Boycott NVIDIA, use AMD/ATI discrete graphics or Intel

[perce]

open source is great for software, not so great for device drivers;

I strongly disagree with your opinion. Go to the general Ubuntu forum and
compare the ratio of problems people are having with nvidia or broadcom, compared to intel. If you want things to work out of the box, free drivers is the only way to go. And proprietary drivers, even when they work well (and the only case I'm aware of is nvidia) are more likely to break your system.

It is also an issue about freedom, if you care about it: whith close source drivers it's not you, but a big corporation who decide what you can or you can't do with your computer. They may, for example, impose DRM on the drivers, or ship substandard drivers to force customers to upgrade the hardware (this happened with some older soundblaster cards, whose Vista drivers give less functionality than XP drivers did (search the community cafe for this, I found the story there).

Richard Stallman is a cool cat, but he's an idealist and this world is not yet ready for his utopia.

The worlds is never ready for the new.
The world was not ready for ending slavery in 1861 (well, a few countries weren't...) but we don't blame Lincoln for trying, even if it came at a very high cost.

[savantelite]

Long term support is key. Open source drivers are always getting better or at least have the potential to get better. There are countless devices that are no longer supported by companies. Will you be happy with a crappy proprietary driver when that products life cycle ends? I need more assurance.

Not sure how I feel about system76 only selling nvidia.

[doorknob60]

Boycott Nvidia for having excellent Linux support? Doesn't sound like the best idea to me, although I see your point. ATI's drivers are pretty good (I'm using my first ATI card today, it works perfect, and Flash hardware acceleration even works, it doesn't with Nvidia, but it might be Adobe's fault). If it were up to me, I really don't know, Nvidia is probably the best choice still, but that may change in the near future. EDIT: Like now! After reading the linked page, I realize AMD/ATI did a lot more than I thought, so I'll probably be buying an ATI card on my next upgrade (happily using ATI integrated now). Nvidia is still good though

[starcannon]

I came off a bit high strung on my first post, but to be clear I am not anti open source, far from it, I just happen to think theres plenty of room in this boat for everyone, closed and open source alike.

Equating open source software to the abolishment of slavery is a bit of a stretch, but I get the gist of it; and as far as I can see, until such time as the world puts down the concept of money, then closed source is going to be here. Treating symptoms does not cure diseases.

[Canis familiaris]

@OP: YOur opinion seems as radical as those folks of Boycott Novell.

ATI gave me far too problems to set up and configure and get compiz running. Still I cannot run Celestia while running Compiz. So ATI is still not as good as nVidia in supporting Linux.
ATi are getting better and better, and I'm sure in next year or so would beat nVidia drivers because they have open sourced their drivers and as a result their performance would increase both in Linux and Windows and people in general would then buy ATi and nVidia would then surely have to open source their drivers.

I think the better thread would be:
Do not buy a graphics card now, because you would have to buy nVidia, wait for a year and buy an ATi graphics card as their drivers would have improved by then.

[Ryzzen]

Boycott Nvidia for having excellent Linux support?

Well, they do... and don't. The majority of Suspend/Hibernate problems with Ubuntu have been due to NVidia's proprietary drivers.


Those of you who think ATI "bites" on Linux haven't been keeping up with the times.

Yes, they used to be horrible. But now they've completely opened up their specifications to the open-source community. Their latest set of graphics cards are now shipping with Linux drivers on the included CD. That's pretty impressive, and is a rarity in the hardware industry. Modern ATI cards now run pretty flawlessly on Linux. They're worth looking into.

Aside from the whole ATI argument, it might be good for System76 to use AMD processors as well. They're typically cheaper, and would be an excellent alternative to the current "Pentium Dual-Core" option they currently offer, which is just a repackaged Pentium D, a ridiculously hot and power-hungry processor. And I won't even get into Intel's dirty, monopolistic practices...

Look, in the end, we all vote with our dollar. NVidia blatantly stated that they are not opening up their drivers or specifications. By buying their products, we're only encouraging this. And we have no guarantee that they will continue to support their older cards in the future. What then?

ATI may have had a rocky past with Linux, but they've changed (or at least AMD has changed them), and have taken a major step in the right direction. Also, the fact that they've opened up their drivers means my hardware will be supported years down the road, even if they were to go bankrupt. And driver support will only be getting better. I will be supporting them with my next purchase, and I encourage you guys to do the same. Plus, you'll save a few bucks in the process.

I think it is in System76's best interest to look into AMD as a viable (and cheaper) option. I'm not saying they should discontinue carrying NVidia or Intel, but it would be nice to have an alternative.

[TheBuzzSaw]

I'm not a fan of closed-source software... but drivers are one area I really don't care about. I have NVidia, and it works wonderfully.

[intrepidx]

@Ryzzen: I think your comments are right-on-the-money. Let's show ATI some love for their reasonable stance towards Open Source software. If we could just buy hardware (sand, plastic, metal) with documentation on exactly what it's doing, we could make sure it keeps working well into the future, regardless of what the company does. In my book, that is not asking for too much.

As for the people who "don't care" about drivers - you're completely within your rights to feel that way. Just remember your stance the next time a particular piece of hardware isn't functioning as well as you would like.

Dave.

[walkeraj]

Of course, I think we're all missing the main point:

This is a trolling thread that the original poster has not responded to, and most of the threads started by this poster are the same. Let this be the last post so that it can die the death it deserves.

[DRM_free]

Of course, I think we're all missing the main point:

This is a trolling thread that the original poster has not responded to, and most of the threads started by this poster are the same. Let this be the last post so that it can die the death it deserves.

Thanks for the ad-hominem attack. If you don't agree with someone, just call him a troll, why don't you. Here is a list of the forum threads I contributed to, and yes, I do follow up.

Back in February I urged system76 to drop NVIDIA in favor of AMD/ATI, but they ignored it and are happily continuing to reward NVIDIA's blatant anti-Free/Open Source Software attitude.