From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261464AbTKTFb3 (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:31:29 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261538AbTKTFb3 (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:31:29 -0500 Received: from mail-03.iinet.net.au ([203.59.3.35]:27064 "HELO mail.iinet.net.au") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261464AbTKTFbZ (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:31:25 -0500 Message-ID: <3FBC50B1.2020901@cyberone.com.au> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:27:13 +1100 From: Nick Piggin User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030827 Debian/1.4-3 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: William Lee Irwin III CC: Jeff Garzik , jt@hpl.hp.com, Linux kernel mailing list , Pontus Fuchs Subject: Re: Announce: ndiswrapper References: <20031120031137.GA8465@bougret.hpl.hp.com> <3FBC3483.4060706@pobox.com> <20031120040034.GF19856@holomorphy.com> <3FBC402E.6070109@cyberone.com.au> <20031120043848.GG19856@holomorphy.com> <3FBC4A42.8010806@cyberone.com.au> <20031120051211.GE22764@holomorphy.com> In-Reply-To: <20031120051211.GE22764@holomorphy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org William Lee Irwin III wrote: >William Lee Irwin III wrote: > >>>I'm not convinced it is good for end users. They _think_ they're >>>getting something that's supported by Linux, but are instead getting >>>something highly problematic that ties them to specific kernel >>>versions and cuts off most, if not all, avenues of support available. >>> > >On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:59:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote: > >>Well what they get is hardware accelerated 3d graphics under Linux. >>If they didn't need 3d, they can use the open source drivers. >>If someone downloads and installs the drivers themselves, they should >>know enough to contact nvidia for support (I think nvidia have been >>pretty good). Others will contact their ditro support. >> > >"cuts off most, if not all, avenues of support available" == any and >all problems with the things around are untraceable. We won't touch >tainted bugreports and rightly so. And nvidia isn't supporting the >whole kernel. > > I guess they're tracable for nvidia. I'm not aware of how nvidia Linux development works. I assumed from the lack of bug reports that they had done something about it. I concede that bad support from a vendor might cause a bad perception of Linux. > >On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:59:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote: > >>There might be a problem where they percieve that Linux is unstable >>while it is actually binary drivers. >> > >Yes, that's one I'm very concerned about. > Bad problem. > > >William Lee Irwin III wrote: > >>>It's very much a second-class flavor of open source. They dare not >>>change the kernel version lest the binary-only trainwreck explode. >>>They dare not run with the whiz-bang patches going around they're >>>interested in lest the binary-only trainwreck explode. It may oops >>>in mainline, and all they can do is wait for a tech support line to >>>answer. Well, they're a little better than that, they have hackers >>>out and about, but you're still stuck waiting for a specific small >>>set of individuals and lose all of the "many eyes" advantages. >>> > >On Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 03:59:46PM +1100, Nick Piggin wrote: > >>I must say that I've been using the same nvidia drivers on my desktop >>system for maybe a year, and never had a crash including going through >>countless versions of 2.5/6. True you need to recompile the intermediate >>layer, but then, nobody who knows less than me will know or care about >>kernel versions. Their distro will upgrade kernel+drivers if needed, and >>presumably the distro has done some sort of testing / QA. >> > >They're rather sensitive to VM changes, and I've had people with >significantly less know-how than either of us come back after trying VM >patches in combination with nvidia stuff report things ranging from >oopsen, to reboots, to fs corruption. The insulation layers are only >partially effective at best. And end-users are fiddling with whiz bang >patches for their kernels and upgrading versions by means other than >distros. Heck, the distros aren't even shipping 2.6, and they're >running 2.6 plus patches. > I didn't mean that in an elitist way (you shouldn't be compiling kernels unless you are taller than the sign) - I just mean the knowledge required to recompile the kernel and nvidia drivers. And the people with that know how should generally know that the binary modules can be unstable. Again I concede this won't always be the case.