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slycordinator
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Joined: 31 Jan 2004
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Location: Korea
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 Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| sternklang wrote: | | Now if nvidia and ati would kindly remove head from rectum and open-source their drivers, the ABI changes would already have been implemented by the community and we wouldn't need to worry about any of this. But I'm not holding my breath on that... |
You assume that they CAN do that right now.
It could very well be that a lot of their code is stuff that they got licensed from other firms and have no legal right to open up. |
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sternklang
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Joined: 10 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:15 pm Post subject: |
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| slycordinator wrote: | | It could very well be that a lot of their code is stuff that they got licensed from other firms and have no legal right to open up. |
That could certainly be the case -- but how would we know? We can just as easily speculate that they have stolen GPL code that they don't want anyone to see. As far as I know, there's no evidence for either of these claims. After all, Intel has done a good job of open-sourcing their drivers -- why do they have no patent or licensing issues?
I haven't read any news stories where NVidia or ATi people have said "We would just love to open-source this, but we can't for licensing reasons". I have read stories where NVidia reps claim their customers just don't care about this issue so they weren't going to do it. Where does the truth lie? |
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CloudBolt
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Joined: 04 Feb 2006
Posts: 192
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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| sternklang wrote: | | slycordinator wrote: | | It could very well be that a lot of their code is stuff that they got licensed from other firms and have no legal right to open up. |
That could certainly be the case -- but how would we know? We can just as easily speculate that they have stolen GPL code that they don't want anyone to see. As far as I know, there's no evidence for either of these claims. After all, Intel has done a good job of open-sourcing their drivers -- why do they have no patent or licensing issues?
I haven't read any news stories where NVidia or ATi people have said "We would just love to open-source this, but we can't for licensing reasons". I have read stories where NVidia reps claim their customers just don't care about this issue so they weren't going to do it. Where does the truth lie? |
I think most nVidia customers use Windows, and therefore don't care about the drivers being closed-source 
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twalter
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 07 Apr 2004
Posts: 103
Location: Churchill, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:29 pm Post subject: They said exactly that. |
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http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-5762319.html
They don't want to disclose the code tricks they use for performance (whatever they may be) as well as expose themselves to submarine patents.
| sternklang wrote: | | slycordinator wrote: | | It could very well be that a lot of their code is stuff that they got licensed from other firms and have no legal right to open up. |
That could certainly be the case -- but how would we know? We can just as easily speculate that they have stolen GPL code that they don't want anyone to see. As far as I know, there's no evidence for either of these claims. After all, Intel has done a good job of open-sourcing their drivers -- why do they have no patent or licensing issues?
I haven't read any news stories where NVidia or ATi people have said "We would just love to open-source this, but we can't for licensing reasons". I have read stories where NVidia reps claim their customers just don't care about this issue so they weren't going to do it. Where does the truth lie? |
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blue_american
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 92
Location: Coimbra, Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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I'm a little confuse... I've downgraded these packages:
(version in rect parethesis is the actual)
[ebuild U ] x11-base/xorg-server-1.1.0-r1 [1.0.2-r6] USE="3dfx% dri ipv6 nptl% sdl% xorg% -debug -dmx% -kdrive% -minimal -xprint" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard% mouse% -acecad% -aiptek% -calcomp% -citron% -digitaledge% -dmc% -dynapro% -elo2300% -elographics% -evdev% -fpit% -hyperpen% -jamstudio% -joystick% -magellan% -magictouch% -microtouch% -mutouch% -palmax% -penmount% -spaceorb% -summa% -synaptics% -tek4957% -ur98% -vmmouse% -void% -wacom%" VIDEO_CARDS="radeon% vesa% -apm% -ark% -chips% -cirrus% -cyrix% -dummy% -epson% -fbdev% -glint% -i128% -i740% -i810% -imstt% -mach64% -mga% -neomagic% -nsc% -nv% -r128% -rendition% -s3% -s3virge% -savage% -siliconmotion% -sis% -sisusb% -tdfx% -tga% -trident% -tseng% -v4l% -vga% -via% -vmware% -voodoo%" 0 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-base/xorg-x11-7.1 [7.0-r1] 0 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-drivers/xf86-video-vesa-1.2.1 [1.0.1.3] USE="-debug" 0 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati-6.6.1 [6.5.8.0] USE="dri -debug" 660 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse-1.1.1 [1.0.4] USE="-debug" 0 kB
[ebuild U ] x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard-1.1.0 [1.0.1.3] USE="-debug" 0 kB
I think I'm using the right ones, and fglrx isn't working at all. If there's something missing, please tell me. |
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blue_american
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 92
Location: Coimbra, Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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I also have a nvidia and I'm getting this on startup:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the GLX module; please check in your X
(EE) NVIDIA(0): log file that the GLX module has been loaded in your X
(EE) NVIDIA(0): server, and that the module is the NVIDIA GLX module. If
(EE) NVIDIA(0): you continue to encounter problems, Please try
(EE) NVIDIA(0): reinstalling the NVIDIA driver.
