What NVIDIA's Linux Customers Want

[TheBlackCat]

As I said in the other thread, the problem with nvidia-settings is that those settings are not remembered across sessions, while randr 1.2+ clients generally seem to have implemented this pretty basic feature. So the advantage of randr 1.2 support is not just using native clients, it is getting basic features that nvidia has not bothered to implement in their own gui configuration tool. Nvidia seems to assume that everyone has root privileges and uses an xorg.conf, neither of which is necessarily the case.

[oliw]

Like a lot of Linux/Nvidia desktop users, I'm sure, I really don't care about a lot of these features.

• randr: nvidia-settings does the job just about and I don't have to worry about hot-plugging monitors because it's a desktop
• KMS: I only restart when I have to. Plymouth (through proper KMS) does look nice but I'm really not that fussed. The native-mode TTYs, again, look pretty, but I'm not going to cry myself to sleep at night without them.
• Optimus: This does bug me because it essentially limits what products I can buy. I can only see dual-video cards in laptops getting more popular (they're a good idea, after all) and while the problem really lies in X, any product that uses this sort of technology is a product I won't be buying. This essentially means I either end up with: no product, a worse product and/or a product that costs a lot more.

Feature support is a given. As is performance. I think Nvidia is pretty good at keeping ahead of the masses on this one (I know a few people have bought hardware on the day of release and been disappointed - just as people who like to run on the mythical pre-alpha X v2 source tree).

My message to Nvidia would be:

Keep up the good work. Make the driver even faster. And open source it if you get a spare minute. Thanks.

[thefirstm]

The Nvidia blob already uses kernel modesetting. What people want is for nvidia to use the same form of KMS that is used by the open drivers. And that is never going to happen, because attempting to implement it would cause a massive regression in features, performance, and stability for the nvidia driver.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: What NVIDIA's Linux Customers Want

Last week when talking about NVIDIA looking to expand its Linux team (hire more engineers), I asked what else NVIDIA Linux customers wanted that already wasn't offered by the proprietary driver for Linux / BSD / Solaris operating systems. Aside from the obvious one, of many desktop users wanting NVIDIA to support some sort of an open-source strategy, other expressed views are listed below...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTExMQ