D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: [LUG] consistancy

 

On Saturday 11 December 2004 8:41 pm, paul sutton wrote:
Why is it that Linux is never consistant once installed,

Choice.

There's no-one forcing a particular default on anyone, no corporate policy.

It just seems odd.

The same distro, the same version on the same hardware, same result. Change 
any of those parameters and the end result can differ slightly. If all 
GNU/Linux installations were consistent in look and feel, no matter which 
distribution was used, there'd be little or no point in distributions!

One of the main problems is still setting up video display to work
properly,  even though the correct nvidia card driver is installed

nVidia are still proprietary - if they issue all their drivers under the GNU 
GPL, it'll be easy to sort out.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nv_swlicense.html
No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or 
disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the 
source code. 

nvidia not nv, it still tells me i need to install an nvidia driver to
enable 3d support,  this is just confusing.

Then complain to nvidia - they are the ones blocking the 3D support on your 
chosen OS.

Without the source code, how are developers meant to allow support??

nvidia are still trying to deal with GNU/Linux in a MS method - they insist 
they know better and are preventing the release of their source code. This 
prevents other developers actually solving the problems. It's equally obvious 
that nvidia do not understand the needs of X or their drivers would be more 
than a basic port of the Windows code. nvidia GNU/Linux 'support' is at best 
half-hearted and at worst obstructive.

To me, nvidia appear to be jumping on the GNU/Linux bandwagon and then leaving 
one foot on the ground. It slows everyone else down.

The fact that X remains the most difficult part of any GNU/Linux install is 
precisely because graphics card driver source code is NOT available to those 
writing the X server!

How can you expect a graphics server to serve 3D to a card it cannot 
understand? Be grateful it works at all! If it doesn't work with your setup, 
blame the driver, not the server. After all, my bet would be that the card 
will work with a non-nvidia free software driver - it's only the whizzo 3D 
features that are not supported. Gee, aren't those same missing features also 
unsupported with the nvidia driver???

It works in Windows because nvidia share source code with MS. It doesn't 
always work in GNU/Linux because they don't. Complain.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.dclug.org.uk/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/isbnsearch/
http://www.williamsleesmill.me.uk/
http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x8801094A28BCB3E3

Attachment: pgp00023.pgp
Description: PGP signature