Best bang for buck with open source drivers.

[mirv]

The fast moving linux model just isn't ideal for proprietary blobs.

I second that. All political reasons aside, practical reasons make open source drivers a more suitable option for linux.

[Ant P.]

Personally I think that there should be some kind of flag that identifies closed source code and then makes it impossible for it to execute.

There already is. Both the nvidia and fglrx blobs go to great lengths to circumvent it. One (or more) of the kernel devs threatened legal action over them doing it, IIRC.

[tball]

I respect your arguments.

But please... You wouldn't be using linux as you did today if every single driver where closed. Because that would make linux windows. Yup we might have a better kernel than windows, but all the properitary stuff we put on that kernel, would make it as unstable as windows.

The fast moving linux model just isn't ideal for proprietary blobs.

But lets stop ruining this thread. I just think amd's open source linux model of support is better than nvidia's.

[L33F3R]

For anyone who prefer closed source over open source, should consider this:

What if you wifi-, sound, networkcard was closed source?
1. Not so funny when new kernel arrives.
2. The 'works out of the box' concept will be invalid, because you have to download your drivers from the net (Like m$).
3. Alot of more reasons.

But I will give you, that fglrx / nvidia blob is pretty good drivers, UNTIL the open drivers for ati is finished But for the sake of GNU/Linux, choose the open source drivers, because openess is what linux is about. I like linux, when it boots up on almost every computer, without having to download any binary driver. Let that happen to the open source gfx world also.

EDIT:
If you like your binary blob, go for windows. Closed drivers is what windows is good for.

1. I dont worry about this as I only update my kernel when an updated distro is out (6 months). My distribution takes care of this and I donate to my distribution as gratitude.

Whether or not my drivers are open source is irrelevant to me because if they didn't work I wouldn't buy their products next time around. It is a poor business model to break compatibility. Some products only have support on linux through community means. my defence is that people shouldn't even be supporting a hardware platform that doesn't support us. AMD is one example of a company that has emerging support.

2. I dont mind downloading my drivers from the internet. On M$ it takes me a whopping 2 minutes maximum per driver. If 2 minutes of web-surfing is difficult then the internet is not for you. It takes the same amount of time to save such drivers on a disk or flash drive.

As far as network card drivers are concerned it would be stupid to not have a linux driver as linux controls so much of the internet. Just about any mobo could be used for a server solution at any time as seen in todays modern hosting companies (you can get celerons, pentiums, phenoms even).

3. ill write these up for you
openness is what linux is about:

The perception of linux varies between person to person. For some people its freedom and others its simply an alternative. However what its about and what its intention is totally different. To me linux is a platform that doesnt crash 2 days after install and runs fast. Do you think the Chinese government funds red flag linux because its "freedom" software?

Dont get me wrong I love open source, but i also like quality. If the drivers were equal in quality as far as my uses were concerned:
OSS>Proprietary any day.

[frische]

1. somehow the nvidia blob works with every new solaris kernel
2. and they even ship it on the livecd
3. ...damn

[tball]

For anyone who prefer closed source over open source, should consider this:

What if you wifi-, sound, networkcard was closed source?
1. Not so funny when new kernel arrives.
2. The 'works out of the box' concept will be invalid, because you have to download your drivers from the net (Like m$).
3. Alot of more reasons.

But I will give you, that fglrx / nvidia blob is pretty good drivers, UNTIL the open drivers for ati is finished But for the sake of GNU/Linux, choose the open source drivers, because openess is what linux is about. I like linux, when it boots up on almost every computer, without having to download any binary driver. Let that happen to the open source gfx world also.

EDIT:
If you like your binary blob, go for windows. Closed drivers is what windows is good for.

[adamk]

For me it's just preference. I mean most people wont care if the driver is closed or open, but just like with any community there are people who are more educated in one field or another. I happen to know that closed drivers actually inhibit innovation, and that they use the infrastructure that was developed for open drivers without actually contributing to the infrastructure (which by the way is a GPL violation)

While I do mostly agree with your sentiment, most of the direct rendering infrastrcuture is actually under the X11 license, and not the GPL. I believe that only the kernel drivers are actually GPLed, and only on linux.

So not contributing changes back to the DRI is not likely a GPL violation (linking closed source drivers to the linux kernel, on the other hand, is another issue entirely).

Adam

[nanonyme]

and that they use the infrastructure that was developed for open drivers without actually contributing to the infrastructure (which by the way is a GPL violation)

Well, the actually ugly part of it is that they replace a lot of the infrastucture to make it suit their needs better. Just read of libGL.so's and so to find out what's been going on.
Imo it's less bad if you do closed and keep the open stuff intact than that you break compatibility with the open stuff on installation. (Of course, someone could claim that this is due to a design flaw in the opensource infrastructure)

[curaga]

Your current PSU actually might be enough; AMD says

450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express? power connector recommended (550 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)

Some reviews measured that a standard clock 4850 uses 110W when at full power.

[duby229]

You'll need a decent/powerful PSU for the newer cards. If your existing PSU is low wattage/cheap then I suppose it could be the cause of your 1950 problems.

That's a good point. I've been running this video card off of a Thermaltake 460W supply for about 2 years now, and these problems only started about 1 week ago. Lets say I go with a 4850, what power supply do you think will be adequate to feed it?