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On 27/08/2013 09:14, Pandu Poluan wrote: |
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>>>> That list is the list of kernels that nVidia supports, which is easy |
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>>>> > >> to find. |
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>>> > > |
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>>> > > Where? AIUI from reading various threads about this, sometimes that |
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>>> > > info can be found in nVidia's developer web forum, but I've never been |
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>>> > > able to find it there. nVidia's READMEs give a minimum kernel version, |
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>>> > > but no max. |
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>> > |
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>> > |
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>> > So ask nVidia to clearly and unambiguously state in an easily found |
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>> > place what kernels *they* support. |
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>> > |
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>> > Look, all issues with building the driver shim are directly the |
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>> > responsibility of nVidia themselves, a result of *their* business |
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>> > decisions. The correct thing to do is to make it nVidia's problem and |
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>> > not force the community to jump through hoops trying to track down what |
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>> > does and does not work today. |
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>> > |
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>> > Or, you could do the heavy lifting yourself. You test all current |
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>> > drivers with all recent kernels and maintain a gentoo wiki page that |
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>> > lists the info you want. |
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> |
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> Hmm... reading this thread makes me understand why Linus gave nVidia 'the bird'. |
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I'm not so sure. I can understand nVidia's position. They make and sell |
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hardware. They want their stuff to run on as many things as possible. |
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They also have a huge codebase driven mostly by the primary OS of their |
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users - Windows. Maintaining that is a large job so they'd like to |
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re-use the bulk of it across all OSes. Business-wise this does make |
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sense. But it does mean that they have to drop support for much built-in |
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goodness on Linux (KMS, shipped OpenGL and more) and provide that bit |
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themselves. No biggy - they have it all already for Windows. |
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The kernel shim module is GPL'ed, but not in mainline, and there's this |
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little thing about the Linux kernel - the famous stable api nonsense. So |
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they are forever playing catch-up, and the kernel DOES rip out huge |
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chunks of the api as and when needed. |
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So what's nVidia to do? By and large their support for X11 is pretty |
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good, and I've seen much worse. Yes, they are behind current kernel |
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releases. No, they are not years behind. For the most part their code |
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keeps up with the major binary distros. |
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To those users who want to run whatever kernel Linux shipped today and |
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expect nVidia to always keep up, I have an answer: get real people. |
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nvidia support Linux, they never promised to keep up with Linus. Why do |
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users think they have a right to demand something from a vendor that the |
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vendor never promised to do? |
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Why do some users think it correct and proper to demand the Gentoo |
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maintainers jump through hoops to provide functionality that nVidia |
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never promised, for versions they do not support *yet*? |
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Seriously, to all the nVidia dumpers (not you Pandu), get a life people |
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and get real. You bought hardware knowing full well what the conditions |
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for drivers were going to be. The vendor does an OK job in the market |
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place and if you don't like that, well that's tough. Buy different |
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hardware. But don't expect entities to do stuff they never agreed to do. |
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To Gentoo users who dump on this matter, when you installed Gentoo you |
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implicitly agreed to be your own packager. There is no PPA or Yum repo |
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and there's no paid staff member building packages. The work the |
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packager does for Ubuntu and RedHat is now you now have to do yourself, |
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and part of that is dealing with the times when shit don't work. |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
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