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Date:      Mon, 31 Jul 2000 03:11:08 -0400
From:      Coleman Kane <cokane@one.net>
To:        Trent Nelson <tpnelson@echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au>
Cc:        Garrett Rooney <rooneg@rpi.edu>, Peter Wemm <peter@netplex.com.au>, nimrodm@email.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Linux NVIDIA drivers vs. default XFree86 drivers (WAS: RE: Video card support)
Message-ID:  <20000731031108.A28185@cokane.yi.org>
In-Reply-To: <3983CB07.9436BB0C@echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au>; from tpnelson@echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au on Sun, Jul 30, 2000 at 02:30:16AM -0400
References:  <Pine.A41.3.96.1000730013029.154958A-100000@cortez.sss.rpi.edu> <3983CB07.9436BB0C@echidna.stu.cowan.edu.au>

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Trent Nelson had the audacity to say:
> Garrett Rooney wrote:
> > 
> > On Sun, 30 Jul 2000, Trent Nelson wrote:
> > 
> > >       So, given a working FreeBSD-specific kernel device driver - can the
> > > Linux OpenGL driver/libraries provided be handled via linux.ko?
> > 
> > i believe the general answer is a definative maybe.  but honestly, do you
> > really care enough to try?
> 
> 	'Maybe' is good enough for me.
>

I would guess that if they have managed to abstract their NT source to the point
where a simple wrapper can turn it into a linux kmod, then it is quite possible
that it may be able to be ported to FreeBSD. The only other thing is whether
their X Server could be ported in such a way (is it a binary only X-Server as
well? or do they use the r128 driver supplied?). I suppose that one could always
run XFree86 in linux emulation...if possible.

> > that's less than the
> > programmer time to make the NVidia drivers work is worth, and you can
> > actually be sure you'll have some kind of success, where the NVidia stuff
> > is really up in the air.
> 
> 	NVIDIA's stand on Open Source can only get better.  Unless they're
> *really* stupid.
>  

Well, so far they haven't shown this. Since their itroduction of <quote>open
source drivers</quote> they have retracted the openness of their drivers to the
point that they are simply a binary with the necessary source to link them to a
module.

> > -garrett
> 
> 	Trent.
> 

FWIW: I have a roommate who has been having severe stability issues with
NVidia's binary drivers under Debian GNU/Linux 2.1. He has decided to
switch back to the XFree86 supplied drivers that have lower performance
to stop X from crashing so much. You can't even debug them because the
symbols have been stripped out. Too bad.

-- 
Coleman Kane
President, 
UC Free O.S. Users Group - http://pohl.ececs.uc.edu


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