The real solution [LWN.net]

The real solution

Posted May 24, 2006 0:46 UTC (Wed) by swbrown (guest, #37927)
Parent article: Kororaa and the GPL - Update 1

The real solution is to make a push for Free Software 3D drivers. Attempting to tear apart the GPL from the inside of the community, or illegally (and immorally) distributing proprietary drivers and basing a Free desktop around that isn't the right solution.

GNU/Linux didn't get to where it is now by compromising the philosophy every time it was tempting to do so. If you feel tempted, be part of the solution: either help create Free Software 3D drivers, or start doing Free Software 3D driver advocacy. Also, refuse to buy hardware there are no Free Software drivers for. The FSF recommends the Intel GMA chipsets as the current 'not actively hostile to Free Software' 3D choice. They're slower, but if that matters to you more than freedom, you're part of the wrong community.

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well said..

Posted May 24, 2006 2:13 UTC (Wed) by Tashlan (guest, #17277) [Link]

Well said.

I'd also like to add; If you feel the GPL is too restrictive, use BSD instead.

The real solution

Posted May 24, 2006 5:54 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

The FSF recommends the Intel GMA chipsets as the current 'not actively hostile to Free Software' 3D choice.

The main probem here is that you can get that only by buying a motherboard with the Intel chipset, so you are out of luck if you prefer some other processor than Intel. However, this issue may decide that, like my current aging home PC, the next one will also have an all-Intel kit inside...

The real solution

Posted May 24, 2006 6:35 UTC (Wed) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link]

There's a certain irony to the fact that in order to use a gpl graphics driver you are forced into buying a board/processor from half of the famed 'wintel' cartel. Not to mention that amds are just ahead of the game at this point.

It would be great to see the intel chips be put on a card though, pci-e, if it was reasonably cheap I'd happily dump my nvidia and go full free gpl, anyone who underestimates the danger of using proprietary drivers to view your monitor with everything else gpl'ed or free software is making a mistake.

I've been following the debate on this around the web this week especially, and it makes no sense, how can you think that using gpl stuff like linux is great and then at the same time support binary only drivers like nvidia/ati?

Unfortunately there's not a lot that can be done at this point short of buying intel boards and cpus, but I'm not willing to do that. Here's hoping that someone at intel decides to make a straight video/graphics card based on open drivers.

The real solution

Posted May 24, 2006 8:20 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

What I put together just recently.

motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168131...
cpu:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168191...

Then I used a huge Scythe tower-style heatsink to keep that cpu cool without making noise. And as a bonus it supports the VT extensions for when I want to muck around with Xen on it.

I realy wanted to get a AMD machine, but the fact that Via motherboards are getting old and Via hasn't released much new lately their stuff is getting dated. All that is realy aviable is ATI or Nvidia motherboards and I realy realy realy have NO desire to own another nvidia motherboard (which I quickly sold to a windows-using friend as soon as I got it), and I expect that the ATI stuff is even worse. I'd realy like to have a nice Tyan motherboard (which have excelent linux support) but it's outside what I can afford for a personal computer.

So that was a huge turn off for me.

So I think for a budget workstation this intel stuff is great. Everything worked out of the box with Debian Unstable. Debian stable installer didn't have drivers for the network stuff.

Sound worked. Network worked. Video works. Sata works (with SMART support with unstable kernel!) No binary-only drivers. No screwing around. Even sensors worked great with only having to run the sensors detect script. No sign of flakiness.

I don't like a lot what Intel does. Their firmware licensing for the wifi stuff is irritating to be sure, for example.

Intel-based motherboards just realy have a very high compatability with Linux, from my experiance. I am quite happy about it despite the second-class cpu. (which itself, being dual core, is so responsive and fast as to be almost too much for a Linux desktop)

Get around a 10msec latency with jack my Audiophile 24/96 audio card with the stock kernel and no xruns. I haven't tried a low-latency kernel yet, but I can't imagine.

ATI motherboards

Posted May 24, 2006 14:34 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I expect that the ATI stuff is even worse.

