4 ms·

I wish this would become become big. Something I wonder about the closed hardware drivers.. I am sorry, no hardware hacker, but what I always wonder is whether

by tete 13y ago

I wish this would become become big. Something I wonder about the closed hardware drivers.. I am sorry, no hardware hacker, but what I always wonder is whether or not something like ReNouveau for Nvidia Graphics Cards would also be helpful to such projects. They did a really great job at reverse engineering and writing nice drivers. I think there would be lots of people running something like that, even when they don't use Replicant, but would love to support them.

bad_user 13y ago
About Nouveau, on a 2 years old laptop I have with an Nvidia card, I always had problems with Ubuntu and Nvidia's proprietary drivers, up to the point that I got so sick of it as to buy a new laptop without an Nvidia card on it. But then I tried out the Nouveau drivers and oh my, the problems vanished. The Nouveau drivers are right now better than the official drivers for some Nvidia cards. And they'll never vanish, even if Nvidia decides to drop support for older GeForce cards.
- thelukester 13y ago
  On my 2-3yr old laptop w/ a 8600GT, I agree that for 2D only X11 apps, Nouveau drivers seem to have less issues with tearing and drawing than the proprietary drivers. But once you want to need power management to run on battery, play games, or watch HD videos, the Nouveau are buggy, glitchy, and useless. I have an extensive Steam library and while most of the Linux games work fine with proprietary, they are unplayable with Nouveau. I really hope Valve's commitment to Linux motivates Nvidia to put some resources into their open source drivers like AMD and Intel have done. If Nouveau was my only option under Linux, I'd switch to Windows. Even for non-gammers, how can you seriously recommend laptop drivers that don't offer critical features like power management and video out?

4 ms·

I wish this would become become big. Something I wonder about the closed hardware drivers.. I am sorry, no hardware hacker, but what I always wonder is whether

by tete 13y ago

bad_user 13y ago
About Nouveau, on a 2 years old laptop I have with an Nvidia card, I always had problems with Ubuntu and Nvidia's proprietary drivers, up to the point that I got so sick of it as to buy a new laptop without an Nvidia card on it. But then I tried out the Nouveau drivers and oh my, the problems vanished. The Nouveau drivers are right now better than the official drivers for some Nvidia cards. And they'll never vanish, even if Nvidia decides to drop support for older GeForce cards.
- thelukester 13y ago
  On my 2-3yr old laptop w/ a 8600GT, I agree that for 2D only X11 apps, Nouveau drivers seem to have less issues with tearing and drawing than the proprietary drivers. But once you want to need power management to run on battery, play games, or watch HD videos, the Nouveau are buggy, glitchy, and useless. I have an extensive Steam library and while most of the Linux games work fine with proprietary, they are unplayable with Nouveau. I really hope Valve's commitment to Linux motivates Nvidia to put some resources into their open source drivers like AMD and Intel have done. If Nouveau was my only option under Linux, I'd switch to Windows. Even for non-gammers, how can you seriously recommend laptop drivers that don't offer critical features like power management and video out?