Re: [gentoo-user] Re: State of Radeon drivers

[BRM]

I was updating my AMD64 system last night - which has an nVidia card and uses 
the nVidia binary stack - and ran into problems. jasper won't compile with 
nVidia's provide opengl implementation. But bug report[1] notes suggest the 
problem is in nVidia's binary layer and all the crap the replace. I had to 
switch it over to the standard X11 opengl to compile it. I'll switch it back 
later, but there are serious problems with the nVidia binary stack that way.

My point is that in using the binary drivers you are laden to the card supports 
they choose, and you will eventually end up using the open source drivers once 
they decide it is no longer worth their effort to support the card. This holds 
true for both nVidia and ATI.

Ben

http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=133609


>
>From: App Deb <appdebgr@×××××.com>
>To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
>Sent: Tue, July 27, 2010 5:16:46 PM
>Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: State of Radeon drivers
>
>Nvidia's binary can't be compared to ATI's one. The problems you describe are
>ATI-binary specific.
>
>
>And yes the nvidia binary replaces a lot of Xorg stuff, but after some time you
>will realise that this is a good thing, as the Xorg is a mess, breaks with
>updates, and introduces bugs with each release. And because developers know
>that, they always prepare their software for nvidia, as it is the only *serious*
>graphics solution for *nix right now.
>
>
>Don't get me wrong, I don't even have an nvidia card in my systems right now
>(cause ATI are superior in windows, all my systems have ATI), but I miss the
>times that I had one. So much more stuff worked without problems and with better
>performance.
>
>
>On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:42 PM, BRM <bm_witness@×××××.com> wrote:
>
>That's great so long as nVidia supports your card. The problem with the binary
>drivers is that they typically only support a percentage of all the cards the
>video maker makes.
>>For example, I can't use the ATI binary driver on my laptop since it no longer
>>supports the R250 chipset, only their latest 3 or 4 generations of cards. So I
>>have to use the OSS driver, which works great with it.
>>I have been able to use both the OSS and proprietary drivers on my desktop with
>>an nVidia card, but I don't know how much longer that will last.
>>
>>nVidia's proprietary driver is good namely because it is the same at the core as
>>on Windows and Mac, and they wrap it to make it work with the *nix kernels.
>>However, they also do a lot of other funky stuff and keep people from being able
>>to fully use the  full extend of X. Just search this list (among others) for
>>xRanderer and other components of X and you'll see the full story of nVidia's
>>proprietary driver.
>>
>>Ben
>>
>>
>>>
>>>From: App Deb <appdebgr@×××××.com>
>>>To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
>>>Sent: Tue, July 27, 2010 5:29:10 AM
>>>Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: State of Radeon drivers
>>>
>>>
>>>If you are going to use any *nix, nvidia is the best option for years now. The
>>>nvidia closed source drivers are of professional quality and have great
>>>performance. Actually they are the *standard* for graphics in *nix, and many
>>>(professional or not) applications actually support only nvidia.
>>>
>>>
>>>The ati oss driver is still under development, sometimes it works ok, sometimes
>>>not, and it is mostly for basic desktop usage and in my opinion it is
>>>progressing too slow. Anyway, I don't like having a driver that uses 10% of my
>>>hardware's capabilties. So until it actually reaches 100% (like the rest of the
>>>linux drivers) I can't recommend ATI on linux and nvidia is the way to go.
>>>
>>>
>>>On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 7:32 PM, Florian Philipp <lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>Am 26.07.2010 01:01, schrieb James:
>>>>
>>>>> Florian Philipp <lists <at> f_philipp.fastmail.net> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> I have a quick question: I plan to buy a notebook with an ATI Mobility
>>>>>> Radeon HD 4250. How well would that one work? Can I reasonably expect
>>>>>> Suspend2Ram, 3d acceleration etc to work stable?
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, lots of good information previously posted. Here's a
>>>>> few more tidbits. When ATI video get's older, there's
>>>>> always good opensource solutions to keep using it. Nvidia,
>>>>> sometimes you toss in garbage can, or use vesa or
>>>>> get lucky? Dunno, as I personally avoid Nvidia; other
>>>>> insist on Nvidia..... kinda a religious thing with some.....
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Hehe, religious is the right word. I remember a situation at my
>>>>workplace: The admin of our departement IT ordered a Linux workstation
>>>>with (fully supported) ATI graphics. At the last second he was overruled
>>>>by the head of our institute's IT in favor of a completely unsupported
>>>>and more expensive NVidia card. Not only did the poor guy have to wait
>>>>two more weeks for the shipment to arrive, he was also stuck with the
>>>>VESA driver for half a year and unstable NVidia drivers ever since.
>>>>
>>>>Well, thanks everyone who answered! Problem solved.
>>>>
>>>>Florian Philipp
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>