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Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and
Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and
Posted Nov 14, 2006 20:05 UTC (Tue) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888)Parent article: Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and bling (Linux.com)
> Of course, there's also a vocal contingent that complains that Ubuntu and other distros are unsuitable for general users because they don't ship with Nvidia or other binary drivers enabled.
Not to mention another, perhaps not vocal enough, contingent that complains that Nvidia and other devices are unsuitable for general users because they don't ship with open source drivers.
Sigh.
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Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and
Posted Nov 14, 2006 22:50 UTC (Tue) by sveinrn (subscriber, #2827) [Link]
Good point! I myself am stuck with an ATI card. I even checked before buying the card that ATI had open source drivers. But I didn't dig deep enough, and found out too late that the support ended with the 9200 cards while I got a 9600.
So my next computer I will, for the first time in my life, be one with "Intel Inside" and on-board Intel graphics adapter. But I cannot afford a new one this year and probably not the next...
So for me, a Linux-distribution with included binary drivers is a good thing. And also, many people trying out Linux for the first time will be very disappointed with the performance after trying Fedora, or even worse, Debian on their new computer with the latest and greatest nVidia card.
So if one of our goals is widespread use of Linux, I think that the binary drivers are necessary at this stage. But if enough existing and potentially new Linux users drop ATI and nVidia cards from now on, it should not take long before the open source drivers are back again.
Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and
Posted Nov 15, 2006 1:21 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> be one with "Intel Inside" and on-board Intel graphics adapter
That's exactly how and why I picked the notebook I'm writing this on (it has Intel 945). Works fine with FC6 AIGLX goodies (compiz etc.).
Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and
Posted Nov 15, 2006 22:19 UTC (Wed) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]
But even the Radeon 9600s has had support out-of-tree for a while. The R300 DRI project lists its status as "works well, no lockups" as of 18 months ago. So by now free software support for your 3d card should not be a problem.
Ubuntu Developer Summit report: X.org improvements, driver controversy, and
Posted Nov 15, 2006 9:47 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]
Nvidia and other devices are unsuitable for general users because they don't ship with open source drivers.I'm afraid these devices are perfectly suitable to general users. They are not suitable to "free software only" users, but they are just a subset of general users.