From: Peter S. <shu...@pa...> - 2001-10-03 02:08:23
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On Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 12:57:55AM +0000, David Johnson wrote: > Take a look at NVIDIA's linux driver website.=20 > http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=3Dlinux Is that confusing to a=20 > non-technical user or what? Is the average user going to know the=20 > difference between "Redhat 7.1 SMP Kernel" vs "RedHat 7.1, one CPU,=20 > uniprocessor kernel" vs "RedHat 7.1, enterprise kernel"? Sorry, but that= is=20 > rediculous. Indeed. But this isn't the "fault of linux". It happens because nvidia's and kernel devlopers' ideas on how to do this don't mix. > If you guys really want to see Linux become a gaming platform go out and > solve these issues. I could equally claim "nvidia should solve the issues". I don't think it is necessary for the manufacturers to develop drivers. A l= ot of open source developers would be more than happy to get cool hardware bef= ore it gets officially released, sign a NDA and release a driver when the thing gets marketed. This has been done and it seems to work. And I am surely more happy when I sign a NDA with ATI and fix the problems myself than to compla= in to nvidia that their drivers crash (although I must confess nvidia is doing pretty well considered their drivers are closed source). > Develop the driver infrastructure so that the kinds of things above don't > happen. <rant>Turn everything to open-source so that the kinds of things above don't happen.</rant> Matter of perspective. > Develop the driver infrastructure that makes it easy for the hardware > manufacturers to develop drivers and support their users. That is how you > will take Linux to the next level and make Linux a viable desktop/gaming > platform. I would agree to this, but my experience says it is more efficient not to p= lan into much details in the beginning, rather try to design a flexible scheme = so you can add new stuff later when need arises. A lot of open-source developm= ent follows this path. I think this flexibility and ability to adapt is one of the main linux' strengths and I don't want to kill it in the name of gaming. Sure I want mo= re linux games, but I want it to be done "the right way" (TM), which means that there would be a possibility for a normal guy like me to have access to souce-code to the drivers, even under NDA. I don't think I need source-code= to games, if the manufacturer provides support. If a game crashes and I get fragged, big deal. But if a driver crashes and the box freezes I'll be very angry because all the stuff I run at that time gets killed. Oh no now I've done it again. I should stop this and actually do something creative :-) So I'm gonna sleep now and will do some programming tomorrow. > David Bye, Peter Surda (Shurdeek) <shu...@pa...>, ICQ 10236103, +436505= 122023 -- There's no place like ~ |