NVIDIA's Oldest Legacy Driver Will Not Gain New Support

[pingufunkybeat]

If you choose to complain about the process of installing a blob because you're doing it by hand, and are rejecting distributions which do not require you to do it by hand, then you have nobody to blame but yourself. I suppose you hate butter because you churn butter by hand too?

I don't run a binary blob, you have me confused with somebody else.

I used to run a binary blob back when I was stuck with an Nvidia chipset on my laptop. IT wasn't enjoyable. And if I had used Ubuntu, then I'd have to suffer through Ubuntu, which is much worse than installing a blob by hand.

Now I run a free system, where everything is built from source and managed by a package manager. If you suggest that I should switch to Ubuntu (which I don't like) just so I can run a blob (which I don't like), then it's a strange suggestion.

[pmorph]

That's understandable, but it is kind of the point of Debian stable not to install new version of drivers.

Yes - because they are not known to be stable. But that problem doesn't exist with blobs coming from HW vendors, as they will anyway target their drivers to current stable release (i.e. the driver usually works properly there, if anywhere).

It's not just drivers, you'll have problems installing any recent software.

Well there we agree.

[Anssi]

The 71.xx driver does not even have X.org server 1.6 support, so NVIDIA not adding 1.7 or 1.8 support doesn't really come as a much of a surprise.

--
Anssi Hannula
Maintainer of NVIDIA drivers on Mandriva

[yogi_berra]

That's understandable, but it is kind of the point of Debian stable not to install new version of drivers.

Actually the point of any "stable" distribution is to avoid the 6-month re-install, re-configure, and fix what they broke this time cycle that makes desktop Linux a pain to use for everyone involved whether they admit it publicly or not. "Rolling releases" just speed up that cycle, they don't fix it.

It's not just drivers, you'll have problems installing any recent software.

Because it is so difficult to compile something...

[pingufunkybeat]

This certainly depends. Ever tried compiling all of KDE?

Of course this means that everything that links against Qt and/or KDE needs to be compiled from source. That's more than half of your system.

This is the reason why I moved away from Debian in the end.

[V!NCENT]

Because it is so difficult to compile something...

"It doesn't work"
-"You need the latest version of Pidgen"
"Where can I download that?"
-"You can grab the latest source at-"
"The latest what?"
-"The latest source code... it's at-"
"What? Is that the installer?"
-"The uhm... ah fsck it"
"Are you going to help me or not?"
-"It uhm... well you see..."
"What?"
-"You need to download the source folder over there"
"Okey... I opened the folder. What file do I need to click on?"
-"You need to open up a terminal first"
"A what?"
-"Are you using gnome?"
"What is Gnome?"

And so on and so forth...

[FunkyRider]

"It doesn't work"
-"You need the latest version of Pidgen"
"Where can I download that?"
-"You can grab the latest source at-"
"The latest what?"
-"The latest source code... it's at-"
"What? Is that the installer?"
-"The uhm... ah fsck it"
"Are you going to help me or not?"
-"It uhm... well you see..."
"What?"
-"You need to download the source folder over there"
"Okey... I opened the folder. What file do I need to click on?"
-"You need to open up a terminal first"
"A what?"
-"Are you using gnome?"
"What is Gnome?"

And so on and so forth...

- Do you have a gun?
Yes?
- Does it have bullets in it?
Yes?
- Can you pull it out and point to your head?
Done?
- Can you pull the trigger?
Bam!!!!!!!!!!

-- Problem solved!

[jmcharron]

"It doesn't work"
-"You need the latest version of Pidgen"
"Where can I download that?"
-"You can grab the latest source at-"
"The latest what?"
-"The latest source code... it's at-"
"What? Is that the installer?"
-"The uhm... ah fsck it"
"Are you going to help me or not?"
-"It uhm... well you see..."
"What?"
-"You need to download the source folder over there"
"Okey... I opened the folder. What file do I need to click on?"
-"You need to open up a terminal first"
"A what?"
-"Are you using gnome?"
"What is Gnome?"

And so on and so forth...

Opensuse build service is wonderfull BTW

[yogi_berra]

Ever tried compiling all of KDE?

What about KDE or Gnome is so important that you would need the latest release or would stop you from using any of the backporting services that exist?

[yogi_berra]

"It doesn't work"
-"You need the latest version of Pidgen"
"Where can I download that?"
-"You can grab the latest source at-"
"The latest what?"
-"The latest source code... it's at-"
"What? Is that the installer?"
-"The uhm... ah fsck it"
"Are you going to help me or not?"
-"It uhm... well you see..."
"What?"
-"You need to download the source folder over there"
"Okey... I opened the folder. What file do I need to click on?"
-"You need to open up a terminal first"
"A what?"
-"Are you using gnome?"
"What is Gnome?"

And so on and so forth...

-"Why are you using Linux?"
"Because it makes me cool"
-"So strip naked and sit in a freezer, its the same effect"
"...?"
-"...!"