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I'm a happy Fedora userI'm a happy Fedora userPosted May 22, 2008 14:20 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216)Parent article: Blame Fedora. Again. I'm a happy Fedora user. Proprietary drivers have ALWAYS been a problem with Linux systems, be they NVIDIA or the wireless drivers that require ndiswrapper. In fact, they're a problem for Windows, too - notice the large number of hardware devices that Vista doesn't support, because it lacks the drivers. The short-term solution is to wait and NOT upgrade to Fedora 9 until the drivers you need are available. I do not automatically replace my system the day Fedora is out. I may replace one or two less-critical systems, to see how it works. But for anything important, I'll wait a few weeks, then test it (e.g., run a live CD) to see if it "basically works". Then, once I see it's okay, I'll install. That's a good plan for ANY infrastructure component, not just Fedora. The long-term solution is for open source software drivers to be developed that replace the proprietary ones. And yes, I _do_ buy products depending on whether or not there are open source software drivers. My condolences to those who are stuck with only proprietary drivers. In the short term, I think Fedora should try to encourage developers of key proprietary components work with their product. But Fedora should not be BEHOLDEN to them; that's where I think these complaints go too far. I don't think it's reasonable to blame Fedora for this! The blame is squarely on NVIDIA, who do not provide an open source software driver nor the data necessary to quickly build one. The X folks have tried to create stable binary APIs, but they have to change occasionally. Stable binary APIs don't work so well in changing environments! There _IS_ a standard device API for Linux. It's called "source code". NVIDIA is simply refusing to follow the standard.
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