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  • #61
    Originally posted by frantaylor View Post
    Some of us RELY on closed source drivers for advanced 3-D support that would simply not exist otherwise.
    thats something to be avoided
    Originally posted by frantaylor View Post
    I follow the directions carefully and have had nothing but great success with the nVidia drivers.
    dont get me wrong, nvidia works for me here too, but nvidia does not support old cards so after some years of use you are screwed. my old ati cards work great and with new kernels too.
    Originally posted by frantaylor View Post
    Philosophical considerations about the merits of open source do not belong in a buyer's guide.
    i am only suggesting that closed source is left out since it has a much shorter life that open source. when i buy hardware i expect a long life out of it.

    matt

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    • #62
      Originally posted by frantaylor View Post
      My point is that this is not really an issue to be considered in a buyer's guide. The buyers guides for automobiles do not list off where you should go to get your car fixed.
      thats an interesting point. i dont think many would be interested in a car from GM because there could be a hard time getting parts for it later on. same with proprietary drivers, support will just dissapear someday.

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      • #63
        Originally posted by mattmatteh View Post
        thats something to be avoideddont get me wrong, nvidia works for me here too, but nvidia does not support old cards so after some years of use you are screwed.
        matt
        Here is the card in my file server:

        05:08.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000] (rev c1)

        Works just great with the nouveau driver

        If I wanted to do 3-D on that machine I would buy a newer card.

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        • #64
          Originally posted by mattmatteh View Post
          thats an interesting point. i dont think many would be interested in a car from GM because there could be a hard time getting parts for it later on. same with proprietary drivers, support will just dissapear someday.
          right, because not being able to use anything older then a geforce 4 with nvidia's propriatary drivers, current kernel, and current xorg is really an abomination.

          edit: upon further inspection, it seems geforce 3 is also supported by that driver version
          Last edited by AdrenalineJunky; 21 August 2009, 05:13 PM.

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          • #65
            Originally posted by mattmatteh View Post
            same with proprietary drivers, support will just dissapear someday.
            Same with open source drivers:

            My Gravis Ultrasound card is not supported by Fedora any more.

            My old Pentium machines are not supported any more. I had a nice old SMP '486 motherboard, solid as a rock, but now totally useless.

            How about those old non-IDE CD-ROM drives? Not supported any more.

            Over the years I have taken many many old computer parts to the recycler because they are not supported by Linux any more.

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            • #66
              I defy anyone to put together an "open source" computer.

              When you turn on TCP checksum support in your Ethernet card, you are relying on the closed source microcode in your Ethernet controller to do part of your networking for you. Even Intel and AMD do not release the source to the microcode that controls their products.

              Functionality in your computer is a combination of the microcode in your peripherals being told what to do by the OS driver. The line between the hardware and the software is pretty arbitrary. Imagine a card that does everything in microcode. The "open source" driver merely stuffs commands into the registers of the card and says "do it". Since the card has DMA access to your computer it can do just as many evil things as a closed source driver.

              Look at the situation with USB wireless devices. Some of them have their firmware built in, and they are "good". Others require the firmware to be downloaded, and they are "bad". I really don't understand the distinction.

              There are open source drivers that were written by employees of the companies that made the hardware, and they had access to documents that are not public. These are in the same boat as closed-source drivers because we are at the mercy of the manufacturer to update the drivers.

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              • #67
                Originally posted by laryllan View Post
                Nice idea.
                Hopefully I can buy there too (living in Europe).
                I'd say +1 on this. The shop idea is a good idea, but amazon.com is rather US-centric, because when you import things into the EU you have to pay rather random and high taxes.

                If the store shipped from inside the EU and had reasonable shipping costs I'd see myself using it a lot, instead of sometimes randomly buying parts and praying they are supported (even after doing research it is very hard, damn vendors that don't change part numbers for different parts...).

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                • #68
                  How about starting with a list of sellers who are interested in being represented. Each part can then have a list of the sellers who will sell it to you. Links, discounts, kickbacks, whatever. Then you can pick your favorite seller. Don't bother with prices, they depend on shipping costs, it's just too much hassle to keep them current, and some high-volume buyers get discounts.

                  And you can have asterisks or footnotes or whatever to denote:

                  - this hardware has a required closed source driver
                  - this hardware has an open source driver, but it works better with the closed source driver
                  - this hardware has full and open specs
                  - the driver for this hardware is maintained by its manufacturer

                  and maybe even

                  - Linus uses expletives whenever he talks about this hardware

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by frantaylor View Post
                    Same with open source drivers:
                    My Gravis Ultrasound card is not supported by Fedora any more.
                    My old Pentium machines are not supported any more. I had a nice old SMP '486 motherboard, solid as a rock, but now totally useless.
                    How about those old non-IDE CD-ROM drives? Not supported any more.
                    Over the years I have taken many many old computer parts to the recycler because they are not supported by Linux any more.
                    as i said earlier, old stuff is deprecated, but usually when there is no one that wants to maintain it. not when some corporation doesnt feel like it. the life span of open source is longer than closed source.

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                    • #70
                      Originally posted by frantaylor View Post
                      I defy anyone to put together an "open source" computer.

                      When you turn on TCP checksum support in your Ethernet card, you are relying on the closed source microcode in your
                      <snip>
                      Functionality in your computer is a combination of the microcode in your peripherals being told what to do by the OS driver. The line between the hardware and the software is pretty arbitrary. Imagine a card that does everything in microcode. The "open source" driver merely stuffs commands into the registers of the card and says "do it". Since the card has DMA access to your computer it can do just as many evil things as a closed source driver.

                      Look at the situation with USB wireless devices. Some of them have their firmware built in, and they are "good". Others require the firmware to be downloaded, and they are "bad". I really don't understand the distinction.

                      There are open source drivers that were written by employees of the companies that made the hardware, and they had access to documents that are not public. These are in the same boat as closed-source drivers because we are at the mercy of the manufacturer to update the drivers.
                      i dont doubt what you are saying. and as i understand it, the microcode is more like the bios, but loaded from the driver. and that doesnt change much, but if an an open source driver knows how to talk to it, then it can be updated with the kernel or what ever (xorg). computer firmware or dos-pc-bios is mosly proprietary and linux has always worked with it. it would be nice if that were open, but still useable either way.

                      i know some wireless firmware is bad. i dont know the details of that. i have a broadcom wireless in my laptop, that was a long wait for it to work. thats something a user looking to buy will want to know: will i have to wait years for it to work, does it work, and will it continue to work.

                      Comment

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