Re: [Visualpython-users] seg faulting

[Hugh F. <hug...@an...>]

> From: "Guy K. Kloss" <guy...@au...>
> Subject: Re: [Visualpython-users] seg faulting
> To: vpusers <vis...@li...>
> Message-ID: <504...@au...>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On 01/09/12 15:35, Bruce Sherwood wrote:
>> Fixed. When I tried to run, I was told that a libboost library was
>> missing. I made sure that there was a complete set of development
>> libraries for libboost python, signals, and thread, rebuilt. When I
>> ran this rebuilt VPython, I was told that there was a mismatch between
>> components of the NVIDIA driver environment. I looked up that error
>> message on the web and followed instructions to purge NVIDIA files and
>> reinstall, then reboot. Now VPython works.
>
> OK, did anybody actually make the effort and report those bugs/fixes
> upstream to the Ubuntu team [1] or even better the Debian team [2]?
> Without that, I doubt that there'll ever be a "stable" situation where
> these things can be taken care of by the distributors, which won't help
> a wide spread use or the reputation of VPython.

nvidia-settings is part of the nvidia binary driver for Linux, which 
means the Ubuntu people will almost certainly shrug and say "nothing we 
can do about it." And they're right.

Nvidia won't release hardware details in enough detail for the Linux 
community to be able to write a decent driver. The charitable 
explanation is that this would give away too much info about their 
hardware to competitors; the cynical explanation is that it would reveal 
patent violations to those competitors. In the eyes of the FSF, they're 
just Proprietary and therefore Evil.

So just as on MS Windows, if you want high performance 3D graphics on 
Linux with GeForce or Quadro you download your driver directly from 
nvidia. (Same goes for ATI.) But unlike Microsoft, the Linux kernel 
developers don't care about breaking binary only drivers in new 
releases. Their attitude is "we'll take responsibility for updating all 
your drivers when the kernel changes IFF you give us the source code."

My impression is that most buyers of NVIDIA 3D cards for Linux are doing 
special effects, CAD, flight simulation, or similar "high end" work. (A 
lot were bought as replacement for SGI workstations.) They're in 
companies big enough to have IT support staff to deal with the update 
hassles. Unlike MS Windows, there's no significant gaming market of 
individual users who need seamless hands-off updates.

Unless that changes - which to be honest I can't see happening - nvidia 
will keep their driver closed source.

-- 
	Hugh Fisher
	CECS, ANU