Bugzilla

One of the unofficial benefits of using ATI Linux is the availability of a Bugzilla -- which has proved to be a valuable resource for fglrx users. While the Bugzilla was created by the community, and is not officially affiliated with (or supported by) ATI Technologies, developers for ATI do indeed monitor the Bugzilla. The ATI Bugzilla can be found here. As of the morning on June 8, 2006 there were 418 bugs total in the database, while 138 of them remained opened. The unofficial ATI Bugzilla has been in existence since the start of 2005.

On the green side, NVIDIA does not maintain a public Linux Bugzilla nor are there any community-driven bug systems available. In late 2005 there was some discussion on the NvNews forums of users wanting a NVIDIA Linux Bugzilla, but up to this point no one has acted. Of course, NVIDIA does maintain an internal bug tracking system, however, this information can only be accessed by sending the appropriate information to linux-bugs@nvidia.com. For instance back on August 1, 2005 I had personally reported an issue to NVIDIA and it was assigned bug #181974. While this bug has yet to be fixed, there is no way of easily knowing if other users have been affected by the same problem, if anyone has managed to create a work-around, etc... There is always the option of emailing NVIDIA to find out the status, but that relies upon waiting for a NVIDIA employee to reply, and often the information provided is less than satisfactory.

Both companies are, however, relatively active on respective community forums. On top of the ATI Bugzilla, there is also a community-driven ATI driver Wiki.