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Seems to me like a huger win would be if the open-source graphics drivers would get improved. I'm not even talking ideologically here. The OSS drivers are incl

by nathanb 14y ago

Seems to me like a huger win would be if the open-source graphics drivers would get improved. I'm not even talking ideologically here. The OSS drivers are included along with the kernel in most distros. They're what you get by default when you boot a new Linux install. They get upgraded alongside other core packages by the distro's package manager and are generally quite up-to-date compared to the "official" drivers in the package repository (if they're even there at all). I use the OSS radeon driver at home and the OSS nouveau driver at work, and both are quite adequate for my purposes (which involve no real 3D). I think it would be a bigger improvement to the ecosystem to have these drivers get some love. (Or, alternately, for the proprietary drivers to go open-source and be included with the kernel).

cs702 14y ago
nathanb: Yes, that would be ideal. The way I think about it is this: even though this effort falls far short of the ideal with NVIDIA and AMD, it's still a huge win for the platform.
w1ntermute 14y ago
> Seems to me like a huger win would be if the open-source graphics drivers would get improved. Their work with Intel is on the open source drivers.
- nathanb 14y ago
  Show me where I can buy an Intel graphics card. Please. Near as I can tell, the only Intel display adapters are the ones integrated into laptop motherboards. You may be able to buy the occasional desktop motherboard with integrated Intel graphics, but good luck finding one that can support two DVI monitors or dual-link high-resolution displays or anything fancy like that. However, the last I looked into this was a while back; perhaps the situation has improved?
  - Sharlin 14y ago
    Well, as of ~5 years ago, nobody except power users have desktop computers. Laptops have become the "default" type of computer, and almost all of those have a graphics chip integrated directly to the CPU, not to the motherboard like olden days.
    - sanswork 14y ago
      Everyone I know thats in college or below has laptops this is true. But all my family and friends that are ~30+ and not working in IT have desktops at home. I can assure you none of them are power users.
  - astrodust 14y ago
    They're not integrated into the motherboards, they're built directly into the CPU. This reduces power consumption and allows the motherboard to shrink, no separate component needed. The HD4000 isn't the most capable chipset on the market but for most applications, light-duty use, it's fine. Even the basic versions of this chipset could support two 24" screens without much trouble. Just don't expect benchmark-shattering 3D performance.
jlgreco 14y ago
My impression is that there are issues with 3rd party licensing of various sorts in the proprietary drivers that would prevent open sourcing them even if Nvidia/AMD wanted to. Of course that probably doesn't prevent them from giving the OSS drivers some love, but that is another story.
- mark-r 14y ago
  The genesis of this was back in 2006 when Microsoft started requiring graphics board/chip makers to keep some aspects of their design secret, to support DRM in Vista. That includes hardware details and code, i.e. open source drivers. See http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html I'm actually quite glad that adequate drivers are available, even if they're not open source. That outcome wasn't guaranteed.
  - Tuna-Fish 14y ago
    It goes further back than that. The software stack for all modern AMD GPUs is based on the original unified shader compiler for the first AMD unified shader GPU, Xenos (XBOX360) written largely by Microsoft. AMD just has a license to the code, MS still owns it.
    - Orva 14y ago
      Any sources for that software stack part? Only information I managed to find was that AMD was contracted to create Xenos core, but there was no mentions who made software (I would assume AMD) and especially no information about licensing.
- elmindreda 14y ago
  nVidias argument for not opening up the Linux driver is that it shares a lot of code with the Windows driver. I'm not saying that this argument makes sense, but it's the one they use.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago

by nathanb 14y ago

cs702 14y ago

nathanb: Yes, that would be ideal. The way I think about it is this: even though this effort falls far short of the ideal with NVIDIA and AMD, it's still a huge win for the platform.

w1ntermute 14y ago

> Seems to me like a huger win would be if the open-source graphics drivers would get improved. Their work with Intel is on the open source drivers.

nathanb 14y ago
Show me where I can buy an Intel graphics card. Please. Near as I can tell, the only Intel display adapters are the ones integrated into laptop motherboards. You may be able to buy the occasional desktop motherboard with integrated Intel graphics, but good luck finding one that can support two DVI monitors or dual-link high-resolution displays or anything fancy like that. However, the last I looked into this was a while back; perhaps the situation has improved?
- Sharlin 14y ago
  Well, as of ~5 years ago, nobody except power users have desktop computers. Laptops have become the "default" type of computer, and almost all of those have a graphics chip integrated directly to the CPU, not to the motherboard like olden days.
  - sanswork 14y ago
    Everyone I know thats in college or below has laptops this is true. But all my family and friends that are ~30+ and not working in IT have desktops at home. I can assure you none of them are power users.
- astrodust 14y ago
  They're not integrated into the motherboards, they're built directly into the CPU. This reduces power consumption and allows the motherboard to shrink, no separate component needed. The HD4000 isn't the most capable chipset on the market but for most applications, light-duty use, it's fine. Even the basic versions of this chipset could support two 24" screens without much trouble. Just don't expect benchmark-shattering 3D performance.

jlgreco 14y ago

My impression is that there are issues with 3rd party licensing of various sorts in the proprietary drivers that would prevent open sourcing them even if Nvidia/AMD wanted to. Of course that probably doesn't prevent them from giving the OSS drivers some love, but that is another story.

mark-r 14y ago
The genesis of this was back in 2006 when Microsoft started requiring graphics board/chip makers to keep some aspects of their design secret, to support DRM in Vista. That includes hardware details and code, i.e. open source drivers. See http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html I'm actually quite glad that adequate drivers are available, even if they're not open source. That outcome wasn't guaranteed.
- Tuna-Fish 14y ago
  It goes further back than that. The software stack for all modern AMD GPUs is based on the original unified shader compiler for the first AMD unified shader GPU, Xenos (XBOX360) written largely by Microsoft. AMD just has a license to the code, MS still owns it.
  - Orva 14y ago
    Any sources for that software stack part? Only information I managed to find was that AMD was contracted to create Xenos core, but there was no mentions who made software (I would assume AMD) and especially no information about licensing.
elmindreda 14y ago
nVidias argument for not opening up the Linux driver is that it shares a lot of code with the Windows driver. I'm not saying that this argument makes sense, but it's the one they use.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago