Nouveau Gets Further Freed From Ctx_Voodoo

[Kazade]

As a Linux user looking at graphics cards the situation is this:

ATI/AMD
Binary Blob: Terrible, infrequently updated.
Open Source: Two different drivers for different models of cards, works mostly if the stars are aligned correctly.

Hehe, yeah you aren't biased at all

Yes there are two drivers, but hardly anyone uses radeonhd any more and the normal OSS "ati" driver works with *all* the ATI cards and with 3D acceleration on a recent kernel. (except the very recent R800 which is 2D only atm IIRC).

Also, fglrx isn't too bad any more, the only issue I'm having with it is slow unminimizing with compiz which means I have to run it with compositing disabled. And it's updated every month, I'd hardly call that "infrequent".

I have 2 nvidia laptops, 1 has frequent text corruption with Compiz, the other doesn't recognize the right screen resolution and so I have to supply a EDID file via xorg.conf; nvidia isn't perfect either.

FWIW - I have ATI in my desktop *because* they release documentation, I used to use Nvidia.

[waucka]

FWIW - I have ATI in my desktop *because* they release documentation, I used to use Nvidia.

Same here. Nvidia may work better in the short term, but I care about long term and incentives. A guy from Nvidia recently gave a talk at my university, and I was tempted to tell him how much I enjoy my Radeons with open source 3D drivers.

[Ragas]

Hope ubuntu 10.04 will use it just think : out of the box 3d support!!! without any firmware crap!!! go fedora. waiting for ubuntu 10.10 (day dreaming). just 2 monts ago i wanted to buy Ati , but, in the way nouveau its going, go nvidia

better buy an ATI. Nvidias Fermi is going to suck and not many people will get one.

And even so the nouveau moves forward quickly, there is no dockumentation available, which might slow down development at some point.

[smitty3268]

It's fine if you like nvidia, but try not to spread FUD.

ATI/AMD
Binary Blob: Terrible, infrequently updated.

Ok, calling it terrible is fair enough, but it's updated every single month. It's unreasonable to expect more than that, and it's certainly more than nvidia provides.

Open Source: Two different drivers for different models of cards, works mostly if the stars are aligned correctly.

Are you talking about modesetting drivers? Radeon covers all cards now, just use that. Why do you care anyway, your distro should automatically set this correctly with no tweaking required at all. For 3d, mesa should handle that automatically, and nouveou uses separate drivers there as well since the hardware changes so much between generations.

NVIDIA
Binary Blob: Best linux graphics driver, has features and stability.

Probably true, depending on what is important to you of course.

Open Source: One driver for all but oldest cards. 2D support done, 3D on its way. Moving quickly.

It may be moving quickly, but radeon is moving even more quickly. And support is closer to being done. Bottom line is that if you think nouveou drivers are good, then you should think that radeon is even better.

Offical documentation or not nvidia is the way to go.

I still think it's a choice between NVidia closed source blob, or ATI OSS drivers. It just depends on what's more important to you.

[niick]

Fair points by all. I was a bit harsh and incorrect in regards to the open source drivers. But my dislike of their binary driver comes from experience. About a year ago I bought a cheap ATI card for my media computer, so I needed tree-free video and tvout. I can't remember the exact model now but at the time it wasn't supported by the open drivers and the binary crashed so often I returned the card. Then I got an nvidia and although I'm currently stuck on the closed driver (until tvout support for nv50 is here) it works great. On top of that I've been really impressed with nouveau and use it exclusively on my desktop.

But going by the defense that the open source ati drivers got I will give one of their cards another try. Unfortunately I don't need one right now.

[Hephasteus]

I applaud the efforts of nouveau... but considering ATI is releasing documentation on their hardware making it much easier to write drivers, why not support them?

They are supported like crazy. Since Intel has so few gpu's it's rare for anyone to not have 3d support at this juncture but then again the can barely use it so big whoop. But ATI will likely have universal support that includes every gpu in the binary blob. Nvidia is going to have pariah gpu's. 8200 8300 and 9300 will be pariah gpu's as they are hardwared weird. It's like they run off the 32 bit pci bus at 33mhz from what I can tell.
Some of the workstation cards will be pariah for long time because they just wont be in the hands of people who can do anything with them. I think once the expensive workstation card buyers stick foot up nvidia they'll all of a sudden want to help.

[pingufunkybeat]

Open Source: Two different drivers for different models of cards, works mostly if the stars are aligned correctly.

FUD.

You only need to use one driver, and it is stable and accelerated, up to OpenGL 2.0. With KMS and everything else.

I really respect the work the nouveau guys are doing, and they have my support. But I will not support a company which is making things difficult for them.

And AMD open source driver is, by all accounts, far more usable and stable on recent hardware than nouveau.

Right now, Nvidia is the way to go if and only if you love binary blobs and don't care for open standards and open drivers.

[unix_epoch]

Call me a skeptic, but I am finding it pretty hard to believe the advancements in the Nouveau driver have all occurred without any help from Nvidia. I know that they publicly have stated that they will neither help nor hinder the Nouveau developers. But I think the Nouveau guys/gals? have an inside source, whether that is official or not.

You underestimate the intelligence and dedication of reverse engineers. 10-15 years ago, almost every driver for Linux was reverse engineered. Vendor support is a relatively recent phenomenon.