I think I agree with some of the critic earlier in the thread: A part of the problem is too on the FLOSS side, there is no part of the API that will remain stable for several years of updates, while on Windows we know for a fact that a service pack won't break it, the only thing that annoys legacy hardware is whenever there is a new OS out. As somebody said, Debian Stable and Ubuntus "longer LTS" will last quite a few years anyhow, so from a standpoint where security updates is a concern its not a problem. Its only a problem due how the Linux infrastructure is built, its built on the idea of rapid development of the entire ecosystem, which can lead to backporting issues.
While, its also correct to blame the blob droppers for their inflexibility, especially because of the way its hooked into the rest of the system, which do mean that something that breaks on every single component update is just a symptom over how exactly its hooked into the rest of the kernel and major "infrastructure". But a more elegant hook would likely break each half a year-year instead of on each update, which also means we have a blob hostile environment in the long run. Which is a good thing, if we only have had the markeding leverage to get manifacturers to assimilate.
And for those of you who say "Nvidia will treat us better", you know what, does your precious randr work yet? The real problem is that as consumers, we don't really have a choice at the moment, its between broken and not working. For those of us who have such hardware, we will be stuck with Ubuntu or Debian, and we can't run Gentoo or Archlinux on the fresh and bleeding edge. There is not really any "premium linux manufacturer" either, it would not surprise me if even the Raspberry Pi will suffer extreme problems with this at a certain point in the future.
"The solution" we are still looking for is that a random manufacturer copies Apple, but use a popular distro instead, and once it get enough marked leverage it can negotiate itself with one of the lesser known graphic manufacturers and get a deal that enables us to get a stable FLOSS brand for what is today a quite proprietary piece of hardware. This will at the least enable us to "fall back" to that brands products whenever something like this happens, presenting us with hardware we actually can acquire for our own greed and future planning.
HEAR HEAR!
While, its also correct to blame the blob droppers for their inflexibility, especially because of the way its hooked into the rest of the system, which do mean that something that breaks on every single component update is just a symptom over how exactly its hooked into the rest of the kernel and major "infrastructure". But a more elegant hook would likely break each half a year-year instead of on each update, which also means we have a blob hostile environment in the long run. Which is a good thing, if we only have had the markeding leverage to get manifacturers to assimilate.
And for those of you who say "Nvidia will treat us better", you know what, does your precious randr work yet? The real problem is that as consumers, we don't really have a choice at the moment, its between broken and not working. For those of us who have such hardware, we will be stuck with Ubuntu or Debian, and we can't run Gentoo or Archlinux on the fresh and bleeding edge. There is not really any "premium linux manufacturer" either, it would not surprise me if even the Raspberry Pi will suffer extreme problems with this at a certain point in the future.
"The solution" we are still looking for is that a random manufacturer copies Apple, but use a popular distro instead, and once it get enough marked leverage it can negotiate itself with one of the lesser known graphic manufacturers and get a deal that enables us to get a stable FLOSS brand for what is today a quite proprietary piece of hardware. This will at the least enable us to "fall back" to that brands products whenever something like this happens, presenting us with hardware we actually can acquire for our own greed and future planning.
Originally posted by RealNC
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