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  • #71
    Originally posted by mdias View Post
    We shouldn't focus on other OS's, instead please give me a reason why it's not feasable.
    I never said that binary drivers must be supported... I'm just against the "mustn't" attitude.

    I don't actually need stable kernel interfaces myself, we're just discussing the benefits of things being the way they are and why it's not the other way. And one of the benefits of the "other way" IMO are ease of installation/upgrade of individual drivers, and also free the kernel of the burden of constantly changing every driver to meet the requirements of the new interface.

    [edit] Sorry everyone for helping this thread go out of topic.
    It *is* feasible. It's just not desirable. I've already stated why I (and most devs) are against binary drivers. One more reason is that it prevents reworking of too much kernel code that might be needed to be changed for performance, functionality, or security reasons. If you use them or code them, I've already listed enterprise distros that do offer that stability.

    Installation of drivers wouldn't be simpler; it wouldn't be any different from how it's done now. If you're open-source, you release the source and ppl compile it for release as modules for their distro (or do it individually). If you want to distribute binaries, you'll do so for every single version of every distro you support regardless of the kernel because of gcc, library, and platform differences.

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    • #72
      Everyone here shouting for support of a stable driver API is in effect saying they're happy with hardware vendors putting out binary trash like the X-Fi and GMA500 drivers, never updating them because they don't have to, and not bothering to get an open/maintained driver into the kernel because they don't have to do that either. Look no further than Windows Vista for what happens when you give people a stable driver API then try to fix flaws in it later.

      It's a slippery slope.

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      • #73
        Originally posted by Ant P. View Post
        /me raises populism flag
        I prefer real arguments. The link to the post by Greg earlier in this thread had those. That link is just propaganda.

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        • #74
          Originally posted by crumja View Post
          Fglrx and nvidia used to crash back when I used them. The open-source ATI driver never does.
          That is a very naive assumption ("it works for me = it works everywhere"). The open source driver does crash here far more often (by orders of magnitude) than fglrx.

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          • #75
            What the hell? Are you serious? What kind of article is that?

            I'm off this discussion. I feel it was somewhat enlighting to me and probably someone else until fanboys came in.

            Bye.

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            • #76
              Originally posted by mdias View Post
              I'm off this discussion. I feel it was somewhat enlighting to me and probably someone else until fanboys came in.
              If you mean my comment, it was imo perfectly justified. The post behind the link was a worst-case scenario. Quoting that page is like quoting the articles that say LHC is gonna create a black hole every time when talking of particle accelerators. Some people like playing with feelings more than reason. There are good reasons for not having a stable ABI but I consider the lwn.net link more of a flame-bait than intellectual conversation.
              Last edited by nanonyme; 22 September 2009, 06:28 PM.

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              • #77
                Yeah, I guess I should apologise, that wasn't very helpful.

                Here's a better link for those complaining about Linux's development model. Let us know how it goes.

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                • #78
                  I've been meaning to take a look when I have enough spare time, haven't yet had.

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                  • #79
                    Originally posted by RealNC View Post
                    It's nothing tragic, just a deep personal hatred about the way drivers work in Linux :P They come as a "big, fat bunch", all inside the kernel. Reminds me of those "super duper 846-codecs pack" on Windows; I hated those too. Drivers should be separate entities. But I guess since Linux totally lacks a driver interface, we have to live with it.
                    sucks to be you :P

                    And I hate to hunt around for drivers and love the fact that everything is in one nice tarball.

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                    • #80
                      re: binary drivers - Linux is not just an x86 OS, you know. There are other processor architectures out there, important ones, and they also run Linux and use a lot of the same types of devices. Advocating binary-only drivers is extremely short-sighted.

                      It's not even x86 vs ARM / Sparc / PowerPC whatever that causes this problem. Even now I don't have a stable driver for the modem in my laptop, because the vendor's driver depends on an x86 blob therefore it won't run in my x86-64 kernel. This is a ridiculous state of affairs and I've been disassembling / decompiling that particular blob just so I can recompile it for x86-64. If you insist on locking me out of hardware that I own after paying in good faith for everything contained within, then I am going to continue to break the locks that you've placed on my property.

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