Version:
[ebuild R ] media-video/nvidia-glx-1.0.8762 USE="-dlloader" 0 kB
[ebuild R ] media-video/nvidia-kernel-1.0.8762 0 kB
And I did the same thing that I did on ati, downgraded the drivers, xorg-server, and xorg-x11. |
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blue_american
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 92
Location: Coimbra, Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry for the monologue.
Ati is fixed, just needed to switch to ati opengl (eselect opengl set ati).
Nvidia is not working yet, but after knowing that error at startup, I think that is no longer a xorg issue. |
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blk_jack
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Joined: 10 May 2002
Posts: 298
Location: Toronto
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:06 pm Post subject: |
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Downgrading is for suckers!
| Code: | * x11-base/xorg-x11
Available versions: 6.8.2-r7 6.8.2-r8 [M]6.9.0-r2 7.0-r1 7.1
Installed: 7.1
* x11-base/xorg-server
Available versions: 1.0.2-r6 1.1.0[2] 1.1.0-r1 1.1.0-r1[2]
Installed: 1.1.0-r1
* media-video/nvidia-glx
Available versions: 1.0.6111-r3 1.0.6629-r7 1.0.7167-r3 1.0.7174-r5 1.0.7667-r1 1.0.7676-r3 1.0.8174-r2 1.0.8178-r1 1.0.8756 1.0.8762
Installed: 1.0.8762 |
Xgl for the win, baby! |
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blue_american
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 92
Location: Coimbra, Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Xgl for gays. I use linux for work, not to masturbate while my windows jumps and get jelly. |
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blk_jack
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Joined: 10 May 2002
Posts: 298
Location: Toronto
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| blue_american wrote: | | Xgl for gays. I use linux for work, not to masturbate while my windows jumps and get jelly. |
I use linux AND Xgl at work, and it makes my work day a lot more comfortable. Staring at the same dull desktop all day with terminals open gets a bit unnerving.
You can disable any plugin you dislike for Xgl (wobbly), and you'll still get a, you know, ACCELERATED desktop environment. Dumb dumb dumb.
Also, as many people have pointed out, you don't have to downgrade. There are several workarounds for having xorg 7.1 work with the latest nvidia drivers. |
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blue_american
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 92
Location: Coimbra, Portugal
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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I know, I've tried too. And this stops here, you're missing the point, solving problems.
nvidia solved with an eselect too, really stupid...
Last edited by blue_american on Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TuffSoundinName
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 04 Mar 2005
Posts: 102
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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EDIT:
If nVidia wanted to be safe from someone suing them, then why don't they patent the intellectual property as their own, patent the code, but make the code editable under very strict guidelines. I know this would not be in the spirit of the FSF, but at least it would allow people to make improvements in the code, as long as they submit their changes to nVidia for approval.
I don't think we really have the right to bash nVidia for not making the driver compatible with >xorg-server-1.0.99. X.Org probably should have implemented some sort of backward-compatible ABI wrapper so that nVidia and ATI drivers would still run, at least until they are compatible with the new ABI.
I'm not saying nVidia has no part in this, I'm just saying it's not all their fault. As a supporter of the FSF and other open-source efforts, I do believe that it would be in nVidia's (and Linux's) best interest for nVidia to open-source their drivers. |
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sternklang
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Joined: 10 Sep 2005
Posts: 1641
Location: Somewhere in time and space
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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| TuffSoundinName wrote: | | I'm not saying nVidia has no part in this, I'm just saying it's not all their fault. As a supporter of the FSF and other open-source efforts, I do believe that it would be in nVidia's (and Linux's) best interest for nVidia to open-source their drivers. |
One of the things that modularizing X was supposed to do was accelerate development, and man, has it done that! Rapid change (after years of stagnation under xfree86) was supposed to happen, and one of the by-products of that rapid pace is this ABI change. In that sense, I don't think anyone, including NVidia, is to blame for this. By the time most distros are shipping X 7.1, the newer drivers will probably be available. Running Gentoo gets us the cutting edge stuff earlier than most, but it also gets us the opportunity to run into problems first.
