablets with ARM chips rather than Tegra chips becauase there is so much more that can be done with them (ie: Debian, Plasma Active Two, etc. runs on ARM).

Sorry, but this is bulls**t.

First thing: Tegra also uses ARM CPU cores.
If we are speaking about the graphics cores ARM Mali today is no more or less open than the Tegra. For both you get GPLed kernel drivers (NVidia host a nice git repo for this), but both also need closed source userspace driver parts to get you something on the screen.

[droidhacker]

I agree, I think nvidia has been making a pretty big mistake in regards to their lack of Tegra support on Linux. This is a big reason why ARM tablets are becoming more and more popular. Linux enthusiasts should definitely be buying tablets with ARM chips rather than Tegra chips becauase there is so much more that can be done with them (ie: Debian, Plasma Active Two, etc. runs on ARM).

Heh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra#Specifications