Nouveau DRM Changes Queued For Linux 4.15

[WolfpackN64]

yeah, I am one of them. Just wondering what brings somebody to randomly post such comments.

People seemingly can't separate the work being done on Nouveau with NVIDIA as a company. That's very unfortunate indeed.

[amehaye]

even in this case I would prefer if that somebody tells me that he simply wanted to troll. I don't mind that at all. But it might be even that this person has a bug which wasn't fixed yet or any other valid reason to be disappointed.

I think you misunderstood rene. Nobody blames the Nouveau developers, your work is amazing. IIUC rene shares this sentiment. His frustration, like that of many in the open source community, is aimed at nVIDIA.

[rene]

why the hateful comment?

I mean sure, if you want proper OpenSource support you should most likely buy AMD or Intel, but your comment is so out of context that it seems to be totally misplaced. If that would be some article about Nvidia not helping out or big troubles the Nouveau project isn't able to solve, then it would have made sense, but not like this.

What was hateful? just a summary of the situation of signed firmware nonsense and no proper open register specs. Great fan of the nouveau folks though, they do miracle work in light of everything nvidia is doing to help them, not. But if I have the choice, I rather buy an AMD GPU, … As IMHO every Linux user should by voting with their wallet.

[karolherbst]

What was hateful? just a summary of the situation of signed firmware nonsense and no proper open register specs. Great fan of the nouveau folks though, they do miracle work in light of everything nvidia is doing to help them, not. But if I have the choice, I rather buy an AMD GPU, … As IMHO every Linux user should by voting with their wallet.

okay, then I totally misunderstood your intentions. And I am sorry for that. It's just that sometimes some really annoying people are answering just random garbage everytime they see nouveau.

[danieru]

LT;DR - do not support / buy Nvidia GPUs for use with open source systems.

I agree, I bought a GTX 650 because at the time it had great support with nouveau. I though it would improve to the point where it would reach 2 thirds of the proprietary drivers. it's been 3 years since my purchase and 1 since the last time i tried nouveau. and even though it can reach the 2 thirds of performance using the experimental re-clocking support (more or less depending on the game). It would also crash the system some times when trying to set a higher frequency. it was like a 10% of chance for a complete freeze after trying to set a higher frequency or after 30 minutes of playing a game.

But that was with linux 4.9. I'm planning on trying again with linux 4.14

[DanL]

why the hateful comment? ... If that would be some article about Nvidia not helping out or big troubles the Nouveau project isn't able to solve, then it would have made sense, but not like this.

After withdrawing their obfuscated nv driver, Nvidia's policy was, "to neither help nor hinder" open source efforts. Not releasing the firmware falls squarely into the hindering category. While the article isn't explicitly about Nvidia not releasing the firmware, it does mention it. So I get the hate/frustration, even if comments like the you quoted aren't terribly productive (other than blowing off steam). What I don't get is all the hate and "F Nvidia" comments on GBM/EGLstreams when both camps admit neither approach is ideal.

[MartinN]

LT;DR - do not support / buy Nvidia GPUs for use with open source systems.

Second this. Buy only Intel and/or AMD. NVidia is, like its leadership, one of the most selfish tech companies in existence.

[OneBitUser]

yeah, I am one of them. Just wondering what brings somebody to randomly post such comments.

There was nothing hateful in that comment.
It is a simple fact that as costumers we can mostly voice our opinions with our purchases. So yes, if somebody cares about open source systems, they should not buy nVidia hardware at all, if possible. Unfortunately, these days that is becoming increasingly difficult with the mining craze and the much better availability of nVidia cards. I also had to buy nVidia, because the AMD competition was basically non-existent.

It is just maddening how nVidia handles the open source community that is doing them a favour by providing choice for nVidia users. Nouveau is one of the most amazing open source project out there, simply because they kept going despite this hostility. Their drivers are actually really good, for instance my backup GPU (BFG Tech 8800 GTS 320MB) works flawlessly with Nouveau... which just gives a hint of what Nouveau would be capable of if it wasn't for nVidia's hostility.
So yeah, I guess... thank You for your work!

Kind regards,
A GTX 970 owner

[wdb974]

I also think that nouveau devs are doing a great job, an admirable job despite the obstacles. It's thanks to you guys that we're able to have a functional GUI. This matters a lot to me, as old computers will sometimes have a second life if you can install Linux on them, and one of the basic requirements for the average user is having a GUI. Without good drivers, your options are going to be several limited in terms of desktop environments, let alone proper video decoding (who doesn't watch YouTube & co nowadays?).

However, that bit about nvidia not releasing necessary firmware for proper opertaion is enough to spark hatred towards them, so I completely understand people posting negative comments regarding that company.

[grok]

I think nouveau can be useful in case you want to buy an older, second-hand graphics card from Kepler or Maxwell v1 generation but don't want to handle the proprietary driver. Some of these cards still resp. already perform decent, like the 650 or 750 series.

It's a matter of choice, and nouveau increases the amount of choices there are. Thank you for that!

I did reuse the geforce 7600GT I had bought earlier. Even when many years old it was hard to find a similar combination of low power and performance (32 watts and 128bit bus 700MHz memory)
It died many times but putting it in an oven (to melt the traces or something) would put it back to work, until it didn't anymore.
It felt short of supporting Valve's linux version of Source engine, even on proprietary driver. Too bad! But I wouldn't mind indeed having a 650, 640, GT610 (still Fermi), GT710 (still Kepler) etc.

Was dumbfounded to find that a Radeon 5450 is slower than the 7600GT, at least for what I've tried it on, despite the 7600GT dating back to frigging 2006.
Would have like an 8600GT, 9500GT etc. but they had poor shelf lives, lead-free solder or similar issue killed them prematurely (had *two* 8400GS. unlike the 5450 they did perform as expected, but that was on proprietary linux driver and on windows. they died)