[wellylug] Is SUSE a desktop distro? (AARRGGHH!)

[Donald Gordon]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 14:22:47 -0700
Ian Sterling <xyverz at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Well may you should Nvidia, who don't provide open up their chipset
> > drivers, and make it difficult for them to be included in linux
> *snip*
> > I say boycott them until they open up the source!!!
> 
> The problem with this, Daniel, is that there's a big chunk of nVidia's
> technology that's been licensed to them.

I've heard claims of this before, but never from an authoritative
source.  And to some extent, I don't really care -- it's their problem,
not mine, and the pain that using closed drivers usually brings is
enough that I'm happy to avoid their products.  It would be nice if
people wouldn't go around recommending nVidia because "they've got good
Linux support", though -- closed drivers != good Linux support, IMHO.

> Because of this, it's not
> exactly easy for them to open up their drivers.  Personally, I'm
> intending to keep on using their video cards until I decide otherwise.
> :)

I switched to ATI.  I can't get 3D working, but then Xinerama doesn't
support it anyway.  And the Radeon 9200SE driving two monitors is much
nicer than a TNT2 M64 driving one, and an old S3 which can't really cope
with higher refresh rates driving the other.

Plus, I no longer need to recompile nVidia's bloody video drivers when I
upgrade my kernel!  Which is great!  I know there are GPLed 2d-only
drivers, but they don't even support Xv.

donald