I do think that in the crazy IP regime we're living with today, they deserve some consideration if worry about patent trolls is one of their reasons for keeping things closed. My point, however, was that open-sourcing the drivers will allow them to benefit from the incredible amount of talent and expertise in the free software community, which will in turn allow their products to do more things for more people earlier, and get bugs squashed earlier. This can only benefit their competitive position and increase their sales. Regardless of what they think they gain by keeping things closed, IMHO they would be better off from a business standpoint with the community contributing to their drivers. |
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TuffSoundinName
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Joined: 04 Mar 2005
Posts: 102
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| sternklang wrote: | | I do think that in the crazy IP regime we're living with today, they deserve some consideration if worry about patent trolls is one of their reasons for keeping things closed. My point, however, was that open-sourcing the drivers will allow them to benefit from the incredible amount of talent and expertise in the free software community, which will in turn allow their products to do more things for more people earlier, and get bugs squashed earlier. This can only benefit their competitive position and increase their sales. Regardless of what they think they gain by keeping things closed, IMHO they would be better off from a business standpoint with the community contributing to their drivers. |
I completely agree, except I do have one question (if any nVidia devs are browsing this, please do say something). If nVidia is so worried about patent trolls, then could that possibly mean that nVidia themselves are using code that they do not have the right to use? Or am I missing something? If nVidia allowed the open-source community to contribute to the development of the drivers (at least on the Linux/BSD/Solaris side), the drivers would become better, and as a result, more people would switch to nVidia from ATI because of ATI's extremely buggy drivers. |
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rek2
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Posts: 477
Location: Boston USA/Barcelona Spain
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| Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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I vote for nvidia to opensource their drivers at least if the end use is for a open source Operating system. similar to what Trolltech does with QT.
BTW patents on software sucks. no super capitalist that only beneficts one individual and screws the whole improvement of technology, software patents are the fascism of technology.
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sternklang
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Location: Somewhere in time and space
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| Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| TuffSoundinName wrote: | | If nVidia is so worried about patent trolls, then could that possibly mean that nVidia themselves are using code that they do not have the right to use? |
The current patent environment means that there are tons of patents granted for things which do not pass the obviousness test (Microsoft's patent on the double-click is a good example) or which have lots of prior art out there that the patent office never bothered looking for. So a company like NVidia doesn't have to do anything wrong to be hit with a patent infringement lawsuit based on patents that should never have been granted in the first place. That's what I meant by patent trolls. |
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agent_jdh
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Joined: 08 Aug 2002
Posts: 1783
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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v91.31 NVidia drivers for Windows have been released - hopefully Linux ones compatible with Xorg 7.1 will not be far behind.
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Q-collective
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Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 2076
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| Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 2:52 am Post subject: |
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I didn't read the whole topic, what's the current status of both ATi and Nvidia drivers?
Could sternklang update the startpost? |
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sternklang
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Joined: 10 Sep 2005
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Location: Somewhere in time and space
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Q-collective wrote: | I didn't read the whole topic, what's the current status of both ATi and Nvidia drivers?
Could sternklang update the startpost? |
I just updated the first post with all the information I have. If anyone reading this notices any errors or omissions, I would appreciate if they could let me know so I can fix the post.
There are two areas I could use some help with. As I use an NVidia card and have researched that more thoroughly, my info on ATI drivers is limited so if someone more knowledgable on ATI could point me to information or links explaining their plans for supporting the new ABI, I will gladly update the post.
Same with the font issues, I know there are a bunch of posts dealing with them but I haven't re-read the whole thread to summarize them. If someone who has dealt with those issues can summarize here I will link to that post from the original post. |
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radfoj
Guru
Joined: 31 Dec 2004
Posts: 490
Location: Tísek, Czech Republic
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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Only to inform you - Nvidia just released new patchset 1.0-8762 for x86-64/em64t and x86 updates (06-26-2006), but bad news for us here is, that in Notes on installing NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers on recent distributions they still mentioned: | Code: | Any distribution with Xorg 7.1
Please note that the released NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers do not currently support Xorg 7.1 (version 1.0 of the Xorg video driver ABI) and are not expected to work correctly.
