Weekly edition	Kernel	Security	Distributions	Contact Us	Search
Archives	Calendar	Subscribe	Write for LWN	LWN.net FAQ	Sponsors

Yay for open source drivers

Posted Jul 24, 2012 21:13 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
In reply to: Yay for open source drivers by rahvin
Parent article: Romanick: The zombies cometh...

I'm not sure I agree with some of the premises of your argument, 3D on Linux has been around just as long as on Windows if not longer and has been the same amount of time to work on it so there is no head start. There have also been several generations of hardware and software in that time frame. I'm not sure your comparisons here are of equivalent things.

(Log in to post comments)

Posted Jul 24, 2012 22:41 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Linux has hardly been used as a gaming platform. As a result, Linux drivers had stagnated for too long. NVidia and ATI were only interested in high-end CAD workstation markets, certainly not in Linux gaming.

With open source drivers it's even worse. For example, DRM2 and KMS were introduced after Windows Vista came out with its new driver model and DirectX10. Mesa has achieved OpenGL3 compliance only earlier this year.