Too DRM-like [LWN.net]

Too DRM-like

Posted Jun 2, 2006 14:38 UTC (Fri) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285)
In reply to: Too DRM-like by gowen
Parent article: EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL_FUTURE()

When was the last time you were writing an email and had to wait for the screen to update?

Just yesterday, in fact. I'm using Gnome and Evolution on my desktop, and I've been using XGL/ Compviz with Nvidia binary drivers. Recently I switched back to the open source nvidia X.org driver, because of the X 7.1 update and a -mm kernel.

The speed difference in screen updates is massive. The open source driver is painfully slow. Scrolling a gnome-terminal takes more CPU time than the compile process creating the output. Switching email messages in Evolution lets me watch various bits of the screen update.

I can hardly wait until Nvidia updates their driver for X 7.1 and I can switch back.

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Too DRM-like

Posted Jun 5, 2006 14:28 UTC (Mon) by nevyn (subscriber, #33129) [Link]

As I'm sure you know, nVidia is one of the few HW cards on Linux that lacks good 2d. All the alternatives either don't boot at all, or provide very good 2d (including the cheap, non-nVidia non-ATI cards ... which the majority of desktop users want).
Saying that, I haven't seen big problems with nVidia cards I've been forced to use ... at least not to the extent of draw updates being noticable when doing email. It's mostly things like the nv driver doesn't do dual screen etc. ... but then I try and use working HW (duh), so I don't spend much time with the nv driver.