If you use Xorg 7.1 with a current driver release, you may see rendering corruption (fonts may be rendered improperly or not at all, etc.) and possibly other problems. Recent NVIDIA X drivers will print a warning message of the form below if they detect an ABI version mismatch:
(EE) === WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING ==========
(EE) This server has a video driver ABI version of 1.0 but this
(EE) driver is designed to work with versions before 1.0. The
(EE) driver will continue to load, but may behave strangely.
(EE) Please check http://www.nvidia.com/ for driver updates or
(EE) downgrade to an X server with a supported driver ABI.
(EE) =================================== =======
Please check your Xorg log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) for this warning if you are not if the Xorg release you are using is affected. The 1.0-8762 NVIDIA Linux graphics driver release should basically work if you disable its RENDER acceleration with Option "RenderAccel" "0", but it is recommended that you use an older version of Xorg until support for Xorg 7.1 has been added to the NVIDIA X driver. |
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yoshi314
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Posts: 850
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sternklang
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Joined: 10 Sep 2005
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Location: Somewhere in time and space
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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| yoshi314 wrote: | | new ati drivers. no word about xorg 7.1 :/ |
From the release notes you linked to: | Quote: | Minimum System Requirements
Before attempting to install the ATI Proprietary Linux driver, the following software must be installed:
* XOrg 6.7, 6.8, 6.9, or 7.0; XFree86 version 4.3
* Linux kernel 2.4 or higher
* glibc version 2.2 or 2.3
* POSIX Shared Memory (/dev/shm) support is required for 3D applications |
Despite this being called "Minimum System Requirements", it's clear from the specific versions listed that 7.1 is not yet supported. But as you say, it can't hurt to try it out.  |
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rek2
Guru
Joined: 05 Jan 2003
Posts: 477
Location: Boston USA/Barcelona Spain
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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bumer....
maybe we should ALL write to nvidia and ask them to please develope on this.. I bet they dont even know how many people uses nvidia under linux, they prob think is almost nothing..
we have to let them know someway or another
| radfoj wrote: | Only to inform you - Nvidia just released new patchset 1.0-8762 for x86-64/em64t and x86 updates (06-26-2006), but bad news for us here is, that in Notes on installing NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers on recent distributions they still mentioned: | Code: | Any distribution with Xorg 7.1
Please note that the released NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers do not currently support Xorg 7.1 (version 1.0 of the Xorg video driver ABI) and are not expected to work correctly.
If you use Xorg 7.1 with a current driver release, you may see rendering corruption (fonts may be rendered improperly or not at all, etc.) and possibly other problems. Recent NVIDIA X drivers will print a warning message of the form below if they detect an ABI version mismatch:
(EE) === WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING ==========
(EE) This server has a video driver ABI version of 1.0 but this
(EE) driver is designed to work with versions before 1.0. The
(EE) driver will continue to load, but may behave strangely.
(EE) Please check http://www.nvidia.com/ for driver updates or
(EE) downgrade to an X server with a supported driver ABI.
(EE) =================================== =======
Please check your Xorg log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) for this warning if you are not if the Xorg release you are using is affected. The 1.0-8762 NVIDIA Linux graphics driver release should basically work if you disable its RENDER acceleration with Option "RenderAccel" "0", but it is recommended that you use an older version of Xorg until support for Xorg 7.1 has been added to the NVIDIA X driver. |
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slycordinator
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Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Posts: 3065
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 10:14 pm Post subject: |
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| rek2 wrote: | bumer....
maybe we should ALL write to nvidia and ask them to please develope on this.. I bet they dont even know how many people uses nvidia under linux, they prob think is almost nothing..
we have to let them know someway or another |
That'll do nothing other than irritate them. In this very thread someone linked where an nvidia dev was messaging to devs at xorg about the abi changes and the problems caused by doing so many changes to it simultaneously.
The people at nvidia already said that the changes made w/ 7.1 were extensive enough that they were just going to wait and have it incorporated in the 9000-branch release. Though, who knows how long it'll take. |
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rek2
Guru
Joined: 05 Jan 2003
Posts: 477
Location: Boston USA/Barcelona Spain
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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well that is what I mean... the guys who moves the projects there are the bussines guys and if they dont see any bussines benefict they will just have it as something to do but not urgent. trust me I work for a software company and we also have clients and I see this happening everyday...
if this same issue were have been in another OS it will have been fix already... cause of bussines.. for what most of software vendors think is..
open source OS users are minimoun and not important... we have to show them we are not a small bunch but a big revenue... hardware is something we need even if our OS is opensource so we still *need* to buy their products.
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Desktop Environments
