Hi, > * nVidia have: > 1. The best proprietary Linux support ;-) > 2. The worst FOSS support. > 3. Someone else on this thread already detailed some > of the problems it brings (updates, cards with quick > End-Of-Life, etc.)
Regarding your 3rd reason: Go pick Geforce 6XXX, 7XXX, 8XXX, 9XXX based card from ANY vendor, and you'll see on nvidia's web site that it's the SAME driver (NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.14.12 as I write this email), which means any fixes to the driver will be working across the board, and not only that, but new features to the drivers will be working on your OLD card, and the best thing - it works on any modern distribution, be it RHEL-4, Ubuntu, Debian, SuSE, slackware, Mandriva, Gentoo, you-name-it! a simple installer, simple text GUI, does everything for you, all you have to do is restart your X. I can give you an example: In the last year, nVidia added PurePlay HD support to the Linux drivers. Neither Xine nor mplayer supports it, but from my experiece with XP on a low-end Dual core machine with some cheap 8XXX based card, playing blu-ray movies (well, rip off from the media..) with this PureVideo HD plays the video very well on XP while taking only 25% CPU load, and if you have a 7XXX or 8XXX or 9XXX based card, it will work for you as well (well, sort of.. until the guys at Xine or MPlayer or VLC will decide to add the support, its documented and the libraries are installed by default when installing the driver). Want to have some fun? Go take a Radeon 9xxx and try to use their propietary drivers (which has some advantages compared to the standard Xorg drivers) on Fedora 9, Ubunty Hardy or the latest OpenSuSE, good luck with that! how's you kernel hacking skill btw? cause you'll need them since the driver is different from whats available on Radeon 1XXX, 2XXX, 3XXX, 4XXX based cards. > * The only worse alternatives than nVidia are all the > VIA, SIS and their unloved, binary, non-supported, blobs. Actually, VIA drivers on Xorg are pretty good (well, besides the dual head which you can find tons of complains about it on the net), and they also announced that they'll open source their drivers + specs. SiS = CRAP. period. Hetz > Bye, > > -- > Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron > "In theory, it's practical. In practice - it's only a theory". > > To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command > echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- Skepticism is the lazy person's default position. my blog (hebrew): http://benhamo.org ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
