NVIDIA 304.37 Linux Driver Brings 41 Official Changes

[pingufunkybeat]

What is nvidia's incentives in opening the spec or driver?

Working Optimus support. With the rise of the APUs, all supported out of the box by open drivers, this is a killer feature.

Do you bitch an moan about Intel/AMD not opening their microcode? bitch and moan to mobo makers to open their bios?

I do.

Coreboot will do fine for my next computer, and firmware (which runs on the gfx board, not inside your kernel) is an annoyance, but a much smaller one than replacing half of userspace with a blob.

[ninez]

That's also not true. They want a release of documentation.

Whether they want them to release documentation is a moot point, it doesn't change the fact, they are denying Nvidia access to things that would improve the Nvidia experience for their userbase, including things like Optimus.

By preventing a fully-featured open source driver. The result is that (without nouveau), you cannot run Nvidia on a fully open system. That's the definition of pushing closed source down the throats of every nvidia owner.

I specifically chose Nvidia in FULL knowledge of what i was buying ~ Nvidia didn't shove anything down my throat. And quite Frankly, none of the OSS drivers are fully-featured - and we've already been over this. Stop making fallacious BS claims. AMD gives specs - is radeon a fully-featured OSS driver? nope..

Just release the documentation, give people a CHOICE.

People have a choice.

And the only sane answer to this is: Fuck you Nvidia!

Or let the free-market system work, how it is intended to work. ie: don't buy nvidia if you don't want to support them, and let the free market do the rest.

This whole discussion is about licensing of exported symbols, isn't it?

not really. Nobody is dictating to the kernel developers how they are to license the code that they write. We may be discussing various aspects of exported symbols ~ but that is entirely different.

seriously, you need to relax and think about this stuff a little more critically.

EDIT: anyway, this is just turning into a flame-war and you are just trolling and hating on Nvidia. I'm pretty much done with the conversation.

[pingufunkybeat]

Don't forget that this whole thing started by a bunch of kiddies shouting abuse at me, and then following it with silly arguments.

I've said what I needed to say in the first post. Release the documentation.

[ninez]

Don't forget that this whole thing started by a bunch of kiddies shouting abuse at me, and then following it with silly arguments.

I don't recall shouting any 'abuse' at you. I do recall telling you to relax and finding something else to do with your time other than trolling.

I've said what I needed to say in the first post. Release the documentation.

You mean this post(?);

This is wonderful news!

Now I'm hoping for a "--delete-Mesa" switch, followed by "--kill-GCC", and finally "--replace-everything-with-Win8", so people have no problems anymore and nothing conflicts with the official driver.

That's exactly what we want a hardware vendor to do -- not opening specification so we can use their shit, but deleting open source software from your computer if it doesn't fit in with their secretive master plan.

Maybe you should think about not calling other people 'kiddies', when clearly right out of the gate - you showed a severe lack of any maturity and were literally flaming from the get-go.

it is also very inaccurate to begin with. No software is 'deleted', they added a commandline option for users of the blob, to make things even more convenient for us. ~ and just so you know, i have nvidia installed, but could kill X, unload nvidia then load Nouveau and start X again (no reboot). So i don't see where you get that idea to begin with.

you need to grow up, or at least be a little more honest with yourself.

[bridgman]

...
No, I don't have Nvidia, I hate the fact that they are snubbing the OSS crowd and refusing to release documentation for their stuff. Instead of blacklisting nouveau -- or maybe in addition to blacklisting it -- they should also help them a bit. The fact that they don't shows that they are acting like assholes.

Same was true for ATi before the AMD takeover.

Sorta-kinda... remember ATI also supported open source driver development until ~2002 (maybe 2003, I wasn't involved at the time) when we picked up a binary driver as part of the FireGL acquisition. There was a hope that just having a binary driver (albeit with better performance and features) would be sufficient, but over the next few years that turned out not to be the case... so now we do both.

[pingufunkybeat]

@ninez

LOL, you are telling me to take things less seriously, and you are getting all upset about an obvious hyperbole.

That whole post was tongue-in-cheek, and that's obvious.

And the kiddie is obviously RealNC. You should take your own advice some time.

[pingufunkybeat]

Sorta-kinda... remember ATI also supported open source driver development until ~2002 (maybe 2003, I wasn't involved at the time) when we picked up a binary driver as part of the FireGL acquisition. There was a hope that just having a binary driver (albeit with better performance and features) would be sufficient, but over the next few years that turned out not to be the case... so now we do both.

Agreed, the old r128 driver was great, I was talking about the period before the acquisition.

In general, I'm happy with the progress since then so it was not a criticism of your current efforts, even though we would all appreciate a bit more manpower (and thus pace)

[johnc]

If you want Optimus functionality, use OS X or Windows.

In many ways Linux is just plain sub-par for a desktop environment.

People can argue about licenses and specs and everything else for years but the anecdotal evidence is clear: 1% market share.

I think that ends the thread now.

[ninez]

@ninez

LOL, you are telling me to take things less seriously, and you are getting all upset about an obvious hyperbole.

That whole post was tongue-in-cheek, and that's obvious.

And the kiddie is obviously RealNC. You should take your own advice some time.

For one thing, I am not 'upset' in any way. For two, you have been trolling and your comment, whether tongue-in-cheek or not - doesn't change the fact, that all you have been doing in this thread is shitting all over Nvidia ~ where as the thread is actually about the release of their new driver.

three, I started out (when talking to you) by trying to figure out where you were getting your information about nvidia + dmabuf ~ and passing off a link to the source code of dmabuf and asking you for some clarification on the matter, since you seemed to be talking as if you new more about it, than had been recently discussed / news about it. ~ that is it.

again, take a chill pill.

[pingufunkybeat]

No hard feelings, eh? If I've offended you, sorry. Wasn't my intention.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to have a normal discussion over here, it inevitably turns into fanboy flaming very soon. That's why I don't post much anymore, and only come for (very rare) interesting news from developers.