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> They were the first to provide actually usable GPU drivers on Linux. Indeed. They raised the bar for Linux graphics. Maybe 10-20 years ago? And then later A

> They were the first to provide actually usable GPU drivers on Linux. Indeed. They raised the bar for Linux graphics. Maybe 10-20 years ago? And then later ATI/AMD came along. And now their driver, the only driver, is open-source. That is, they publish not only a driver, but more importantly the driver source. As is now true for pretty much all drivers for all HW Linux supports. The bar has clearly been raised again. And now Nvidia is the only one lagging. I don’t see anything unreasonable about asking them to contribute at the same level as everyone else. Imagine how Linux would look today if all vendors got a free pass with doing things “their way” like Nvidia does. I doubt it would be functional at all. I’m not going to cut Nvidia any slack today over what they did back in the days where everyone agreed M$ was evil and Google could do no wrong. It was a loooong time ago.

clhodapp 8y ago
Unless you have a really old OS version, you actually don't get your driver from AMD, you get it as a part of your Linux kernel: most Linux drivers aren't managed as standalone open source software projects, they are simply merged into the kernel itself.
- pritambaral 8y ago
  > you actually don't get your driver from AMD, you get it as a part of your Linux kernel Thankfully. However, the open source driver that is now part of the Linux kernel did indeed come from AMD, and could not have come from anywhere else. Your parent said AMD publishes the sources to its (only) driver. That they happen to publish it with the Linux kernel wrapped around it, through kernel.org, is also true, but not incompatible with the claim that they publish it.
lmm 8y ago
> And then later ATI/AMD came along. And now their driver, the only driver, is open-source. Open-source is great but is their driver remotely competitive in terms of actual usability/quality? As a desktop user I find ATI/AMD is still nowhere near the bar set by NVidia. I believe open-source generally results in better-quality software, but that hasn't actually come to fruition in the ATI/AMD drivers IME.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > is their driver remotely competitive in terms of actual usability/quality? A resounding 'yes'. You must not be using their open source driver, or are using a very old one in your 'comparison' with nvidia's linux driver?
  - lmm 8y ago
    I tried it twice a few years ago. The first time I tried it it just had no support at all for the card (apparently too new); the second time it "worked" but felt pretty flaky, things like locking up much of the time if you tried to switch between X and console. Maybe it's better now - my experiences were bad enough that I swore off AMD for a while. (This was well after the point when their open-source drivers were established and people on HN were telling me they were good, though)
    - vetinari 8y ago
      I have Vega 64 in my desktop, since the non-blower designs became available, and I had no problem with the amdgpu+mesa driver. It is nice to have it work out of the box.
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      It is common knowledge that the AMD FOSS drivers nowadays work quite well. Spending a couple of minutes on Phoronix can verify that (they regularly report on such news). You even got multiple drivers to pick from (2 FOSS, 1 proprietary).
  - gmueckl 8y ago
    How much do you stress the GL implementation? See, I write rendering code fairly regularly and I need drivers that don't keel over in use cases that aren't covered by desktop compositing and the occasional properly ported AAA game title. What I have seen from AMD so far did not encourage me to even try and buy one of their cards.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
pjmlp 8y ago
Except that anyone using older AMD cards on laptops is pretty much alone, using a driver that only offers partial support for hardware features, unless we go back using legacy distros as means to use fxglr. So much for open source driver.

clhodapp 8y ago

Unless you have a really old OS version, you actually don't get your driver from AMD, you get it as a part of your Linux kernel: most Linux drivers aren't managed as standalone open source software projects, they are simply merged into the kernel itself.

pritambaral 8y ago
> you actually don't get your driver from AMD, you get it as a part of your Linux kernel Thankfully. However, the open source driver that is now part of the Linux kernel did indeed come from AMD, and could not have come from anywhere else. Your parent said AMD publishes the sources to its (only) driver. That they happen to publish it with the Linux kernel wrapped around it, through kernel.org, is also true, but not incompatible with the claim that they publish it.

lmm 8y ago

> And then later ATI/AMD came along. And now their driver, the only driver, is open-source. Open-source is great but is their driver remotely competitive in terms of actual usability/quality? As a desktop user I find ATI/AMD is still nowhere near the bar set by NVidia. I believe open-source generally results in better-quality software, but that hasn't actually come to fruition in the ATI/AMD drivers IME.

craftyguy 8y ago
> is their driver remotely competitive in terms of actual usability/quality? A resounding 'yes'. You must not be using their open source driver, or are using a very old one in your 'comparison' with nvidia's linux driver?
- lmm 8y ago
  I tried it twice a few years ago. The first time I tried it it just had no support at all for the card (apparently too new); the second time it "worked" but felt pretty flaky, things like locking up much of the time if you tried to switch between X and console. Maybe it's better now - my experiences were bad enough that I swore off AMD for a while. (This was well after the point when their open-source drivers were established and people on HN were telling me they were good, though)
  - vetinari 8y ago
    I have Vega 64 in my desktop, since the non-blower designs became available, and I had no problem with the amdgpu+mesa driver. It is nice to have it work out of the box.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    It is common knowledge that the AMD FOSS drivers nowadays work quite well. Spending a couple of minutes on Phoronix can verify that (they regularly report on such news). You even got multiple drivers to pick from (2 FOSS, 1 proprietary).
- gmueckl 8y ago
  How much do you stress the GL implementation? See, I write rendering code fairly regularly and I need drivers that don't keel over in use cases that aren't covered by desktop compositing and the occasional properly ported AAA game title. What I have seen from AMD so far did not encourage me to even try and buy one of their cards.
  - craftyguy 8y ago

pjmlp 8y ago

Except that anyone using older AMD cards on laptops is pretty much alone, using a driver that only offers partial support for hardware features, unless we go back using legacy distros as means to use fxglr. So much for open source driver.