Yes, ATI motherboards are horrible. I bought an AOpen XC cube with an ATI motherboard, as it was the only silent barebones which supported amd64 processors at the time, and it has taken me a full year to be able to use a Debian derivative on it (Ubuntu Dapper beta 2). Problems with the chipset, sound, network, graphics card...

The real solution

Posted May 24, 2006 14:01 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

There's a certain irony to the fact that in order to use a gpl graphics driver you are forced into buying a board/processor from half of the famed 'wintel' cartel.

Yes, and in some other matters Intel seems to be part of the problem, as seen here:

The most uncooperative company is Intel, which has started a sham "open source" BIOS project. The software consists of all the unimportant parts of of a BIOS, without the hard parts. It won't run, and doesn't bring us any closer to a BIOS that does run. It is just a distraction. By contrast, AMD has been cooperating by releasing major chunks of their BIOS source code and making their technical experts available.

(Quote from from http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html). So who should I boycot?

Wouldn't it be lovely if there were a hardware company that just concentrated on making the best hardware possible and helping developers to write the best possible drivers for it, not just the big companies...

The real solution

Posted May 26, 2006 3:09 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

You need to choose your fights.

Decent Free video drivers on a decent video card is much more important for a Free Desktop then a a Free BIOS.

Also motherboards supporting bios replacements (generally Tyan type things) are pretty much unaffordable. The ability to use a Free BIOS replacement is technically only a boon for people doing things like clustering or need instant-boot-up. The video drivers are more important and Intel helps with them with documentation and such.

As far as open source drivers go, Intel is pretty decent.

The real solution

Posted May 24, 2006 6:49 UTC (Wed) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

Keep in mind that, although Matrox is no longer actively being good, their support in the past has resulted in quality free drivers available for several of their chipsets, up to the G550 which is a pretty capable card.

On a side note, every time I've attempted to enter a reply on the kororaa blog it eats the comment:

Whoops! Comment not saved. I ran into a problem while saving your comment. Server Reported:

Anyone else?

The real solution

Posted May 24, 2006 19:43 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]

As for the G550, which I use, there are some issues.

It's incapable of driving a not terribly atypical 1600x1200 monitor via
DVI (I guess this is a lack of dual link issue?), which wasn't a big deal
when it was released, but isn't so great now.

Without the MGA_HAL proprietary driver module -- which is not compatible
with modern X.org -- the results for some DVI behavior and some multihead
behavior, especially when switching resolutions is a bit.. touchy. It's
quite possible to wander off into corrupt display territory. It's gotten
a _little_ better with X.Org 6.9 (Debian testing doesn't thread the
bleeding edge), but the driver is relatively ignored.

The DVI problems aren't the worst problem because the analog signal
generated by matrox cards is top notch. It's almost as crisp over D-SUB
as DVI, but it's annoying to watch my monitor "sync" up and sometimes
even get the display settings totally wrong, when on DVI it is instant
and always correct.

The DRI driver works, but the implementation is aging in terms of
flexibility (texture sizes, etc), let alone performance. Some programs
will not execute, while others are simply low performant.

I see no evidence of people working on EXA/Composite and such for the
Matrox cards.

On the plus side, the cards are fanless with a modest heatsink, and not
too pricey. Just be sure not to get the 650, which is a completely
unrelated chipset, more or less a stripped down parhelia series card,
which have linux drivers but they're closed, and poor.

The real solution

Posted Jun 6, 2006 16:31 UTC (Tue) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link]

They're slower, but if that matters to you more than freedom, you're part of the wrong community.

In other words: Linux will appeal to noone except those who value Software Freedom more than anything else, aka "religious" Linux users.

I'd buy an Intel graphics solution any day (if I can find one) but what about my girl friend, my mom, my friends who want their computers to "just work" with all their features? Are they all part of the wrong community? What is the right community, after all?

Even open minded, critically thinking people are often hard to convince that the 4 freedoms of the GPL are worth sacrificing the convenience of prorietary software. It takes some positive personal experience to learn about the benefits of free software. Once that experience has been made, people start realizing that freedom actually is worth some inconvenience.

I have convinced some non-technical people to use Linux. But I doubt I would have been able to do so if I had been restricted to Debian main and contrib.

Without the ability to attract new users, especially young users and non-technical users, Linux won't survive the current hacker generation.