[ltp] Re: some questions about linux and thinkpad

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 11:07:36AM +1100, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>  ...for some values of better, at least.  
> 
> The *proprietary* NVIDIA drivers seem to be much better than the
> *proprietary* ATI drivers, under Linux.
> 
> OTOH, anything up to the (IIRC) RV250 or RV300 core has publicly
> available documentation and, thus, fully open source 3D drivers.
> 
> ATI are also continuing their policy of releasing full documentation on
> the chipsets after the competitive advantage has worn off them.
> 
> NVIDIA, to date, have show a reluctance to *ever* release their chipset
> documentation.

In addition, if you use Nvidia's propietary drivers, they have a
disturbing tendency to break a lot with the very latest bleeding edge
kernels --- and given the poor state of ACPI support, there are plenty
of good reasons why you might want to be using the very latest 2.6
kernel.  (For example it's only been recently being able to swap the
Ultrabay without needing to reboot has started working.)

Also, at least in the past, Nvidia's drivers were flakey enough and
caused enough problems that they practically single-handedly inspired
the "tainted" flag, which means that if you load a propietary driver,
the kernel becomes "tainted", such that if you report a kernel
problem, the oops message will report the fact that the kernel has
been tainted, and most kernel developers will refuse to help you out,
saying instead, "you're using a kernel tainted with Nvidia's
propietary drivers; ask Nvidia if you want help".

The ATI drivers work comptently enough for 2D work.  If you really,
really care about 3d speeds, then yeah, you'll have to make a choice
between the possibility of a flaky kernel with crashes and memory
corruption, versus good 3-D performance.

> So, I chose an ATI chipset because it may be less good today, but it is
> going to be supported fully until people stop caring about it, rather
> than just until the manufacturer declares it obsolete and stops
> producing drivers for it.

This is especially important given that 2.6 is moving so quickly.  If
you use Nvidia, and they decide tomorrow to lay off all of their Linux
developers, you'll be stuck on whatever was the last kernel they chose
to support.

> You need to make your own call on that one, at the end of the day.

Exactly.

						- Ted