Artem Tashkinov: Independent Hardware Vendors Hate Linux

[bug77]

you are not very well informed: gamer doesn't use the console he uses the computer to play games because the computer is better than the console.

Who said:

If the gamer get an increase of performance in gaming of 10% what operating system he choses? the best

Consoles let us draw the most power from our hardware, so judging by the statement above, we should choose them, right?

[GruenSein]

To be fair, thats not true at all. The worst thing you could ever say about AMDs OSS drivers is that they were incomplete. And with just a few specific exceptions, it's been really stable. R600 supported hardware has been stable for a really long time already. Not all, but most users are very happy with these drivers.

I don't know about most people but to me, having stable drivers is the bare minimum requirement. Why would I buy a $300+ GPU just to have it perform underwhelmingly and with very limited GL compatibility? MESA has only in the last year or two started to support modern GL at decent speeds. Just by the sheer excitement after the last RadeonSI-benchmarks you can tell that this is not only a recent developement but also that hardly anyone expected this to ever come true.

[KellyClowers]

So basically they hate it because they are whiny assholes. Got it.

[blacknova]

Well, he have a point. Consider you've developer piece of hardware, have driver ready for all target OSs, and move you development teams to next project (it's a life after all). Your driver is closed source since you want to protect your IP or third pary IP under NDA. At some point, new linux kernel is out. API/ABI is broken linux kernel driver need to be fixed to support new kernel, or rather to support multiple versions of kernel. And only one who can work on it is a little support team, which busy fixing driver and realising it for more widespread market and for already supported OSs and kernel version. They might have not enough resource to port driver to newer API/ABI.
Yeah, I'd be very careful too to consider supporting any linux distros beside "enterprise" ones - SLES, RHEL or CentOS

[WalterCool]

Nice story about a douche who closed his comment wall to avoid any critic/review of his analysis.

[R00KIE]

Well, he have a point. Consider you've developer piece of hardware, have driver ready for all target OSs, and move you development teams to next project (it's a life after all). Your driver is closed source since you want to protect your IP or third pary IP under NDA. At some point, new linux kernel is out. API/ABI is broken linux kernel driver need to be fixed to support new kernel, or rather to support multiple versions of kernel. And only one who can work on it is a little support team, which busy fixing driver and realising it for more widespread market and for already supported OSs and kernel version. They might have not enough resource to port driver to newer API/ABI.
Yeah, I'd be very careful too to consider supporting any linux distros beside "enterprise" ones - SLES, RHEL or CentOS

This mindset of putting something that barely works together, ship and forget is what got us smartphones full of security holes that no one can fix. This is also the reason most ARM SBCs are a no-go from the start, you are stuck in time with some crappy drivers that work with the one specific kernel version.

There is a good solution for this, stop reinventing the damn wheel every single time, write good code and get it accepted in the kernel. I'm sure it will be a lot cheaper long term than keeping on doing everything from scratch every time - and doing a piss poor job at that too.

[blacknova]

you are stuck in time with some crappy drivers that work with the one specific kernel version.

Did you even notice that the only OSes that suffer from that the most are Linux kernel based? Is it really that necessary to break kernel API, so often? Somehow most operating systems manage to introduce support for new technology, buses and trinkets without changing everything in process.

The only reason linux became so popular is that AT&T lawsuite against 386BSD was at the same timeframe of Linux first releases. I doubt it would have gathered the same level of popularity overwise, not with the same development methods.

[Alekander]

Sinple - Linux is not Busniess oriented and never will be.

[ihatemichael]

This mindset of putting something that barely works together, ship and forget is what got us smartphones full of security holes that no one can fix. This is also the reason most ARM SBCs are a no-go from the start, you are stuck in time with some crappy drivers that work with the one specific kernel version.

There is a good solution for this, stop reinventing the damn wheel every single time, write good code and get it accepted in the kernel. I'm sure it will be a lot cheaper long term than keeping on doing everything from scratch every time - and doing a piss poor job at that too.

This.

I wish I could give like to this comment a million times.

[starshipeleven]

- If there are no spec sheets how do they write drivers for windows in the first place? Copy paste of some shoddy code that comes from who known where?

This happens way too often in Windows land, also on board firmwares (UEFI) where. http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/...-zero-day.html