SteamOS Switches To Linux 4.1, Latest Graphics Drivers

[niner]

Valve has direct contacts with both AMD and NVIDIA. If it was illegal to do so, their employees would have stated so long ago. It's quite the opposite in that AMD and NVIDIA want their drivers shipped with SteamOS by default.

I think the larger legal barrier is the kernel's GPL license which just does not allow distribution with binary only drivers. Of course with amdgpu and a Catalyst based on that, this won't be an issue for AMD drivers anymore in the future.

[directhex]

How do they do that legally?

The proprietary GPU kernel modules are not distributed. They are compiled on first run. This bypasses the issue of distributing GPL/proprietary combo code.

[M@yeulC]

I would be interested in knowing the shipped mesa/llvm version shipped. They probably rely on it at some point (likely at the first run).

[dungeon]

I would be interested in knowing the shipped mesa/llvm version shipped.

I think it is mesa 10.6 with static llvm 3.5

[M@yeulC]

I think it is mesa 10.6 with static llvm 3.5

Thanks