4 ms·

I always thought they insisted on breaking ABI specifically to incentivise open-sourcing and mainlining drivers. If given a stable ABI, manufacturers have shown

by franga2000 5y ago

I always thought they insisted on breaking ABI specifically to incentivise open-sourcing and mainlining drivers. If given a stable ABI, manufacturers have shown (as seen on Windows) that they will just release a binary driver once and never touch it again. This is a big reason why old hardware support is so much better on Linux...for the hardware that was supported in the first place of course.

pmontra 5y ago
Well, my old laptop (HP nc8430 from 2006) graphic card worked perfectly up to some 3.x kernel, then it lost all sync with 3.y kernels (y > x). It was an ATI X1600. There were no more recent drivers so my take is that the kernel broke it and ATI didn't spend money to make their driver compatible with newer kernels. Actually AMD because they bought ATI in 2006. I downgraded the kernel and kept using the laptop for a while. BTW, the open source driver didn't work well. Than I had to buy a new one in 2014. I told myself, no more ATI/AMD, let's buy one with an NVIDIA card. That card is a Quadro K1100M in a HP ZBook 15. The latest binary driver supporting that card is version 418. The newest driver is 510. Apparently the next Ubuntu 22.04 is shipping with kernel 5.15 and there is a 418 package for that kernel. I wonder what the latest compatible kernel will be. Is my laptop going to die of old age before I have to replace it because I won't be able to use its graphic card anymore? BTW, the open source driver doesn't work well. I don't check it again every year. All I remember is that I couldn't work with that the last time I tried. On the other side, my USB scanner from the 90s still works perfectly well. Same for my mouse (I don't plugin it in every year) and any disk / pendrive I care to use.
- goosedragons 5y ago
  I have a ThinkPad with a Quadro 1000M from 2011. The last Nvidia driver is 390. It still works on Arch with latest kernel somehow. I doubt it has much support left as pre-2010 GPUs have been abandoned. So I wouldn't be surprised if you have a few years left + time spent on an LTS with older kernel. I recently switched to Guix and have been using Nouveau there and it's fine but I also don't need my laptop to do much beyond display windows and play the occasional video.
- thomastjeffery 5y ago
  Nowadays and into the future, your best bet will be AMD, since their AMDGPU driver is open source, and will therefore be kept up to date without any reliance on the company.

pmontra 5y ago

Well, my old laptop (HP nc8430 from 2006) graphic card worked perfectly up to some 3.x kernel, then it lost all sync with 3.y kernels (y > x). It was an ATI X1600. There were no more recent drivers so my take is that the kernel broke it and ATI didn't spend money to make their driver compatible with newer kernels. Actually AMD because they bought ATI in 2006. I downgraded the kernel and kept using the laptop for a while. BTW, the open source driver didn't work well. Than I had to buy a new one in 2014. I told myself, no more ATI/AMD, let's buy one with an NVIDIA card. That card is a Quadro K1100M in a HP ZBook 15. The latest binary driver supporting that card is version 418. The newest driver is 510. Apparently the next Ubuntu 22.04 is shipping with kernel 5.15 and there is a 418 package for that kernel. I wonder what the latest compatible kernel will be. Is my laptop going to die of old age before I have to replace it because I won't be able to use its graphic card anymore? BTW, the open source driver doesn't work well. I don't check it again every year. All I remember is that I couldn't work with that the last time I tried. On the other side, my USB scanner from the 90s still works perfectly well. Same for my mouse (I don't plugin it in every year) and any disk / pendrive I care to use.

goosedragons 5y ago
I have a ThinkPad with a Quadro 1000M from 2011. The last Nvidia driver is 390. It still works on Arch with latest kernel somehow. I doubt it has much support left as pre-2010 GPUs have been abandoned. So I wouldn't be surprised if you have a few years left + time spent on an LTS with older kernel. I recently switched to Guix and have been using Nouveau there and it's fine but I also don't need my laptop to do much beyond display windows and play the occasional video.
thomastjeffery 5y ago
Nowadays and into the future, your best bet will be AMD, since their AMDGPU driver is open source, and will therefore be kept up to date without any reliance on the company.